I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill deals with a large question; the largest that the British Empire has to deal with, and it might well seem to the House that it is a question more fitted for a Government Measure than for a Private Member's Bill; but, in common with many others, I have longed for years to see an advance in regard to this question, and when the fortune of the ballot favoured me I was impelled to put this Bill upon the Order Paper. The question has been brought the more vividly before the attention of the public by the recent memorable visit of the Prime Minister to Canada, and by the remarkable and fruitful Empire tour from which the Secretary of State for the Dominions and Colonies has just returned. In the Prime Minister, Canada found a man after her own heart. I think I can imagine some of the thoughts that passed through the mind of the Prime Minister as he journeyed through the vast spaces of that stupendous great Northland. He must have thought much, although he had to speak often. I do not think he was ever rendered speechless in the sense in which I heard an American use the word in the Rockies. It was a glorious morning. We were near the Great Divide. The sun was glinting upon the great snow peaks. It was a morning when one felt that God was in His Heaven and that life was good. The American was at the end of the observation car, and he talked very amusingly and cleverly for something more than an hour. Then he suddenly stopped, and looking up he said: "This gorgeous scenery makes one speechless." Whereupon, he began to talk again and continued to do so for another hour.

When the Empire Settlement Act was introduced by my right hon. Friend, in the spring of 1922, in a speech of singular power and breadth of Empire vision, he remarked that he considered it probable that within a short time the credit of £3,000,000 a year provided by that Act would become inadequate. The prophecy has, unfortunately, not been fulfilled. The results have fallen far short of our hopes. It is not the fault of my right hon. Friend. No man could have done more and very few could have done as much as he has done for the cause of Empire migration; but there have been various reasons against him. What were the facts of the case in the four years after the Act was passed? In 1923, 1924 and 1925 we sent out, with assisted passages, an average of 40,000 migrants. In 1926, a better trade year, at least to begin with, we sent out 65,000. The 65,000 included a number of families, single men and women not included in the families and 7,000 juveniles. We ought to be sending out 200,000 or 300,000 a year instead of an average of 50,000 or 60,000.

In the four years before the War, there went out to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, 808,613 souls. In the four years 1923, 1924, 1925 and 1926, there went out from this country 402,911. Double the number went out in the four years before the War than in the four years after the Empire Settlement Act was passed. The disparity in numbers is not as bad as it might appear, because in the earlier years visitors to the Dominions were not clearly distinguished from the settlers; but there is no doubt that the volume of migration—and we are urgently in need of increasing that volume—has not increased, but is diminishing. Yet there are a number of agencies at work besides the Government in this task of promoting migration. I think there are 33 social and charitable agencies at work in Great Britain. We have the Salvation Army, that great humanising, christianising organisation which is world wide, with its farm at Hadleigh in Essex, where it trains the migrants and sends them out, and its corresponding farm in New Zealand which receives the migrants.

I have seen something of the work of the Salvation Army in British Columbia. I have seen the boys fruit farming and doing well. It was a pleasure to see them in the good air, with plenty of space, working hard and with a prospect in life. I asked Colonel O'Kelly, who is with Mr. Bruce Walker in charge of the migration department in the Canadian Government Building in Trafalgar Square, whether these boys did not come under the influence which is so direly felt in this country and in the Dominions—the lure of the towns, and whether they were not attracted south. There is a great stream of young men southwards to the United States. He said:

We must not forget the necessity of sending out as many girls as possible. The Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women is doing most useful work in this connection. An agreement of great value was signed by His Majesty's Government and the representative of the Canadian Federal Government on the 1st July last, a boys' settlement scheme, which provides that boys from 14 to 20 may go out and if, at the age of 20, after they have worked for the farmer to whom they are sent, they have succeeded in saving 500 dollars, there is advanced to them, on the fifty-fifty basis of the 1922 Act, a sum of 2,500 dollars to set them up as farmers. They repay on easy terms. That is a promising scheme. There are various other agencies at work. Why is it, in the face of all these encouragements to migration, all the work done by the Department and by these great agencies, that the results are so inadequate? There are several reasons. There is no lack of candidates for assisted passages; but there are many hindrances, especially for those who go out unassisted. In the first place, there is the hindrance of bad trade. As long ago as 1885 Sir Robert Giffen, head of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade, laid down the proposition, which is no doubt familiar to hon. Members, that migration is greatest in times of good trade and less in lean years. The reason is that when new countries are prosperous they attract capital and capital attracts, labour.

Recent years have been lean years in the British Empire, but happily things show signs of improving. Then there are our schemes of social insurance. The House will be familiar with the Maclean Report which examined the question how far our schemes of social insurance interfere with the flow of migration, and the conclusion that Committee came to was that the effect of these schemes on migration was not at present great, but that it might increase, as it may cause a feeling of security amongst workers which would render them more and more unwilling to leave the shelter of that security. The Report noted, I read it with regret, that the tendency was greatest amongst the young. That is due partly to the fact that parents are not willing to allow their boys to go in bad times, when they can add to the family income, and also that at the age of 18 the unemployment benefit of boys suddenly rose to 18s. per week. That, I am glad to think, is now altered for the better by the Act this House passed founded on the Blanesburgh Committee's Report. It would be an unfortunate day for this country if the young men simply played for safety and were not prepared to take risks. We ought to encourage in our young people the spirit of adventure and a willingness to take risks. We want to imbue them with the spirit of Kingsley's lines:—

We have to look at the facts, and what do we find? In Canada land and domestic workers only are assisted, but they are the very kind of people we want to keep here. We do not want to comb out our countryside. The supply of skilled agricultural labourers is only just adequate, and in some districts the skilled work is falling into the hands of older men. We cannot get a sufficient supply of young men to take their place. Those who represent agricultural constituencies, and mine is largely an agricultural division, felt rather surprised when Mr. Bruce Walker was allowed to comb out our countryside. We want to take people from the congested towns, and there are many people with agricultural knowledge who have drifted into our towns, give them a short training, and send them out, relieving the congestion in our towns and giving them a future. In addition to that the severe winters in Canada may deter some people. There is no doubt that in winter—I have seen it in Winnipeg—work ceases to a large extent on the prairie, the workers drift into the towns, and there is a certain amount of unemployment. There is another condition which hinders migration. There are those who go out under the nominated system. By that I mean that agencies such as church bodies, or it may be friends, nominate persons here for assisted passages, but the nominators have to be responsible for their nominees if they become a public charge.

In Australia the restriction as to land and domestic workers does not apply, but there is the cost of the passage; and there is also—we must deal with the facts —the undoubted labour opposition to migration. In September last the Melbourne Trades Hall Council passed a resolution condemning as economically unsound the policy of migration and demanding from the Federal Government of Australia that recruiting of immigrants in this country should be stopped until there was no more unemployment in Australia; in other words, until the deluge happens, because unemployment will never cease in any country; there will always be a certain amount of unemployment. One asks oneself, how was it that they could pass that resolution in these days? How is it that they rely on being able to keep up their standard of living? One sympathises with their wish to keep up the standard of living. But did they forget the yellow flood that is waiting and eager to pour into the continent of Australia? Do they think that they can indefinitely keep for 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 people a continent that could easily support 50,000,000 or 100,000,000 people? Did they forget what it is that prevents that yellow flood from arriving there?

The Federal Government of Australia is alive to the position, and there is an efficient and growing nucleus of an Australian Navy to act in conjunction with our Navy. The reason why the Labour organisations in Australia can pass such resolutions is that Australia is protected by the British Navy. The British Navy is forgotten sometimes. There are people in South Africa who forget it. It would be well for these people to remember that they are exposed to the same danger, but for the British Navy, as Australia has to face. It would be well for them to remember that the great freedom that they enjoy is due to the British Navy. People forget the British Navy while the British Navy goes serenely on, on its path of peace and protection, strong in the tradition of a thousand years) of sacrifice and service for Britain and humanity. We have now—we owe gratitude to you, Mr. Speaker, for it—a picture in St. Stephen's Hall that commemorates the great occasion when English ships first defended English shores.

Those are the facts. The House will ask, "How is your Bill going to mend matters"? I would first ask hon. Members to consider the present constitution, the present administration of the Empire Settlement Act. It is administered by the department of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Dominions, by most efficient administrators, assisted by—it is not a statutory committee—a number of eminent and extremely capable persons who meet once a fortnight or once a month. These eminent persons have also to attend to their own affairs, but a great many people agree that this a matter that asks that the biggest minds we have should be given to it and that it is a whole-time job for those minds. Therefore in the Bill I propose a Board of persons—their numbers can be increased or diminished—who will act as administrators; a board which will have on it men of the type of the managers of great railways or managing directors of great shipping lines, men with a knowledge of the Dominions, men of energy, ability and wide vision, who would be continually in touch with the Dominions by continual visits to them, so that there will be continual contact between London and the Dominions—for instance on the spot getting into touch with the Development and Migration Commission appointed by Mr. Bruce in Australia.

When Mr. Bruce was here there was a most illuminating talk in which he said "Why do you not appoint some of your best men to deal with our Commission?" It is that idea that I have tried to put into the Bill. It is also necessary, if the question is to be dealt with efficiently, that the Secretary of State should have a discretion with regard to the fifty-fifty basis. At the Imperial Conference in 1926 a Sub-Committee was appointed to deal with the question of migration and that Sub-Committee reported to the Conference. The report was considered and adopted by the Conference on 19th November, when the Prime Ministers of the Dominions most closely concerned —Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand—expressed their appreciation of the advance which had been made in practical co-operation since the Conference of 1923. Then with regard to training the report said this:

That is the position. The Dominions wish for that intensive course of training, or test. What they have in mind is a short course of some ten to twelve weeks, during which it would be possible to discover whether the man or boy was fit for the life, and to teach him the essential rudiments of agricultural work. But the Secretary of State has no power to establish these centres. The Bill would give him that power. In that and other cases he would have a discretion. The Bill would also give to the unemployed man of the right type the power of going to these centres and saying, "I should like to have this training, and I will pay part or all of the unemployment benefit that I receive, in return for that training." I suggest that the fact that the man himself came would be a test of character and would prove that he was the right sort of man. The vast majority of our people are workers and not shirkers, and they would rather be doing good honest work than loafing at street corners doing nothing. They believe in a fair day's work for a fair day's wage. It is the task of our statesmen to encourage that tradition. While we try to perform our Christian duty of succouring the sick and needy and helping the widow and orphan, as we have tried to do as a party, led by the Minister of Health, we should maintain the stern old rule, which should stand as it did of yore, "He that will not work, neither shall he eat."

That is a dangerous doctrine.

I am just as much opposed as hon. Gentlemen opposite to any human being not exercising to the fullest the powers that have been given to him, for the benefit of himself and the community. But hon. Members opposite, by throwing the responsibility on the State, would gradually produce a state of atrophy in the community. What is the cause of the lack of interest among our young folk in the question of migration? It is that we are in danger of imbuing them with the idea that everything must be done for them by the State in all circumstances. That is a fatal idea.

Then the Bill brings the United Kingdom into the British Empire. Under the Act I do not think the Secretary of State has the power to provide training in the United Kingdom. It is a doubtful point, but, at any rate, my Bill would make it quite clear, and the amendments proposed in the first Clause of the Bill are to that end. There are other things which the Bill could do, and here I should like to remove a misapprehension in regard to the words "to engage in industry and agriculture overseas." I wish to provide clearly for the case of the unemployed man who goes to one of these centres, gets a training, and then goes back to his factory. There is also the man who might, possibly, become a land worker. That would be all to the good. A man might find that he had a turn for agricultural work. Again, there is no more useful movement in this, country than the allotment movement, and I speak as one who has been for the last 30 years honorary secretary of a working men's allotment society which has been managed by the working men themselves. The factory worker might get an allotment, and he would be able to work that allotment all the better for his training. The Bill would also give the Secretary of State power to establish men in agriculture, but I do not think that power would be much used unless we can prove that the existing settlements are successful.

The Bill, however, would do something far greater than that. After the Napoleonic Wars, when our difficulties were very much the same as they are to-day—only that the difficulties of to-day are on a much greater scale—this House made grants to settle migrants on the St. Lawrence, where flourishing plantations were established. The House also made a grant of £40,000 for the relief of unemployment in this country and for the increase of the white population in South Africa—the words might almost be used of to-day—and the result was. the establishment of the great ports of East London, Port Elizabeth, and the towns of Grahamstown, King Williams-town, and Queenstown. These are all flourishing towns, which were visited a couple of years ago by the Parliamentary delegation, and their establishment was the result of the action of the House of Commons in conjunction with private enterprise in those days. Why cannot we do it now? When I was in British Columbia five years ago I had a talk on the subject with the Premier Mr. John Oliver—who started life as a Derbyshire-miner—and the Minister of Lands, and I asked them how they would regard a proposal from this side, that our Government should take up tracts of land and develop them and build railways—beginning on a comparatively small scale and sending out a comparatively small number of men at first. The material for the building and roofing of huts and for other work could be brought through the Panama Canal to the west coast of Canada, and men from this country could go out to work the scheme. They said that capital and population were the chief needs there. They pointed out that great stretches of the Canadian National Railway went through country which was without a single inhabitant, and they pointed out a district in British Columbia which might be developed in this way.

There is also land in the Peace River district and in Manitoba which is capable of development on these lines, and I heard of 400,000 acres in the Lake Peninsula to which particular attention might be given in this respect. The tendency of the great railway systems in Canada is to take migration to the West, and it is well for us to look to the Lake Peninsula because there you find a climate which is suited to our people, and fertile land. Why should not the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Governments out there, and acting through the proper people, after a survey, proceed to work up a district of that kind with the assistance of Canadians of the right type. Then, out in Australia, you have 6,000,000 acres to be developed, between the Esperance Railway and the great Southern Railway; an experiment might be tried there. There is also land in New South Wales and in the Atherton tableland of Queensland which might be developed. In the "Morning Post" on Wednesday last there was a very illuminating article by Mr. Canning, and also a leading article, expressing an idea which has been present to the minds of many of us for a good many years. I know the Secretary of State has considered the matter already, but I would ask him to reconsider the idea of using part of the £3,000,000 for guaranteeing the interest on loans that would finance such schemes as I have mentioned. That is an idea which might possibly be worked out with success.

I have mentioned the main provisions of my Bill and it is unnecessary, at the moment, to go into details. We are in the presence of the greatest social and economic difficulty which our people have yet known. Here we have an overcrowded, over-industrialised island, with great numbers of unemployed, and 400,000 juveniles pouring from the schools into the labour market every year. We are obliged to import the greater part of our food and to pay for it with our manufactured' goods, and yet we find foreign markets are largely closed to us by high tariffs. Overseas, there are vast spaces of fertile land with illimitable resources capable of being developed by tens of millions of our race. We think of these things with the feelings of Tantalus, as the water ever receded from his lips and the rock continually descended to crush him. But the spirit of our people always rises when they are confronted with difficulty and there is a growing conviction that this question needs from our generation and from the generations to come, a steady, great national and Imperial effort. This Bill is an attempt to make some small advance in the direction of such an effort. I hope my right hon. Friend and the House will grant to this Bill a Second Reading and allow it to go into Committee, where it can be altered, modified, shaped into something useful.

I beg to second the Motion.

