JAPAN AND ."NEW ZEALAND

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20988, 17 October 1933, Page 8

JAPAN AND ."NEW ZEALAND

' Views of a French Visitor FAR EASTERN INTEREST IN DOMINION LTHE ?EESS Special Service.] DUNEDIN, October 16. Some interesting comments on the unemployment situation in New Zealand and the overcrowded population of Japan were made by Dr. Regis Chevalier du Brusson, of Paris, who arrived in Duncdin during the week-end. Dr. du Brusson is widely travelled and has made several visits to the East, lie said lie could not congratulate New Zealand on its method of tackling the unemployment problem. "I have seen your unemployed working here, there, and everywhere. I have noticed the work they are given and the way they do it. I am amazed at your minimum wage, your trade unionism, your regulation of everyone's work to the pace of the slowest. These things, to my mind, have brought you unemployment, and now you are building up a population that will be like so many in England—content to live, marry, bear children, and be buried on the dole. Millions of pounds a year are spent to keep people at work they hate. It seems to me to be foolish.

New Zealand's Methods. "it is not for me to tell you how to manage your line little country, with its great nuure; but 1 do not think the right methods are being adopted, and J. am sure that a Jot of your citizens do not like them cither. "1 wonder," Dr. du Brusson continued, "whether your people, wrestling so hard with unemployment and its many evils, ever stop to consider what Japan is thinking of you—Japan, with her 85,000,000 souls packed and crammed into a territory a little more than twice the area of your country, is watching Mew Zealand and thinking of its annual population increase of. about 25,000, and comparing that increase with her own of more than 600,000 — and Japan is thinking very, very ' ard.

Japan's Population Problem. "Japan knows all about your unemployment and your population. She knows everything that is useful to her, and 1 cannot say too strongly that Japan is searching tor new territory for her people. She would like to get out of her difficulty peaceably; but she is so hard pressed that, failing peaceful methods, she will have to adopt others. All the immigration laws and restrictions in the world cannot keen Ihe .Tananese bottled nn in Janan after the danger noi'if is reached, and it is because that danger noint has been verv nearly reached iha+ the problem is so urgent and vital."