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Past Year Most Unfavourable for Emigration Since War Says British Oversea Settlement Committee: No R

June 24, 1931
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No revival in migration can be expected while the present world-wide depression endures, says a report issued here by the British Oversea Settlement Committee, declaring that the past year has been the most unfavourable for migration since the war. The generally depressed conditions which prevailed during 1930, it continues, have been felt with particular severity in the Dominions, where the fall in price of staple agricultural products and the consequent serious unemployment have reduced the capacity to absorb new settlers to a minimum.

Since no revival in migration can be expected while the present world-wide depression endures, the Committee say, we-do not attempt to lay down the lines of future migration policy. During the past 10 years we have gathered invaluable information, however, as to the possibilities of oversea settlement. We have proved by experience that cheap passages for migrants and other facilities, valuable as these may be when economic conditions are in other respects favourable to migration, cannot of themselves create an increasing or even a continuous flow of people from this country to the Dominions.

Referring to the restrictions placed by the Canadian Government on immigration from the Continent of Europe, the report points out that in spite of these limitations the proportion of British to foreign immigration into Canada during 1930 was unsatisfactory from the British point of view.

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