PEOPLING THE EMPIRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 July 1938, Page 8

PEOPLING THE EMPIRE

DISCUSSION IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS VISCOUNT ELIBANK SUGGESTS FULL TIME BOARD. FOREIGNERS AS SETTLERS IN DOMINIONS. By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. (Recd This Day, 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, July 20. A suggestion that a Board of Overseas Emigration should be established on the lines of the Electricity Board or the Landon Transport Board, was made by Viscount Elibank in the House of Lords. He argued that many members of the Overseas Settlement Board were engaged in other directions and were unable to give the same attention as would be given by a full time board. He recalled that when he was in New Zealand he ventured to propose foreign immigration, causing considerable discussion in New Zealand and Australian papers. “I find,” he said, “that the suggestion is not now turned down in the same way as then.” English people could not claim that they had no mixed blood and if the Dominions were able to introduce good foreign immigrants, they would help economic development as long as the British race still predominated.

Lord Stonehaven said: “The only migrants who are any good to the Dominions are those who go intending to throw in their lot and become citizens of the country.” The Duke of Devonshire said it was vital that the Empire should be populated, if not from our own stock by those who could meet easily be assimilated and who held the same ideals. “Unless we can make the Empire selfsupporting in ’defence within a reasonable time, someone else will populate it for us,” he added. Lord Elibank’s suggestion of a whole-time board would be considered, but he thought it unlikely that Parliament would surrender its present power over the Overseas Settlement Board.