IMMIGRATION.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18673, 23 April 1926, Page 11

IMMIGRATION.

A WORD OF CAUTION. RISK OF UNEMPLOYMENT. (SFE(.'IaL TO "thi tress.") WELLINGTON, April 22. A word of cautiou in regard to attracting to many immigrants to !Ncw Zealand from the Old Country was uttered by Sir Alex. Roberts at the Chamber of Commerce dinner last night. What the New Zealand farmer wanted, he said, was efficient Now Zealand farm labour, and we should beware of introducing too many farm labourers from the Old Country, who frequently were not suited to New Zealand farm work. 'MVe should go exceedingly cautiousl.v on the immigration problem," he remarked. "It is going to do us far more harm than good to introduce an excess of labour into this country. If -\ve introduce immigrants into our Dominion, and cannot economically absorb them, it is going to cause unemployment. Word of that will travel like wildfire, and you will bo faced with greater difficulty in getting immigrants to come out here at all. What wo want is a atrcady stream of immigration which can be readily absorbed into the life of the country." Trobably our greatest need, ho said, was for skilled labour in the building trade. The building trade in the old land to-day, however, was just as busy proportionately as it was in New Zealand. Ho had become very unpopular when he had statod in England that we wanted building operatives in New Zealand. i A voice: What about domestic, labour? Sir Alex. Roberts: I think that with good publicity in the Old Land, an. enormous number of that class of immigrant can be encouraged to come to this country. I had personal experience of that myself, and I persuaded several pcoplo to tako the venture of coming to New Zealand. I am pleased to say that none of them regrets it. They have found that the conditions under which we live in New Zealand are entirely different from those in the Old Country, and, if I may put it very bluntly, they Lave certainly more healthy conditions to live in.'' The Hon. W. Nosworthy, speaking at a later stage, said that its Minister in Charge of Immigration, he was in accord with' Sir Alex. Roberts's remark that it was not desirable to bring into the country more immigrants than we could absorb, and usefully employ. Otherwise we would be looking for trouble in the event of our being faced with a severe slump. It was better to go slowly and steadily, progressing on the lines the Government had been travelling along. If it should happen that the cry were raised that we had brought people to the Dominion and they had been unemployed, it would cause a great setback in the future in immigration.