The Wrong Sort of Immigrants

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 91, 8 July 1927, Page 16

The Wrong Sort of Immigrants

SCOTSMAN’S OPINIONS HE LIKES OUR COUNTRY

TJECAUBE he thinks that New Zealand is the best place in the world to live in, a Scotsman, from Glasgow, who has been looking things over with a canny eye, has tried to solve our problems. And the first thing he says is, “You are getting the wrong sort of immigrant!”

He is Mr. J. S. Hutchison, late of the firm of J. and P. Coats, the cotton combine of Glasgow. After six months in Queensland and New South Wales he has been touring the North Island thoroughly. His “coming out” experience with 150 boys who were to be tried out on Australian farms convinced him that the wrong sort of immigrant was being imported. “They were street-bred lads,” he said, “and none of them would stay in the country.

“What you want here is the countrybred bo3 r s and young men, who are used to the comparative dullness of life; but in the meantime, as far as I can see, you should not try to bring in immigrants. Give work to your own unemployed before you add to their numbers.”

His second suggestion was that there should be more Empire trade.

“What has America done for you?” he wanted to know. The importation of motor-cars whole from U.S.A. was a sin. At any rate, the pieces should be assembled here to make work for New Zealanders. Though the ideal of free trade was the best, he thought that a high protective tariff was the Dominion’s necessity.

Having seen Rotorua and the Wanganui River, Mr. Hutchison is full of the wonder of this country. He thinks that the climate is “something like Scotland—only better!” and he intends to come back live here if he can get his son, who is an accountant, to leave London. “The young men.at Home are asleep,” he said. “They do not realise the opportunities of this country. Any man with grit and push can get on here.”

Two of our vices, as might be expected, he condemned. The first Avas gambling and the second thriftlessness.

“You do not seem to think of the rainy day,” he concluded. “That is a grave mistake.”