ASIATIC IMMIGRANTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17165, 15 October 1926, Page 7

ASIATIC IMMIGRANTS

NO INCREASE THIS YEAR MINISTER’S EXPLANATION (Special to the Herald.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. The question of the; admission of Asiatics,to New Zealand has occupied the attention for some time of local i fruitgrowers, and others who come into i direct competition with Chinese, anil the 1 Acting-Prime -Minister, the Hon. W. j Downie Stewart, referred to the matter I in conversation with a representative of! the press. 1 “No permits were granted to Chinese I to come into New Zealand this year, so i that for census returns purposes the total; Asiatic population of New Zealand could ) be ascertained,” said the Minister. “My personal opinion is that the number of Asiatics in the Dominion is still far below the total number who wdre here in the early eighties, when goldmining was their chief occupation. Until the beginninp of this year permits for admission of 100 a year were granted, irrespective of those who departed from the country, or died, but.in audition to these the usual temporary permission has been granted for Chinese tourists and students to visit New Zealand. We discovered the system of temporary permits was being abused, and that Asiatics were coming to the Dominion, and entering into various occupations, so that it was difficult- to locate them when the time arrived for their departure. “While their total number is now much smaller than was the case at an earlier stage of the Dominion’s history,” said Mr. Stewart, “the trouble now is that they are concentrated in and around the cities as fruit merchants and laundrymen. and similar occupations, ‘aKt they thus make the competition more severely felt ; but the fact remains that the Asiatic population still forms an infinitely small percentage of the total poulation of New Zealand.” The Minister continued that statistics showed that the whole of the alien population of New Zealand was so small as to be negligible, were is not for the lnct, as already indicated, that they concentrated in certain occupations, and ‘■ompeted more than successfully with returned soldiers and others in various industries.