MORE WORKERS AND LESS WORK

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 1, 1 July 1922, Page 6

MORE WORKERS AND LESS WORK

When a country, suffering from the townward drift of population receives immigrants from a countiy in which . city-crowding is more rampant still, the country of destination should make provision (including land, finance, transport, and. training facilities) for placing its . new : inhabitants on the ■ soil. The plain fact is that, in such circumstances,, the country that carr ries. on an immigration policy, without its correlative of closer settlement, is bankrupt of statesmanship."; Haying admitted so much at the start, we shall not be suspected of being apologists for the Government if we add that the report of the : ' Social Welfare Committee, submitted to the last meeting of the Hospital Board, does not indicate that things are as bad as might have been expected. Notwithstanding the lack of an adequate Government land settlement.- polioy,, the -land is', we. beiiey.e, abseyrbiag, pa: its s>vra ac-

count, a good many immigrants-,;, and-to say that," in two years,'.only' twenty-six six-month arrivals and eleven twelve-month arrivals haye been assisted by: the Social Wei-; fare Committee, is to. say that the reading;on this barometer is better than the Government deserves. ; ;

Mr. Chapman's complaint of re-, placement -pi New Zealandefs by; immigrants cannot be tested except in individual cases.; If an immigrant did a fair day;S work, and if a New Zealanderj working beside; him did hot,' such replacement would be entirely justifiable. It is easy to draw a general. conclusion that immigrants are ; being . employed in order to force downthe rate of wages or to victimise pre-vious-employees;; but such a generalisation ,is worthless unless it is accompanied with strong, evidence in concrete cases.. We have heard of New Zealand workers who have had sharp differences with. other New Zealand workers pn the same job as to what is a fair day's work; and in a dispute of this sort between a New Zealander and an immigrant it is ..not to be assumed that the- latter is %,time-server and a submissive slave if he. out-works his fellow and retains employment when the other quits.. That there are also unemployables among immigrants, as among all workers, is evidenced by Mr. Butler. When the workers exceed the; work, a weeding^out is inevitable.. This, factdoes not excuse the neglect of land-settlement; but land-settle-ment "would hot abolish the need of weeding-out, though ' it might-re-duce the intensity thereof.