The Press WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 1961. Attempts To Increase Immigration

Press, Volume C, Issue 29469, 22 March 1961, Page 14

The Press WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 1961. Attempts To Increase Immigration

The National Party Government was committed by its election platform to an immigration policy much less illiberal than the Labour Party’s. It has begun cautiously to redeem its promise; but nobody should expect spectacular results. The National Party’s 1960 manifesto expressed the belief that “ the “ continued rapid develop“ment of New Zealand “ demands a much greater “growth of population than " the natural increase ”, and emphasised particularly a desire to attract additional “ skilled workers " for industries and farm “ workers ”. Since the Second World War New Zealand has lagged sadly behind countries such as Canada and Australia in the campaign for settlers. It has opened its door quite narrowly to restricted categories of skills and ages; persons with dependents have had little encouragement. These self-imposed handicaps, designed to safeguard New Zealand’s comfortable system of social

welfare, have restricted severely the opportunities for increasing the Dominion’s total population. They have cost the country many thousands of excellent citizens, unwanted, perhaps, because they comprised family groups. While New Zealand has been so hesitant about immigration, other countries have drawn heavily on the sources of skilled migrants. Any attempt now to stimulate interest in the Dominion among British and Dutch tradesmen will face the formidable problem of West European prosperity. The New Zealand immigration scheme would have much better prospects of success if the customarily selfish emphasis on special classes of migrants were abandoned, and if a less equivocal welcome were offered any decent settler, irrespective of skill, calling, or age. New Zealand cannot afford indefinitely to remain underpopulated while population pressures elsewhere grow ever more explosive.