Profiteers and Immigration

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 303, 20 December 1922, Page 4

Profiteers and Immigration

The Labour Party during the election campaign issued several leaflets*, showing the. material interest of Hie shipping companies- in the policy Of immigration. - This haruly needs proof, but if-.anyone wishes it.-here is one. At the annual meeting oi' the! Orient Steam Navigation Company, the clt&'rman, Sir Kenneth Anderson, said (cable, Thursday last) that the volume of trade in 1923 "will depend primarily on the extent to which' the Imperial and CommonweaJtfi Oovernments -are iabl3 to get their Immigration scheme itfto active being. The case for it \«-irresistible, ar/d it would be a strangely perverse i>3 is fortune, it. the proposals should fail :'n successful achievement. A.policy oi ■emigration by fits and start? is desperately expensive., and wholly ineffeo-. tu.il. ' If ships are to serve trade cheaply, they must have an economic load assured them, not for one or; tw-t, years, but for I*€." That is putting it plainly. Hero we hay« a shipping potentate- agrtatir/g for assisted immigriaition in the interest of his company, and we may fee-- sure! that he and h"'s friends will apply ..the screw to their lackey politicians'* in the Governments. It matters not one iota tQ tlio shipping companies whether, the country to which they -carry the immigrants is capable cf absorbing them—lndeed ie is better for the profiteers if it is not, because immigrants will then return to the. land of their fathers and the companies will thus get two profits instead of one. It is to be noted too, from the above statement., that assisted- 'immigration is regarded as a means of reducing homeward freights- a sort of SUtte subsidy. Properly construed,; therefore, assisted immigration is at once a move to .supply employers with cheap labour rand at the fame t'me.with lesser freights. And the public pays the bill. If this is not, class legislation, what is? .. , :