IMMIGRATION NEEDED

Southland Times, Issue 23024, 19 October 1936, Page 8

IMMIGRATION NEEDED

DEVELOPMENT OF DOMINION VIEWS OF PROMINENT VISITOR The opinion that New Zealand was ready for immigration and actually neded it if it were to be developed to the fullest extent was expressed on Saturday by Mr Granville Gibson, a former Lord Mayor of Leeds, a member of the group of overseas delegates to the Congress of the Federated Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire. Immigration would be mutually profitable to New Zealand and Great Britain, he claimed. There could be no doubt that New Zealand could carry, and carry with comfort, double its present population and more. The Dominion had the soil —highly productive—and the public utilities required to support a much bigger population, Mi’ Gibson said, making special reference to the big hydro-electric schemes already installed.

Mr Gibson said that he did not think there could be any doubt that New Zealand business men, preferred, where it could be done economically and profitably, to trade with Britain. This was not simply because Britain was a big customer of New Zealand. The Imperial tie was an important factor in such trade relationships. Mr Gibson added that he did not ■wish to offer any comment on existing trade conditions. The important and vital thing if trade were to be developed seemed to be the encouragement of immigration. He thought that immigration would again become an actual fact, and arriving at that stage was mainly a matter of time in bringing governments in England and New Zealand into a state of mind receptive to the advantages of planned immigration. In recent years the stumbling block to an immigration policy was that only one or two ministers from the Dominion could be persuaded to give it their public support. In the House of Commons there was a strong feeling in favour of immigration. Sir Henry Page-Croft and Mr L. C. M. S. Amery ■were both staunch advocates of it and lost no opportunity of putting its advantages before the House. In time concerted action on the part of those in favour of the resumption of planned immigration to New Zealand would accomplish something, and both countries would reap the benefit of such action.