Immigration

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 98, 20 January 1936, Page 11

Immigration

Sir, —As there are signs that an organised. attempt may be made to encourage immigration, I feel it my duty to record my opinion as an immigrant who came to New Zealand ten years ago. I was fortunate in possessing a little capital, and came to make my home here, not to make money. The information obtainable from the High Commissioner’s Office in London gave glowing accounts of the “'Britain of the Southern Seas,” and it seemed quite certain that I would be able to achieve my object and get a reasonable return on capital invested—sufficient to provide me with quite a high standard of living. I had had five years’ general experience of the land in England before I came out and spent rather over a year, after I arrived in New Zealand, working for wages, so as to become familiar with conditions. I then looked round for a small farm on . which to make my home. 1 found the prices being asked out of all proportion to the values of the properties I saw; they were far too high and showed no possible ’ hope (even on values oF produce then prevailing) of providing a reasonable return on money invested. Eventually, guided by local advice, I took on a small property in a derelict condition, wTlich I hoped might prove a possible proposition for the capital I had available. Even though the hours have often been very long and the conditions not easy, we have got more, solid satisfaction out of the eight years that we have been improving our farm than we ever thought possible; the farm is in good order and we have on it a delightful home. I mention these facts merely to show that we have not been lazy. But to-day we have no equity in this property whatever, though all our capital has been spent on it, in addition to the work we have done. We are also quite unable to meet the commitments entered into when we took over; our load of debt ■ keeps mounting, and we see no way of either reducing it or preventing it from increasing. I know the condition of many others on these small places is similar to our own; some even worse. If this has been my experience, coming, as I was fortunate in doing, under circumstances of greater advantage than the average immigrant, surely it would be wrong to do anything to encourage immigration on any scale at all until something is done, first to provide for all those who are now unemployed in this Dominion and secondly to ensure that those who undertake work on the land get an adequate return for . their work, sufficient to enable them to maintain their properties in good order, thereby employing labour which' they cannot afford to employ to-day, to enjoy a reasonably high standard of living, with prospects of being able to make provision for the future and meet the commitments into which they entered on taking over their properties. All the legislation so far introduced has been designed, certainly, to benefit the farmer, but at the expense of the investor, who has put his or her money into mortgages and I am quite sure that no farmer wishes to benefit under such circumstances. The' proposals of the present Government are in the direction mentioned above —of stabilising prices at a level which will enable farmer's to meet their commitments; many people are opposed to any idea of departing from what they describe as the principles of orthodox finance and there is a danger that their strong opposition to the proposals of the Labour Government will make it verydifficult for their experiment (as it is termed by the orthoclpx school) to succeed. If the orthodox methods and the remedies applied under orthodox principles have only brought about conditions such as I "have described, surely it is worthwhile doing everything possible to ensure the success of the steps which are about to be taken to explore new methods of overcoming the evils of the present system and every member of the community should respond to his or her utmost to the appeal of the Government to co-operate with them in what they are about to undertake. Meanwhile surely no steps should be taken to encourage immigrants to come to this Dominion to let their capital follow the course of my own—spent, possibly, in improving New Zealand, but parting company for good from those who bring it put to invest here and only become worse off as the result of their efforts. If and when immigration is reopened, would it not be wise to aim at providing a “balanced” population—not merely importing people to settle on the land, but endeavouring also to develop the. secondary industries and services which will be needed more and more as the popula-. tion increases. The best proposals I have seen on this subject during the last 1 few years were contained in a plan put together by Dr. Campbell Begg and published in full in your issue of October 5. 6 and 7, 1933; may I suggest that a resume of those three reports be published, now that the subject of immigration seems to be again to the fore, vide your leading article of January 15.—1 am, etc.. SOMERSET. Porangahan, January 17.