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EMIGRANTS' INFORMATION OFFICE.

LETTER

FROM THE

CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE

COVERING A

REPORT ON THE WORKING OF THE OFFICE.

281

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

FPEC.O. 885

COPYRIGHTSPHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

ALLY W

BE REP

PUBLIC

PERMISSION OF THE

RED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

D OFFICE, LONDON

SIR,

C. P. LUCAS, Esq., to COLONIAL OFFICE. (Received May 6, 1896.)

31, Broadway, Westminster, S.W.,

May 6, 1896.

On behalf of my Committee I have the honour to enclose, for the Secretary of State's consideration, the report of an inquiry which three of our members, Mr. James Rankin, M.P., Mr. Howard Hodgkin, and Mr. Arnold White, held, by request, into the working of the Emigrants' Information Office.

2. The report was adopted by the Committee, with the assumption that some modi- fications may possibly bereafter be found necessary in working out the details, and it is now my duty to submit the recommendations to Mr. Chamberlain, with my own comments upon them.

The authors of the report have asked whether it may be made public, and I should At present it has been be glad to know whether there is any objection to that course. printed as a Colonial Office paper.

J

3. The Emigrants' Information Office was opened in October 1886, with a view to giving accurate information to intending emigrants to the British Colonies. It was intended, as far at least as the Treasury was concerned, to be a grant-in-aid office. "The intention of the grant," wrote the Secretary to the Treasury to the Colonial Office some years later, on the 4th of June 1891, "is that it should be a stimulus to private effort and a supplement to the subscriptions of benevolent persons." No such subscriptions were ever received, and it is difficult to understand how they can ever have been contemplated.

4. The office was to be managed by an unpaid committee, the chairman or working chief of which was, in the words of the Treasury letter of 15th May 1886, to be

a person

of practical philanthropic experience selected from the outside public," and one of its members was to be a clerk from the Colonial Office, who would be "the "medium of intercourse between the Government and the Committee.'

4

5. The Committee was formed, including representatives of the various interests. It was thought advisable almost from the first that the Colonial Office representative should be chairman, and I have been in that position ever since. There has been also throughout the whole time a second member of the Colonial Office on the Committee, at first one of the extra emigration clerks in the Colonial Office, who received a pay- ment in respect of work at the new office, subsequently a volunteer from the ordinary staff. Latterly, this second representative has been Mr. Lambert, whose ready and efficient help for more than two years may, I hope, be noted now that by pressure of other work he is obliged to leave the Committee.

O 92936.

• Miscellaneous No. 106. 50.-7/96. G. 83. Wt. 6786. E. & S. A 2