UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 16 March 1928, Page 9

UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM.

A PASSING PHASE

SIR R, HORNE’S VIEW

Immigration is a burning question in Great Britain, as it is in New Zealand, and the views of Sir Robert Horne, the British statesman, who arrived at Auckland by the Niagara on his return to England after a world tour studying Empire problems, were given to an “Auckland Star” representative.

_‘ ‘I am strongly of opinion, ’ ’ said Sir Robert, “that there is very little use in .carrying out immigration schemes unless tliev have been considered and) carefully thought out beforehand. It is no use simply to send people out in spasmodic fashion and dump them down in a country where conditions are entirely new and unfamiliar to them.

“We* know of failures in New Zealand) and Australia on account of this loose way of meeting the problem. In some cases l men are quite unsuited to the conditions, and in other cases the conditions are unsuited to the men. On the other hand, there have been many successes, but the failures have tended: to. create deterrents to others to leave the Old Country for the oversea Dominions. Happily, things are now being better arranged with the help of the overseas committee in London in harmony with the Governments of the Dominions themselves. We are confidently looking forward to an increase of immigration in the future on sound lines.

“I have personally the control of the fund for the promotion of immigration schemes on the best lines,” continued Sir Robert Horne. “The money is being largely devoted) to the training of boys, and they are given instruction in milking, the care of horses, rearing of poultry and pigs, and farm operations generally, in ■order that they may be fitted, for life overseas. The benefit of sending out youths is quite apparent. They respond much more readily to the new conditions, and they take much more rapidly to their now homes than older men. Of course, there are many older people who have done well in the Dominions, and. there is no reason whatever to he pessimistic about such men making good.”

“The conditions of unemployment at the present time in Australia and New Zealand,” concluded Sir Robert Horne.. “have closed the "way to immigration to some extent, but in these new countries it is plain that unemployment is a mere passing phase. It is impossible to suppose' that countries with great natural resources, such as Australia and New Zealand possess, are not going to he built up and afford employment to a \far greater population than they have now. I am not inclined to look upon these temporary conditions of unemployment as any deterrent to the carrying out of a. sound scheme for increasing the number of citizens who will he able to live hapnilv under the beneficent "oeditions of these' southern seas.”