I desire, in the first place, to congratulate, my bon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) both upon his good fortune in having secured an opportunity by means of the ballot of bringing forward this important measure and upon his vision and foresight in choosing for a private Member's day a Bill dealing with a subject of so much importance as that of migration. He has told the House what are the objects of this Bill, and I need not go through the Measure in detail, but merely say that, in asking the House for a Second Reading of it, I understand that my hon. Friend's desire particularly is that, whatever may be the form in which it emerges from Committee, a move forward should be made in the matter of migration and that that move should take the form of giving greater power and the best possible advice to the Secretary of State in the advance that I know he desires to make in the better settlement of the population of our Empire. Fortunately, this is not a subject that is one of party controversy, for there are Members in every part of the House who have taken a keen and active interest in migration and who feel very strongly that it is high time that the Government and the people of this country looked at the matter from a broader standpoint than they have done in years past. But perhaps it is not untrue to say that there are two separate and distinct aspects of the question of migration—one, the way in which the problem is looked at in this country, and the other, the way in which it is bound to be looked at by our Dominions overseas.

As my hon. Friend has said, it is quite evident that we have in this country an unemployment problem which can at least be partly met by a suitable scheme or number of schemes connected with migration overseas or settlement in agriculture or industry here at home. No Member of this House wants to suggest that we should force any person to go overseas who can find suitable employment at home. Nobody suggests that there should be any force used, but it is manifest that one of our first problems is to see that so far as possible there are opportunities overseas for those who want to go, and, secondly, that those of our people who do settle overseas shall do so under the very best auspices and with the very best possible chances of success. I have heard in past years speakers in the country—not in this House—dealing with this problem of unemployment in Great Britain, refer to it as if to suggest that one could take a million people at one fell swoop and plant them in the Dominions. Of course, that is not the problem at all. In the first place, it is quite evident that the Dominions would not have them, and quite rightly so. Also, when we are dealing with the figures of unemployment, we are apt to forget that the unemployment figures which refer to people suitable for emigration are, comparatively speaking, a small proportion of the whole

I have taken some trouble to go rather carefully in the last few months into what proportion of the people of this country, who come upon the Unemployment Insurance Fund from time to time, could really be suitably encouraged to settle overseas. The latest figures published show that there are, on any one day, about 1,160,000 people in this country unemployed, but throughout the year, of course, something like three times as many actually pass through the books of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. These figures, of course, comprise adults of all ages, and the actual number of those probably available for settlement overseas, that is to say, between the ages of 18 and 34, is not more at the outside than 475,000, namely, 375,000 men and about 100,000 women. Some 90 per cent. of these are certainly physically fit for settlement overseas, and, therefore, the problem that we have to consider in this country is what proportion of these people could suitably be settled and what proportion would be willing to go.

The question of the cost, as it falls upon this country at the present moment, is a very interesting one. I will not weary the House with the calculations, but it-will be found that these 475,000 people of 18 to 34–375,000 men, and 100,000 women—cost the State and the employers at least £5,000,000 a year. I leave aside at the moment the contributions of the workers, not that I minimise them, but merely for the purpose of comparison. Therefore, it will be seen at once that, from an actuarial point of view and as a business proposition, if we were dealing with inanimate objects and not with human beings, it would be a strictly sound financial proposition to raise a loan of £100,000,000, and the cost would not be more in interest than the sum of £5,000,000 a year which we bear at present. That is the first interesting point that occurs to me in connection with this problem, that actually it would pay this country to have the vision to raise immediately this loan of £100,000,000, which has been talked of in this House and outside it over and over again in past years, for the settlement and proper equipment of people who go overseas. Again, if you apply the capitalised value of your present burden of £5,000,000 a year to the numbers I have given, you will find that it will enable you to spend something like £200 on each settler. But that is only one aspect of the question.

The next and most important problem is not only how we should benefit by saving expenditure, but how we should benefit by gaining revenue and trade. This is not perhaps a suitable opportunity on which to deal with Empire trade, and I do not intend to dwell upon that aspect of the question at any length, but it is quite clear at once that our whole development in trade in the last few years has been towards greater trade within the Empire, and any movement of population which would increase that trade would have an immense effect upon our standard of living and our prosperity here at home. In the last few years our trade with the Empire has steadily increased, whereas our trade with Europe and the rest of the world has steadily gone back. It is our Empire trade and, I think, I must add, the Preferences which we get from and give to the Empire, whether by legal or voluntary measures, which have made largely for the increased prosperity to which some of us connected with trade and industry look forward more hopefully to-day than we have done for some time past.

May I give one specific example? It is well known that every settler that we have abroad is a very much better customer for Empire trade than any person resident in Europe, but I think sometimes that the extent of this is not fully appreciated. When we realise that the 7,000,000 people of Australia and New Zealand together bought over £80,000,000 worth of goods from this country last year, and when we compare that with the purchases which take place per head from France, Germany, or Italy, for example, we get immediately a realisation of the immense impetus that would be given to our trade if we could in fact increase the prosperity of our Dominions and help them to a higher standard of living and a greater demand for our manufactures. Australia, with its 6,000,000 people, buys over 9 per cent. of our total exports, while South America, with 60,000,000 people, buys less than 8 per cent. Surely simple illustrations of this kind can be used to impress the people of this country with the immense importance of our Empire trade and its effect upon our prosperity at home.

I do not want to suggest for one moment that there is anything wrong or undesirable about the Unemployment Insurance Fund or the necessity of insuring against unemployment. I think the whole scheme is essentially sound, but we should aim at making it a scheme entirely to provide for periods of unemployment suddenly coming upon a trade or industry in respect of men and women who are generally and usually employed. It is not a scheme any of us want to see permanently in force to relieve people who have never had a chance of employment at all. At present the burden, amounting to something like £37,000,000 a year, is a burden not only upon the State, and, therefore, the taxpayer, not only upon the employers, but also upon the employed and therefore upon the standard of living of our people. I do not know to what extent it may be possible in the future to visualise a time when there will be no permanent unemployed, by which I mean no floating population who have no chance of employment, but I do hope that we will work for the time when this fund will be available and used only for those who have been thrown suddenly out of work by some change in industrial conditions, and we shall be free of the incubus of those who have never had an opportunity of working at all. In fact that we should hope for the time when this will really be a Mutual Insurance Fund against unemployment. It is quite clear, to me, that in this country either thrift will kill public assistance or public assistance will kill thrift. One or other of these things is in front of us, and it is our bounden duty, in considersidering this problem of migration, to appreciate the immense importance it would have on the welfare, and the moral and physical development of the people of this country. I now want to turn for a moment to the position of the Dominions in this matter. Mr. Bruce, in a phrase which will ever be memorable, said of the Dominions:

12 n.

What is to prevent this country, for example, approaching the Dominion of Canada, and stating that, quite apart from the ordinary procedure regarding schemes of migration, one would be prepared, if they concurred, to take up a great portion of land such as that to be traversed by the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, to the Peace River district, where there are something like 16,000,000 acres of land, an area larger than Scotland, eminently suitable for development, containing excellent wheat land, plenty of minerals, with every possibility of agricultural and industrial development for thousands of families from this country? Could we not say to them, "Here is a district we will take over and settle, so that in. a few years we can hand it over to you, and, for the time being, knowing your financial difficulties, and the immense financial gain we shall get in this country, we will raise a special national loan and settle people on the land? I, personally, can see nothing which could meet with opposition from the people of Canada. I think the time has come when the House of Commons should take a little wider vision than it has done in the past. Of the £3,000,000 a year which was set aside under this Act for the purpose of migration, how much has been spent? Not a quarter of it has been spent, and we all know the difficulties, both here and abroad. It is surely not impossible, if we could have men of vision, men of foresight, men of goodwill, both here and in the Dominions, to say to those people in the Dominions who are opposing migration, but who do not really understand the problem, "We have no desire"—as, indeed, it would be financially impossible—" to dump upon you people who are going to augment your unemployment problem, but we want to give you physically, morally sound people who will develop into first-class citizens of the Empire, who will give to the lands to which they go life-long work and devotion, who will become assets to you and assets to the Empire, and by that settlement you will not only be gaining advantages in the Dominions, but you will be adding to the uplift, the progress and the welfare of the human race."

It is a tribute to the framers of the Empire Settlement Act, 1922, that no one in this House has ever before sought to amend it. There are many Acts of Parliament which have been passed since 1922 that some of us would like to amend, and there are some which we would like to repeal, but the Empire Settlement Act has worked wonderfully well. Before the War there was no Government control, but since 1922 migration has been controlled by Government, and I do not think it is necessary to use many pre-War platform illustrations in support of migration between the United Kingdom and the Dominions. The hon. Member who moved the Second Reading said in one part of his speech that there are many people here who are wanting to emigrate, but who are unable to do so by reason of conditions, not in this country but overseas, and later he pointed to quite a number of things which, he said, were hindering migration. He pointed to social insurance. The Committee which dealt with social insurance and its effect upon migration did not come to the conclusion that our social insurance schemes were in any way hindering migration of people from this country, and that there were many more willing to go than could be taken. Statements like that give the impression that the Governments in the Dominions have not any human foresight or human consideration for their people. It is not necessary to use arguments of that kind in order to create either a feeling of opposition against our unemployed who have not the opportunity of work, or against the Dominions by reason of their not having passed similar social schemes.

I do not wish to create any such impression. I think I said that the Report stated that the effect was quite small, but that it did call attention to the feeling of security that was produced by the Socialists' own scheme. I do not wish to convey the impression that the Dominions did nothing for their unemployed.

I will leave what the hon. Gentleman said to the House. At the same time, we must take the statement that it has had no effect up till now and we have no right to imagine that it is going to have an effect in the future. We can imagine that the Dominions would be quite as ready to consider their people as we are to consider ours. The Empire Settlement Act provides for cooperation with the Dominions is great schemes for migration, for settlement, for development, for allowances, and for training on a fifty-fifty basis. But I have never heard anyone who is interested in migration, suggest any alteration in the basis of the scheme that we have with the Dominions. Despite Clause 2, which I support, in this Bill, I hope that we will adhere to the principle of fifty-fifty in our agreement with the Dominions. I believe it should be interpreted broadly; I am satisfied that it has been interpreted broadly by the United Kingdom up till now. When the Empire Settlement Bill was going through Parliament, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Dominions believed that the £3,000,000 a year, which was guaranteed for migration purposes for fifteen years, would not be enough, and I am convinced that he hoped that that would be the position. But what are the facts? In the six years in which the Act has been in operation we might have spent up to £18,000,000 to assist migration in agreed schemes. Up till now we have spent less than £3,500,000. That is not the fault of this country, as there are always thousands more people wanting to go to the Dominions voluntarily than the Dominions can take.

The hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville), in giving figures with regard to the numbers who went, was only, I think, dealing with assisted migration under the Act. Last year the number of people who went to the Dominions totalled, not 65,000 as he gave it, but 122,733. The number assisted was 63,027. This Act, I am sure, has established a better spirit between this country and the Dominions than anything which has previously been passed by this House. Schemes are agreed between this country and the Dominions. No scheme is approved or signed until all parties accept it. All parties in the House, since the passing of the Act, have become attached to, and work in support of, migration, and I think I can safely say, with the concurrence of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Dominions, that the Labour Government did a remarkable work in this connection between this country and the Dominions. The Act was new; it had not much opportunity; and, in starting that great scheme for Australia, and the 3,000 families scheme with Canada, and in beginning discussions with regard to many other schemes which have since been signed by the right hon. Gentleman, the Labour Government have no regrets in what they did in endeavouring to build up a better understanding between this country and the Dominions. It is a proof that in most matters concerning the Empire there is a different spirit in this House than there was before the War. I would suggest that for candidates for Parliament to use the Union Jack as the emblem of any particular party is not only unpatriotic, but ridiculous and contemptible.

Why not all use it?

We have a scheme for Australia to-day which provides for the settlement of 450,000 people, including 34,000 families; family migration, in my opinion, is by far the best form of migration. That scheme has been signed for something like two years. There is one other matter which perhaps is lost sight of; in these schemes we lay down, and the Governments of the Dominions accept, that there should be proper means of reception, after-care and settlement. We do not hear so much of difficulties as we heard in the past. We have schemes with Canada and New Zealand, and I should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman how it is that they are not operating as they ought to do. The right hon. Gentleman has just returned from a tour in the Dominions. He has had opportunities of meeting Governments and Oppositions; he knows the minds of those who are in the Governments and who affect the Governments on this question, and he knows what the position is with regard to the schemes that have been signed. We cannot shovel a million unemployed overseas; it is no use thinking of it, and there is no one who has any desire to do such a thing, but I would like to see a greater effort by both parties to assist migration than there is to-day. A few months ago we came very near to an understanding with regard to 10,000 men going to Canada. Everything was arranged, and there would have been no difficulty in providing the men with useful work, but at the last moment it fell through. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has been dealing with that matter with regard to the coming season, so that workmen from this country can assist in the harvest of that great country. We have no desire to compel anyone to go Overseas who does not wish to do so. We do not desire to increase unemployment in the Dominions, or to reduce the standard of life of the people already in the Dominions. Migration is not put forward as a cure for unemployment, but I am convinced that it will contribute a good deal towards that end, and I have no personal regrets at having become fascinated by this subject since I took an active part in it during the past few years.

The Bill introduced this morning changes the aspect of the Empire Settlement Act. Some of us in the House have said that in dealing with migration the United Kingdom ought to be regarded as part of the British Empire. In the Empire Settlement Act it is not. That Act provides only for the migration of people from the United Kingdom to the Dominions. The hon. Member for Windsor is inserting provisions in his Bill which remedy that fault, and will allow us to assist people to engage in industry and in agriculture in this country. The Empire Settlement Act has got beyond a land settlement Act. I believe I am safe in saying that we are assisting people to migrate to Australia to engage in other industries than agriculture; and I am not sure that there are not on the seas at the present time a large number of people bound for Australia, who have been assisted under this Act, and are to work in the hosiery trade. If we can use this money to assist our people to go to the Dominions to take part in industry there, why should we not do something under this Act to assist people to engage in industry in this country?

I welcome the suggestion the hon. Gentleman has made about that. There are men and women wanting work, and, with proper organisation, work could be found for many more people to-day. Our countryside is becoming depopulated. Millions of acres have gone out of cultivation during my lifetime. Our purchases of foodstuffs from Overseas are increasing every year. At the same time, no real activity is shown by any Party or any Government Department in putting people on to this land which needs cultivating. A remarkable speech on that point was made a fortnight ago by the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Skelton), and he asked for an inquiry to see whether something more could mot be done. But, without any inquiry, we know there are thousands of acres waiting to be cultivated, we know there are people wanting food, and we know that we could grow it here if we had the proper organisation to put men on the land, and I think it might be provided through this particular Bill.

We have been in doubt whether we could spend money on training people in this country. The Bill removes that doubt, and provides the means by which training can be carried through. There are not sufficient means of training to-day. Claydon and Brandon are not sufficient. We had a wonderful training establishment at Catterick, under the War Office, and in charge of one of the best men we ever had engaged in this work, Major Stibbard, but he has been transferred to Chiseldon. There is an establishment which could be training many more than the number in training at present, and I would like to see more use made of an institution of that sort. In that way we should reduce the overhead charges and more people would be trained at a less cost per head.

As I am supporting the Bill, I am sorry to raise a discordant note, but at the bottom of page 1 there is a paragraph ( c ) dealing with unemployment which states that men who are to be trained may be required to contribute to the cost of their training from the payments they receive from the unemployment insurance scheme. If men have money, I think they ought to assist in paying for their training—that is a personal view; but I cannot see how it is possible for a trainee to contribute. He would be receiving no payments under the Unemployment Insurance Act, and, I believe, it has been the practice in Acts of Parliament not to allow a person to contribute from one form of insurance or receipts from a Government department to another. We should oppose this proviso very strongly, but I feel confident that it will be taken out, because I am satisfied the Ministry of Labour are themselves against it, and will see that it is removed as being against the principles followed by this House.

