THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1908. IMMIGRATION. Evening Post.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 25, 30 January 1908, Page 6

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1908. IMMIGRATION.

Evening Post.

¦ ? As Sir Joseph Ward told the Imperial Conference, New Zealand in years to come will be capable of carrying twenty millions of people without any difficulty. He added that we have under one million of population at the moment. He could not add what the RegistrarGeneral's report on statistics has just told us : that the population gain by births last year was less than in any year since 1903, while the gain by immigration was less than in any year since 1900. Altogether, in 1907, our population of nearly a million increased by only 20,000. Not 6000 immigrants came to us in 1907. How long at this rate will it take us to get tho twenty millions fondly dreamed of by Sir Joseph Ward? Shall we get them in 500 years? Shall we ever get them? Long, long bofore that busy era arrives, the name and fame of Sir Joseph. Ward will have been lost in the mists that shroud remote antiquity. What, meanwhile, is tho Government doing to encourage immigrants to bring to New Zealand their muscle and intelligence, brawn and brain? Tho answer is given by the Registrar-General's figures : Practically nothing. And if we ask the ciuestion, What does the Government intend to do, the answer is again, Nothing' — or nothing, at least, until tho general elections are over. Immigration is not popular with a section, of voters ; and statesmanship inevitably is subordinated to tho necessity of retaining and gaining votes. This year, as is natural, tho elections dominate the political prospect. Already the electoral campaign has begun. Little serious work is to be expected from Parliament ; but from members of Parliament the usual number of speeches designod to assist friends and appease foes. The Government will let sleeping dogs lie. We do not complain too vehemently, knowing mortal limitations, and on the whole the Government has served the country well, and is likely to servo it hotter. We have no wish to fall into the hands of land monopolists and reactionaries. Tho Liberal and Labour party still offers the be3t hope for New Zealand. Yet the land is crying out for labour. Past all the tumporaTy necessities of politics, that must bo borne in mind. Both in agriculture and in manufactures the expansion of trade and industry has caused a definite shorta-g© of working hands. At the same time, the' increase of capital andi the general swelling of pockets has tended to reduce tho supply. Men look twice at a job before they take it, and more- of them than formerly are in the happy position of being ablo to refuse to take it. Happy, possibly, for themselves ; unhappy, it is likely, for New Zealand. For a countrj- cannot stand still long on ths path' of progress: it must either go forward or back. If it is to _gp forward, while natural resources Remain lundevejoped, the addihipn of population must keep pace with tho development of those resources and the I concomitant development of general in- ; dnstry. According to Sir Joseph. Ward, j ¦wo have room for nineteen millions more i people. If he U in error by half, we j certainly have room for nino millions. | The sooner we get them, the better for New Zealand. They will broaden tho foundations of national^ safety. While the material of wealth is at hand, every able-bodied man who helps to win it helps the country. Ho is valuable both as creator and consumer : he makes naw trade and he keeps old trade alive. We do not suggest that hnmigTants should be brought by the shipload and dumped on a wharf, without provision for their employment, and without certain knowledge that there is employment. But this year, judging by the reports of the Labour bureaux, by the test of production, and by the abounding evidences of expanding industry, we could take profitably ten thousand farm and factory hands frou Britain; and it is tho Government's business to procure them and to care for them on arrival. Why should not a Christchurch manufacturer or an Auckknd farmer state his need to the Labour Department, and have his need supplied by the Government agent in Britain? And if Government assist immigrants as the Queensland Government does— by paying, for example, £5 towards the passages of farm labourers and. domestic servants of suitable age, the money will be well spent. Every fresh bade will be loadod with £64 of publicdebt. Labour in New Zealand is protected from stress of demoralising competition by the minimum wage system; yet LaboiiT opposes immigration. Like tho capitalist, it wants a, monopoly ; it desires to rule the country with a. Labour Trust. Or so much, at least, may bo inferred from tho resolution of tho Canterbury Trades and Labour Council protesting against immigration, on the ground that men and women already hero are unable to obtain constant employment in factories. This resolution, it will be seen, directly challenges the reports of Government inspectors; and until there is better evidence, wo prefer to believe the inspectors rather than the representatives of interested workpeople. What thd resolution appears to mean is that an. employer must provide constant work for all the labour offered him, however unsuitable or incompetent; and while there is one worker who, for any reason, is not fully employed in New Zealand, the representatives of Labour will resist any proposal to bring, another. If this interpretation be correct, it means of course a perpetual check to industrial progress. The inevitable loss will fall in the end) upon Labour as well as upon New _ Zealand. _ We have restricted competition within reasonable limits ; to abolish it altogether is to make the country a stagnant pool, where no healthy currents flow. And tho Canterbury Council went farther : it instructed a. committed to forward kttejrs to the newspapers of the United Kingdom iegarding the conditions of the Labour market-^that is to say, doubtless, a. letter in terms of tho Council's resolution, warning immigrants away. The spirit of this instruction is obvious. The Council desires to pre&erve and increase the privileges of its own class at whatever cost to New Zealand. That is why we urge upon the attention of the Governnjent the need of a systematic immigration policy, with work guaranteed to the right workman, and' the right workman provided for the worlc.

In order to provide accommodation for the large number of people vrho intend to be present, it has been decided that the Liberal Labour Federation leception to tho Hon. W. Hall-Jones shall be held in the concert chamber of the Town Hall next Monday evening, instead of in the Druida Hall, The Prime Minister , will be fireseat-