“DISTRESSING NEWS”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26541, 16 August 1947, Page 8

“DISTRESSING NEWS”

PROPOSED DEPUTATION TO MR FRASER p.A. WELLINGTON, Aug. 15. Commenting on the Auckland report of the departure of a Yorkshire bootmaker, his wife and two children, and other migrants who had expended £IOOO in an attempt to settle in. New Zealand, Mr A. L. Hunt, president of the Dominion Settlement and Population Association, stated that he had telegraphed to the Prime Minister,-Mr,. Fraser, expressing his dismay at the;, distressing news, and asking that Mry Fraser should receive a deputation. - Mr Hunt said that, personally, he i had persuaded several migrants to stay on in New Zealand, but there were many others who had decided to return, and had departed before the Auckland cases were made public. The immigrants had had no one to welcome them, they had met with difficulties in hotels, houses were unprocurable, and if they wanted to purchase properties they had to contend with the Land Sales Court. It was no wonder, therefore, that people were returning to the Homeland. . Mr Hunt added that, the population conference that had met in July had urged that steps be taken to meet this state of affairs, and that sufficient unmarried artisans be brought here from abroad to help, to cope with the housing problem. . : "