I suppose that Clause 2 of this Bill will be criticised a good deal because it is the Clause which gives the power to spend the money. There is no doubt about that, and that is where the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes in. The £3,000,000 which we are now considering is not like the £1,000,000 granted to the Empire Marketing Board, because they have to spend their money. This Vote for £3,000,000 is not in the same position, and, if we only spend £500,000 on migration, there will be a saving to the Ex- chequer. If this had been an accumulating amount we could have used it to-day for the purposes of this Bill in settling people on the land or engaging them in industry, and that money would have been a very great aid to us.

I welcome the part of this Clause which gives power to the Minister to use this money up to 100 per cent. for engaging people in industry and agriculture in this country, because I do not see how we can obtain the money except in this particular way. Personally, I am emphatically against any change in the fifty-fifty basis arrangement with the Dominions. I do not think they desire any change, and I am sure that that suggestion has not been made before any Committee with which I have been connected. I object to this country being the milch cow for other countries. I think other countries ought to do a little in this matter to keep themselves. With regard to the question of Boards I have been a member of the Overseas Settlement Committee, and I would like to say that I have never been a member of a Committee that has been so pleasurable and agreeable. In this country, we have very little difficulty on this subject, because we have always a large number of people who want to go abroad, and our main difficulties have been the making of arrangements with the Dominions. You have on these Committees men and women who are enthusiastic and believe in this cause as earnestly as any similar number of people that can be found in the country, and there is no doubt that they will do everything that is possible to carry out even the most extreme views of the hon. Member for Windsor with regard to migration if it be possible.

I should like to hear what the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs has to say about the Boards. They have one of these Boards in Australia and they have an excellent Chairman (Mr. Gepp); I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us what has been done in Australia and whether there is going to be a real move as a result of the formation of the Board in Australia. It is for the Government to say what is to be the position on this Clause, whether the Government favour the abolition of the Overseas Settlement Committee, or whether they favour the formation of a new Board consisting of a few people who will give their whole time to the business. I feel sure that if we establish a Board and provide really live energetic and enthusiastic officials they will be able to accomplish more than has been done in the past. That is my personal view of this matter. Without committing the Labour Party to the whole of this Bill, I am in a position to say that we shall not oppose the Second Reading. We are in favour of some of the things in the Bill, and we hope that it will receive a Second Reading to-day. Any Amendments that we desire to move in the Bill we shall deal with in Committee. I have, much pleasure in giving my personal support, and in saying that the Labour Party, while not agreeing with everything in this Measure, welcome its introduction. We hope the Second Reading will be passed early to-day and that the Bill will become law.

We have had two very interesting and thoughtful speeches, one from the Mover and the other from the Seconder of the Motion for the Second Reading of this Bill. We have also had a third speech from the hon. Member for Rothwell (Mr. Lunn), critical on some points, but in the main sympathetic. May I say that the work of the hon. Member on the Overseas Settlement Committee has certainly been greatly appreciated by all those who know the work of that Committee. Speaking on behalf of the Government, I will say at the outset that we agree to the passing of the Second Reading of this Bill to-day. I say that with some misgivings as to how far the Bill is drafted so as actually to carry out all the intentions of its promoters, and also with some misgivings as to how far the machinery which is suggested for the purposes which the promoters have in view is really the best for these purposes. Take, for instance, the first important change embodied in Clause 1 and partly in Clauses 2 and 3, which provide that the work of the Empire Settlement Act shall be extended so as to include provisions for training and settlement both on the land and in connection with the industries of the United Kingdom. I think there is a good deal to be said from the point of view of public opinion outside, and even in this House, on the point that we should regard Great Britain as part of the Empire. We have done so in con- nection with the Empire Marketing Board, and there is in logic and psychology something very attractive in saying that we are not contemplating training merely to settle people overseas, but that we mean to settle them in this country as well.

I do not feel quite so certain that the machinery of this Bill constitutes the most desirable way of proceeding with this work. The hon. Member for Roth-well has already pointed out that unless we ask for new funds and a new financial Resolution all these additional purposes must come within the maximum expenditure of £3,000,000. It is true that we have not in the past been spending £3,000,000 a year for these purposes, but it is also true that the number of schemes is being added to every year. Under the loan agreement with Australia initiated by the hon. Member opposite, and which I actually signed, we are committed very far in arrangements which may add several hundred thousands of pounds a year under the Empire Settlement Act within the course of the next few years. I am sure it was never part of my hon. Friend's intention, in bringing forward this Measure, that the amount set aside for oversea settlement should be actually reduced; he wants both desirable ends, and not one only.

There is another difficulty, and it is a difficulty of machinery. The whole scheme on which the Empire Settlement Act was framed was based on the realisation that settlement overseas must be administratively a matter for the oversea Governments concerned. They have the land, they have Agricultural Departments, they are able to look after settlers, and they are the best judges, even at this end, of the right type of people to select, of the right classes in industry or agriculture to make a success under existing conditions. The whole basis of our scheme, therefore, is that administration is a matter for the Dominion Governments. What we do is to contribute towards schemes which we believe are soundly framed in principle and soundly worked. The control of this House over the whole of this business of migration is not a direct administrative control over the work, but the power to criticise the Government for having entered upon unsatisfactory schemes, or for not having exercised sufficient vigilance in seeing that schemes satisfactory in themselves are properly carried out. When, however, we come to matters within the United Kingdom, we come to matters where the administration is, and ought to be, directly under the control of this House. From a Parliamentary point of view, I doubt whether it would be satisfactory that Parliament should contribute money to the Dominions Office for Overseas Settlement in respect of matters in the case of which the Ministry of Agriculture or the Ministry of Labour is the Department which must actually carry out the work, and which, in the last resort, must meet criticism in the House of Commons. I think we can also say that as a matter of fact—possibly not sufficiently from the point of view of many of us, but at any rate to no inconsiderable extent—the very things that are in the Bill are being done. It is not the case that we spend money only on settling men overseas, and that nothing is being done to settle men in this country if and in so far as there are opportunities available. I am informed by the Ministry of Agriculture that, since the passing of the main Small Holdings. Act in 1907, 30,000 persons have been settled on the land in this country in the course of 20 years. That is a very considerable figure compared with the total of those whom we have been able to settle directly on the land as farmers in the Dominions.

There is all the time a demand for more. The difficulty is an economic one— the difficulty of providing small holdings, on any scheme of financing, however moderate, divided between the Government and the local authorities, which will make it possible for the smallholder to live on his holding afterwards and support a family. Only a year and a half ago we passed another Small Holdings and Allotments Act, under which, unlike the provisions of the Empire Settlement Act, the Exchequer contributes 75 per cent., and the local authorities only 25 per cent.; and, if that Act has not been applied more widely than it has been, I think we have to take into account the very difficult situation of agriculture at this moment. You cannot separate in any Dominion, including Great Britain, the possibilities of settlement from the economic situation. Again, take the question of industry. There, as the House knows, the Industrial Transference Board is studying the whole question, in connection with, mines in particular, and also from every other point of view, of how best, when the relative proportions of opportunities for employment are changed, to see to it that people who may be redundant in one industry should be given opportunities for fruitful employment by transfer elsewhere. There, again, I suggest that a special ad hoc method may be really more effective than trying to include it in an omnibus provision, for the sake of logic and psychology, under the work of the Overseas Settlement Office.

Does not my right hon. Friend think that, if it were possible to bring these various organisations together, as would be done by means of a Board of this kind with real statutory power, a great advance could be made in putting the possibilities of oversea settlement before those very people whom he is trying to settle in this country?

I am stating some of the administrative difficulties as they occur to me. I would also mention that the Overseas Settlement Committee naturally keeps in close touch with other aspects of the work through the representatives of the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Agriculture on the Committee, and I should think that, as far as the public are concerned, they are well aware of the efforts that are being made in this country as well as overseas. I think, however, that my hon. Friend will realise, from the very fact that we are agreeing to the Second Reading of the Bill, that we are not rejecting as wholly, impossible the solution which the Mover of the Bill put forward. We are prepared to study it further and see whether what is suggested would, in fact, be of any administrative advantage.

With regard to the question of training, I think it may be very desirable that training for land work should be such that a man could take advantage of an opportunity which offered itself here as well as in the Dominions, and, therefore, again, I should like to consider that particular point more carefully. It is very obvious that there is not much of an opening on the land at this moment for any industrial worker here who has been trained for agriculture. The best openings still in that respect are overseas. I wish there were more openings on the land in this country. There, again, I would remind the House that the Overseas Settlement Office is not an administrative body, since the training, as it is carried on to-day, is not carried on by it or under my authority, but under the Ministry of Labour; and it may be perfectly easy, without the particular Amendment here suggested, to make arrangements with the Ministry of Labour that their training farms should train people for land work in the Dominion of Great Britain, as well as for land work in other parts of the Empire. Therefore, in accepting the Second Reading, while I do so sympathising greatly with the objects in view in Clause 1 and the first part of Clause 2, it is, as I have said, with very considerable misgiving as to whether, from an administrative point of view, they would really help the situation. Now I come to paragraph ( c ) of Clause 2, which deals with the problem of using unemployment benefit towards training. I am not quite sure, from the wording of the Clause, whether it is only for training for work in this country, or for training for overseas settlement also.

May I say that it is for both?

The whole unemployment scheme is a mutual co-operative scheme, under which, not only the Government, but men in employment and employers, contribute, and it is very difficult to devise or to justify arrangements under which the money due to individuals under that scheme as a matter of right should be diverted to those who are being trained for the very object of going outside this country altogether, or going into an employment which is not included under unemployment insurance. It may be said, of course, that you are lightening the scheme of men who are at the moment a burden on it. Yes, but I am afraid it must be said in answer that the kind of men who are going to make a success overseas—and it is only the men who are going to make a success that we ought ever to encourage—are the kind of men who on the whole, when the present period of unemployment is over, are also likely in this country to pay more into the Unemployment Fund than they will draw out. I doubt very much whether, from the point of view of the equity of the unemployment scheme, it is wise to try to trench on it. After all, if money has to be found, it had better be found from a separate source and not confuse what is a purely national insurance scheme with provision for training. You want to make it in future as clear as possible that it is a real mutual insurance and not a scheme of State charity.

It was never intended that there should be direct-payment from the Unemployment Insurance Fund to these training centres, but that the unemployed man after he had received the benefit should come and say, "I am ready to make a bargain."

The hon. Member for Rothwell has already dealt with that point. If it is a purely voluntary payment, there is no inquiry as to where the man received the money, but if it is a stipulation I am afraid it is open to the same objections, and, indeed, open to other objections. At present without special consent a man, to receive benefit, must be looking for work in an insurable occupation.

There is, however, a wider psychological objection to this proposal which was touched upon by the hon. Member for Rothwell, but which I think can be realised most fully by those who, like myself, have been dealing with this problem in the Dominions. The view of those of us who have worked on the Oversea Settlement Committee is that it is entirely wrong to link up oversea settlement directly with unemployment. The idea that oversea settlement is simply an easy way of relieving ourselves of our own unemployment is one calculated to produce a wrong reaction. Oversea settlement in our belief may incidentally help men who are unemployed and ease the pressure on the employment market, but its main objective and purpose is, by a better distribution of the population of the Empire, to give the best opportunity to every individual who wishes to go, and also to strengthen the whole economic fabric of the Empire, with indirect results which we believe will have a most potent influence on the whole future course of employment. But to make the thing a success it is essential that the men and women who go are those who want to go and are going to succeed, and that should be the only standard by which to judge of the desirability of their going. The mere fact of their being unemployed is not in itself any argument that we should run the risk of the exchange of unemployment at home, in familiar surroundings, for unemployment in unfamiliar surroundings.

That is true from the point of view of this country, but it is at least as true from the point of view of the Dominions overseas. A great deal of the hesitation, and a great deal of the restrictive attitude towards Empire settlement which is shown overseas, particularly in some of the Dominions, is due to the idea that we are trying to get rid of the people we do not want here in order to let them take their chance of sinking or swimming overseas. The main substance of most of the speeches I delivered on this subject in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada was that we were not concerned with encouraging a single man to go overseas who was likely to be a failure, and that unemployment was our own domestic problem which we have to solve on our own lines, finding the true balance of industry and readjusting the occupations of our population. We were not asking the Dominions to help us with our domestic problem. What we were doing was, in a spirit of co-operation in Empire matters, which I think is new since the War, in the general broad interest of each and all of us, to show our willingness to co-operate in making a success of the movement of population from one part of the Empire to another.

It is very much from that same point of view that I also have serious misgivings as to the later addition to Clause 2 namely, that notwithstanding any previous conditions the Secretary of State shall have power to bear the whole or any part of the expenses of the training of suitable persons. I think it is very desirable to make it clear here and in the Dominions that this is a policy of co-operation and not a policy in which we are trying to get the major advantage. Apart from the general fairness, apart from the fact that in the main the need of the Dominions for more population is greater than our need for reducing our population and that they gain more from them as consumers and revenue payers—while we shall benefit from them the country to which they go will benefit even more—I think the effect of going beyond the fifty-fifty basis would be to strengthen the point of view that in this Act we are doing something to relieve our difficulties and to help ourselves, and not fairly and freely to co-operate in something of equal benefit to all of us.

As regards the Act itself I think it is desirable that the general basic principle on which we co-operate should be maintained. Of course the Act itself does not restrict all the expenditure and if we cannot establish training schemes on a fifty-fifty basis with the Dominions or make such adjustment—the hon. Member for Rothwell knows very well that we have often made adjustments between expenditure here and expenditure at the other end which have allowed rather more to be spent at one end by us and rather more at the other end by the Dominions themselves—apart from that if certain work is necessary it can be found under additional expenditure outside the Empire Settlement Act. After all, in the case of the existing training at Brandon and Claydon the money is all being found by the British Government through the Ministry of Labour under the Ministry of Labour Vote. While I should be the last person to hold out for a rigid or pernickety attitude on this question, I believe it will be desirable to adhere to the main principles of the Bill, though I admit that as regards the question of training the case for modification is stronger than in any other respect. I am bound, however, to mention a purely technical and practical objection to this particular addition. It is this. While the Bill as a whole does not profess to add anything to the sum total of money already agreed to by Parliament, I am advised that an alteration of the fifty-fifty proportion might be taken to constitute a new charge, and therefore involve a financial Resolution in this House. My hon. Friend will recognise that if it comes to a question of a financial Resolution the time of the House will make it very difficult to carry that particular proposal any further.

I should like to deal now with one further important proposal in this amending Bill. It is the proposal that

I am not sure that that proposal takes sufficient account of the conditions which governed the establishment of the Oversea Settlement Office and the conditions on which the Empire Settlement Act was passed. The Oversea Settlement Office is not, as I pointed out before, an administrative office. It is in essence a negotiating office. It negotiates schemes which the Dominions administer, and, in doing so, it is very desirable that it should be guided by every consideration affecting those schemes and be in touch with every important interest which is concerned. It is from that point of view that we have done all our work in close association with the Oversea Settlement Committee. It consists of Members of the Opposition, shipping representatives, representatives of various Departments, representatives of women workers, representatives of emigration interests, and by this means we are able to get every sort of view that bears on this matter. When it comes to negotiations—after all there must be one negotiator—I doubt if a Board, as such, is the best machinery for the purpose. Overseas where the administration has to be carried out, I fully realise the advantage of such machinery, though I should add that in the case of Australia it is advisory machinery that Mr. Bruce has set up. It may well be that in the Dominions a Board is the best way in which to carry on administration, but I am not at all sure that in this country a Board would be the best. My hon. Friend who introduced the Bill suggested that a Board would be more free to visit the Dominions. After all, one of the main objects in dividing the Colonial Office from the Dominions Office—an object which will not be fully secured until a separate Minister is in charge of each of these offices—was to give more time to the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs to look after the work of the Overseas Settlement Committee and to look after the negotiations, and, if necessary, to follow up negotiations in the Dominions themselves. This is one of the chief aims that I have had before me, and I believe it is an aim which in future we shall be able effectively to carry out. I have been able myself in these last few months to discuss this matter intimately with every Dominion State and Provincial Government in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and I am not sure that more could have been done through the machinery of a Board under my control.

