The Evening Star FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1925. WHY MIGRATION HALTS.

Evening Star, Issue 19055, 25 September 1925, Page 6

The Evening Star FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1925. WHY MIGRATION HALTS.

I.v Britain widespread attention is being paid to the Ministry of Labor’s scheme for training emigrants for the dominions, the principal comment being that the attempt is oh so puny a scale that its effect in relieving British unemployment will bo quite negligible. In Wellington yesterday a conference of those organisations interested in migration began its sittings, its object being to devise a progressive policy to secure a sufficient number of suitable immigrants from Britain in each year. And in Christchurch on the preceding day the North Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board considered the case of an applicant for relief which led to a warm discussion on immigration matters and strong condemnation of the number of cases of “ out of the frying pan into the fire ” which occurred among those who had left Britain for New Zealand. Tho Rev. F. Buie, for example, said that lie had come into contact with immigrants who had been “terribly up against it” in tho last two or throe winters, that he did not know how they came to be brought hero, and that some public protest was necessary. Other board members corroborated this, some saying that the wrong class of immigrant was being brought, that New Zealand officials in Britain misrepresented New Zealand conditions, that tho organisation for reception at this end was bad, and that people hero nominated friends and guaranteed thorn work without fulfilling their obligations. It is no new complaint; one member said truly that the position bad been discussed again and again, but nothing seemed to have been done. One step which is to bo taken immediately is to put the facts before the conference now sitting in Wellington. But already that body has passed a resolution affirming that “tho dominion should adopt, under a woll-considcrcd scheme, a progressive policy towards securing a sufficient number of suitable immigrants from the United Kingdom each year, and thus provide for the defence, prosperity, and progress of New Zealand, at tho same time assisting the Mother Country by relieving her of her surplus population.” As giving an index to what is considered a suitable number, the president of tho conference, Mr A. L. Hunt, said that under a scientific system New Zealand could absorb 50,000 people per annum, and before long it could work up to 100,000. Ho characterised Now Zealand as the laggard of tho overseas dominions in having failed to do its duty to the Mother Country in regard to migration. But if the enterprise, conducted hitherto on a most inadequately small scale, has produced so high a percentage of failures, what would be the result of immensely increasing the scope of our immigration policy ? As the ‘Morning Post’ complains, but without apportioning blame as between Britain and the dominions, the .authorities have so far only played with tho great scheme for the redistribution of population within the Empire, which before the close of “the war was foreseen as imperative for the existence of the Mother Country and desirable for the progress and safety of the dominions. Some of the ‘ Morning Post’s ’ phrases in tho article cabled to-day are so trenchant as to bo worth reproducing bore: “It is little use training men for the laud if there is none to offer them. Successive Imperial and dominion Governments have approved of tho enterprise. The distribution of population means intorimperial migration, but little is being

done to carry it out. . . . Our need is so immense that it is instant. No schemes so far proposed would effect more than a negligible relief. What is required is an effort comparable with the war times, when millions of men were carried overseas. That .was for destruction. To-day’s purpose is wholly constructive, yet so little is be-

ing done

A great Imperial

emergency is not being mot. Hundreds of millions are being spent to keep men and women in idleness when they might be spent in providing them with a settled livelihood overseas.” There

is a noto of desperation in this very plain-spoken article. Britain’s economic position is not improving. Sho is supporting l.t millions of unemployed, some of her leading industries are in a pitiful plight, and her overseas trade has of late been marked by the steady growth of an adverse balance, loading many to believe that at length Britain is eating into reserves of capital to meet current living expenses instead of living wholly on her income. One of the worst signs is that among the imports which her decreased exports fail to balance the proportion of wholly manufactured goods brought into the country is on the increase. This, at a time when many of her own factories are idle or partially so, and many of the young in her industrial towns are growing up without the opportunity of learning a trade, let alone of earning a living for the present, is a disconcerting sign. Recently Mr J. L. Garvin, editor of the ‘ Observer,’ appealed to the British Government to float a development loan of £100,000,000 or £200,000,000 to promote British work, materials, and construction, production, and communication throughout the Empire. Presumably he has urged these heroic, big-scalo measures because experience has convinced him, ns well as others, that oversea settlement and the expansion of primary industry in the dominions cannot he a rapid process. It must also be evident that Britain’s way to her economic regeneration cannot lie through the investment of capital for the establishment in the dominions of industries to compete with her own. If one puts aside for the moment the possibility of dangers through over-produc-tion of primary products one is almost forced to the conclusion that the raising of a huge loan such as Mr Garvin suggests would he am admirable thing if its proceeds .were applied to an immense Imperial campaign for the development of resources of the overseas dominions on so huge a scale that those countries would be able to receive great numbers of immigrants and place them in a prepared and encouraging environment right away. Something of that kind has already been mooted at our own doors. An English syndicate has investigated the Maniototo plains a field for investment and for the placing of immigrants, these latter first to be employed on big irrigation works and then to be placed on irrigation /arms as those jpy developed. If £uit-

able amounts of loan money wore made available for comparable enterprise in all the dominions the difficulty of making the expansion of primary industry in the dominions a rapid process would ho overcome. Possibly Mr Hunt had some such idea in mind when ho suggested at yesterday’s conference in Wellington that New Zealand might, suggest to Britain that the latter country should buy second-class land in New Zealand and send out emigrants to regenerate it. And the ‘ Morning Post ’ is apparently on the same Hues in proposing that the British Government should appoint a committee, including representatives of tho dominions and the Colonial Office, a financier, and a practical agriculturist, to investigate tho whole matter. The sooner some such steps are taken tho loss likely are wo to hear of such discouraging starts being made in this country by immigrants as have recently been reported from Christchurch.