INFLUX OF FOREIGNERS.

Wairarapa Age, 13 March 1925, Page 4

INFLUX OF FOREIGNERS.

The immigration figures for the year 1924 disclose one or two features which are rather alarming to the trueblue New Zealander. It seems that last year 833 persons of foreign nationality came to reside permanently in the Dominion, as compared with 349 in 1923 and only 252 in 1921. These people came here from foreign states, including 87 from China, 447 from Jugo-Slavia, 52 from Italy and 20 from Greece. No doubt there are very estimable people in southern Europe. The northern Italians, for example, are equally cultured and civilised with the English and the French, though of course they belong to a different great branch of humanity, the Latins. Buch an influx, with their sunny disposition, their devotion to the arts, and their well-known faculty for new ideas, will be quite a useful addition to our population. The same cannot be said of the Jugo-Slavs. They belong to a rougher and far less civilised branch of the human race, and one which has not even a decent tradition for government. No doubt as individuals they are good hardworking men and women, and for the most part law-abiding, but it cannot be denied that they come from a lower grade of civilisation, and in that respect it is not desirable that they should be too much encouraged. Another rather alarming influx' is that of the 108 Hindus, including 31 females, who have' come hither from India, which is a part of the British Empire, to become permanent citizens. Here again, though we cannot say that the Hindus lack the tradition of

government and even of a very high civilisation, we do know that the working classes of India to-day, from whom these people are drawn, live in conditions which we do not at all wish to see introduced into this country. Difficulties have arisen in restricting their introduction, and no doubt it will be permitted within bounds, but the figures, which appear now far to outstrip those of Chinese, are not calculated to cause great satisfaction.