EMPTY SPACES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 202, 17 July 1936, Page 11

EMPTY SPACES

.*. NEED FOR MIGRATION. OPINION IN WELLINGTON. WELLINGTON, July 17. Migration from Grea.t Britain to New Zealand under a | roporly organised scheme was considered imperative for the welfare of the Dominion by a representative meeting held in Wellington yesterday under the auspices of the Dominion Settlement Associa tion. Speakers emphasised the juv.essity for a larger population in :Jie interests of the country's economic and national security, and the advisability of more consumers within the Domiiiion for its products, both primary and secondary. Invitations to attend the meeting were sent by the Dominion Settlement Association to a number of Wellington organisations and individuals interested in migration. in convening the meeting, the association felt that the framing of some national migration policy wiis long overdue, but urns as a preliminary step action \yas necessary to crystallise public opinion on the question. A Dominion conference representative of all interests is to be convened later. Mr A. Leigh Hunt said that a migration policy could not progress, and no Government would prosecute it, unless public opinion was behind the movement. There was no public opinion on the question of migration in existence at the present time, and it was necessary to cteate it. They had no right to coop up other people and deny them the right to errand. In 1874, without proper organisation, New Zealand had taken 38,000 people, and in the following year it had absorbed 25,000. That was at a time when the total population of the country was less than 300,000. Between 1908 and 1919 Brazil had taken ],015,000 people, and in 1919 and 1920 she absorbed 3,576,000 people. From 1920 to 1923 the Argentine took nearly ,2,000,000 people. It was true these were vast countries, but it showeu what could be done. With an area of 88,745 square miles, Great Britain had a population of 45,000,000. The Dominions had an area of 7,752,908 square miles with a population of 20,000,000 white people. England was the most densely-popu-lated country in Europe, having 740 people to the square mile. Great Britain had 480 to the square mile, New Zealand 13, South Africa 10, Canada 3, and Australia 2. New Zealand had been warned of the danger of her empty spaces.