PLANNED SYSTEM OF MIGRATION

Southland Times, Issue 23438, 19 February 1938, Page 8

PLANNED SYSTEM OF MIGRATION

Government Inquiry Urged MINISTERS EXPRESS SYMPATHY SMALLNESS OF POPULATION ADMITTED (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, February 18. A deputation, headed by Mr A. L. Hunt, chairman of the Dominion Settlement Association, and consisting of representatives of all the leading businfess organizations, including the Associated Chambers of Commerce, the manufacturers’ and employers’ associations, the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union, the Licensed Victuallers’ Association, the Returned Soldiers’ Association, and various churches and other bodies, waited on the Government this morning to request a commission to investigate fully the question of planned immigration. In the absence of the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) the deputation was received by the Minister of Education (the Hon. P. Fraser) and the Minister of Immigration (the Hon H. T. Armstrong). After hearing the representations the Ministers expressed sympathy with the case presented, and undertook to give it their full consideration. Mr Hunt stated that the deputation represented 24 organized bodies with a membership of about 100,000 and he believed they had the support of 1,000,000 fellow citizens in what they advocated. What the deputation suggested, he said, was that the Government should open negotiations immediately with the British Government and set up a Royal Commission to explore every avenue of absorption, the land, secondary industries and new industries. There must be a clear declaration by the New Zealand people and Government that the migrant and his capital were welcome. < Mr Armstrong, replying, said that the question of immigration concerned the Government as a whole. There had been a pretty large scale policy of immigration in New Zealand not many years back and the results had not been too happy. Everybody had to admit that New Zealand was in need of population, but any system of immigration decided upon would have to be a well-planned one. New Zealand wanted to know more than it had in the past about the type of people coming out and it wanted to know exactly where the immigrants were to be put when they arrived.

YOUNG PEOPLE FOR INDUSTRY Mr Armstrong referred to the present scarcity of boys and girls for industry and farm work and said that if New Zealand were to adopt a policy of immigration it should bring in young people. “As far as the Government is concerned,” he said, “we do realize that the population of New Zealand is not what it should be. It is one of the most serious and important problems that we have to face up to and you can rely upon it we will do our very best.” Mr Fraser said that before any new scheme of immigration was begun the resources of the country would have to be made the' subject of an economic survey and provision would have to be made first for those of New Zealand’s own people still drawing from the unemployment funds. When New Zealand had provided for its own people by employment and housing and had got a system of planned immigration it could absorb five times its number.

Mr Fraser added that he was not sure whether it was necessary to appoint a Royal Commission to deal with immigration. “What we all want is a proper and authoritative inquiry and to do that we will need experts,” he said. “I think there is a good deal of that work going on at present.”