‘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