Enlightened Policy On Immigration

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32265, 7 April 1970, Page 14

Enlightened Policy On Immigration

The Canterbury Chamber of Commerce wants the Government to encourage more migrants to come to New Zealand under both the assisted passage scheme and the “ employer-subsidised ” scheme. It also wants the Government to do more to attract to New Zealand the migrant who is prepared to pay his own fare or even to borrow part of his fare: and this represents an interesting new development in the thinking of businessmen on immigration. Spokesmen for employers’ and manufacturers’ organisations have in recent months urged the Government to spend more on assisted immigration. Few of them were active in this cause in the recession of 1967-68, when labour was plentiful but trading conditions were unfavourable.

The Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, rightly, is concerned with more fundamental questions than the anxiety of the employer to man an idle machine or of the salesman to expand his local market. “ The “ Government has made a success of ‘ selling ’ New “ Zealand to tourists", said the report of the chamber’s economic affairs committee, presented by Mr L. A. Holland. “We believe it could, if it wished, “ make an equal success of attracting the right sort “of immigrants. We emphasise the importance of “ quality ”. The chamber’s vice-president (Mr M. L. Newman), in a speech calculated to flatter as well as persuade his audience, suggested that New Zealanders were a “selected stock”—mostly from people only two or three generations back who had the courage to face the unknown and the brains to get out here. The committee’s report drew attention to the great preponderance of non-assisted migrants in the inflow of people to New Zealand in the last 10 years—a fact too seldom appreciated by those who call for more assisted immigration. Only a huge increase in assisted immigration could have arrested the net outflow of migrants in the last three years; only a huge increase would materially add to the net inflow in other, more normal, years. A man who has dug into his own pocket to make a fresh start in a new country is more likely to survive the discouragements and disappointments of his first few years there. Surely this is the type of immigrant who deserves the most encouragement The. measures suggested by the Chamber of Commerce call for a comparatively small increase in Government expenditure on immigration; but they do require much more imagination and understanding than can be expected of the present inadequate staffs of New Zealand migration offices abroad. They deserve serious study by the Government and the support of all groups in the community capable of appreciating the quality of life as well as the size of a market.