UNEMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION.

Evening Star, Issue 19273, 11 June 1926, Page 5

UNEMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION.

TO THK F.DITOJI. Sir. -Your correspondent ‘VE.W.F.’’ is living up to his reputation as a paradoxical controversialist, which was evinced in his previous dissertations. I had argued that by the people patronising our local goods, where they were sold a.s cheap, or if not cheaper, than the imported, more employment would result. By way of disproving (his contention your correspondent in a borror*stricken screed presents this woeful result of such a. policy. I quote his own words; “The euro would probably lie worse than the, disease, for this reason: that tho then prosperous nature of our industries and country would attract the much larger number of the overseas unemployed which the Homoland would then have.” My reply to that i ; : Let us hope so, tor under such conditions there would he room for them, and the added population working here would be an additional local market lor our primary products also. “ E.W.F.” would have New Zealand assume the roll of dictator, and control England’s affairs. When the tile-making industry was started at Abbotsford and Caversham, and many men were paid award wages, no ono told France how to manage her business, because her boats no longer came to New Zealand laden with tiles. “ K.W.P.” says: “The only way in which immigration could ho stopped would bo complete severance from England.” Who demanded severance from England, or who demanded that immigration .should cease. P 1 have certainly doubted the wisdom of a policy of bringing immigrants hero unless einployment and houses were found for them. My attitude, can be summed up by the following illustration :—My attention was drawn to a Drainage. Board work being carried out on which a youthful recent arrival was employed. “ Brother,’’ I said to the person who complained, “ rejoice that a poor stranger in a strange land has secured a job. Do not fight over a job like dogs over a bone. Let us advance your claims for employment without blackening someone elsoV claim.” Among the many applicants for employment the claims of the single men have boon overlooked. During the war these single men were first called up. They were told an obligation rested on them to defend the country. There can be no obligation without a corresponding duty. It now rests with the country to carry out its duty to those single men also. Now that the local bodies have power to borrow money for unemployment purposes without a ratepayers’ poll, surely our local men can be employed as well as the immigrant, the stranger in the strange land, whose hopes of employment have often been blasted.—-J am, etc.. J. K. MacManus. June 11.