Immigration.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17707, 8 March 1923, Page 6

Immigration.

Mr Massey's statement from Auckland on immigration will cause- his enemies to ask once more if charity does not begin at home. The objec-. tions such critics usually raise are three; There are more men in New Zealand now than can be provided with workj thore are more men than houses; there are.far too many men to enable Labour to obtain its own from Capital. But the 'first objection is purely imaginary; the last is simply not true; and if there is anything serious in the second, it .could have been raised with infinitely greater force fifty years ago. New Zealand would never have had even such a Bmall population as it has now, it would never.have emerged from the shadows at all, had the men, and especially the women, of Scotland, and Ireland waited on the other side of the world until there were houses and conveniences on this side. It is admitted that there is a house shortage here, but there is a more serious house shortage in Britain. Thore are houseless and homeless people there by the ten thousand, and if charity were the only consideration it would be Now Zealand's duty to double its immigration rate at once. But of course there is very little charity in the matter at all. We encourage' people of the right stock to come out here not because we want to help them—though we do and should want to help where wo can—but because we want to help oursolves. The natural increase in our population is not as rapid as the increased demand for men and women both in industry and domestie service. It would probably prove to be a blessing, if we had the courage and vision to face the temporary disturbance, if 100,000 British immigrants instead of a half or a quarter of that number came to us during the next five yoars. Now Zealand has reached the stage beyond which its own people cannot carry it fast enough to keep pace with other young lands nearer to the great centres of population. Neither its primary nor its secondary industries can advance much farther until they begin, if we may use the expression,. to consume some of their own Bmoke. Tho surface returns have all been gathored: it is necessary now to dig deeper and to dig more variously and scientifically if thore is to bo progress as well as a maintenance I of tho presont standards of prosperity. Then also immigration is a policy with deeper ends than tho provision of food and shelter to an increasing number of people. It is not merely to enable them to get jam occasionally on their broad as well as butter that we invite 10,000 of our kinsmen each year to cross 13,000 miles of sea. It is not merely to enable ourselves to develop an undeveloped country. Those are I the obvious, the constant, and at the

present time perhaps the primary purposes of tho Government's immigration policy. But every Now Zealander wants also to keep this the Britain of the South. He wants every corner of the Empire to remain as British as it now is, and the Empire as a whole to be more balanced strategically and more self-sustaining economically than it or any other Enipiro ever has been, and he has that end constantly in view when ho risks a little homegrown discontent in order to increase the Dominion's roll of Englishmen.

one of the hereditary Scottish honours of the Prince of Wales. And is there not a wide gulf fixed between plain Lord of the Isles and Viscount L. of the Western Isles'? The Gaelic League might have urged with propriety that the Western Isles number at least 200, and that the fact of having bought a few of them hardly justifies Lord Leverhulme in identifying himself with the remainder. The 21st chief of Sleat, for instance, which is in Skye, across the water from Lord Leverhulme's Isle of Lewis, is described in "Debrett" as "Maedonald of the Isles."

The French occupation of the Kuhr extends now almost to Strasbourg, which may, or may not, bo politically justifiable and internationally safe. But one of the complications that the world need not fear is the end of the Strasbourg pie. According to the researches of a Strasbourg scholar, the first Strasbourg pie was fashioned in tho kitchen of the Marshal de Contades by a Lorrainer called Claude, Clause, or Close. But Claude, says the "New York Times," did not "bless mankind with Strasbourg pio in the dolectable form and composition which now endears it to cultivated palates." The Claude, Clause, or Close pio was tempting enough—goose liver, spices, and stuffings. But "just as Giotto's Tower is 'wanting still tho glory of tho spire,' so this primitive Strasbourg pie wanted the one touch of culmination and perfection, the indispensable truffle." The sublime artist who added the truffle was a Parisian—Nicolas Francois Doyen. Born in the capital, he wandered first to Bordeaux, and there learnt to know and loye truffles. Then Strasbourg attracted him, and one day the "godlike thought came to him of enriching, harmonising, and perfecting the original pie." Whoever therefore presently controls the fortress, those "discreetly lovely little terrines" are safe.