POPULATION REPORT

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24986, 21 September 1946, Page 8

POPULATION REPORT

Slow Increase Expected SMALL SELECTED IMMIGRATION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 20. A careful and specific policy of immigration designed to meet the urgent industrial manpower needs of New Zealand is the major recommendation of the seldtet committee of the House of Representatives appointed to consider ways and means of increasing the population of the Dominion. The report of the committee, whose chairman was Mr J. Thorn (Government, Thames) and which consisted of six Government and four Opposition members, was tabled In the House of Representatives today. The report is unanimous on all topics. The committee finds that there is no need to provide any immigration for agricultural purposes, but the shortage of operatives for secondary industries cannot be met either at once or in the immediate future from internal sources. Because of housing difficulties, however, large-scale immigration should not immediately be undertaken. Exceptions are cases of certain selected occupations, such as those of hospital nurses, domestic workers, coalminers, sawmillers, and operatives for certain expanding secondary industries. In these cases selected immigration of “relatively small dimensions” should engage the immediate attention of the Government.

These immigrants should be secured as far as possible from Britain, but an immediate investigation should be made of the availability of workers from Scandinavian countries. Holland, and perhaps Poland, states the report. These nationalities have in the past proved good citizens of New Zealand. Further immigration from southern European countries is not encouraged ©n the grounds that some southern European nationals who have come to the Dominion have not been assimilated here, but have tended to become relegated into small national groups. Other principal features of the report are:— The birth-rate is likely to stabilise somewhere between 18 and 21 a thousand and at this rate, providing the size of the families remains constant, the population will slowly increase. The heavy fall in the birthrate during the depression will, however. create employment difficulties, particularly in the next six or seven years. Each married couple should produce more than two children if the population is to be maintained without immigration. New Zealand’s death-rate is the lowest in the world, but cannot be expected to fall any lower. A very great increase in Maori population in recent years—3o per cent, between 1926 and 1936—is the outstanding fact in New Zealand’s population development. The expectation of life is still increasing, but at a lower rate. About two-thirds of the European population live in the North Island. About 63 per cent, live in urban areas and 37 per cent, in counties. The so-called urban drift is a bogy and is due not so much to a drift away from farming as to technological advances. But the decline in rural population in certain provinces, particularly in the South Island, calls for early investigation. The tendency for secondary industries to congregate in the four main centres may create serious social and economic difficulties. The decentralisation of industries should be encouraged. One- important way of doing this would be to provide more housing in some of the smaller towns. Relatively little land is available for farming and agricultural immigrants should not be encouraged. There is scope for the immigration ©f coalminers and men for sawmilling and bush felling. There has been a major expansion in the number of Governmental employees—more than proportionate to the increase in population and due to an extension of the field of Government activity. New towns and suburbs should be adequately laid out under modern town-planning laws. A small secretariat should be attached directly to the Cabinet for the continuous study of population problems. The present criminal law against induced abortion is drastic enough, but there is need for deeper moral appreciation of the issues involved.

The sale of contraceptives should be restricted to registered pharmacists.