554 



The Review of Reviews. 



BRITAIN V. THE COLONIES. 



THE LURE OF THE COLONIES. 



At last we see signs of a sane reaction against 

 the depletion of agricultural England. In the 

 Nineteenth Century Sir Gilbert Parker is moved 

 to protest against the enfeeblement of Britain by 

 unrestricted emigration of our best men and 

 women, whose presence in the land of their birth 

 has been regarded for a generation as a modified 

 blessing. Sir Gilbert points out that : — 



There are thus three parties to the great process of 

 organised migration — the colony which receives the 

 migrants, the Mother Country which provides them, and 

 the migrants themselves. For two out of the three the 

 arrangement is admirable. The colony is enriched by 

 the advent of sturdy citizens, energetic, capable, 

 vigorous ; taking good care to admit none but those 

 with respectable credentials and the attributes which 

 make for success, in every boatload 

 of immigrants it receives the 

 elements essential to national pro- 

 gress. The migrants, endowed with 

 these qualities, have before them a 

 career, rough perhaps, and hard 

 but a career with great possibilities. 

 They have exchanged a monotonous 

 round of unrewarded drudgery for 

 a path which may be rugged, but 

 which leads to better things. Be- 

 hind them lies hopelessness, before 

 them there is, at least, the chance of 

 success, an opportunity. 



Observers have for years 

 pointed the moral that 

 this country by encouraging 

 the emigration of the fit, 

 automotically increases the 

 burden of maintaining a popu- 

 lation of town-dwellers, and 

 handicaps Britain in her com- 

 petitive struggle with other 

 nations. France has never 



avert the evil that threatens the physical superiority 

 of our race, that will complete the destruction of the 

 balance between the field and the workshop, that will 

 make us wholly dependent for our food upon the 

 stranger? 



Here is an opportunity for our statesmen to 

 consider the answer to the prayer, " Give us 

 this day our daily bread " — for Providence, as 

 we know, helps those who help themselves. 



HOW SOUTH AUSTRALIA CARES 



FOR HER CHILDREN. 



South Australia provides for its proteges, 

 not merely during childhood, but during adoles- 

 cence So Miss Sellers tells us in the Contem- 

 porary : — 



Bulletin.] 



[Sydney. 



New Zealand and her Credit, 

 been faced with this problem, The new Treasurer ofMaoriland proposes to borrow a comparative trifle with which to 

 but Germany has lonp- since Sf"y°'^'^°/'^^f^^\^^yi°.^^°«^ l^^^^t he is of opinion that the old loan boom can't coritinue. 

 DUt uermany nas long since Thus does the bush publican eject his customer when his credit is exhausted, and start 



smce taken steps to check the °ini back to work with " a bottle for the road " to keep off the jim-jams, 



outflow of her peasantry, and 



A child is boarded-out on what is called the subsidy 

 system until it is thirteen, and then on the service system 

 until eighteen, or, in the case of certain girls, until 

 twenty-one. 



Under both the subsidy system and the service the 

 Council's wards are lodged with respectable working- 

 class foster-parents, who in the case of subsidy children 

 must live within easy walking distance of a good school 

 Ihey must be fairly well off, industrious, and intelli. 

 gent, and they must pledge themselves to treat their 

 charges in all respects as if they were their own children 

 -not only to be kind to them, but to have thought for 

 them, and try to influence them for good. And care is 

 taken to insure their keeping their pledge. For everv 

 chi d boarded-out is under the care of the Council', 

 under the open surveillance of the District Committee, 

 the secret surveillance of the police, and the protection 

 JJ^. n •=°,^'"."°'ty. especially the school-teachers. 

 and the Council's inspectors may visit at nnv hour of 

 the day or night. 



we are glad to find Sir Gilbert is not blind to 

 the root cause of the trouble. He says : — 



Surely the lesson is obvious. By full, unfettered 

 ownership and the chance of ownership new countries 

 are drawing away our people. By full ownership Ger- 

 many has checked a rural exodus which excited her alarm. 

 In full ownership Ireland is finding security, and her 

 people are finding a bond that keeps them to the land. 

 In Great Britain alone do we find legislation avowedly 

 framed to place obstacles in the way of the peasant 

 to freehold tenure — a deliberate antagonism to natural 

 instinct. And from Great Britain we see a ceaseless 

 flow of her most essential citizens — a flow unceasing 

 and increasing. The offices of the High Commissioners 

 and Agents-General are besieged by applicants for pas- 

 senger accommodation. 



Such is the prospect, happy for the Colonies, cheerful 

 for the emigrants, fraught with peril for the Mother- 

 land. Is it not high time that we took measures to 



