OUR INTEREST IN IMMIGRATION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8295, 5 December 1912, Page 4

OUR INTEREST IN IMMIGRATION

The courts have lately been busy with more than one of our newcomers. Tho charges have all been ■ serious, _ and prove that we have been subsidising ships- to bring. us undesirable immigrants. Tho undesirables are certainly a small proportion' of the whole, but we don’t want even one. Any sort "of British immigrant .will not do for Now Zealand. That pillar of British Conservatism, the London “ Tifncs,” would seem to think so,-for it recently said:

Government inducements to emigrants should, perhaps, be more carefully supervised than is at present the case. We can keep our better' population .if we try, and the Dominions can still -find ample material for their needs in tho classes ■ ’ which they now. repel. If those sentiments are at all popular in Homo' circles, then... the New Zealand Government'ought to let it be known they are not popular here. We are trying to , build better than the older civilisations, and wo want a happier and. healthier people. Importing mental or physical misfits will not help towards attaining pur ideal, and wo are not prepared to welcome tho lame and tho halt, oven though they come from the homo of- our fathers.

That is one side of tho immigration problem. If we intend importing people, none hut the lit are good in Vestments. . Now comes this question: Do wo want immigrants ? The only satisfactory answer, is Yes (under pro per conditions) find No (under present conditions). Unlock the land, so that those who wish to become primary producers, will not bo forced to stay in the cities and compete with city workers for city jobs. .When there is a reversal of the present position—land ready for people,-instead of a score of applicants for each block of land—it will be time to applaud an immigration policy. If iramigrati6n|sfmply -moans building up city popnlatiohV' J ‘and "increasing the competition . for jobs the workers need hot be expected to be enthusiastic in its support. 'Die heat population, for any country is its home-grown. An infusion of now blood is also beneficial. But we have lost much population during the past few years—some of it native-born, and therefore best—by the emigration to Australia. . And now comes the cry'of unemployed from Australia. We will get hack some of our lost sons and daughters in the natural J 1;.; order of things. We have emigrating and . im-, migrating, and if things unfortunately go wrong, in Australia our balance-will he quickly restored. ,■_ > , -

I am writing this note to-day mainly to explode some fallacious estimates.' In every city we hear employers of labor declare, that they, could' omplov so many men, women, or juvenile workers in addition to present staffs If you ask for further particulars they profess to have made elaborate calculations of the work they have lost through want of labor. All that supposed demand, howeve, jf? built on wrong assumptions. . To illustrate, let us take a concrete case.' In the clothing industry, the demand for female labor is supposed to be particularly keen. I know of cas>s of shortage of work, but that does not affect my immediate argument. Let us suppose that, a large clothing order is to be made up. One firm refuses it; perhaps two or three others do likewise—in some cases this one order may have gone the gamut of a dozen firms, and still remain unplaced. Each of the dozen manufacturers estimates this as an order which he missed through not being able to make it .un on: the moment. And so the supposed demand for labor in this ‘ case is estimated largely on a multiplied market. If the first firm had completed the job the others would never have known of it. This one instance will show how dangerous it u to place much weight on the repeated agitation for more city workers. In New South Wales elaborate estimates of the shortage of labor wets made. A wholesale immigration policy was adopted. Employers gave specific assurances of certain stated periods of certain employment for imported labor To-day many of those assurances have been repudiated, and many workers are workless. Now South Wales has •■reversed its immigration policy. There is no need for us to go through such an experience. But it would be wise to keep our. eyes, open arid to he watchful as to the future policy on immigration.-- , J. T. PAUL. '