FUTURE OF MIGRATION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 63, 12 February 1936, Page 8

FUTURE OF MIGRATION

“UNNATURAL FLOW” FROM AUSTRALIA.

Sir Alan G. Anderson, presiding at tho annual meeting in London ol the Orient Steam Navigation Coy., Ltd., referred to the difficult problem of deciding when Australia would again begin to grow, and what service she would require over the next few years. “This year,” he said, “I returned from my sixth happy visit to Australia. Since my; first visit I have seen half Victoria’s century of life and the Australian population treble. In the last few years the flow of migration has been reversed for the best of reasons, that Australia could not find work for her people. This phase of emigration from a land of cheap food and space and all the promise of youth and growth is so unnatural that we expect it soon to pass; but no one can say that the economic problem of Australia is easy to solve. In that free community high standards of living prevail, and if the world will buy and consume the produce of Australia, then high standards will be justified as consistent with ample and cheap production of primary products, and with better health and better temper throughout the world. “At present,” Sir Alan Anderson continued, “almost all nations seem to conspire to be miserable and underfed The League of Nations is now undertaking a large-scale inquiry into the relationship between nutrition and public health. A preliminary report indicates that even in the most advanced countries there is a serious lack of health-producing food (milk, eggs, vegetables, fish, fruit, and meat). It is evident that public health throughout Europe could he enormously improved if increased consumption of these foods could be arranged: I shall not try to explore this great world problem, but let ns note, in considering our results, that a prompt and combined effort of the chief creditor nations to restore the world’s exchange and to enable the nations to enjoy* plenty is required, not merely to stabilise currencies and to promote peace, but to enable Australia once more to grow and import from Great Britain and Europe.”