LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week paragraphs. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR.]

PLANNED EMIGRATION

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sin,—I have been greatly interested in the correspondence In the columns of The Spectator on "Planned Emigration."

Of course, we are all agreed with Professor Wadham's dicturh that, "in the long run all settlement must be economically sound." Differences arise when we come to grips with what is "economically sound" in settlement. What are the standards by which soundness is to be measured ? Surely risks must be taken even in "Planned Emigration," which might well be designed for a purely agricultural development or an exploita- tion of minerals or fisheries, or a combination of two or more of these or other natural resources. Because of the compactness of these islands, our good roads and means of communication, • I venture to suggest that, generally speaking, most of our

agricultural land has a value based on something which is not agriculture. As things are in the world at present it might be considered good economies to transfer groups of families from these islands to some part of the King's Oversee, Dominions, and for this country to " grub-stake " them until such times as they were on a basis which might be considered "economically Sound."

Last April I stood on ground which, until May 28th, 1932,

had been for hundreds of years, probably from time immemorial, washed by waves of the sea, the water at full tide being 12-15 ft. deep. I was on the old bed of the Zuyder Zee in Holland. Then I climbed to the top of the new sea--walls, and looked over the vast expanse of reclaimed land where I saw great locks, dykes, sluices, canals, roads, &c., and, in a corner of the 1,000 square miles reclaimed, a community -of over 2,000 souls (amongst them 131 Jews) drawn from 63 different districts of Holland. This was the beginning of a settlement which will in another 15 years or so consist of "6,000 holdings with an economic area giving prosperity to a financially strong rural population."

As I meditated I was greatly moved, for I thought of the

foresight, courage, enterprise, tenacity, and skill which has brought about this transformation. A sea-wall built for 18 miles across the open sea. What a challenge. Then the pump- ing out of the water. In one period of six months 132,000,000,000 gallons, and, finally, the prolonged preparatory cultivations to get rid of the salt in the land. Now the actual settlers.

On asking what was the cost of reolaiming the land compared with its economic value, my Dutch friends shrugged their shoulders, and their gesture suggested it would be well to draw a curtain in front of that, saying," It is not given to the man in the street to know." Nevertheless, I think it is no secret to say that the cost of the main works, and of bringing the land into a condition ready for settlement, will be at least £140 per acre of the cultivatable area.

Holland, with a population of about one-sixth that of the British Isles, and faced with an agricultural problem— giving farm lands for the moment little or no economic value— as acute as any confronting our Empire Statesmen, makes no material change in her plans of development.

it has been well said that group settlement is not much

more difficult in bad times than in good. It can be carried out whenever idle money and idle hands can be brought together on unused lands. Gibbon Wakefield's "Art of Colonization" (expounded 80 years ago) needs little modification today.

With regard to the financial basis on which all such ventures must rest, I think that a new outlook is absolutely necessary. In the early 'days of our Empire-building the men who laid the foundations of our Empire sailed under no economic star. Their ballast was not blue books : nor were pounds, shillings, and pence inscribed upon their canvas. Today, while any transfer of population must be an ordered movement, it must be financed generously, albeit carefully. The conditions in many parts of the homeland are such that the "Good Samaritan " treatment is the only possible conception. When

the Samaritan lifted the man who fell among thieves out of the ditch, took him to an inn, and set him on his feet, there was no question of asking the poor fellow to sign a note of repayment. Indeed, the Samaritan, after immediate necessities were provided, " went bond " for the further cost of complete rehabilitation.

.Disaster and disappointment can only follow any attempt to have the New Exodus. financed on a rigid, hard and fast basis. Any repayments must be determined not at the outset, and not by the costs incurred, but ultimately by the settlers'

ability to repay.—Yours faithfully, DAVID C. LAMB, The Salvation Army, Commissioner. • International Headquarters, London.