UNEMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRANTS.

Evening Star, Issue 19272, 10 June 1926, Page 11

UNEMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRANTS.

TO THE fiUTOIt ■ Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr Rite, can bo possibly excused for his opinions on the above subject, but there nro two sides do every question. As n New Zealander let me .assure Mr Rite that there is no feeling in regards to the immigrants; rather are they worthy ol our deepest sympathy. _ The wliole trouble has been and still is the system under which immigrants nro brought out to New Zealand, and also the conditions that the immigrant unwittingly brings into being. Take bousing alone. Before tho war it was practically an Unheard-of thing for more than one family to live in one house. It was also the pride of the New Zealander that he could always earn enough to keep his wife at home to look after his children. Owing to the fostering of an elaborate immigration scheme since the war, what has happened? In my daily rounds it is common to find two, and sometimes three, families living in one house. Rents have advanced treble, and bouses which the health authorities would have condemned are fully occupied. Home conditions have been brought to a lower standard, and in many cases the only playground tho children have is the street. In many cases the wife has been forced to go out to work to augment the wages of tho husband owing to increased rents. The demand for housing has been so accentuated that prices £or freehold have soared, and in many cases the comforts and necessities of life have to be curtailed to meet interest and instalments. Then there is unemployment. Wo in New Zealand have too many unskilled laborers of our own to cater fdr-with-out catering for the same class from Home. What happens under the nomination system ? Tho nominator has to guarantee twelve months’ work and housing. But it ends there, and the Government does not insist that tho guarantee should be examined before the nomination paper has been sent abroad, but out comes the immigrant, and the work is not' there., I could give scores of examples, as I have been tabulating cases for months. The immigrant should be pleased that the City Corporation and Government departments are so sympathetic, as it seems to bo the easiest way of getting a job for an immigrant. The class of immigrant wo require is the man with a little capital, and this is tho class of man Britain wants to retain. As for the single man going to the country, his responsibilities in many cases are equally ns great as the married man’s. And why should an unmarried New Zealander be forced to go to the country to make room for a married immigrant? Your correspondent’s argument in comparing the population of New Zealand with that of tho Homo Country is not sound. What about the comparison of wealth between the two? What we New Zealanders object to is tho unemployment conditions of tho Home Country being transferred to N ew Zealand. And we certainly object to immigrants coming nut here quoting Britishers keeping within the Empire, when we know that if Britain shunted her foreign population out of her own home then she in her turn would bo able to find employment for her own Imperial sons and daughters. Your correspondent quotas fifteen years’, experience in various parts of tho world a? an authority. But that .does ■ not cover New Zealand conditions. J am judging New Zealand’s conditions, of forty-five years’ experience, alongside my father’s seventy years’ experience, and in all that time unemployment conditions to-day are worse than ever they have been before. And it is mainly due to the unskilled immigrant being given preference over the New Zealandborn. As for the immigrant class being “the best of the people of Britain,” all I can say is “God help Britain, for she will need it.” As an ox-Now Zealand soldier I am, ns far as New Zealand is concerned, for New Zealandborn first, tho Empire afterwords.—I am, etc., T.M. June 9.