The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1934. MIGRATION SCHEMES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20221, 3 February 1934, Page 12

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1934. MIGRATION SCHEMES.

Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND.

The most useful thing that was said during the discussion in the House of Commons on population redistribution within the Empire was that tariff preferences should be given only to British goods carried by British ships, and this is the keynote of the new attitude that has arisen under the pressure of international competition. But the other suggestion that Great Britain should find relief by unloading her surplus inhabitants on to “ the vast unoccupied spaces ” of New Zealand and Australia is accepted far too readily by people in the Old Country have not troubled to make themselves acquainted with the facts. Even in New Zealand, with its 70,000 unemployed, a high percentage per head of population, there are largehearted Legionaries who are prepared to welcome ten million immigrants in ten years. But there is nothing to show that their schemes would be more successful than past ones. The Government of Western Australia provided a system of group settlements in its vast spaces whereby 7000 were provided with holdings, homes, stock and plant under contracts \providing for repayment, but of the original 7000 only 1200 now remain, and it is reported that “of these only 300 are likely to succeed.” These settlers were Aus-tralian-born. It is not surprising, then, that another experiment, this time in Victoria with British immigrants, should prove as disastrous, and the members of the British Government are justly reminded in a recent issue of London “ Truth ” that they “ cannot escape responsibility for the part they played in its promotion.” It is, indeed, the common experience that with a paternal Government in the background there is a dwindling of payments. In such enterprises as the Massey Government’s ill-fated Northcote Settlement, and even the efforts of the Christchurch City Council in respect to municipal housing, this point is illustrated in miniature. Those schemes were characterised by a dwindling of payments. It would, of course, be absurd to suggest that New Zealand had reached saturation point with her population. But it has been demonstrated again and again that the putting of people on the land is in many senses an evolutionary process, and it does not respond to large scale treatment even in this favoured country. Mr W. Lunn, a Labour member, hit the nail on the head when he said that not a single practical suggestion had been made in the direction of resuming migration and it would be better to settle the people in Britain. The assumption of population saturation in Great Britain is one of the common fallacies of migration discussions. In actual fact the margin for closer settlement at Home is almost unbelievable, and this is the direction that practical politics must take for the present. TRAMWAY FINANCE. Tj'MBARRASSMENTS not of the ■*—/ n ew Tramway Board’s making have suggested the need for a commission on tramway finance. Whether that suggestion is adopted or not, a very searching inquiry ought to be made on the accountancy side, from the beginning of the system, to disclose the sources of profit and loss and, above all, to show what the old special rating areas would have been called upon to contribute if they had not escaped their liability under a technicality. Before the question of a general rate is considered—and the new Board is pledged to carry on without a rate—an effort should be made to obtain legislative authority to reconstitute the special rating areas so that tramway losses should be borne where they fall. The failure of past Boards to follow this rational policy has been their greatest weakness. i