Immigration

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25391, 14 January 1948, Page 6

Immigration

According to figures issued by “the “ immigration division of the National Service Department”, the arrival of 720 immigrants from Great Britain next month will bring the total introduced under the present official scheme of selection and assistance to 1320. The curious observer may note that the figures are issued as from a department which lost its name in 1945. when the National Employment Service superseded it, and its separate identity and function soon after, when the service was merged in the Labour and Employment Department. Subdivision 111 (Immigration) of the Labour and Employment Department, however, has little enough to do, which may explain why its thoughts rove backwards, resurrecting the title and establishment of the war years. Though the figures for assisted immigrants—unmarried adults only, between 20 and 40—are of course not total figures for immigration, they represent the total for which Government policy is responsible. They shame the Government’s policy. They show, indeed, that the wretched estimate of 1500 last year was not even half reached. The larger estimate for this year is still a wretched one. Australia expects to receive at least 70,000 immigrants under the schemes promoted by Mr Calwell; New Zealand, 3000 to 3500, under a scheme tailored by the dolls-dressmakers of the Cabinet. Comparison with Canadian and South African figures is equally depressing. But statistical comparison is less revealing, in fact, than comparison of the policies and the methods which produce the sta-

tistical results. Broadly, Australia, Canada, and South Africa have faced difficulties much the same in kind and severity as the New Zealand Government has tirelessly emphasised; but they have been tireless, instead, in looking for ways and means of overcoming the difficulties and resourceful enough to find them. They have had no stronger motives than New Zealand to urge them on. It oould probably be shown that, in some respects, they were less strongly urged to develop a vigorous immigration policy. They needed citizens and workers, they knew that conditions in Britain and In Europe specially favoured the search for immigrants now but might soon favour it less or not at all. and they recognised, also, a specific duty to offer asylum to refugees and displaced persons. They acted accordingly. The New Zealand Government has been chiefly active in repeating itself on the subjects of housing and shipping. There is one subject, however, to which it has not significantly returned, after reading the world a terrific lecture on it before the United Nations. The Prime Minister tetd the civilised nations exactly what their duty was to the victims of war and political oppression and how it should be performed. The only result of this preachment, in New Zealand, is that an accurate record of it may be read among the * miscellaneous Parliamentary papers. Meanwhile, Australia has filled a camp with Balts and has no doubt of their future as Australians.