Can my right hon. Friend say how many different chairmen of the Overseas Committee there have been since the Empire Settlement Act was introduced?

Yes. I think that is a perfectly reasonable question to ask. My answer—and I think it only supplements the answer which I have just given—is that before the division of the offices, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies was so overworked that first one and then another Minister was asked to help in the task. I hope that now there is an Under-Secretary for Dominion Affairs there will be a much greater measure of continuity. Indeed, if experience should prove that a whole-time Minister is desirable for that office that could, at any rate, be considered. My contention is that the final responsibility must rest with the Government and that Ministerial negotiations are better than negotiations by a Board or a Commission and more suitable for deliberating on executive work.

I hope I have not detained the House too long, but there are a few things that I should like to say on the broad issue which underlies the proposal for a change of machinery, for after all, the only object of a change of machinery is to get more work done. I am entirely with the Mover of this Bill in confessing that when the principal Act was introduced by me in 1922 I looked forward to much more rapid development under the Act. But then, I must confess, I did not look forward to years as lean as the last six years have been either here or overseas. Considering all the circumstances of the time, I am not sure that we cannot claim that the work done has been both substantial and satisfactory. Let me give one or two figures to the House. From the time that the principal Act came into law down to the end of last year, that is from 31st May, 1922, to 31st December, 1927, 251,794 persons have been assisted to migrate, of whom, under the conditions of expensive passages and lack of accumulated funds, very few, I fancy, would have been able to go without that assistance. In the first three years, the average was 40,000. In 1926 and 1927, the average was 64,000. A slight reduction in 1927 compared with 1926—a reduction of 2,500—has been almost entirely due to local depression in New Zealand, about which I may have a word to say in a minute.

It is also important to remember that assisted migration is not the whole of the movement. There is unassisted migration to the rest of the Empire and there is emigration to the world outside. In that respect, I am not sure that the figures are so discouraging. The total outward movement in 1926 was 115,000. which was the net after deducting immigration from emigration. Of that total, 93,000 went to the Dominions for settlement, of whom 65,000 were actually assisted migrants. In 1927, there was a net outflow of 98,000, and 80,500 went to the Dominions, 63,000 being assisted migrants. That figure may seem a small one compared with the very high figures of the period immediately preceding the War which were quoted by the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, but they are not such poor figures if you compare them with the figures of the previous decennial period 1901–11, when the average outward flow to destinations overseas, Dominion and foreign, was only 76,000 as against the outward flow of 98,000 last year and 115,000 the year before.

There is, however, another consideration, and one which has its bearings on many other matters besides migration, which we ought to take into account. We ought to take into account the relaionship of migration to the total increment of population in the years concerned. What is the position there? In the decennial period 1901–11, the average gross increase of population was 459,000, of whom only 76,000, or 16 per cent. went overseas. Last year the total gross increase of population was only 201,000, and against that you have to set a net outflow of 98,000, practically 49 per cent., or nearly as much as your net additional population. The figures have changed very remarkably. Changes of social habits, gravely accentuated by the long depression and the housing difficulties of recent years, have diminished that increasing reservoir from which fresh settlement, which strengthens the whole Empire and in its reactions should strengthen the old country, must be drawn. Taking these considerations into account, we have not done so very badly.

I want to bring home to the House that if we have not dealt with as large a volume of men and women as we might have done, we have all the time been perfecting and improving the machinery of our relationship with the Dominions, and our knowledge of how the problems must be dealt with. We have accumulated very considerable experience of the working of different types of schemes of settlement, which will be of the greatest advantage to us when economic conditions change, and a greater flow of current will go into the wiring which has been laid down in our Imperial house. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor suggested that we ought to do something to deal with large blocks of territory, and the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Wardlaw-Milne) drew my attention to an article in last week's "Morning Post," suggesting that we should guarantee the interest out of the Empire Settlement Fund on large schemes of development in the Empire, and so utilise our resources. May I remind the House that that is the very basis upon which our loan agreement with Australia, framed by my hon. Friend the Member for Roth-well, and confirmed by myself, was established. I have been engaged for weeks in Australia discussing with the Development and Migration Commission how they are to submit, as they have undertaken to do in the next few months, comprehensive schemes, which will fulfil all the conditions which have been suggested. There is one area in particular, in Western Australia, a square block of some 200 miles, almost entirely unutilised at the present time, and most suitable for settlement for wheat farming, once the necessary facilities for railways, roads and water conservation have been made, which I discussed most closely with the Western Australian Government and the Commonwealth Authorities, and on which I hope definite proposals will come forward in the next few months.

I will take some of the other schemes to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rothwell drew attention. He referred to the great importance of family settlement. It is a most suitable form of settlement, which was initiated by him. We have for a period of over three years been dealing in Canada with a scheme for the settlement of 3,000 families. I admit that the scale of settlement has been small, but the experiment has been of the greatest value. That scheme has been admirably worked by the Canadian authorities on the other side. Out of more than 2,500 families already settled, only 70 have come back to this country. I wish hon. Members could read some of the letters which have come home from those people, or could see, as I was able to do with my own eyes, some of those settlers.

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that 70 families have returned, or 70 individuals?

Seventy families.

That only applies to agricultural workers?

This family scheme relates to families directly settled on the land. As a result of that scheme we are not only going to settle another 500 families, I hope, this year, but to extend the number to a further 500 families next year. In the course of next year we hope also to be able to start a scheme, which we are now arranging with the Dominion Government, for the settlement of 2,000 pioneer families in newly-opened districts, on very much the same financial conditions as apply to the 500 families to which I have referred. We have also in connection with the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick arranged a scheme for the settlement of 500 families in each province, for a period of years. We are learning all the time. We have come to realise, as the work develops, that one of the most important factors in the whole business is housing. Unless there are proper conditions for the housing of the agricultural labourers, with their families, the men will not stay on the land, and their wives will not help them to stay. This settlement in cottages on the land in the Dominions is a matter which the Dominion Governments are beginning to realise plays a most important part in keeping men on the land.

On a point of Order. I have been listening to the right hon. Gentleman for some time, and I have been trying to find out what part of this Bill justifies him in making a survey of the whole work of the Colonial Office. Can you tell me if it is in order for the right hon. Gentleman to utilise the time of Private Members in this way?

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman, so far, has gone over the whole work of the Colonial Office. He is discussing various methods of Empire Settlement. On the Second Reading of a Bill, it is in order to discuss alternative methods to the proposals in the Bill.

I hope I have not unfairly trenched upon the time of the House. The case for the proposed new machinery was based on the contention that we were not carrying out this work effectively, and in the briefest way let me repeat what I was going to say on that point. We have training and testing schemes for men and a scheme made jointly by the Government of Australia and ourselves for training women in domestic work which was opened by the Duchess of York last December. We have a most hopeful boy-training scheme in Newcastle, in connection with the civic authorities, and certain private associations in Newcastle. I could say a good deal more on this aspect, but I fully understand that on a private Member's day it is not fair for a Minister to take up too much time, and I will not dwell on that subject any further, though I could point out that over a very wide field we have gained valuable experience and have laid down sound lines for future expansion. Now I come to the point as to why there is not more done. It is due to two reasons. One is the element of misunderstanding that exists in many quarters in the Dominions as to the economic effect of migration. There can be no doubt, of course, that where misdirected migration goes into the great cities overseas, where men with no definite work to go to land at places like Sydney and Melbourne, they may aggravate unemployment and create a real economic evil as well as political prejudice out of all proportion to the economic evil.

On the other 'hand, as long as a true balance between agricultural and industrial production is preserved every man who goes into productive employment is not only a producer himself but a con- sumer as well and a sustainer of the economic life of the community. There can be no limit, where natural resources are abundant, to the benefit of a flow of immigration if only it is rightly directed and rightly balanced. That is why I hope that as that point of view is better realised in the Dominions they will open their doors more widely not only to settlers on the land but to men who are going into industry, provided that they go to the right place and the right industry. Judicious nomination and a proper supervision may make possible a great deal more in the near future than we have been able to do in the past. The other reason has been the economic position in this country. When the times are hard here people are not optimistic and confident, and they would sooner accept such schemes of social help, even although they are the minima, than launch out to other countries. They have not saved money to contribute towards their own passage; and passages are very dear.

Bad times here are generally bad times overseas too. These things act and interact in the most remarkable manner. I referred just now to the depression in New Zealand which brought down migration in New Zealand from 12,000 to 4,000 last year. The main cause of the depression in New Zealand was our own depression in 1926 resulting from the prolonged drawn-out struggle in the mining industry. The moment our own consumption goes down our purchases from New Zealand go down, and at once the power of New Zealand to take settlers is limited. The whole problem cannot be considered apart from the problem of our own economic development and the general development of resources overseas. Therefore in accepting the Second Reading of this Bill I desire to suggest that the problem we have to deal with in making a success of migration may not be so much the problem of machinery—I believe our machinery is in the main satisfactory—but a problem of the economic environment in which this whole matter has to be considered. If we can solve our domestic economic problems, if we can find the true policy of Empire development, then I say that this essential concomitant of the distribution of our people will be far more easily and more readily solved.

We have just listened to a most remarkable speech. I was not privileged to hear the opening part of the speech of the Secretary of State but in almost the first sentence I did hear he told the House that he would accept the Second Reading of the Bill and then, lest we should have been disillusioned by the wonderful speech he has delivered, he assured us again in the concluding sentence that he was accepting the Second Beading. While I listened to his most interesting survey of Colonial policy and Dominion development I wondered what part of the Bill he had left intact. I cannot find anything except the names on the back cover. Apparently he looked around several times wondering whether he could dispose of them but in the interests of the Conservative party he felt that it would be as well to accept that portion of the Bill. I had intended offering a few words of criticism on this Measure, but I feel that I ought to apologise to the House, after the exceedingly successful manner in which the Colonial Secretary has torn it to shreds, for daring to add anything to his remarkable eloquence.

We have to deal with two parties. We have the Secretary of State speaking for the Government and opposed to the Bill. We have the party which stands behind him who are enthusiastic supporters of the Bill. I do not know which of the two is the more dangerous; but I am going to deal with the party behind. After all it is from the party behind that the Front Bench is recruited. The back benchers are very, seldom recruited from the Front Bench—I believe my own case is the exception to the rule. I listened to the speech of the hon. Member who moved the Second Reading and if he will not think it presumptuous on my part I would like to congratulate him on delivering a most eloquent and earnest speech. Ho was quite obviously sincere, and I listened with considerable interest to what he had to say.

But the most interesting thing in the speech to me was the way in which the hon. Member worked up such earnestness and enthusiasm about such a Bill. I cannot, for the life of me, understand anyone getting enthusiastic about these proposals. The object of the Bill, as has been suggested by the Secretary of State, is to give to the Dominions a population, drawn from the best blood of Britain, who will be pioneers of Empire and will ensure that in the centuries to come the chain of nations that we know as the British Commonwealth will give to the world at large the benefit of British civilisation. I think that that is a noble object. It is one to make dreamers active to inspire the politicians of the time. The remarkable thing about it is that when hon. Members set out to get this best British blood they turn to the ranks of the unemployed. They expect to find it in the poorest of the poor.

Anyone who reads the Memorandum attached to the Bill will see what is really in the minds of the Conservatives—there are various minds—is not so much Empire settlement as the disposal of our surplus proletariat. The people to be taken under this Bill are clearly to be taken from the ranks of the unemployed. The hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) had a great grievance against the State, indeed against the Conservative party. He said, in effect, "These unemployed are being too well treated. This social insurance policy is ruining the nation. You are actually compelling these members of the working classes to remain in their own country. That is a most regrettable situation." The hon. Member said that he welcomed one step that had been taken by the Government; it had reduced the income of the youths from 18s. to 10s. He said that that was a step in the right direction. He wants to go further and reduce the incomes of the unemployed. So he proposes this Bill to take from the unemployed man a portion of his income compulsorily, and to use it for the purpose of training him in the science of agriculture, in order that he may be deported from his native land and become one of the Empire pioneers.

The House will notice, from the hon. Member's speech, that he does not want to send to the Dominions any workers who have an intimate knowledge of agriculture. He wanted to make that perfectly clear. He said that workers are wanted for agriculture. But the Dominions are not to receive from us any agricultural workers. Why? He said, "We require all the agricultural workers we have. There is already a shortage. People are making their escape from rural conditions and going into the towns, and, really, if things get worse, we may have to increase their wages. So you must not interfere with them. You have to take tinkers and tailors and others and you have to make agricultural workers of them. You have to do it all in the name of Empire, and you are to dispose of them in the manner provided in the Bill." I have often wondered why the poor should be selected for emigration. Emigration is a very serious thing. One can easily contemplate the risk that one takes in going to a country like Canada. It is not always advertised that for four or five months of the year Canada is entirely closed by climatic conditions.

It is for agriculture.

As my hon. Friend says, it is closed especially for agriculture. Going out there and settling with a small family is really a very risky undertaking. You take the poor man. You have denuded him of every bit of property by reducing his unemployment benefit and by every other means before you send him out. You send him there. If he succeeds that is all right. If he is one of the hardy and intelligent class who make Empires out of straw, if he is one of the bull men, he will come out on top. Suppose that he fails? There is always the possibility of failure. He has not burned his boats because he never had any. He has had to be sent out by charitable means and dumped in Canada. If he fails, may God help him! He will have plenty of opportunities of becoming a hardy member of the human race in the conditions of Canada, where you have the ideals of Conservatism— no social insurance, none of those things that keep men from becoming supermen, such as you have in this country, and he is left to his misfortune because of his poverty.

I would have thought that instead of selecting the poor you would begin with the rich. After all, rich people are the clever people. They are the successful people; they are the people who have come out on top in the competitive struggle for existence; they are the educated class; they are the ideal Empire pioneers. Why send the poor, broken, ragged, destitute working man to carry the flag into those parts of the Empire that we wish to make populous? Why not send our great men, our supermen, our successful men? Why not take them and put the British flag in their hands, and tell them what a glorious page they will fill in the history of the human race in the days that are to come by planting this British flag in the wilds and deserts of the sparsely populated parts of the earth? You might begin, for instance, by sending the couple of hundred people each of whom has an annual income of at least £100,000. You can see the advantage of sending men like those. They have the capital; they have the blood, the quality, the confidence, and the super-ability as demonstrated in this little testing island of ours. They are the great men of the human race; they are the people to be trusted with the future of Great Britain. They would be taking no risks. If they failed they could come back. Not only could they hire boats for the purpose, but many of them own boats. In any case they could be brought back. There is a great deal to be said in favour of selecting rich men instead of sending our poor and unfortunate people to be the pioneers of the British Empire.

