MIGRANTS FROM EUROPE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29454, 4 March 1961, Page 9

MIGRANTS FROM EUROPE

Fewer Becoming Available

With the continued boom in Western Europe, it was becoming harder to persuade governments to arrange for their nationals to emigrate, Mr Peter Gibson, chief liaison officer in Australia and New Zealand for the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, said in Christchurch yesterday. Mr Gibson, after discussions with the Acting-Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) and the Minister of Immigration (Mr Shand), is visiting places of work in the Dominion. Yesterday he was at the Belfast freezing works of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, Ltd, and at the Sydenham factory of Lane, Walker, Rudkin, Ltd. Of his conversations with Mr Marshall and Mr Shand, Mr Gibson said that they had discussed the Implementation of New Zealand's recent decision to seek immigrants from Germany and Austria, and the possibility of an extension of the Dominion's immigration plans. West Germany and Austria were in general not very interested in emigration, Mr Gibson said. The Netherlands, on the other hand, where there was full employment but not enough land to accommodate a much greater population, had a long-sighted demographic policy. Dutch citizens were assisted to migrate to any country which the Netherlands Government considered had satisfactory living conditions. The committee which Mr Gibson represents is subscribed to by 29 countries, at both the sending and receiving end of European migration. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Canada are the Commonwealth members. The United Kingdom has applied to join and is expected to be admitted in April, but the migration of Commonwealth citizens from one part of the Commonwealth to another has never been a concern of the committee and this position is unlikely to change with the admission of Britain.

The committee was set up In 1952 as one of the successors to the United Nations International Refugee Organisation. (Tbe other was the United Nations High Commission for Refugees; but Mr Gibson's committee is not an arm of the United Nations. Since the foundation of the committee, it has arranged for the migration of more than 1,000,000 Europeans. Australia has received more than 300,000 of these, Argentina 110,000, Brazil more than 90,000, and Venezuela nearly 50,000. About 9000 have come to New Zealand.