EMIGRATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3139, 17 March 1909, Page 7

EMIGRATION.

KUDYARD KIPLING'S ADVICE. fMr Rudyard Kipling, in a letter to the Emigration Department of the Salvation Army (London), has a few characteristic observations on emigrants and emigration. He says:-—"I don't dispute your statement that an "'"""""ijbJe-bcdied emigrant, even without capital, is an asset for a new country. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, ano in a large part South Africa, were built up by that very class, but, human nature being what it is, you will not find that fact admitted in prustnt-day labour legislation. There is a material Calvinism which would i limit worldly prosperity to a few *" of the electors, just as there \i a spiritual Calvinism which confines salvation to a few elect. "I think, too, it often happens that families imported en bloc will, by their clinging together in their loneliness confirm each other in their unwillingness to accept new conditions, and the lonelier they are the more will chey face inwards, just liKe a mob of strange horses on a run. They also need to be worked over in an army settlement by people who will not laugh at them, or tell tales of their pride (which is only their shyness) behind their backs. So for single men and families the Army settlement on its own lands seems to me most useful at present. There is a type of man, as there is of family, which only needs to be taken out of England to adapt itself to a new land, as trout taken to a new brook; but there Ere not very many of them, and in England they sometimes live on the outskirts of good reputation—a quick, acquisitive, not too truthful breed, enormously satisfied with themselves. But thty are a splendid cross on slower in the second generation, and it has struck me that they are the people you can reach. Of course, the cry would go tip at once: —'You are draining England of its best blood'; but isn't/ there something to be said for the idea of drafting out the first eleven and so giving the second eleven a • chance? There never was an Empire that offered such opportunities to all men as ours, and I £ometimes think that there never was an. Empire whose people took less advantage of • xhose opportunities." General Booth himself says:— "The British Empire for the British" should be a foundation principle for a statesman-like policy .of emigration; and "a Home Government distracted by the burden of lens of thousands of honest snd sober out-of-wcrkr, si culd sit in council with the Goverr.menls of her lards across the seas, wbote millions of acres of virgin soil call for workers, as to the | best and wisest method of transporta* j tion of the 'landless man to the man- j less land.'" Later, the veteran re- j marks:—"By far the'greatei number of emigrants this year, as before, will go to Canada. Australia is 'more than three-parts awake' to her need of population, but 'meanwhile the door still bangs to.' In New Zealand the Government grants reduced passages to approved agriculturists with not less than £25, but no special arrangements are made for their reception, and recent telegrams would indicate a restriction of facilities. S.iuth Africa offers a field of rich promise, but no organised scheme of emigration from the British Isles will be practicable in the near future."