Migration Problems The statement that New South Wales, with the
co-operation of the Federal Government of Australia, is to resume immigra- tion into the State on a strictly limited scale is of considerable importance, for it means that so far as Australia is concerned a door is beginning to be half-opened that in all the Dominions has long been fast shut. The immigrants are not to be wholly British, though South European stock is to be excluded ; there might, therefore, be room for the entry of a certain number of German emigres, who would make admirable colonists. Juveniles and domestic workers are to be encouraged, and the Fairbridge School scheme will rightly have a large place in the plan. But the whole migration pro- blem has to be viewed in a new light today. With a population static and threatening to decline we have no such motive to promote emigration as when the problem to be solved was congestion. In particular the section of the population we should part with least readily is the juvenile, which will proportionately be all too scanty as it is ; we may yet have the colonisation of England and Scotland to think of. On the other hand it is dearly to the interest of the Commonwealth that the Dominions should be, or become, predominantly Anglo-Saxon. The New South Wales plan is on a modest scale, and its modesty is its chief attraction.
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