I want to say a few words regarding the idea that this Bill touches the problem of unemployment at all. While the House of Commons, either on that side or on this side, feels that in playing with the problem in this way it is doing something for the benefit of the nation, are we to sit helplessly by and see our nation going to ruin? The right hon. Gentleman said we had been able to send out 100,000, but have Members behind him said that we were not disposing of our population quickly enough and ought to be sending 250,000. The ideal will be reached when we have depopulated this island entirely and have handed it over to someone else. Let me put this point before I come to the real problem of unemployment. We hear a great deal about the land in Canada and Australia but the one country in the world in which there would appear to be no land is Britain. Britain is always on the rocks. There is never any land—there is never anything that can be cultivated in Britain, according to what we are told. It is said that if you want to make Britain prosperous you must send its people 12,000 miles away.

We are asked to believe that the reason why we have poverty in this country is because we have people in this country; that it is the existence of this wicked working class which is at the root of the whole trouble, and that if we could dispose of the working class, there would be no more poverty and no more social problems. I put this one point. There is a prevailing belief that if you could dispose of 1,000,000 of the population of this country, in that way you would get rid of your 1,000,000 unemployed. I wish the House of Commons and the country would clear their minds of that absurd idea. If we think of the problem for a moment we must see how absurd it is. The country is in a difficulty through a shortage of customers. Our best customers are the people at home. I do not think anyone can dispute the fact that the best customers for British goods are the British people. How in Heaven's name can you arrive at the conclusion that, by deporting that population to places where they will become the customers of somebody else, you are going to solve the unemployment problem of Britain? If you reduce the population by 1,000,000, you reduce the customers by 1,000,000. When you reduce the customers by 1,000,000 you reduce correspondingly the demand for goods and your unemployment problem is intensified rather than remedied.

I believe there is room for an Empire policy. I speak for myself, and I think I can also speak for some others, when I say that we believe in an Empire policy but not in an Empire policy such as is proposed here. Before you can have a successful Empire policy it will be necessary to make some fundamental changes. You want first of all to create an economic Empire. You may have a political Empire but you have not an economic Empire. You have so many people in Canada— Germans, Swedes, Italians and others—trading with certain people in Great Britain who may be of any nationality. To call that an Empire policy or national trading is simply absurd, because those people will turn from trading with Britain, immediately they can make more profit by trading with America. They are not trading for national purposes. You have no national trade, no Empire trade. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the development of machinery. May I put it to him that the first duty of the Department over which he presides is to create a real national trading machinery for trade between the different parts of the Empire. Why should he not set up machinery by means of which—either by licence or directly, I do not mind which —you would carry out the national regulation of our international trading. Surely the trade of a country is the first interest of a country and why should not that be a primary consideration?

I agree that you might begin with the Empire. You have some little sentiment to go on there and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having spent some time in trying to develop it. He was more usefully employed in that way than he would be in addressing these long, unpointed speeches to the British House of Commons. He has been doing good work and I congratulate him, but why should he not attempt to have the trade between the various parts of the Empire conducted by the various governments of the Empire? I am not pleading here for Socialism in the production or in the distribution of wealth. I am pleading for Socialism, if you like in the development of the Empire and it is the only possible way in which you can develop the Empire. Why should you not have the Canadian Government trading with the British Government or the Government of Australia trading with the Government of Canada? Why not have a national trading machinery which would have as its primary aim the development of the Empire? It is only along that line that you are going to make any progress, but you must at the beginning clear your minds of the idea that you are going to have for all time a proletarian class who can be brought in as immigrants from Ireland when they are wanted in Great Britain for industrial purposes, and, who, when the development of British industrialism demands it, can be shifted to Australia because they are not wanted here? The whole idea that this proletarian population is going to rest contented for ever in that servile condition is an illusion which will wreck you if you hold it as the basis of your policy. Why not think of the British people—of the whole of them—as a big people, as a great people, as a people entitled to the same standard of education as any one in this House has received? Why not think of them as people who are entitled to the highest standard of housing, who are to be re- garded as free men and as great men? Why not begin our Empire policy by putting our heads together to institute a system of distribution of wealth in this country which will ensure that poverty shall be driven from the ranks of our people so that they may be independent, so that they may be great. When you do that, and only when you do that, will you get real Empire pioneers.

I can quite under stand that anyone like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) who holds the great ideas which he has just developed to us, will not willingly seek to give effect to what we on this side are all desirous of doing and that is to bring about a more equitable distribution of the people of the Empire. I quite agree with him that the approval of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State was more or less qualified and by the time he had finished his speech, one wondered how much of the Measure he really supported. I think it will be generally admitted by those who had the opportunity of taking part in the Debates in 1922 that the Empire Settlement Act has been more or less a failure. It is no good concealing the fact that it has not come up to expectations. The right hon. Gentleman said that had been largely due to economic conditions and I quite agree, but in so far as some of the overseas Dominions are concerned those economic conditions which were bad at the time, have altered. Only last year we know-that all the States of Australia, with the exception of Western Australia, suffered from a severe drought and, undoubtedly, with improved conditions they will be able to take a considerably larger number of emigrants than they have been able to take up to the present. Personally, I think it is a great come down, from 250,000 per annum going out into the different parts of the Empire, as we had in pre-War days, to something like 64,000 last year. I only hope we are going to see those figures reversed.

The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken is right in saying that you do not want merely poor people from Great Britain. You should also send out men with a certain amount of capital. We all realise that a certain amount of capital is necessary in the development of these territories in Australia and elsewhere. The cost of settling successfully on the land has proved to be far in excess of what was anticipated when the Empire Settlement Act was introduced. At that time it was contemplated that you could settle 75,000 individuals at a cost of something like £6,000,000 As a matter of fact, Western Australia has spent no less than £4,000,000 in settling 2,000 families, or, at the rate of four per family, some 8,000 people, so that, on that basis, instead of settling 75,000 people for £6,000,000, only something like 12,000 people would be settled for that sum. That is more than any small State with a population of 400,000 people can stand, and it goes to prove that it is necessary to have capital. If it had not been for the capital that has been utilised, that State would not have been able to develop to the extent it has. The capital in those cases was supplied to the individual by the Government from money borrowed from this country, but what has been the result?

In 1905, when I happened to be in office in that country, we were importing grain, but last year, 20 years afterwards, the returns showed that no less than 40,000,000 bushels of wheat were produced. That was the result of labour, of capital, and the application of intelligence, and also a result of cheap transport, easy money advanced to the colonists, with long-term payments, and also the application of agricultural science. While that has been of great advantage to Western Australia and other States, the chances are that in this country a considerable number of unemployed could be given employment on the land if we went in for cheaper transport, for cheap money, and—

Does the State give the cheap transport in Western Australia, or do private individuals?

In that case the State gives cheap transport, and so far as agricultural manure is concerned, with a view to encouraging the industry of agriculture to the fullest extent, they carry artificial manure at a farthing a ton per mile, though it costs actually Id. a ton per mile. The railways there realise that conveying agricultural manure for the farmers at a cheap rate is a good business proposition, and I believe that some of the more far-sighted railway managers in this country too are contemplating adopting a similar policy here.

I think the hon. and gallant Member will agree that it is partly because the State has forced the railways to act in the way he has mentioned that these facilities have been given.

It is much more simple where the railways are controlled by the State, but I believe that in this country it will be found in the near future that that subject will receive careful consideration on the part of the railway managers. It is recognised on some of our systems now that assistance must be given to farmers. I can instance the fact that on one of the railway systems here you can send your milk to market in London for 150 miles for 2d. a gallon, and if you are 250 miles away, you can send it also for the same 2d. per gallon. That is an evidence that it is realised that the railways must be utilised to a fuller extent than in the past in connection with the transport of produce to market.

Undoubtedly, the Secretary of State must be disappointed with the result of the operation of the Empire Settlement Act, and I do not know that this Bill is going to help us very much. At the same time, it has given us the opportunity of an interesting debate in which many of us have been very glad to take part, though I realise that there are so many more who want to speak that it is not advisable to exhaust one's ration. I would like to say, in reply to the right hon. Member for Shettleston that it might be interesting to him to know that quite recently Australia sent a Commission to the United States of America, and on that Commission was a very important Labour man, who gives his impressions in an interview in which he states:

America realises at the present time how essential it is that they should broaden their quota in so far as people from the United Kingdom are concerned; they have been dissatisfied with the fact that in the past too many of the Southern and Eastern Europeans have been going there, and they have altered their quota so that the English, Scotch, and Irish are encouraged to go there in greater proportions. We are, therefore, in this position, that the people born in this country, educated, brought up, and trained in our workshops, including some of our most expert craftsmen, instead of going to Australia or to other places within the Empire, are going to the United States, where they manufacture goods and become competitors with their own kith and kin in this country. Therefore, it is easily seen how necessary it is to do all that we can to encourage migration within the Empire.

Right through this discussion, very few Members seem to have talked about the actual Bill that is before us, but have rather dealt with emigration in the abstract. The Secretary of State has pointed out many of the difficulties that would be bound to occur in connection with the administration of the Bill and how necessary it would be to have a Financial Resolution to broaden his powers, a course of action which he did not think the time available this Session would permit. Although it seems to me that we might get a Second Reading for this Bill, it looks as if that will be the finish of it. I am satisfied that it would be advisable to carry out the idea proposed by the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville), who introduced the Measure, and that is to make a Board which would be a permanent, non-political body. I asked the Secretary of State how many Chairmen there had been since the Act was introduced. There must have been seven different Chairmen of the Overseas Settlement Board. How can you get continuity of policy with a constant change of the executive? We know that continuity of policy in so far as emigration is concerned is absolutely essential.

I seldom make speeches on emigration now, though I used to be very enthusiastic, and encouraged people who were desirous of going out, but I found that there were so many hindrances placed in their way, and so many regulations discovered in cupboards, so that when you gave men who were anxious to go out letters to the Overseas officers, these officials always seemed to find some reason against their going out just then. They would probably say, "You come along in three months' time, and it will be all right." There seems almost to be some sinister policy behind it, as some reason is generally put forward for not granting passages. Therefore, if some body were created, an independent executive which would ensure continuity of policy, I think it would materially assist what we are so anxious to do, namely, bring about a more equitable distribution of the population of this Empire.

I must forgo the pleasure of following the hon. and gallant Gentleman into the very interesting question of American wages and conditions of labour, and confine myself to one, or at most two, of the specific points. I believe I have as large an opportunity of understanding the attitude of my colleagues on this question of emigration as anyone on this side of the House, and I want to utter a word or two of very sincere warning in regard to the language that is used to commend these various schemes of emigration. The hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville), who moved the Second Reading of this Bill, quite unintentionally, I am sure, and without balancing the real meaning of the word he used, over and over again spoke of "sending" people into the Dominions and Colonies, and complained that we had not done sufficient in that respect, and that we ought to be "sending" every year from 200,000 to 400,000 people away. I beg hon. Members of this House, if they want to encourage the new spirit which they say exists in regard to these Empire problems, to eliminate altogether from their vocabulary words such as "sending" people to the Dominions and Colonies. Our quite plain duty appears to me to be to break down every barrier which operates against people going to the Dominions if they wish to do so. We ought to open every gate that we can to allow them to pass into those Dominions and Colonies easily. We ought to organise opportunities, but if we begin to use words which have even a suggestion of compulsion attached to them, people are most sensitive about it, and are not slow to interpret "sending" as meaning something like transportation.

2.0 p.m.

I thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Dominions was slightly pessimistic in regard to the statistics of the natural increase of population. He altogether overlooked the fact that during the War some million potential fathers were destroyed, and that must have its effect upon the natural increase of the population at this time. I would say that there is a growing tendency, not on our side of the House, but on the part of the com- mercial press in this country, to deprecate emigration. One of the great London newspapers operating for the support of hon. Gentlemen opposite was speaking last week about the time, which was coming at no very distant date, when there would not be enough labour for the work to be done here. I do not think that the poor in this country should be made the shuttlecock of economic conditions, exporting them, "sending" them, when they are rather a drug in the market, and encouraging them to stay when they would be a profit to their employers. If a young man wants to go to the Dominions or Colonies to start life on his own, if he has the spirit of adventure which will lead him to face new conditions, we ought to make it easy for him to go, but to bring no sort of compulsion upon him. The hon. Member who introduced this Bill spoke of the fact that in the old days when men went abroad there was the pull of adventure, but that nowadays people were afraid to venture upon expeditions of that kind. Such words coming from the mouth of an experienced professional teacher were most interesting, for if there be any class in this country which has tried to stereotype the mind of the nation, to drill it into a groove, to fit it into an environment and be satisfied with it, it is the teaching profession. What we require in education is that the personality of the individual should be developed, so that that personality should react on the environment, and change it to higher ideals, but the teacher, on his part, has done what he can to suppress adventure, and the parson has told people that they ought to be satisfied with the position to which providence has called them. I think we must get out of that attitude of mind altogether.

In regard to the question of the town worker or rural worker, may I say that, having started my life as an agricultural labourer, my own feeling is that it is a question of psychology, and not of rural or urban training. If a man born in a city has what one may call the land psychology, if he wants to do creative work of his own, and he can be taught the knack of using tools, he will make good whether he goes from London or the fields of Kent. But if a man is born in a country village and has become nauseated with the conditions there, he will do far worse on the land in Australia or elsewhere than a city-bred man who has been properly trained. If this question of emigration is to receive its full value, more co-operation is required on the part of the Dominions as well as of our own Government. I confess that it is enormously disheartening to read stories such as we read a week or two ago of a family going to Canada, and the mother and the youngest child being turned back, because the child had rickets, whereas three weeks of Canadian sunshine would have cured the child. The father had to take the rest of the children in, and the mother bring the sickly child home. If anything more cruel than that can be imagined, then one is gifted with an imagination greater than my own.

I altogether deprecate associating this question of emigration with the problem of unemployment. Even if we could increase our emigration quota enormously, it would only touch the very fringe of the unemployment problem. Emigration is good for quite other reasons. We want to give our people the best chance in life for themselves, and if they can find better chances than those with which we can supply them, we must put no sort of barrier in their way. The young man who says, "Shall I stay here with a British farmer, losing all wet days and the probability of ending my life in the workhouse or on some public fund, or shall I take a man's chance and build myself a home in a new country?"—well, if he is a wise person, I know which he will choose. We ought to be choosers in one way, and provide men with every facility and to put no pressure upon their going.

The opposition in the Dominions towards immigration has been dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman. If the population in the Dominions were one-half what it is now, there would still be a proportion of unemployed there. The Dominion people do not always realise that in our present organisation of society there will always be a residuum of unemployed. It is not, therefore, the number of people who are in the Dominions that makes an unemployed problem, but the fact that owing to our organisation of society there must always be this residuum. The Dominion people might remember that if a man takes into the Dominions a mouth with which to consume he also takes in two hands with which to produce, and he becomes a potent factor in the development of their trade and in their general economic welfare. I would say a word of commendation for the main thought behind this Bill, namely, that of training people to be fitted for their job. What we need above all other things in this country is something like pre-vocational training, I think it was Emerson who said that all the world makes a pathway to the house of the man who can preach better sermons or make better mousetraps than anybody else, but there are many people who would make very bad mousetraps but would preach very excellent sermons. Anything which will help a man to sort himself out and to help him to find himself is a real help to industrial prosperity. As that is the main thought behind this Bill, I hope the House will give it a Second reading.

