THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1936 EMPIRE MIGRATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22390, 9 April 1936, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1936 EMPIRE MIGRATION

A STATEMENT attributed to Mr. Savage that his Government would be more than sympathetic toward a scheme of planned immigration has received prominence in the House of Commons. Perhaps the clearest view of the Prime Minister's mind is obtained in a recent utterance in which he said that the first line of defence should be population, that British people should not be 'sent abroad to struggle for themselves, but that their migration should be carried out under a defined policy, and that the purpose should be to introduce people who would use the land and develop industries. If one considers first the capacity of Canada, Australia and South Africa to absorb migrants, New Zealand must be allotted a minor place in any Empire scheme of migration, and that being the case it would not be fitting or wise to dogmatise from an Empire standpoint. The past experience of New Zealand, however, justifies a note of authority and confidence in comment that may have more than local application. At the outset it may be laid down definitely that New Zealand would never agree to any scheme of migration that is not selective, and probably all the Dominions would incline to the same limitation. After the initial pioneering migration organisations had done their work the infiltration system prevailed and it was satisfactory until during the "heady" time after the war. there was introduced a system of nomination which brought many unsuitable people. There are reviving trades, which, at this moment, would welcome the arrival of skilled craftsmen from the Motherland. The countryside would be glad of the entry of men and women who would supply the unfulfilled labour needs of the land. Every trader would be cheered by the prospect of migration stimulating business. The country as a whole, however, would consent to nothing but a most carefully-planned selective system because of the large amount of unemployment that exists and the dubious attitude toward more than normal expansion of agricultural production. And the best informed opinion of Britain is in complete agreement. The Times recently stated that there should be no disposition to hold exaggerated hopes of an early and spectacular occasion for the exercise of the * Overseas Settlement Board's functions. The resumption of adult emigration must be a process guarded and even tentative. The Inter-Departmental Committee on Migration Policy was sound and thoroughly comprehending when in its report issued some eighteen months ago it stated that Stateaided schemes of emigration had been on the whole disappointing, that ■in particular the policy of settling emigrants on the land by large expenditures of public money had been a failure, and that the State should confine itself mainly to encouraging those economic conditions oversea which of themselves were sufficient to attract the flow of unassisted emigration, This provided an extraordinarily strong argument against the imposition of quota restrictions upon their exports to Britain, but it was one of the many instances where the advice of one State organisation ran counter to the policy of others. Certain it is that the President of the Board of Trade, intent upon arranging foreign trade agreements, often to the detriment of Dominion interests, and the Minister of Agriculture, engrossed with a planning and protection scheme which meant increased difficulties for Dominion farmers, were, and perhaps still are, blind to the mandatory conditions upon which the resumption of migration under any system must depend. The question of migration is due for early discussion. It will lie with the Overseas Settlement Board appointed a few weeks ago to sift proposals and probably to make proposi- | tions. Among the proposals offered from non-official sources is that instead of migration by infiltration there should be "transference of population in mass." the idea being to establish "whole new communities." Such notions will have no appeal in New Zealand. There may be scope in some parts of the outer Empire for Hettlement on this plan, but not in this Dominion, even if Britain herself made a contribution toward the cost, and the migrants were most carefully selected. Such schemes are the dreanis of theorists, who usually have little local or practical knowledge and who do not appear to realise what the Times haß emphasised—the "slackened incentive for people in Britain to seek a new life overseas" due to the "great dispersion of material comforts and pleasures." The trade revival in the Motherland is absorbing the most efficient and adaptable of the unemployed and it would be folly in the extreme to enlist for an Empire settlement scheme those whose main urge to depart from the Homeland would be that they cannot find work. New Zealand may yet have to bid at some cost for the services and citizenship of skilled craftsmen in several trades, but otherwise by far the best form of migration would be to secure juveniles under the Fairbridge Farm School organisation. Flock House might well become the nucleus of that splendid institution in this country.