COMMONWEALTH REVIEW OF IMMIGRATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27112, 21 June 1949, Page 5

COMMONWEALTH REVIEW OF IMMIGRATION

The commission, in a long review of migration, says that the ( inevitable decline in the -younger adult age groups in Britain is likely to'prove an obstacle to the maintenance of a substantial flow of British migrants to the dominions after (the post-war emigration boom is over. The commission thinks it important that the British contribution to further the Dominions’ immigration should be substantial and suggests that the question should be studied jointly by the Governments df Britain and the Commonwealth.

“It must, we think, be accpunted a serious disadvantage if having families below replacement level that it makes it less easy to maintain an adequate flow of British settlers to the dominions, and extremely difficult to do so without aggravating the unbalanced age distribution of the population which remains behind.”

The capacity of a fully established society like Britain to absorb immigrants of an alien race and religion was limited and a diminishing flow of British emigrants to other areas of the Commonwealth may have serious consequences for the economic and political future of Britain and the Commonwealth as a whole. Even if the average British family was maintained at replacement level, or a little over, it was unlikely, given good economic conditions in Britain, that emigrants from Britain would amount to more than one-third or one-quarter of the immigrants which the dominions would need if they wanted to maintain for ever their pre-war rates of growth. The commission considers that on present trends the British element in the Commonwealth will tend to diminish. “ This fact presents a problem of vital concern to the whole Commonwealth. and we urge that it

should be studied jointly by the Governments of Britain and the other Commonwealth countries.

“This study would bring under review Britain’s economic prospects and the political and strategic implications of the use of atomic energy and other developments affecting national defence These might alter the whole picture either by greatly increasing tpe desire -to emigrate or by dictating a deliberate policy, however difficult it might be in the execution of redistributing the man-power of the ■ Commonwealth

The commission says that,,, immigration apart, it was evident that the size of the family could not continue permanently below (replacement level without leading to national extinction. Discussing measures that should be taken to influence the future trend of population, it says that until recently in the process of social advance, the family had been *pverlooked or given a minor place in social policy, the development of which had become lopsided.

Expenditure on children’s allow-

ances was reckoned in millions but on old-age pensions it was reckoned in hundreds of millions. Among the proposals made for initiating a programme of family welfare are increased children’s allowances, payment of allowances when pregnancy is. established, the continuance and development of war-time nutritional policies favouring mothers and children, housing priority for families with children, the wide development of sex education in schools, and lurthcr income tax relief for taxpayers with children. The commission says that measures to promote family welfare, and particularly to reduce the inequalities in material circumstances and prospects between the different sizes of a family, are fully justified orf- grounds of equality and social welfare. Public policy should assume and seek to encourage the spread of voluntary parenthood. It should assume also that women would take an increasing part in the cultural and economic life of the community and should endeavour, by adjustment of social and economic arrangements, to make it easier for women to combine motherhood and care of the home with outside interests.