THE LAND SETTLEMENT OF EX-SERVICE MEN IN THE DOMINIONS.* THIS
need of a more productive cultivation of the land of the British Isles has its counterpart on a large scale in the Dominions. If it is necessary for our safety that agriculture should be more productive here, the same thing is true in a still wider sense of the Empire as a whole. There is a good opportunity now for settling ex-Servicemen upon the land in the Dominions, partly because there is still a large number of ex-Service men searching for a livelihood, and partly because those Dominions which were indifferent to British immigration, or which even actively discouraged it, as in the case of Australia a few years ago, have now changed- their opinions. All the Dominions are anxious to receive British settlers of good character. The rulers of our Dominions, sturdy democrats though they are, do not in the least share the petrifying opinions of many of our Labour leaders here who think that the more men there are at work the less money there will be to go round. Onr Dominion Democrats appreciate the truth that the more men there are honestly at work the more wealth will be created, and that the more wealth there is the more wages there will be to pay. Wealth is the creation of man ; it is not a kind of heavenly manna cast upon the ground without any human agency and so strictly rationed that the puzzle is to allot it without being unfair to anybody. The trouble before us hi considering schemes of land settlement in the Dominions is not that there is not enough land or that the Dominions are un- willing to receive the settlers, but that it will• be difficult to agree upon the terms of settlement.
To begin with, the vast majority of the settlers will need to be taught. The money will have to be provided for the teaching, and further money will have to be provided for houses for the settlers. Some Dominions may be inclined to say, " Though it is true we want the men, we shall perhaps be asked to pay too high a price for them. Why should we pay on an uneconomic scale for men to be taught the job of agriculture, when we can get a reasonable number, though not enough, in the old way ? " To some extent the settlers who have yet to learn how to cul- tivate the land could do so by spending their first year or two in the employment of some established farmer. There is a * Land Settlement for Bx-Servien Men in the Oversee DOM42“0918. Report to the Royal Colonial Institute by Christopher Turner. London : The Saint Catherine Press. DI. net1 bad shortage of labour for hire in all the Dominions. But the objection to that is that agriculture is, after all, a skilled trade, and the sort of intensive farming which is to be the settler's means of living cannot be learned on large farms or ranches. Most people who have examined the problem have therefore come to the conclusion that settlement in groups where the settlers would be the owners of their small pieces of land is the proper solution. The instruction of men living in such groups or colonies would be enormously simplified. It would be impossible for instructors to wander about a vast country teaching isolated men who had taken up their abode here, there, and everywhere. Each group or colony would oontain, say, a couple of hundred workers. A communal life, it is believed, would then grow up and co-operation would become the fashion. It is hoped that this communal life of settlers would be so convenient and so attractive that they would wish to stay permanently in their colonies. Communal life of this kind, let us add for the information of those who are not familiar with the subject, has nothing in the world to do with communism.
Mr. Christopher Turnor, the able author of the book before us, was invited by the Empire Land Settlement Committee of the Royal Colonial Institute to report upon the measures actually being taken by the Dominion Governments to place ex-Service men on the laud. A prelimieary investigation had already been undertaken by Sir H. Rider Haggard, and part of. Mr. Turner's business was to find out how far it had been possible for the Dominions to carry out the arrangements which had been made with Sir H. Rider Haggard. The Land Settlement Committee have adopted the theory of Group Settlement which we have already described. They have also adopted the following principles in which Mr. Turner fully concurs : that the settlers should be owners rather than tenants ; that access to capital should be provided ; that settlers should be provided with expert guidance from the outset ; that co-operation should be encouraged ; that organ- ized transport is essential to success ; and that the spirit of community should be fostered, so that the settlers can build up for themselves a prosperous common life. Most of these principles are also accepted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Although the Overeea Governments might excusably say that they cannot commit themselves to large financial schemes for teaching agriculture, what they have as a matter of fact done is more generous than our home schemes. The recent Act in Great Britain for providing ex-Service settlers with working capital does actually less than was done by the Small Holdings Act of 1908. In the 1908 Act the civilian settler could borrow up to 80 per cent. of his necessary capital, but under the recent Act ex-Service men can borrow only 50 per cent. In New South Wales, the Land Settlement Authorities admit the necessity of giving the settler "an advantageous start in life" and of providing him with " the basic requirements of his occupation."
Mr. Tumor argues that settlement should be governed not only by the needs of agriculture, but by those of strategy. He would like to see settlement accomplished first in those parts of the Empire which most require men of British stock:— " The Empire comprises over one-quarter of the land surface of the globe. Yet our agricultural population (i.e., all white men, women and children living on or by the land) is only 13,400,000, compared with the agricultural population of 20,000,000 in Germany, with its area only one sixty-fourth that of our Empire ; or with 18,000,000 in France on an area one-seventieth the size of our possessions, and a smaller total population than that of the United Kingdom. The gravest indictment of our policy (or want thereof) in regard to land and population lies in the fact that although we possess one-quarter of the land of the world, our Empire is not self-supporting. If these facts are once thoroughly understood, they constitute the strongest plea for a degree of organisation and guidance of migration far beyond anything hitherto attempted."
Mr. Tumor believes that three principal steps are necessary if settlement throughout the Empire is to be successful: " The first step must be the creation of a central and Imperial migration authority with requisite power to deal with this great problem as a whole. The second step is for the Imperial Government, 'through the medium of the above authority, to enter into close consultation with the Overseas Governments in regard to migration. Time is psu"ing, yet comparatively little has been done in this direction. The third step should be the appointment of Imperial land settlement representatives in each Dominion."
From the strategic point 9f view, Mr. Turner looks upon Australia as having the first olefin to .settlers—naturally enough, as immigration was for some time discouraged there. Fortunately Australia, in his opinion, offers the best opportunities. He thinks, however, that a special effort will be necessary to induce settlers to go to Australia, as the ten- dency of the majority is to drift to Canada simply because it is mach nearer. In all the Dominions he notices coin- cidently with the shortage of agricultural labour a tendency to give the now settler too much land The right object, he says, should be to give a settling family just as much land as they can handle themselves without outside labour.
Canada has already appointed a representative in Great Britain for selecting settlers, and New Zealand and Australia will soon follow suit. There may be some difficulty in the case of Australia, as apparently each State desires to have its own Selection Committee. The rulers of New Zealand, we notice, do not smile on the group settlement plan, as they think it ignores too much the natural independence of man. The picture which Mr. Turner draws of the happy and prosperous wine-grower in Australia is very attractive. It may be that temperamentally Mr. Tumor is a little too optimistic, but after all, as himself a scientific and successful agriculturist, he has a very good right to speak. If all that he proposes in the way of settlement were carried out, the cost to both Great Britain and the Dominions would of course be consider• able, but against this we must set the fact that agriculture is the purest and most direct form of producing wealth and national well-being. The question, therefore, is not whether the settlement of ex-Service men would cost a great deal, but whether it would be successful If it were successful, it would more than pay for itself.
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