MIGRATION

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 35, 10 August 1927, Page 15

MIGRATION

EMPIRE BUILDING

THE BISHOP OF LONDON

HEART IN NEW ZEALAND

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, Ist Jtme.

The Bishop of, London writes, in the "Evening Standard," a brief summary of his "50,000-mile . Slission." Referring 'to "beloved New Zealand,";he confesses that "many people besides myself have left their hearts" in the Dominion.

The problem of migration is perhaps I the main theme of his article. • "How can we people the Empire?" asks the Bishop. _ At first sight this looks the simplest thing m the world. Here we are over-populat-ed in our island home, with all the good old British stock which has foundiW and built up the Empire, and .here are-our daughter nations, more especially Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, all needing ?™£ eater P°Pulation for their, development. What can be simpler?' says the paper theorist. Tour the full' basin into the empty ones!' But when you once try to turn theory into practice; then you' find out your difficulties, and these difficulties, while partly the same, / also vary with the different countries. "Canada wants agriculturists, and we can t spare agriculturists, and so it comes about that Galicians, Poles, and many others who cannot speak our language and who can live on nothing and work from morning to night are finding their way out there -in greater numbers than are our people. "In Australia you are up against an | eyen more difficult problem. In Canada at any rate, you have nine or ten millions, but here is this enormous Continent of Australia with six and a half millions, and nearly all of them round the circumference, as some said, like flies round a gigantic saucer. . . "WHITE AUSTRALIA." . "I am all for a 'White Australia,' which is a passion with Australians e.ven more than a policy, but, as I reminded them in counties* meetings, 'we are still white in Great Britain,' and where are they going to get their white population from except from the Old Country, from-which: all their. forbears came? Already there are 28,000 Italians, making money, too- Germans are there, and Greeks, and we really cannot pursue a 'dog-in-the-manger'• policy. All these people are white, and someone must develop that wonderful land, but I found latent opposition to more immigration in labour circles, who perhaps quite naturally, are afraid of more immigrants lowering their excellent wages and^-what surprised me more—a great indifference and indeed boredom about the subject among professional classes, except among those who had really studied the subject. But I believe that in Mr. Gepp we have got a leader who will make good,' and we must cooperate with him over here. His point is that development and migration must' go hand in hand."

Relative to New Zealand the.: Bishop writes: "Ten thousand immigrants a year is the estimate the Prime Minister gives us. as. to what New Zealand can take at present. When things get more settled— and prosperous—she can take more, but (to let us see that the 10,000 come from Britain. New Zealand is, in a very special way, an English country. ... "It would be a sad pity if the predominant element in immigration to New Zealand was not British, and although 12 000 miles is 12,000 miles, yet no one would regret, if they get a proper footing in New; Zealand, making it their home. The climate is delightful, neither too hot nor too cold, the. scenery is beautiful (Auckland Harbour alone being one *f the sight? of the world), and there is plenty of room in both islands for settlers, if both Gov ernments work together for the comrnor good.

In other words, migration within the .Empire is a possible ideal with goodwill and co-operation on all sides."