Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1910. INTRODUCING POPULATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 71, 26 March 1910, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1910. INTRODUCING POPULATION.

"A waiting game" is the Ministry's immigration policy. The Government has a species of sub-Department of Immigration, but the Minister in charge seems to have merely nominal responsibilities. From chaos a little more order has been evolved by the criticism of the press, but Cabinet has not yet thought out any sound businesslike scheme for itself, and it has been slow to take advice from those who have studied the problem. The Government has, chiefly, two methods of attracting population to these shores :—(1): — (1) by advertisement (illustrated pamphlets, booklets, and other devices well distributed abroad); (2) by offering bonuses (the system of cheap fares). It was thought that applicants for assisted passages were properly examined as to their suitability by New Zealand's representatives in London, but the quality of the testing has been much aspersed. The Government, by putting the advertising and the subsidising machinery in motion, imagined that automatically cohorts of sturdy manhood, well fitted to go on the land, would arrive here. A few years back tho Government, after arranging for shiploads of hopeful humanity, did not have enough interest in the consignments to send an officer to look at them. The immigrants landed among strangers, and were left to grope their way about. After some severe chiding the Government's conocience improved, but the importation scheme retained much of its haphazardness. There was a policy of drift till last winter, when many critics sharply discussed the immigration muddlement. The Government then decided to temporarily ease off in the ordering of workers, and to grant no reduced passages for steamers that would arrive here during the coming winter. London, also, was instructed to be more careful in the selection of candidates— and that is the immigration policy. How is the Government's peculiar scheme to bo improved? Some opinion declares that it is impossible to have ! «ny successful immigration policy till better provision is made for closer settlement of the land. That argument amounts to an allegation that if a man I has two or three diseases it is not worth [ while trying to improve his health till | all his ailments can be cured with one j dose of medicine. It is very well known that New Zealand cannot hold out such | laud lures as Canada and Australia, but that fact does not imply that it is futile, at the present, to draw more men into these islands to assist in enlarging the soil's yield. Under the present laws, and with the present system of settlement, it is possible to largely widen the margin for export. Men on the land in Marlborough, Hawkes Bay, and I other districts have said repeatedly thai they would be grateful for willing hands. In the South farmers co-oper-ated some time ago to send an envoy to England to secure competent agricultural workers, but we have not heard how the venture fared. Long ago The Post submitted that the Government could greatly benefit New Zealand by improving the "Intelligence Department" — bettering the labour bureau organisation. More care must be taken to definitely discover this country's labour needs. It will be impossible to arrange for supplies of labour to exactly meet an estimated demand, but it will be possible to very greatly reduce the ranks of the "unplaced." The Labour Department should be in better touch with country employers, and practieaHy obtain guarantees of employment before bringing Britons to these shores. This is a suggestion which can be readily put into effect. Men with a stake in the land have given out plainly that they would gladly co-operate with the Government in any scheme designed to bring good agricultural workers to New Zealand.