‘A particularly in regard to the migration to Australia of children, young people, and women for domestic employment. We are satisfied that Australia, enthusiastically devoted as she is to the British connection and boasting as she rightly does of a popula- tion 98 per cent. British, desires nothing more than such migra- tion; but we are faced with the fact that, while Australia’s door remains wide open to any British subject who cares to pass through it, the total numbers of assisted migrants have in recent years shown a sensible decline. The figures are as follows :— Assisted Migrants from British Isles. Year. Requisitioned. Nominated. Total. 1923 ce er ce [924 wn _— 5s 1925 J. er ces 926 - _ ve 1927 wh hp soe 1928 (estimated)... oe. 15,496 12,611 10,131 7,884 7,309 glE 1.015 2-95 106 7¢ ha F< 26,511 25.036 24,827 31,260 30,125 29.999 36. This diminution is variously accounted for.. The fiscal and financial system and the industrial conditions of Australia, to which we shall have occasion to refer later, and the high level of prices resulting from them, may not be conducive to migration. Droughts in recent years affecting the primary production, and consequently the prosperity, of Australia may have contributed to increase the difficulty. Some recent diminution in the previously contemplated rate of expenditure of borrowed money by the States would seem to have brought with it the inevitable consequences of deflation, necessary as such deflation undoubtedly is, in the shape of unemployment in the large cities; and, though the Australian statistics in this matter are not compiled upon the basis of wholly satisfactory data, so that the latest figure given to us of unemploy- ment, viz., 11.4 per cent. of the working population, may not mean the same thing as a similar figure would mean in Great Britain, there is no doubt that unemployment in Australia has of late been upon the increase. The circumstances of the time are thps not ‘avourable to migration from overseas, and when, as has recently been the case in Western Australia, there appear to be good open- ings for new settlers, these openings are rapidly filled by persons coming from the Hastern States. 37. There are, therefore, great difficulties in the way of the successful operation of the £34,000,000 Agreement. An agreement which starts by laying on the table, if we may use the expression, a very large sum of loan monev and contemplates that the manner Causes of diminution of assisted migration. The £34,000,00 Agreement