I agree substantially with what the last speaker has said. We do not want to send people; we want to help those who want to go and, above all, to test them. In regard to the question of testing people who go overseas to be engaged in agriculture, especially those who have not engaged in agriculture before, it is well to look at it from the Dominion point of view. I would like to deal with it from the point of view of a man who has lived in Western Canada for many years and has been interested in migration. The whole of Canada is dependent for its prosperity upon agriculture. If there is a good harvest one year, those engaged in other industries are prosperous; if there is a bad farmers' year, everybody else is depressed and there is unemployment in the winter. It is reasonable, therefore, that if anybody goes to Canada to engage in agriculture, he should be helped to make a success of it, not only on account of the man himself, but in deference to the country to which he is going. The Dominions have to look upon it from their own point of view, just as much as we have to do from our point of view, and if a Dominion were to back any scheme of State-aided immigration for any other industry than agriculture, or for men who would not compete with those engaged in subsidiary industries, they would be open to the criticism of their own people that they were doing something that tended to depress the standard of living of those engaged in those industries. We are, therefore, restricted to sending people who will develop the land and produce primary goods.

When we do that we ought to be very careful, not only in the interests of the people we help to go, but because we do not wish our own people to have a prejudice against them when they get there, that they are people who are going to make good. Going on to a farm in Canada, especially Western Canada, is not easy work. A settler is up against three years of very hard times, and he has to be prepared to face all kinds of difficulties and to improvise for himself what is done for him in this country. In this country, he can turn on a tap and water comes; he turns on another tap and gas comes. But when he goes to a farm in Canada he has to improvise for himself, and the selection of the right men is most important. I do not believe you can train people in this country to go on the land in the Dominions, but I do believe in testing them. It is not so much an experience of farming or a knowledge of agriculture that is the test; the test is whether the man has a big heart. If he has, he will win through. Do not disguise from him that he is going to have a pretty hard time for three years. I believe in family migration, and if a man has children they are a great incentive to him to stick out those three years, and sacrifice a certain security in this country under rather miserable conditions for the chance of doing something more for his children overseas. That is why I am sure that we are right in dealing with State-aided migration to Canada only to help those people who are going on the land. We must not measure the success of the Overseas Settlement Committee by the number of people who have been helped to go on the land. There are a great many more people who find jobs in Canada because we are successful in putting people on to the land. Every successful farmer in Canada probably provides a job for three, four or five men in subsidiary industries. Therefore, for every man we can settle as a successful farmer, we create an opportunity for four or five men to go from this country.

We often talk about migration as if State-aided migration were the whole of it. It is not. From 1923 to 1926 we helped 45,000 people to migrate to Canada. 10,000 of those went to work on the land, 10,000 were boys and girls between 12 and 18,9,000 were children up to 12, 9,500 were domestics, and 6,000 were women. The women were probably the wives of most of the men who went on to the land. Although we migrated only 10,000 farmers with State-aid, 152,000 people left this country for Canada and settled without any State-aid. A great many of those would not have found a job if we had not been successful in getting these other men on to the land. Another reason why we should be careful in the people whom we send out to go on to the land, if they are to be successful, is that they have to compete with people from Northern and Central Europe who have a much lower standard of living and are used to agriculture under practically the same conditions of cold and hardship in the winter as the people in Canada. Though our people have not the experience, they have the better heart, and the man who goes out from here to compete with these foreigners must have his heart in the right place, because he has to put up with things and do without things to which these foreigners are accustomed, but to which he is not. Therefore, I support most heartily the statement in the Memorandum of this Bill that training—or testing, as I should prefer to call it—should be provided for every man, if he be in an industrial occupation, who wishes to migrate to Canada in order to go on the land.

I suppose it was inevitable in a Debate of this kind that the main arguments should be addressed to the question of migration overseas, but I think it is as well that the attention of the House should be called to the fact that the object of the Bill is to amend the Empire Settlement Act for every purpose connected with settlement at home and overseas. Already in the course of the Debate reference has been made to the fact that the United Kingdom has not always been given its proper place in the Empire. It is remarkable to recall that when £1,000,000 was granted to the Empire Marketing Board to advertise Empire produce the United Kingdom was, in the first instance, left out altogether, though subsequently it was brought in as part of the Empire, and is now sharing in some of the advantages of that grant. In the same way, though an Act for Empire settlement was passed in 1922, it is only now, some six years later, that we are bringing the United Kingdom within the purview of the Act. I am sure the whole House is in agreement with what the Secretary of State said about the desirability of facilitating settlement overseas and at home, but at the same time he pointed out various defects and points of criticism in the machinery of the Bill as proposed. I do not think the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) imagined for a moment that his was a perfect Bill, or that it could be made workable without receiving considerable attention at the hands of experts in these matters, and I think he will agree with me when I say that his main desire was to bring the question of Empire settlement prominently before the House and the country in the hope that something practical might be accomplished.

It is very important that we should consider what opportunities exist in our own country, because sometimes they are overlooked. I have received communications from people in Scotland begging for the same opportunities to be given to boys and young men to go on farms in our own country as are given for them to go to Canada. They say there are many boys who want to remain in the old country, and ask why we cannot broaden our outlook, not always pushing the best of our people overseas, but keeping at home those who wish to remain at Home and settling them on the land. I see in a newspaper which I received the other day from Winnipeg that the same idea seems to be circulating in the minds of the people in Canada. With the leave of the House I will make a short quotation from this paper. It is the "Free Press and Prairie Farmer," of Winnipeg, dated 18th January:

It has been said during the Debate that small holdings are uneconomical. That is a broad statement which may be true in some of its aspects, but it is not entirely true. We know that they can be made economical, and there are countries which do make them economical. Our difficulty at home has been that too often we have experimented on too narrow a base. Settlements have been put down in unsatisfactory places, and the people have not been encouraged to co-operate. Co-operation is the basis of all satisfactory land settlement. Also, we have very often made the holdings too small. If we are to be successful with land settlement, whether it be in Canada, in Australia, or in our own country, the holding must be on an economic basis, that is to say, it must be sufficiently productive to provide for the maintenance of the family living on it. [ Interruption. ] We have all got to work, whether we work for wages or for ourselves. Working on a holding is as hard as working for wages. But I believe our people are not afraid of hard work. However, I am only referring to this because I do not wish it to get abroad that small holdings are necessarily uneconomic in this country. There is a big field for settlement here, and a big field for work under such a scheme as this.

Apart from the question of small holdings, large areas of our land are calling out for labour. Look at the drainage that is required, the reclamation of land from the sea, the reclamation of land from the moor and the reclamation of land from the mountain—all demanding a big national effort. Whether it would be wise to tack a big national effort like that on to what is essentially an over- seas settlement scheme is open to doubt, but in so far as the Bill promotes the idea that we should supply a portion of our energies to land settlement at home as well as overseas I welcome it and 'I think it will be generally accepted by the whole House. In view of what the Secretary of State has told us, I am inclined to doubt whether it will be possible for the Bill to go very much further, but I think the fact that it has been introduced, with the Debate we have had on it, will at any rate lead to something more practicable hereafter, even if something does not come out of it immediately.

The scope of this Debate is very considerable, and though the discussion has in part moved away from the direct objects of the Bill, the introduction of this Measure has led to a debate on a subject which we all feel to be a very important one, and the trend of the debate has gone to show that this House is at any rate in earnest and desires to get a "move on" in regard to this particular question. So far so good. I do not think that up to the present there has been a discordant note unless it occurred in one or two sentences which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) who argued that the object of this Bill was to dispose of the proletariat. That is the last object in the world which the promoters of this Bill have in view, and I regret that the right hon. Gentleman has endeavoured to mix up this question of migration and unemployment. That mistaken confusion is very much resented overseas as I know from experience both in Canada and Australia, and I think it is a great pity that anyone in this House should combine these two questions when, as a matter of fact, they are quite separate subjects. The question of migration should be dealt with on its merits.

I feel very gratified that, so far in this debate, so much unanimity has been shown. We all wish to encourage anything that will stimulate or lubricate Empire settlement. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) will allow me to say that I think the Bill shows some slight signs of hasty drafting, bravely tackled. I would like to draw attention to two or three omissions in the original scheme which I think will be remedied by this Bill. It is now to be defined perfectly clearly that Empire settlement will Include settlement in Great Britain just as Empire trade includes trade in Great Britain. I remember on one occasion at a public meeting being much surprised because a member of the audience hesitated about supporting my remarks on Empire trade, because he was under the illusion that Empire trade did not include trade in Great Britain. If this illusion really needs disposing of the sooner it is made quite plain in an Act of Parliament the better. To say that Empire settlement is to include settlement in Great Britain is only another way of saying that testing for work overseas should go hand in hand with testing for work in this country. I hope that before beginning the testing of a man for work of this kind it will not be laid down as a condition that he must pledge himself to go overseas.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston seemed to object to the idea of miners or town employés being trained for agricultural work, but, judging from all the information which I got in Australia, the opinion is that miners might make extremely good agricultural workers, and therefore I do not see why any scheme under this Bill should not be directed to assisting some of our miners who are unemployed, especially younger men and families. I also observe that one of the great difficulties about overseas settlement is the lack of houses, and that has a serious effect in checking migration. I think the Secretary of State might possibly do something to promote the building of houses in specially selected areas overseas. Those are all suggestions which might suitably be borne in mind in any general scheme of Empire settlement.

I now come to Clause 2, which deals with finance. The Secretary of State has rather discouraged any further application for financial assistance at the present time beyond the fifty-fifty contribution. I know the problem is a difficult one. This House often finds itself in the position of hon. Members requiring more money for their own special enthusiasms, an in one sense it is commendable to find the Secretary of State in the opposite category. For these reasons I do not wish to press for the provisions under Clause 2. I hope that the Secretary of State will secure full discretion in regard to the application of the fifty-fifty contribution. In 1922, when the sum of £3,000,000 a year was determined by Parliament, that was considered to be an adequate contribution, and I do not see any reason why the full amount of that sum should not be spent in his discretion. I know that the Treasury is supposed to act as a watch-dog in financial matters. In a bout between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for the Dominions, I think I ought to put my money on the Secretary of State, and I would willingly offer to act as one of his seconds. Under the fifty-fifty contribution, I think there are various matters in regard to which the Secretary of State could usefully employ his discretion. Something has been said about voluntary societies. I am sure that their co-operation is very essential. They have done much useful work already, and might be encouraged in the form of judicious assistance from the Secretary of State to do more.

Again, he might assist the after-care of migrants by similar means. He might also assist what I might call the Empire education of children—the giving to them of more knowledge of the adventurous history and pioneering of our Empire than, let us say, the far-away interests of Norman history. Once more, he might encourage the building of railways in different parts of the Overseas Dominions. It is sometimes suggested that Overseas Governments would be willing to give grants of unoccupied land for the use of migrants, and the home Government might assist towards the making of railways which might develop such land. I would sum up the position in regard to Clause 2 by saying that I hope that in Empire matters the Treasury watch dog will continually bear in mind the big view. There is something so inspiring in the idea of Empire migration and development that I trust the Treasury will not put an undue check upon it.

With reference to the subject of the Unemployment Fund, I do not want to press that matter. We have heard from the Secretary of State that he does not think that the means proposed in the Bill would be very workable or convenient. I gather that the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Agriculture take the same view, and also the hon. Member for Roth- well (Mr. Lunn), and, in these circumstances, I do not feel inclined to attach overwhelming importance to that particular Sub-section. There is, however, one Clause in the Bill about which something has been said already, and in regard to which I want to add a word, namely, the Clause which proposes the appointment of an administrative Board of five persons. It may be that this is a practicable and useful plan, but I think it will need thought before it is definitely put into operation. From what was said by my hon. Friend who moved the Second Reading, I gather that he contemplates a kind of general manager, like a shipping manager or a railway manager, and members on the Board who would make it a whole-time job. The question might be raised as to whether there were Dominion representatives on the Board or not, and that, I suspect, might possibly give rise to some discussion. I would not wish to turn down the idea of setting up such a Board, but I cannot help thinking that another alternative is an experiment in re-organising to some extent the Department of the present Oversea Settlement Committee.

It has come to the knowledge of some of us from different sources that the Oversea Settlement Committee is not considered, in all quarters of the Empire, to be a perfect body. It has the reputation in some quarters of being ill-organised, of being apt to concentrate upon comparative trivialities, of being weak in decision, lacking in grip and motive power, and showing absence of individuality. I should not for a moment suggest that that was the fault of the Secretary of State. He is, if I may say so, the embodiment of activity and excellence, and whatever he personally directs in Imperial affaire is almost unfailingly a success; but the internal organisation of a Committee of that kind is not a matter that he can directly supervise. If it be true that these views, which are of long standing in some quarters, are held, I would suggest that, if the Migration Board which is proposed under this Bill is not to be established, then some rather drastic reorganisation of the Department itself would be desirable. The fact that this House is ready to give a Second Reading to this Bill unanimously, with reservations as regards some of its proposals, does show a remarkable change of opinion as compared with 10 or 20 years ago. There is a change in public opinion in favour of improving and fostering schemes of migration, not only on this side of the House but among practically all hon. Gentlemen opposite. We are all ready to pull together in a non-party effort; and it is this big view, this inspiration of Empire, this desire to welcome the pioneering spirit, which makes the future so encouraging. I beg to support the Second Reading of this Bill.

We are indebted to the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) for bringing this subject before the House to-day. I think we should have frequent Debates on the subject of emigration. As the Minister rightly pointed out, this Bill must not be taken as a Bill for the relief of unemployment, but rather as one to assist in the more scientific redistribution of our people throughout the Empire. We all welcome the inclusion of Britain within the Empire for the first time, at least officially. In regard to the other details of the Bill, I must say I share the view of the right hon. Gentleman that the present difficulty is not so much one of machinery as of the position in the Dominions. In regard to Canada, I am very glad to see that the people in authority there are beginning to realise that something must be done on their part to make conditions more attractive and secure, so that we can more encourage our people to go there. The Canadian Government is faced, of course, with a difficult problem. They have a climate which makes outside work impossible in many parts for several months in the year, and the problem of suitable employment for farm and land workers during those months is not an easy one. We know that conditions in Winnipeg and other towns in Canada in winter, the amount of unemployment, and the fact that there is no poor or unemployment relief, make the position one which we cannot contemplate with any satisfaction, and, as I have said, I am glad to know that the importance of remedying these deficiencies and disabilities is being recognised by the Canadian Government.

There is also another matter which I think is of very great importance, and that is the number of aliens who are being admitted into Canada at the present time. As internationalists, we on this side of the House have no objection to people of any country going to Canada. We are, however, somewhat suspicious that one of the attractions for Canadian farmers and other employers of these people is the fact that they have a low standard of life, and will accept low wages and poor conditions. Our people who go out there have to compete with and live alongside of these people, and, therefore, are at a great disadvantage. One is suspicious that it is because these people are prepared, during the winter months, to put up with simply getting food and lodgings in barns or places of that kind, without any wages at all, that they are as welcome as they are. I think that matter also should be considered. Then, again, there is no doubt that there is a very substantial number of failures in Canada of people who go on the land. Many small farmers in Canada are heavily in debt to the banks, and, if they have a bad crop—and they are subject there to the rust pest and various other troubles—they may get into financial difficulties and have to give up possession. I think that new and better arrangements in regard to loans and security for these small farmers might enable many of them to weather storms which at present compel a number of them to give up.

In regard to family schemes for Canada, while I am quite glad to see these are going on, my own feeling is that Canada is more a country for young men, and that it is a little dangerous for families to go there unless very careful arrangements as to what is to happen to them are made on the other side. It is not a fair test of success to say that only so many families come back. The reason in many cases is that they cannot get back—they have not the money to come back—so you cannot say because only so many families come back out of so many who went out, therefore they must have been successful, because it is not true.

