AN ENGLISH VIEW

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 65, 14 September 1936, Page 11

AN ENGLISH VIEW

DOMINION'S PROBLEMS

IMMIGRATION AND THE LAND

DEAL WITH BRITAIN ?

Three days' distance from Australia I found in New Zealand very little mining or factory unemployment; almost the whole problem seemed agricultural, writes William Telling in "The Times." The squatocracy here did not go into politics after the war as they did in Australia. But three year* ago they began to foel they must take' a' part in public life. Together with the younger men they, helped to organise a body which for several months became .the most popular in the ■Dominion. It had some of the crusading policies of Fascism* and envisaged cleaner and better politics. As soon'as this Legion took up the question of immigration, and tried to develop an immigration policy it broke to bits. Its leaders are still there, all young men, keen on developing their country. Behind them are shrewd business men, who tell y6u New Zealand, cannot go ahead without an increased population of anything up to 5,000,000. When you go out into the country and talk to the small shopkeeper you will find no more patriotic Briton, but he will always tell you the reason the Legion and other parties fail is because they advocate migration. The New Zealand working man will not stand for it, they .say. ■■■■•■■■.■■". ■•.: .■ " In Auckland I heard of an old man who came to New Zealand 50 years ago. The inhabitants resented his arrival. They even. boycotted him. There were then 20,000 people in the city, and nearly everybody felt that the country was getting far too full. Today the old man sees over 250,000 in Auckland, and he laughs. But the general feeling has not changed. WASTING TIME? Labour leaders, today in. the Cabinet, told me that if Britain Would guarantee a certain fixed increase in the purchase of New Zealand butter they, as a party, "would advocate the purchase of more British manufactures and the settle-, ment, of more British immigrants. They asked, How else could the Dominion absorb more people? One might say that, supposing people continue to drift towards the cities,, there will at least be the land to populate. But I met a widow on a farm, and .presumed her growing son would take! it over, She looked quite indignant: '"Any ordinary youth could, dp that 1 work. No, my boy is going into the railways. I'll not have him waste his time like his father did on the farmi" A. Bishop, whose diocese covers some of the best farming areas of the Domin,'ion, told me how badly they need young farmers. If New Zealand would not provide them they must be got from Great Britain; ■ 'and the farmers, whether of New Zealand or. of Britain, must look on farming as a worth-while calling, must sea the need for slowly building up their farms and realise that the land was meant for people, not for machines. In other words, they:should either, have large families orpay farm hands a decent wage, and give good men attractive work. The Bishop, as well as others, explained to mo that New Zealand farmers seem, many of them, to look ■on.farming .as.,a gamble. They buy : • machinery:-that-can'only :be paid for if there is a good market, and their' ultimate aim is to make quick profits and retire to the cities. - ; PEOOF DISCOVERED. In :this diocese is a proof that England.can send out what is wanted. It is not only, children under ten or twelve .years from our cities who can learn to. make good settlers. Flock; Hpuse,~between Wellington and Auckland, was bought by grateful New' Zealand sheep owners after the war, and 8000 acres were handed over /to help train;for farming the sons and daughters'Of British' seamen who brought New Zealand's goods to Britain in spite of mines and submarines. They took boya from fifteen to nineteen years, and trained them for eight months, then sent them out to farmers! who undertook to look after them for three ■years. Over 700 boys and girls were placed between 1924 and 1932. Then the Government requested that no more should come, and that New Zea,land boys, sons of returned soldiers, should be trained instead. Farming is not popular among New Zealand-boys and they have not gone there, so that I found Flock House only half full and likely to close down, when.the land would be sold up and the proceeds 'divided among those that have already passed- through. The ' shortsightedness of this "policy struck me with greater force when I went to Paneitapu Settlement, some hundreds of miles away in the Waikato. FLOCK HOUSE MOVE. In June, 1934, the,trustees of Flock House bought 2300 acres here, and collected twenty-five of the old boys, who ;by now have had experience and are aged from 22 to 28 years.1 The men are being given selected parcels of this land in proportion to their savings; 1 since they left Flock House. They purchase the land outright, except that it cannot be mortgaged or sold to other than British from Flock < House. I found them busy fencing and roading the land. They were preparing' to settle there for the rest of their lives.' They came from Plymouth, London, Hull, and Cardiff. One was bringing his mother out; another would have his _ sister, already, out under, the original scheme, to cook and keep house for ■him. They were all keen and nad just saved enough, in from five to ten years, to purchase their land. I talked to young New Zealanders about them. They were well disposed, but not really interested. The average young New Zealander seems absorbed ,in studying new economic theories, and he studies them from a religious standpoint. The religious revival among the younger generation in all churches is most marked in this Dominion. Nonconformist bodies appear to have become close allies of the, -Labour Party, and by their insistence on peace policies have made recruitment for the defence forces negligible. The richer young men have tried to remedy this by developing civil aviation clubs from Auckland to Invercar■gill, and the Catholic Church, by far the most influential single church in New Zealand, has up to now kept its younger .members • from joining the ■Socialist Party. NO FENIAN SYMPATHIES. These young Catholics, mostly Irish by descent, feel this very much, having Radicalism in their bones. I was greatly struck, however, by their lack .of Fenian sympathies, and their intense patriotism for New Zealand and the Empire. They, too, seem unwilling for immigration, but keen to get townspeople back to the land. Their influence, for what it will be worth in New Zealand politics, should be for defence of private property along the •lines of the more recent Papal encyclicals, and for such Empire development policies as they find English Catholics advocating at home. Like all young New Zealanders, they are most anxious to know more of what young England thinks and does in politics and business. From both these Dominions I came away with the impression of young

people in young countries convinced of the future of their race, convinced that they had something to interpret from the West to their neighbours in the Far East, and convinced that they had still a lot to do in their own countries before they were ready to admit too many strangers. They seemed, however, quite willing to admit a few under careful and proper auspices. It struck me that the best opening was in New Zealand, and that there it could only be achieved through the New Zealand Government (no other large body being sufficiently, interested) and by a definite economic bargain for the purchase of New Zealand goods.