The Hawera Star. THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1928. A STEREOTYPED REMEDY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 24 May 1928, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1928. A STEREOTYPED REMEDY.

Delivered every eventnfr by 5 o’olook in Hawera. Manain. Normanby. Okaiawa, Eltbam. Manpatold. Kaponpa, Alton, Hurleyville Patea. Waverlev. Mokoia, Whakamara, Obangai, Meremere. Fraser Road. and Ararata-

The facility with which people will fall into a stereotyped manner of thinking and a glib manner of speech when the subject of migration is under consideration is exemplified daily. New Zealanders, with their first hand knowledge of .some of the problems attached to the task of transporting people from the land of their birth and settling them amid new conditions in a young country overseas should, one would think, be free of this tendency. We have progressed beyond this so far as our own immigration problems aTe concerned, but wc fall into the

error as easily as any arm-chair critic when we generalise about relieving Britain of her surplus population—and especially do wo do .this when it is another Dominion than our own which is to do the relieving. It is almost with despair of -over seeing the problem of overseas settlement appreciated in all its immensity that we noticed a metropolitan contemporary recently discussing the immigration problem as it relates to Canada. Our contemporary drew attention to a really serious state of affairs so far as Canada’s future place in the Empire is concerned, but it showed a lamentable lack, of appreciation of the difficulties to be solved by the sister Dominion before it can obtain the ideal state desired for it by the New Zealand paper. This journal, in a thoughtful article, dealt with the mixed nationality of the population of Canada, and expressed its uneasiness as to the future when the Dominion would be populated largely by the descendants of the mixed races already established there. The article pointed out that to such an extent does this foreign element preponderate in the flow of immigration, that the present Government claims credit for preserving a proportion somewhere about 50 per cent. British to 50 per cent, foreign. During 1926-27, 143,991 immigrants entered Canada, and of these, 73,000 wore made up by representatives of nearly every country of Europe, while 21,000 came from the United States. Less than 50,000, therefore, came from the British Isles, “a condition that cannot fail to cause serious misgivings to those who see in it possibilities of a loosening of the Imperial ties in the no distant future. But even if it is admitted that a 50 per cent, basis is being maintained, the immeasurably greater increase of Continental peoples over British will, in the long run, give Canada a population quite different in character -from that of New Zealand or Australia.” This is an arresting thought, and it makes one realise that Canada’s future place in the Empire cannot be assured by mere flag-wagging. But there is a sad anticlimax. The article arouses forebodings, but the pessimism is not unrelieved by a glimmer of hope; if our Imperialists will look at the problem in this light wc must gradually evolve a determined and practicable policy, achieving security of Canada’s ties with the Empire. But what is the remedy we are given? Simply a general exhortation to send Britain’s surplus population to Canada in such numbers that the .foreign element will be submerged by the influx of British stock. That, of course, is a manifestly desirable but not wholly practical method of solution. It is not sufficient to talk of Canada as ‘ ‘ a land of wonderful opportunity for those who are not afraid of hard work.” Nor is it so difficult to understand, as out contemporary contends, “why there should not be a transference of surplus population to Canada whore there are such vast opportunities and where there are constant demands for .more and more men.” Our own experience should have taught us more than this, yet many people are ready to jump to such easy conclusions and claim they have found the solution of two problems— Canada’s and Britain’s. Wc cannot accept these profound arguments unless wo fire prepared to shut our eyes to the complexities of life under twentieth century conditions. We might forgive persons living in crowded England for believing that, a man has only to go to Canada with has health and two bands to become affluent, but we New Zealanders should not gull ourselves in like manner. We, too, have land to bo worked —at a price; and we should realise that the price is very much the same in Canada, where money is not lent for nothing, where questions of transport, labour and market fluetua-

ttons are all very real problems. . The sooner our picturesque ideas of “making good in the great wide spaoos of the Dominion “ aTe discarded the sooner will the Homeland be enabled to induce her people to emigrate and the more immigrants of British stock wall the Dominions 'be able to absorb.