IMMIGRATION.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19667, 10 July 1929, Page 10

IMMIGRATION.

A DOMINION NECESSITY.

GOVERNOR-GENERAL»S VIEWS.

(PB&SS ASSOniTIOK T»L»(iE-4.M ')

WELLINGTON, Jury 9.

Taking the secondary industries as the keynote of his address, hit Excellency the Governor-General Sir Charles Fergusson, at the opening of the Winter Show, suggested that praetieally the only way in which to farther ad ranee the secondary Industries in New Zealand waa by the encouragement af immigration, thereby creating the only market there could be for the present for Dominion products—a home market. "How are the secondary industries going to flourish!" ashed hla Excellency. At present, he said, they could not get beyond a certain point until they had a bigger population. That was how it struck him. They most have a sufficiently large home market in which to sell their goods from, the secondary industries, and larger production at reasonably low cost "What is going to be our population f" next asked his Excellency. At present he was told that owing to necessity there could be no increase in immigration In New Zealand. "I must accept that as being an economic necessity," he continued, "but it dees not prevent me from lamenting the fact that there should be any restriction put on the development of the population In this country. It must be remembered that the immigrants wh© come to this country are net the people who take the bread out of our moutha. Immigrants, provided they are of the right sort, are going to be an asset to the country. They are going to be producers, and, more than that, they are going to be consumers. What they are going to consume are the products of our secondary industries, but so long as there is a "limited population the secondary industries cannot get beyond a certain point. Double your population, and your industries will develop in proportion. "It ia a controversial matter, but a matter well brought forward far consideration and discussion ia whether, with the necessity of limiting Immigration, we should not so try to arrange matters that we welcome immigrants so long as they are, of coarse, the right stamp. By the right stamp I mean those who come out prepared to work on the land. We don't want them to come into our limited population and augment the already overcrowded cities. There is ample scope for them in developing the primary products of the country and working on the land. If the boys of New Zealand will recognise that the way in which they can best help their country is by doing like their fathers and forefathers did of old by developing the land, then you would hear none of this talk about boys leaving school and being unable to take op their life's work. You would be able to build up a population on the land ten times as big as to-day, and then there would be a ehanee for tht secondary industries. That seems to be the most insistent problem of the present time. New Zealand—l don't like to say it—is standing still. That woulu not be true, but the country is being terribly arrested in its development by the fact that we cannot encourage immigration. I think that is a misfortune, and 1 should like in the next few yeara to see these restrictions done awav with."