THE Wairarapa Age THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1936. MIGRATION AND EMPLOYMENT.

Wairarapa Age, 8 October 1936, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1936. MIGRATION AND EMPLOYMENT.

Great efforts have been made at the congress of the Empire Chambers of Commerce which concluded in Wellington yesterday to popularise the view that migration and unemployment are separate problems and ought to be considered and dealt with separately. It has been urged strongly by Lord Elibank and others that the introduction of immigrants into the Dominions would help to reduce unemployment. It may be doubted whether any Dominion Government will find itself able unreservedly to accept that view, but a practical working compromise may be possible. An attempt to bring in any large number of immigrants while merely carrying on as at present where unemployment is concerned almost certainly would arouse a storm of opposition. It is very widely accepted and appreciated, however, that a much more effective distribution of the white population of the Empire is becoming rapidly almost a question of life or death for the British Dominions, and indeed that in the peopling of these oversea countries it is likely to be necessary before long to draw on other European countries than Great Britain. The practical approach to an acceptable working compromise in these conditions surely is to treat the problems of migration and unemployment in conjunction and to shape plans which will provide both for the absorption of our own unemployed in self-supporting, productive, industry and for the introduction and establishment of immigrants. There are obviously good grounds for a combined treatment of these problems. It is undoubtedly feasible, for example, to draw upon Britain’s resources of trained and experienced technicians and workers in such a way as to facilitate the absorption in industry of New Zealanders now unemployed. At a larger and broader view, it would be farcical to suggest that this country is capable of satisfactorily absorbing large numbers of British or other migrants, but that tens of thousands of its own citizens of normal intelligence and physique, must continue to be dependent on relief works. Some of our unemployed are, on account of age or for other reasons, below normal standards of fitness and efficiency, but a much larger proportion are perfectly capable of giving a good account of themselves in one form or another of productive enterprise. Is it not possible, then, by the extension of the State Placement Service, by making provision for special training and in other ways to re-establish at least the greater part of our unemployed in industrial occupations,} With this process well under way—as a matter of national self-respeet it should have been under way long ago—it would be possible to approach the question of the introduction of immigrants from a new and altogether more hopeful standpoint. '