The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, January 5, 1946. DRIFT IN N.Z. POPULATION

Grey River Argus, 5 January 1946, Page 4

The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, January 5, 1946. DRIFT IN N.Z. POPULATION

Compared with the increase of the Maoris, that of the Europeans in New Zealand is shown by the census to be so low that Hon. . Nash is warranted in it as unsatisfactory. The Maori rate is not, he says, abnormally high, but the European rate is definitely below what, a young country should show. It is also noteworthy that two-thirds of the people are now urban. Recently that fact was cited as a ground for continuing the same parliamentary representation for 72 rural as for 100 urban adults. On the contrary, this disparity in representation appears during the past 65 years to have resulted in even a greater, disparity dn the two divisions of electors, whose relative proportions to-day are the very reverse of what they were at the advent of the country (piota. An adverse social process in the form of urban aggregation has merely been disguised by the quota, whose removal sliouk mean not only that of a constitutional anomaly, but of a popular delusion. It even has been allegcc that, with the quota, there will go a loss of South Island representation that would not otherwise occur. Tho Government in actual fact now is able to point out that the effect of the quota upon the latest trend of population would be in favour of the North Island. It is there that urban population lias in some areas increased, whereas in this island the tiny total population increase revealed has not been rural at all. The representative aspect, however, is quite secondary to the social and economic aspect. Since the previous census almost the whole increase has been in the North Island; and, except for the area to the- south-east of Auckland, has been almost wholly urban and not rural, If some South Island centres have had an increase it lias been quite offset by the rural decrease. Mr Nash says economic development is the explanation. This raises the question as to what may be the cause of that, economic development. Is it chiefly due, for instance, to urban aggregation of labour? Is mal-distribu-tion of the rural means of production a factor? Are New Zealanders increasingly averse to using their own initiative, and to exercising the responsibility that ffoes with the ownership and the independent utilisation of productive property? The Minister mentions new methods of rural industry, presumably mechanical. It is a question whether mass production in farming gives the maximum. If it does sometimes, it is only in good times of high prices. At other times, the economy of any country is best attained by the maximum number of holdings, and not the minimum number of holdings. It is migration, not a birthrate decline, which reduces rural population, for the urban birthrate is the lower. The better the distribution of people, the less the danger from depression, Which, indeed, tends to correct the townward drift while it lasts. Since the last depression ended, the townward drift has recurred more acutely, and this is the real lesson of-the census. The correctives of the depression have included urban or secondary industrial development, largely in the North Island, and largely intensified by war industry. There soon may be a reaction, now that the question has become again that of a peace-time economy. At anyrate some reaction against this process of urbanisation appears to have become urgently necessary.