Anyone who has been to Australia, or who has studied the subject, must agree that Australia very much needs population, and I think the Labour party of Australia quite realise that. The introducer of the Bill made some comments on the attitude of the Labour party in Australia to migration. We must re- member the very important fact that the workers in Australia have a standard of life which good judges believe is 20 or 25 per cent, above the standard of life of the working people of this country. They have built up that standard by organisation and by very great effort, and they are naturally fearful of anything that will bring it down. It is a very interesting point that we have not realised here that these long years of unemployment since the War, and the knowledge of the distress and privation of our people, have had a very important psychological effect on the Dominions. They perhaps exaggerate the very bad conditions which we have had, and they are simply terrified that any wholesale dumping of unemployed in Australia will reduce them to the same condition. We believe that, to a very large extent, their fears are unjustified, but we think also that any arrangement for transference of workers to Australia certainly requires careful consideration.

Another difficulty in Australia more than in Canada is the fact that there is very little cheap land which settlers can have. In the southern states of Australia land is very expensive. In some parts of Victoria £40 to £60 an acre is asked for good dairy land. It is really only in Queensland and West Australia that any substantial amount of land is available for settlement. There is no doubt also that there is considerable land hunger among the Australians themselves and there are many complaints of land being held up and not economically or fully used in these southern parts. Another great difficulty in Australia is the cost of putting people on the land. In West Australia, where there is a most promising scheme of group settlement, it costs round about £2,000 to put a family on the land. If you can imagine—what would be desirable in Australia—500,000 or a million new families becoming settled—the cost would be prohibitive. That is a matter which has to do with Australia herself and with her own domestic and financial arrangements, and its adjustment would enable them to be in a position to welcome more of our people. I agree with what has been said about the housing of the people. The wife of the settler is a very important factor, and we found over and over again that while the man was quite satisfied and fairly happy, the woman, isolated, in perhaps a temporary erection, became discontented and, as the woman usually has her way, the poor man had to move into an adjacent town and try to start a new career.

There is another matter that one must frankly face in talking, especially about Australia, and to a certain extent about Canada. We heard about hosiery workers going out, and we find that in Australia certain workers are being welcomed for secondary industries. The kind of industrial workers who are being welcomed are those who will teach the Australians so that they may be able to compete against us in their home market, and ultimately lessen employment in this country. I think we shall need to face quite straightforwardly, in discussion with our Dominions, the whole question of some approximation to free trade within the Empire, because there is no doubt that the high tariffs are preventing the prosperity and success of the primary producers, especially in Australia. They are making the agricultural problem very difficult. After all, the question of emigration to Australia has been largely in the past and should be also in the future, of settling people on the land. The position of the land worker, the smallholder, and the dairy farmer in Australia is becoming increasingly difficult, owing to the high cost of living, and I think the whole question must be faced. There is no doubt preliminary training here is the most desirable thing. Those people we met in Australia engaged in settlements, who were trained in Catterick, were much happier and more efficient and successful than those who had no training at all. The 50–50 arrangement as regards training might be met by the Dominions having similar training establishments in their countries to which the immigrants could go for a short time after their training here. They could get a general training here suitable for any country, and when they landed, get a training more specifically suited for either Canada or Australia, or wherever it was.

The Seconder of the Bill spoke about 90 per cent, of our unemployed being of good physique. I wish that were true, but unfortunately it is not, and if one could see the figures of rejection on physical grounds of those who are seeking to enter the labour training centres, one would be as surprised and disappointed as we have been at the figures for recruits for the Army. During the years of unemployment since the War there has been a very definite loss of physique among our people, and that perhaps has also had an effect in regard to emigration, because we know that the qualities of adventure and initiative and force of character which are associated with those who make successful emigrants cannot be developed among a half starved people. Therefore I think if we, instead of spending these hundreds of millions we have spent on inadequate unemployment and poor relief, had seen to it that we provided decent-paid work for our unemployed we should have kept the physique and the health of our people better and we should have had a greater reservoir for emigration. It is well known, that the most successful emigrants are those who have been fairly prosperous here. It is not when things are bad here and when there is a lot of unemployment that we get the most emigration. It is when things are good, in the most prosperous years, that we get more emigrants and more of the best type of emigrants, those who are prepared to pay for their passage and who have a little behind them and who go out in the true spirit of adventure, and not simply because it is the only thing left for them to do after a miserable and disappointing experience here.

The object of Empire Settlement is to get a more even distribution of the white population of the Empire in the bast interests of the Empire. It was with that object that the Empire Settlement Act was passed in 1922. The hon. Member for Rothwell (Mr. Lunn) has said, and, I think, quite rightly, that the Act has worked well, but at the same time—and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State has admitted this—the results of the Act have not been as great as he had hoped for, or as he had anticipated. It is the interest and the keenness which so many Members of this House, not only on this side of the House, but, I believe, on all sides of the House, feel with regard to this matter that induced my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) to take the opportunity of his luck in the ballot to introduce a Bill with the hope of trying further to promote the cause which we all have so much at heart. My hon. Friend explained all the hindrances and the difficulties that there have been with regard to emigration since the Act was passed. Undoubtedly, one of the chief difficulties has been that the principal requirements of labour in the Dominions are agricultural workers while in this country we have absolutely no surplus at all of agricultural workers. We have in certain districts and in certain times of the year, even a dearth of agricultural workers.

The right hon. Gentleman told us that during his recent tour he impressed upon all the Dominion Governments which he met that we were not trying to solve our unemployment in this country by palming off on to them unemployed people here, and that he impressed upon them that it was not our desire to press people to go overseas when they did not wish to go. At the same time we have to remember that the rapid development of the untapped resources of the Empire is an advantage to us all. I think it is our duty to try to arrange, in conjunction with our Dominions, economic schemes for the development of those untapped resources and to try to make such schemes attractive to our people here, and especially attractive to those people in this country who, unfortunately, are out of work. While we have no dearth of agricultural labourers, there is no doubt, I am afraid, that we are likely to have a very large number of surplus miners. As the uneconomic pits close down we shall have to find alternative work for many of the men who are bound to be displaced in that industry.

I would like to say a few words this afternoon with regard to afforestation and with regard to the development of forestry throughout our Empire, having in view the possibilities that are offered for employing a certain number, at all events, of our unfortunate and displaced miners. As a matter of fact, I cannot conceive a man who is likely to make a better forester after a little training than the miner. He has been accustomed underground—the hewer of coal at all events— to use very much the same sort of tool as the planter above ground. He has been accustomed to hard manual labour, and if only you can give him a little training it seems to me that you can very quickly give him a very happy employment and turn him into a first class forester.

3.0 p.m.

We have a Forestry Commission in this country whose activities are increasing, and, I believe, will increase very much during the next few years. It seems to me even under this 50–50 arrangement that it could be arranged between the Department of Overseas Settlement and the Forestry Commission, that a certain number of these people were taken over by the Forestry Commission for training and for testing, and that during their period of short training it could be found out whether they were likely to make suitable foresters in the Dominions and, at all events, they themselves would have the opportunity of knowing whether they could like the work if they went abroad, or whether it did not appeal to them. The Forestry Sub-Committee of the Imperial Economic Conference stated that there was a distinct possibility for developing schemes of settlement in connection with State forestry. We have proved in this country without doubt that land settlement can be carried on concurrently with afforestation. Our Forestry Commission in this country have, coupled with their schemes of afforestation, gone in for schemes of forest workers' homes which are proving extremely successful. The object of these forest workers holdings in this country are not to give a man a small holding which shall be a whole-time small holding, but to give him a permanent residence in the neighbourhood of the forest in which he shall be able to devote part of his time to looking after his stock or cultivating his little portion of land. The Forestry Commission guarantee the men whom they place on its holdings 150 days' work in the course of the year. The whole object is to try to settle in the neighbourhood of the forest men who are identified with the forest, men who are interested in the work, and to provide men whose work will always be available, and to provide skilled work. If land settlement in conjunction with forestry has been proved a success in this country, it seems to me that it might be very successfully attempted in our Dominions overseas.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the schemes which he has been consider- ing with the Migration and Development Committee in Australia. I hope that amongst these schemes he has been considering have been afforestation schemes. At any rate, the Imperial Forestry Conference, which is held every three or four years, is to be held in Australia this summer, and I hope when that Conference meets that the representatives of the various parts of the Empire will consider schemes of afforestation in their various Dominions, not only from the point of view of developing these Dominions, but from the point of view of attracting migrants from this country. It seems to me that afforestation is vital to the future of the Empire, because if one looks at the future position of the timber supplies, not only of the Empire, but of the whole world, one realises that unless not only we here, but every part of the Empire, take steps very quickly to meet the situation, we shall be faced with a world shortage of soft woods. In Europe the consumption of soft woods exceeds the growth by about 3,000,000 cubic feet.

In Great Britain practically all our requirements of timber come from overseas. In the case of Canada so much forest has been lost by fire and such an enormous quantity by disease—these matters have only been tackled in Canada within the last few years—and the consumption is now so great, that it is estimated that the virgin forests of Canada will have been entirely worked out within 20 or 25 years. After that time, Canada will have to depend upon forests which have either been replanted or regenerated. I remember that when Mr. Stevens, the late Minister of Finance and Commerce in Canada, was over here, last December, he addressed the members of the Empire Parliamentary Association and emphasised the necessity and the advantage to us of developing the huge forest resources of Canada, which at the present time are being exploited by Americans and are gradually getting into the hands of the Americans., These resources ought to be exploited by British capital and British labour.

The forests in Australia are sadly depleted and Australia is now importing £4,000,000 worth of timber every year, or thereabouts. They have a forestry programme in Australia and are planting about 6,000 acres a year. They have also got as far as earmarking for afforestation and suitable for afforestation, ten or eleven million acres of land. We might arrange with the State Governments or with the Federal Government to accelerate the afforestation of those ten or eleven million acres, and to send out people from this country in order to do that work. Afforestation from the Empire point of view is such that every part of the Empire is faced with a shortage of soft woods. We have all to develop our resources. The resources of Canada and Australia are enormous. This work, it seems to me, would be attractive to many men in this country who have been displaced through no fault of their own, and I believe that many of those men would make excellent foresters, with a little training. I hope that the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Overseas Settlement Committee and the Imperial Forestry Conference, will consider such schemes and try to promote them with the object of increasing migration from this country.

There are a few points which I should like to emphasise. I am in agreement with the general main purpose of Clause 1, but with regard to the setting up of a central board, I have at the present time an open mind. If I could see any machinery which was likely to be more efficient or act more speedily than the present arrangement I should certainly give it careful consideration. It is not quite understood how much of a coordinating Committee the Overseas Committee is now. You get automatic representation of various Departments of State, the shipping companies, women's societies, and also direct representation of the Government and the Opposition of the day, whatever that Government and Opposition may be. Automatic representation on the Committee is exceedingly right in a matter of this kind.

With regard to the question of child migration I am strongly of opinion that we must pay very careful attention to the attitude of the Dominions, particularly of Canada, in regard to their own child problem and that we should not attempt to force the migration of children from this country as long as it can be shown that they have orphan asylums filled with their own children who only want an opportunity of being placed in any openings that may occur. This was stressed in my presence by a group of social workers when I met them during my tour through Canada. Also, I am convinced, in relation to the educational opportunities, that while in many of the larger centres in Canada these opportunities are better from the elementary school point of view than they are in this country, that cannot be said of the agricultural districts. The education of the child in some of these areas is entirely a matter of chance. If the farmers are well off they will provide the necessary money for a teacher, but if they are not they shut down the school without the slightest hesitation and, therefore, it is preferable that our children should have the advantage of our own elementary school education until the age for leaving school, whatever that may be. There is another aspect of the question, and that is the young children who are taken out not for the purposes of being placed at work. I have nothing to say against that so long as they are not competing in the labour market and are not suffering definite educational disadvantages by leaving school before they reach the leaving age.

The notion which seems to have cropped up during this Debate is that migrants should be confined to the working classes of this country. I do not see why there should not be certain numbers from every class or section in the community. Those who have had greater educational opportunities ought to be the first to take their coats off and do this pioneer work, and I have no patience with those people who imagine that you have to be poor and destitute before you will consider whether you will take a hand in the development of these new countries. They do not want slackers and parasites; they want people who recognise that the work is hard and that it is often done under very severe conditions. In connection with that I have made appeals to the educated women of this country to take up work which is described as domestic; women, who will understand the nature of this work in these new lands. We in the old country are suffering from the development of urban communities, built up of slums and overcrowded areas, the absence of any town planning, shockingly bad housing accommodation, where the majority of women have to do their work in a workshop which was never built for the purpose; in their kitchens badly arranged. I see no reason, taking a large district like that which has been referred to, an area of 200 miles of country which is going to be developed, why women should not be allowed to go out; why they should not be encouraged to take a hand from the very foundation in seeing to it not merely that houses are built as they ought to be built, not merely that drains are laid down and electric power supplied so as to be available for the women in the house as well as far the farm, but also that a new type of city shall be built, so that we may be able to avoid many of the problems with which we are faced in this country.

It is from the standpoint of the opportunity that offers in the new lands for a new kind of town building and city building, that I am so anxious that we should have the greater elasticity which this first Clause proposes for the Empire Settlement Act. We cannot get that kind of thing unless we have a far wider system of training at home here. I am convinced that the system here is not going to give us the quality of migrant that we need, unless we break down all the barriers that confine the training to watertight compartments. What is the kind of thing that we aim at in training? It is greater adaptability, the development of character and personality, and the chance to show initiative. It does not matter in what you train a man; the more varied the nature of the training the better for man or woman. I pay my tribute to the arrangement which has been made for training at Market Harborough. It is in the right direction. We have at least a few fields there and a kitchen garden. That is a great advance over many of the training centres provided for women. It is the only training centre provided for women in this country which has recognised that there should be an ever widening definition of domestic work. When we go overseas and we see what the woman has to face when she gets there, when we see what she has to do if the husband falls ill, that she has, as it were, to go and take a grip of the farm and to be ready for any emergency that may arise, we realise that what we want is further training centres for women in this country, centres as broadly based as it is possible to make them, land training schemes for women to enable those of enterprise and spirit and initiative quite voluntarily to dedicate their lives to this kind of work. There are women who could take up this kind of work without in the least interfering with the number of women who remain. When we are talking about the possibility of the development of secondary industries in Canada arid Australia, we cannot help recognising that one of the greatest mistakes we made in our industry was to neglect the primary industries in this country during the time that we were building up secondary industries. We are suffering to-day from the fact that we plunged away from agriculture and regarded that as of no importance compared with the development of industry. We shall suffer probably for that for a few generations. I think we have sense enough to adjust the balance. If we were able to get greater elasticity and flexibility of movement in connection with overseas settlement, if we had £2,000,000 immediately operative for emigration purposes, that would help us with our own immediate problem at home in the matter of transferring labour from one district to another, probably via some far more drastic system of training centres than anything we have now.

I want to give my tribute to the newer developments that are taking place. I recognise that they are movements in the right direction. I regard the boys' training centre as entirely right. I would like to see that work extended, particularly in areas where the centres would help young boys connected with the mining industry. I would like to see a great extension of the principles on which the Market Harborough Home for Women is conducted. That institution should be recognised as a great potential influence in relation to the primary industry of agriculture, in Canada and Australia as well as in our own country.

