The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1931. BACK-DOOR IMMIGRANTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19271, 7 January 1931, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1931. BACK-DOOR IMMIGRANTS.

Gloucester Street end Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND.

THE EXERCISE of more care in the admission of people to New Zealand would be beneficial to the Dominion. The fact is emphasised by the report from Auckland that a family of eight Canadians, after being only eight days in the country, have become a charge upon the community. The case would, perhaps, be unimportant if it were isolated, but it is by no means so, either in Auckland or in other parts of the Dominion. There is an urgent need for some system that will ensure that people entering this country from other parts of the world either possess the means to maintain themselves or have such prospects of regular employment as will ensure that they will not become a charge on the State. Not only is there need for care so far as the immigrant who enters by the channel is concerned; there is probably a greater * need for watchfulness against what may be termed the irregular immigrant. In this category are included deserters from overseas vessels, seamen who may be signed off in this country, stowaways and the very large numbers who either travel steerage or work their passages to New Zealand. In other countries— Canada and the United States are ready examples—the ports of entry are most jealously guarded, and the genuineness of every immigrant is most searchingly examined. Immigrants who do not meet the requirements, and even people already in the country whose credentials are considered unsatisfactory, are deported. These countries do not temporise with a difficult problem. Their systems may not be very palatable to those primarily affected, but that is a secondary consideration. Their primary duty is to their own country, and to that duty they give first thought.

WHY WORRY? IF THERE IS ONE PART of New Zealand that is not worrying much about the depression it is surely the W est, Coast. There, we are informed, nobody talks about depressions or booms, and some people work when they like, and knock off when they like. A remarkable instance of this fact is to be found in the disinclination of some three hundred miners to resume work at Greymouth. The two State mines closed down on December 23, and were to have resumed last Monday, but apparently the races were too strong a counterattraction and the mines are still idle. It is probable that they will be idle a little longer, for there are still two days of the Reefton races to go, and one day of the Hokitika trots. In one respect, indeed, the miners are more sinned against than sinning, for there are twentyone days of racing on the West Coast, which is coming it strong. But after all the West Coast is something of a workers’ paradise—a hospitable, easy-going region that is in many respects a law unto itself, and perhaps we should not be too hard on the miners if they succumb periodically to the sweet taste of doing nothing. WORK READY MADE. UNTIL YESTERDAY’S FIRE broke out in the plantations around Burwood, very few people realised the extensily of the plantations, or their growing value as a municipal asset. It was something of a shock, therefore, to hear of the plantations only when a substantial portion of them had been destroyed by fire. Fire greatly discounts the value of .such investments, as many a holder of stocks in private afforestation companies has realised, and there should be an adequate degree of fire protection where the asset is so substantial, and where its loss threatens extensive private property. Yesterday’s fire draws attention to the fact that the fire-breaks have been sadly neglected, and that the undergrowth in the plantations has been allowed to grow dangerously combustible. Yesterday’s fire would have made little or no progress but for the tangle of dry undergrowth and pine needles through which it crept, with the wind and against the wind, and the case seems to call for active work with axe and slasher. The Unemployment Committee might very well consider the establishment of a relief work camp in the vicinity.