IMMIGRATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 July 1929, Page 6

IMMIGRATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—The ■ question of unemployment -throughout New Zealand calls for very serious- thought. During the heat of debate in Parliament' I am afraid there are few remedies of a practical nature forthcoming when one sees men like ■Sir John Sinclair making the bold.state;ment that it was untrue and unjustifiable that the statement that the Government, had stopped immigration, and, almost at the same time, the Premier giving us the broad statement that Tmmigratioh was stopped. Of course it has stopped. D’.l hot the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce try and get the embargo taken off our getting more public schoolboys out? Do the people of. this country realise what a great scheme, this is to* help the unemployed? It has been emphatically demonstrated that all the boys who have come out with a determination to succeed have done so with the result that many of them have and are. buying their own farms, and in every case they are putting on improvements, such as houses, sheds, fencing, and a thousand and one things that give employment, and, in nearly all cases, . doing it with money from the Old Country. We can also claim that these boys do not come in to replace, the New Zealand boys. ■ There ie room for both. An impression has got about that there is some, scheme to help the Home bovs at the expense of our own boys. 11ns is absolutely wrong, the mistake,. no doubt, being' made through the visit 0 Lord Lovatt, who came out on behalf ot the British Government to see what could be done for producing foodstuffs within the Empire. Do we realise what a great national work this is? When one takes into consideration that the Old Country has hundreds of thousands of well-educated bovs without f’.ny future, and that they are buying one hundred and twenty thousand tons of butter and cheese from the Danish people alone, who produce this from a country as large as Canterbury, as well as sustaining a population of some eight million people, I say what are we doing in this wonderful eountiy of ours? With our splendid climate alone we can produce butter-fat at least, sixpence below our competitors. What is the good of passing Acts of Parliament like the last Act by the Coates’ Government, where 5 per cent, deposit only was all that was required to buy an estate, if the mere layman, does not know how to act in regard to it? I have' not heard of one single estate being cut up under the scheme, but I do know the scheme would be rushed if a proper board were set up to administer the Act. It certainly is broad enough to suit anyone. We should!..

be exporting one hundred millioil pounds worth of produce per annum, and if we were doing that we would have plenty of money to keep everyone employed. Some might think we would overstock the market. This could never be, if people were properly educated to eat butter instead of margarine, which is our chief competitor. Another matter I should like to draw attention to is that wo hear a good deal just now about giving an agricultural bias to education. What kind of a bias to agricultural education does' our £3500 per annum general manager of railways give to the boys of this, country when in drastic competition with the car proprietors he instituted the farmers’ tours throughout New Zealand by asking the farmers of this country to travel second class? I take it as a deliberate insult to the farming community, Did the Auckland Chamber of Commerce when it toured the north last year ask to travel second class? When the commercial men throughout NewZealand are travelling, do they go second class? Not on your life! For the sake of argument, take the six hundred boys at the New Plymouth High School. Tell three hundred of them that they are going to follow commercial pursuits and travel first class; the other three hundred to be farmers, and travel second class; how many would get the bias towards agriculture? It may be claimed that it can be done cheaper. That is not the question. It is the question of standing in a community, and I am a little afraid that, unless some protest is made, this important delegation of farmers coming out from England next year may also be asked to ride second class. In another prominent agricultural journal this week I see it is proposed to send a party of dairy farmers from New Zealand to England and Europe third class. Ye gods! What next ?—I am, etc., . WILLIE J. FREETH. Pukearuhe, July 10.