Returning Emigrants For the time being, emigration to the great
open spaces of the .Dominions cannot be regarded as a means of relieving the congestion and unemployment in these overcrowded islands. The Oversea Settlement Com- mittee in its report for 1931-32 shows that the flow of migrants is now turned inwards rather than outwards. Australia, for example, sent us 6,550 persons in 1930 and 7,935 in 1931 more than she admitted, and the figures for other. Dominions are equally discouraging. The great open spaces .are still there, waiting to be filled, and the men and women who might fill them are here, but lack of capital and lack of opportunities for employ- ment in the Dominions are a fatal bar to emigration. It is no doubt true that our unemployment insurance system makes a good many men content to face their present ills rather than risk a plunge into the unknown, but such men are not the stuff that makes good settlers. It is also true that the Dominion labour parties show a short-sighted dislike of newcomers who might, they think, work for lower wages. But the main causes that hinder emigration are depressed trade and the low prices from which farmers the world over are suffering acutely. If trade revives, emigration is bound to increase.
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