I am glad to be able to say something on behalf of this Bill and I regret exceedingly that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Dominions has thrown cold water upon it. I have lived in the tropics, only a few days from Australia, and I know that when a native child is born it is immediately put into cold water. If the child survives well and good; if not it goes under. I sincerely hope that this child may survive and I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman himself seems to share that hope. I think, however, although the right hon. Gentleman knows more about emigration than anybody else, he does not realise what many people outside are thinking about it:— matter? I ask the attention of the House to the words:

It is not only myself who grouses. I have been to Portsmouth lately and to other places, and it is the one thing that I hear up and down the country. We had a Committee two years ago, when we sat and looked into this thing, and there too we were dissatisfied. I admit candidly that there are difficulties, but I believe that, if we had the Board that is suggested in Clause 3 of the Bill, it would be a very satisfactory thing, and that we should have on it people who have spent a great deal of time in studying the problem. The hon. Member on the Front Opposition Bench said they had very pleasurable and nice meetings. That may be—we have very pleasurable meetings in this House from time to time— but are they beneficial? They sit there and have a chat, they all agree, and nothing is done. Our complaint is that there is not sufficient done by the emigration authorities, not necessarily to send people to Australia or Canada, but to aid people who want to go there. If a Member of Parliament cannot get a fellow who is fit to go to Australia seen by our own authorities, you can imagine what chance anybody outside has.

During the absence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, there was a letter in the "Times," written by Lord Beatty, on the question of migration with regard to naval men. It was written on 24th January, and I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would have the letter turned up, because it is very much to the point, and I agree with every word of it. We do not ask charity from Australia, but we say to them that if they do not get on with populating Australia themselves, the yellow races out there will get on with it for them. The yellow races must have an outlet somewhere, and there you have a beautiful country, unpopulated, with plenty of scope for any who may wish to go there, and in their own interests, if for no other reason, and not merely as a dumping ground for our unemployed, as has been suggested, I hope our authorities will do all that they possibly can to let them realise the situation. Were it not for our own British fleet, as has been so ably said by the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville), Australia would already be populated with yellow people. They do not seem to realise that they are dependent upon us to a certain extent, and although I am just as friendly towards the Australians as towards any other of the British—I have indeed had the pleasure of doing services for them, and on no fewer than three occasions I have been thanked by the Australian Government for services I have rendered to them, and I would willingly do so again—nevertheless, this is a dual problem. The Dominions and we are copartners, and we have just as much right to our say as they have to theirs. I sincerely hope my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will do his very utmost to see that, though this Bill undoubtedly would have to be amended, the idea contained in it is pushed forward as much as possible, because I believe that that idea is all to the good of this country as well as of the Dominions overseas.

Having just had an opportunity of going round the Dominions with the Secretary of State, and having heard the remarks that have been made by various speakers, I would like to say a. few words about some of the difficulties which, I think, obtain in the Dominions-with regard to migration and settlement. There is no doubt that a large portion of the population, both of Australia and of Canada, is anxious for the settlement of people from this country, but it is realised that one of the most important things with regard to it is that it is no good sending people out to the Dominions to settle there unless what they are going to produce in those Dominions can be sold in the markets of the world, or in the mother country or in their own markets. Therefore, one of the things we ought to consider very carefully with regard to migration is this question of markets—the ability of this country and of the world generally to absorb what is being produced by those migrants, and, in regard to that matter, the Empire Marketing Board is doing a great deal of good by pushing Empire products. As the House knows, it has been organising Empire shopping weeks, and so on, and it is interesting to know that the shopping weeks are not only going on in this country, but that the principle is being copied by the Dominion of Canada,

There is another point with regard to migration and settlement of which, I think, possibly, hon. Members have not thought, and that is the question of finance. This 50–50 scheme is very good in its way, but it is a little difficult for some of the Dominion Governments to persuade their own electors that a 50–50 scheme is going to help them very much. I think that rather applies to Canada more than anywhere else. As we know, the present Government of Canada have a great deal of support in the Province of Quebec from the French Canadians. However much the French Canadians are anxious to help the Empire, I do not think that it is going to be very easy for the Federal Government of Canada to persuade the French Canadians in Quebec that 50–50 money to be spent on settlement is going to help them very much.

I have been asked during the Secretary of State's tour what sort of migration I consider to be the best. I came to the conclusion in going round all the Dominions that the best form of migration was the settlement of the youth, the child and the family. I think that children can be absorbed more easily into a country, as they go into it before they have got into a groove in the old country. I quite agree with what my right hon. Friend has said, that there is a misunderstanding over there that we are trying to send our unemployed into the Dominions to get rid of people we do not want in this country. I want to see if I can the migration of the younger generation. Migration is bound to be a gradual thing. We cannot settle a very large number of people at one time, and I do feel that the position of this country is really a serious one if one looks into the question of how we are to support this big population of 45,000,000 people. In looking into the Board of Trade returns, I notice that the actual surplus of imports over exports was no less than £392,000,000. What we are really doing is to live on the interest of the money which has been invested by this country in years gone by, and, if that investment were taken away, it would be impossible for this country to support its 45,000,000 people. We received in interest last year £270,000,000, with which we paid for the food and raw material which came into the country. It will be realised that with our present population we are living on the capital which has been previously invested, and, if any disaster occurred and that capital were taken away, we should not be able to support anything like 45,000,000 people.

The question of Empire settlement, therefore, is a very important one. It is a question which will go on for many years. We have been told that the number of people coming into employable age is decreasing. That is undoubtedly the case. Gradually the number of people who will come into employment is going down. Up to 1931 the figure for males coming into employable age is about 140,000 a year. After 1931 it will go down to about 75,000. We ought to take this matter very seriously and consider whether some bigger scheme might not be brought forward to help Empire settlement. I was thinking during the tour whether it would not be possible to encourage manufacturers in the old country to go into the new countries, taking with them some of their employés, and building up in the new countries the same kind of employment which they carried on in the old country. I was impressed by the fact that in almost every Dominion we visited all the motor cars which we saw were American made. I feel that if the makers of cars, for instance, could combine in this country and go to Australia or to New Zealand to assemble cars, taking with them quite a large number of people, and building up works over there, we could transplant a certain number of people gradually in the Dominions, and in that way build up strong and healthy British races all over the world.

I believe that this Bill has arisen in truth, because my hon. Friend has rightly interpreted the feeling held by many Members of this House that the existing Overseas Settlement Act, about which some hon. Members have been very complacent, does not work as successfully as some of us would wish. There can be no question that there is a strong feeling not only here, but in the Dominions, that it would do no harm if we were to see whether that Act needed some amendment. If it only results in stirring up a certain amount of discussion round the provisions of the Overseas Settlement Act, the present Bill will have done good. To my mind the most important item in this Bill is that dealing with training. There are two definite schools of thought in the Dominions about training. There are people who say they would rather have a migrant come to Australia, for instance, without any training whatever, preferring to do the training there. I know that is a view held by some hon. Members who have wide experience, but it is not a view which I share—not because it may not be that when a migrant gets out there the training can be most suitably and quickly done, but because we have to consider not only the man who employs the migrant but also the migrant himself. From his point of view there can be no question that if he has had a certain amount of training, or testing, which, I agree, is a better word, before he leaves, his position is very much stronger than if he has had none.

What I would like my right hon. Friend to tell us, though I am afraid he will not be able to do so, as he has already spoken once, is that the various training schemes will be coordinated. There are several good schemes, including the Catterick scheme and the scheme of the Minister of Labour, and he told us some time ago that he was having an examination made into the length of time for which course under those schemes should be kept in operation, the length of time for which a man should undergo training, nine or ten weeks. I hope that as a result of this Bill we may now have a coordinated scheme under which the period of training shall be the same, and the system of training shall be roughly the same, as may be agreed upon by the various Dominions. At present we feel there is a certain amount of overlapping on this all-important matter. We want training for two reasons, first, that we may eliminate those who are not likely to succeed, for nothing could be worse than to send out a man who is not likely to be successful; and, secondly, we want to ensure that those who do go shall have the maximum chance of success; and if they have had a period of testing—rough testing, if you will—for nine or ten weeks it is at least possible to know if they are men of the type who are likely to be successful.

Finally, I would say this about these training schemes. The hon. Lady who was Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Labour in the last Government has spoken of schemes for women. My right hon. Friend told us some time ago that he had under consideration a scheme for women under which Australia was willing to go 50–50 with us from the financial point of view, and I hope that before long we shall have some news of that scheme. Further, I hope that as a result of this Bill we shall be able to do what is, after all, the only thing the State can do, and that is, to reduce the number of failures to a minimum. The State is very limited in regard to what it can do in matters of migration. We are far too apt to believe that everything to further migration lies in the power of the State, whether here, or in Australia or Canada. Nothing of the kind. Economic influences outside our control dominate migration. We cannot turn it on as a tap, though we can turn it off, but what we can do is to ensure that the stream when it is running flows into the correct channel. I believe this new Bill will assist us to do that, and that is why I hope that when it goes upstairs my right hon. Friend will be as sympathetic to it as he can. Although there may be mistakes in the drafting of the Bill, I am certain the spirit behind it is the right one, and that if it be interpreted correctly it will help us to get rid of the difficulties which are-hindering us to-day in a solution of this problem.

About three and a half months ago I had to go to Waterloo Station to meet a family coming home from the Colonies. They were not the only family that arrived at Waterloo on that particular afternoon from the Colonies. We have been told that 300 families have returned from the Dominions in a few years. The family I had to meet was one of 70 families, and these are families which were assisted to emigrate some four or five years ago. There were many other families who did not come within the migration scheme, and consequently do not come within the records of the Colonial Office. Two things have emerged from this discussion. Firstly, that migration as such is no cure for unemployment at home; and secondly, it is no use as a means of colonisation. I am going to show that migration as such is not a cure for unemployment at home nor is it a means of colonisation. As a matter of fact we have as many people in Britain to-day who have been out to Australia and have returned to this' country as the total population of that Dominion at the present time. Therefore, there must be something wrong about migration. I brought back the family I have referred to at my own cost out of my meagre savings.

I wish to speak upon a question which I have never heard touched upon in this House before in regard to colonisation. The ablest book which I have read on colonisation deals with the question of sanitation, and that is a subject which I do not think has been discussed before in this House. I agree with the doctor who wrote that book, who said that he met many of these people in the streets, and they told him that they had made up their minds to come back to England. He asked them the reason for this. He asked them if the hours of work were too long or the wages bad, but he could get no answer except that they were determined to come home. Hon. Members will find the reason described in the book to which I have alluded, and it is bad sanitation. The Colonial Secretary will have noticed during his world tour that those Colonies which had paid attention to sanitation have increased in numbers during the last 20 years.

I now come to the Bill itself and the remarks which have been made about it by the Colonial Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman has discouraged the setting up of the proposed Board under this Bill, and he pointed out that what has taken place here under the intermittent efforts to deal with this problem is of no use whatever. I notice that many hon. Members have made their speeches and have gone away, but if we are to be a real deliberative assembly I think we should apply much more of our time to this important matter. Mr. Bruce said that intermittent effort was of no use, but I regret that the right hon. Gentleman has discouraged the setting up of the Board provided for in this Bill. With regard to the provision in the Bill for the appropriation of unemployment benefit, I only want to say that we on this side of the House have never been in favour of that, and, as a matter of fact, it would be entirely illegal without legislation.

I now come to the question, Is emigration a cure for unemployment? I know a country that would be the happiest and wealthiest in the world if emigration were a cure for unemployment. The land in which I spent a part of my boyhood sent annually, from 1847 till 1900, on an average, 54,000 emigrants from her shores. Those are the figures for 53 years in the case of Ireland. Did it cure unemployment? Did it make the country richer? No. As has been said by one of my hon. Friends this afternoon, emigration is not a means of making a country wealthy. On the contrary, it destroys the market at home, which is our most valuable asset. Emigration as such is no cure whatever for unemployment. I am not speaking with any bitterness, because, happily, the time for bitterness is past, but this country missed the chance of colonising that she had during all those years. It has been stated in various parts of the House that it now costs from £500 to £1,000 to take a family to Australia under a colonisation scheme. Australia, instead of having a population of only 7,000,000 to-day, could have had a population of 20,000,000, not at a cost of £500 per family, but at a very much less cost. In those days, however, this House was not concerned with the question of Empire settlement. I cannot help thinking I am right in saying that it was biased—I am not as I have said, speaking with any bitterness—that a mistake was made then; and I am afraid that a mistake is being made now in this very question.

The Mover and Seconder of the Bill, and several other speakers, told the House that a system of State enterprise would be a very good thing; the taking over of a few thousand acres in Canada or in Australia was mentioned, and the development of those acres to provide a means of colonisation. I do not know whether the hon. Members who made that suggestion are really serious in it or not, because I regard it as State Socialism, and I would ask the Mover and Seconder of the Bill why, if they are in favour of that sort of thing as far as the Colonies are concerned, they do not start it at home. Other speakers have told us that we are short of agricultural labourers in this country. That is true; we do not want to send agricultural labourers abroad; we require them here at home, and the means of keeping them here at home, and of keeping them out of the towns is to develop the land, to do, in short, for England what was done by this House for Ireland. Everyone who has been in Ireland lately knows that it is now quite common to see along the roadside farm labourers living in houses which are really their own, or which are well on the way to being paid for. The land schemes passed by this House for Ireland transcend altogether anything that we have done for England, Scotland or Wales. If we would apply ourselves first of all to our land at home, and to our own markets, the question of unemployment would to some extent be solved. Those who had a desire to go to the Colonies could do so, and I do not for a moment discourage the idea; if I were young I should probably be there again; but we would fit those men to take their part in Colonial life.

With regard to markets, I frequently meet at my hotel a Lincolnshire farmer, and he complains bitterly that to-day farming does not pay. He points out the reasons for it, and also the fact that in Lincolnshire there is fairly good land to be had at a rent of as little as 5s. an acre. He emphasises over and over again this question of adequate marketing and co-operative marketing at home. If we would apply ourselves here at home to the land, we should take from the industrial centres part of the increased population that drifted in from the land during the War years, when we were calling for munition workers. May I remind the House what was done by a former Premier. It was an astonishment to everyone when Lord Balfour, then Mr. Balfour, went to Ireland in the coercion days. The Government was very unpopular nearly all over Ireland. He went to the Western parts of Ireland and the peasant people loosed the horses out of his coach and took him away up to the mountains for hours. He did not quite realise what was the matter. The papers were full of it. That was because Mr. Balfour had done for the Western fisher people what 10 Home Rule Bills could never have done. He had constructed the light railways that enabled the fish to be placed on the Dublin market. I ask again, if State Socialism is advocated by hon. Members opposite for our Colonies, why not make a start with it at home?

In the two minutes that remain at my disposal I I want to say, as emphatically as I can, I do not believe it is held on this side of the House, any more than by the hon. Member who has just spoken, that migration is in itself a cure for unemployment. No doubt it is what I might call a secondary cure, in that it will improve trade in the Dominions and thereby, we hope, improve trade in this country as well, but the mere dumping of population from this country into the Dominions is not a process advocated, as far as I am aware, by anyone on this side, nor do we for a moment believe any such policy would be a cure for unemployment even if it was possible, and quite clearly and obviously it is not possible. I should like to draw attention to the fact that at any rate in Canada the number of foreign arrivals is very rapidly outstripping the number of Britishers. That is an extremely serious affair, and it is for that reason, as far as Canada at any rate is concerned, that I hope the Minister will under the Bill be able to give some form of discretion in the matter of the 50–50 financial arrangement. I believe it is at least as great an advantage to us to put people into Canada as it is to them to receive them, and I go further and say from the point of view of this country it is even a greater advantage. Therefore I think we ought to be prepared, if necessary, to spend more to get our own people into our own Dominions rather than let them be flooded with people from other parts of Europe, both from the point of view of keeping the British stock as pure as possible and also to prevent the spread in our own Dominions of people who are willing to work more cheaply than our people will and thereby help to undercut us.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.

Adjourned at One Minute after Four o'Clock, until Monday next, 27th February.