"A FLOOD OF IMMIGRANTS."

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 27, 1 February 1930, Page 8

"A FLOOD OF IMMIGRANTS."

We are threatened with another winter of unemployment and social workers cannot see how the trouble is to be met. "Relief work," being a form cf charity, is (from the country's standpoint) only superior to a straight-out gift in that there is some result to show later and labour's "face" is to some extent saved. When there is a lack of balance between work and workers it is obvious that it can be adjusted only by the employers—those with money to spend. The out-of-work can make a noise, but is otherwise helpless. Sir John Poster Frazer, writing of the position in England, where there are a million of the King's subjects unemployed, says: "The full brain power of the Cabinet has failed, after seven months of cogitation, to devise means to increaso industrial occupation. How can it be imagined labour exchanges will get men into a million jobs which do not exist? All the Government has done is to invite men out of work to sit still with the assurance that if suitable employment is not found they -will, be provided for out of the taxes." How can anybody "find jobs which do not exist"? If the unemployed are "provided for out of the taxes" it means thtffc those who have perhaps only a little art made to support those wlio have not anything. The "dole" has not proved to be more than an extravagant palliative. Grant Madison Hervey, of Sydney, sees a solution of unetn- , ployment trouble in Australia by. wholesale immigration. We have the land, he says in effect, and pluck and energy will wrest a Jiving frpm it. This is probably true, but with this immigration must come a widespread graduated taxation to provide necessary, equipment. Let us suppose that all the unemployed in Auckland were offered land and a financial start (in the form of tools, seed, stock and temporary maintenance—no money), at the expense of every man, woman and child having more than enough to keep self and dependents. Assistance of any kind would be refused to •all those not crippled, sick or aged, thus compelling compliance with the conditions. This modified socialism would produce noi hardship, and if a maximum income of £1000 per annum was the limit set to the means of all, whethet earned or unearned, there would be no strain upon any family. Now liear Mr. Hervey: 'If Englishmen are not sane enough to organise ail army of about four million surplus Britons for a start and bring them over here to Australia then I emphatically believe it would be a good thing to'settle four million Italians in North Queensland and let them grow sugar." Thero are many things New Zealand can produce wanted by the world, and with our empty spaces and small population it is possible that by a flood of hardy, purposeful immigrants, a tax on capital, and no sympathy for the wilfully idle, our problem might be solved. WATCHMAN.