ALIEN MIGRATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23011, 12 April 1938, Page 10

ALIEN MIGRATION

A tightening of the migration laws in Australia will tend to restrict, though it will not prohibit, alien immigration. No more aliens will be admitted to the canefields of Queensland or to the New South Wales and Victorian irrigation areas, while alien group migration will be neither approved nor facilitated. On the latest available exact statistics, those of the 1933 census, the foreign-born element in the population is not great, while the number retaining foreign nationality is much smaller. At the census date, the total population of the Commonwealth was 6,629,839. Of the number 113,661 were classed as born outside the British Empire. Of these 53,402 had been naturalised, leaving 60,259 or 53 per cent foreign nationals. The proportion still with foreign nationality was an insignificant one, actually .9 per cent in 1933 as against .8 per cent at the previous census, in 1921. In the 12-year intercensal period, the net increase in foreign nationals was 14,505, but this modest figure masks a considerable growth in certain groups. The Italians, for instance, increased by 12,755, the Greeks by 2835 and the Yugoslavs by 2217. On the other hand the Chinese decreased by 6000, the Dutch by 700 and the Japanese by 555. There were other small increases and decreases. The problem of foreign migrants goes beyond that of mere numbers. Its emergence in other countries has been plain. In Australia there have been forebodings and some actual complaints. The difficulty is that with intense nationalism rampant in the world, the old theory of the melting-pot, once so complacently accepted, especially in the United States, has disappeared. Racial groups tend to form, and to cultivate philosophies held as alien in British .countries. The special reference to the canefields and the irrigation areas shows that fear of such a development inspires the Australian decision.