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Britain Urges Opening of Dominions to Foreign Immigrants

July 22, 1938
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Opening of the British dominions to foreign immigration was urged today by the duke of Devonshire, as a government spokesman, during a House of Lords debate on the recent report by the Overseas Settlement Board. The board’s report had recommended a regulated flow of foreign immigration of assimilable types if the United Kingdom was unable to supply sufficient immigrants.

“There is no use ignoring the fact,” Lord Devonshire declared, “that in many parts of the world today we are looked on as dogs-in-the-manger, occupying a large proportion of the earth and preventing others from occupying it.” He said it was vital that the Empire be populated “if not by people of our own stock entirely, by people with the same ideals of peace and liberty as ourselves.”

A similar view was expressed by lord Elibank, who declared that while he advocated that the government do all in its power to facilitate emigration of British people to the dominions, “we ought not to indicate to the dominions that we are opposed to their introducing foreign immigrants.”

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