MIGRATION TO NEW ZEALAND

Evening Star, Issue 25169, 8 May 1944, Page 2

MIGRATION TO NEW ZEALAND

PREMIER SOUNDS NOTE OF CAUTION INTERNAL REHABILITATION FIRST (Official News Service.) (Rec. noon.) LONDON, May 7. Sound planning, as an essence of any future immigration scheme', was stressed by Mr Eraser in a statement replying to questions asked him in London as to whether New Zealand wiil need immigrants after the war. Mr Fvaser agreed that the need would exist.

Emphasising that while New Zealand would welcome people coming, it must first provide for its own men in the forces, he said: " We have had tens of thousands of our men fighting all over the world, and they have p.aced us under the same obligation in which tho men of the United Kingdom, say, have placed this country and the Americans have placed the United States. It is only right that they should be provided for first in matters of employment and housing. Some of them have been away four and a-half years. Their wives and sweethearts are awaiting their return. They will want to set up homes, and we want to give them the first chance of getting houses. It would be wrong on our part to encourage other people to come out immediately until we have housed our own men and resettled them in their jobs. After that there must be a proper scheme of immigration, with consideration in the light of the entire world economic position and consultation and arrangement between the United Kingdom and the dominions."

Speaking of the kind of men who might first be encouraged to settle in New Zealand, Mr Fraser suggested the men who had fought in British formations like the Royal Armoured Corps and Fifty-first Highland Division on the battlefields alongside New Zealand's own fighting troops—men who mingled well and easily with our own and! in

whom this comradeship in arms had bred a desire to go out to the Dominion after the war. " Some of them want io come out and We want to have them out. but in good conditions of housing and employment. Therefore, with proper planning, we could then throw open our doors, first, to our kith and kin. of the British Isles, and then, perhaps, to the people of other nations who have stood by Us. Ofio difficulty we face is that the kind of men we may need most urgently are the kind you in Britain may bo most reluctant to lose., You have a tremendous rebuilding "to do in this country. You will need all your building trade.employees and tens of thousands of other skilled men for your own job of building up your nation again. We need budding Operatives Vei'y badly, too, andi they are one of the very classes of people wo would most welcome." As far as other types of workers were concerned, there was a limit to New Zealand's agricultural development, and it would be necessary to look to other industries to absorb immigrants. It might be desirable for industrial firms to establish themselves in New Zealand, thus bringing the machines, as well as the men, but he reiterated! that carefully planned, rather than haphazard, immigration was essential.