IMMIGRATION METHODS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17483, 29 May 1920, Page 6

IMMIGRATION METHODS.

No exception can be taken to the character of the information given by the High Commissioner's office to intending emigrants to New Zealand if it enables them to gain such an intelligent comprehension of the prevailing conditions in the Dominion as was displayed by those who arrived yesterday in the steamer Paparoa. Since they were given such a practical view of life in New Zealand, it is difficult to understand why others who arrived previously should have been allowed to entertain such romantic ideas as some of th'em attribute to .conversations with New Zealand officials in London. The instructions sent by the Prime Minister were precise. "There is a great shortage of labour in New Zealand, both, skilled and unskilled," he advised the High Commissioner. "All ordinary unskilled labour can find immediate employment on Government and municipal works and from private employers. Farm labour is extremely short, and married men, with their wives, are preferred.; Carpenters, bricklayers,

miners and mechanics are required in large numbers, and' command high wages." No one could reasonably find in this statement any prospect of a livelihood for men with families, inexperienced in agriculture, as farm labourers, or suppose that it offered any opening for office workers. Nor is ,it easily conceivable that any such interpretation of the Dominion's requirements has been followed by the High Commissioner's staff. Its difficulty ha.* been not to discover prospective settlers, but to cope with the great demand for passages' to the Dominion. If there are thousands of applicants beyond tho available shipping accommodation, tho "approval " of the Government can be reserved for those who are most suitable to New* Zealand's needs, and any carelessness in the selection involves not only injustice to the individual, but difficulties for the community that is to receive them. In promising the co-operation of the New Zealand Government in the Imperial scheme for the settlement of discharged soldiers, Mr. Massey gave an undertaking that employment would be found on arrival for able-bodied men ft of that class approved by the High Commissioner, and assured them of constant employment. If that responsibility is to be discharged, the organisation of the newly-created Immigration Department must be hastened so that it will, be ■ able to carry out- an effective plan for the reception .of immigrants and for their introduction without delay to suitable employment. Manifestly, an office in Wellington alone cannot do this.