VITAL PROBLEM
POPULATION OF N.Z.
IMMIGRANTS NEEDED
parliamentary Reporter. Wellington, this day. New Zealand's need for more population was strongly stressed in the House of Representatives yesterday by Mr. Doidge (Nat., Tauranga) in his Budget speech. That document, he said, failed to look into the future and had not a "single word about the most vital problem of population.
How long, asked Mr. Doidge, was New Zealand to stay secure with something less than a million and a three-quarters of people? The Japanese menace, about which they had talked for so long, had nearly materialised, and New Zealand had escaped only by a miracle. Would anyone believe that the Dominion had escaped for all time? Japan was already talking about the future war, and one of its spokesmen had announced that they had lost, but only temporarily. It was a warning to New Zealand. The increase of population in Asia was at the rate of 20,000,000 a year, and while the distribution of population worked out in New Zealand at 16 a square mile, that of Japan was 500 and in Java it was 1000 a square mile. Australia's Programme Though Australia had an attractive immigration programme, the New Zealand Government remained as dumb on the subject as it had been throughout its career. Though immigrants were needed and the High Commissioner in London was receiving hundreds of inquiries daily from intending immigrants, all he could provide was a sterotyped letter giving them no encouragement.
When the speaker was in America he a broadcast feature which presented New Zealand as a land of allure, and next day he found that the New Zealand legation was receiving fan mail from people who wished to ascertain how they could settle in New Zealand. The officers of the legation were highly competent, but they were not specially concerned with immigration and all they could send in reply to inquiries was a stereotyped letter. He .thought the Government feared trade union opposition if it produced an immigration policy.
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Bibliographic details
Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 201, 25 August 1945, Page 7
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334VITAL PROBLEM Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 201, 25 August 1945, Page 7
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