THE PREMIER ON DEVELOPMENT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 4 September 1908, Page 2

THE PREMIER ON DEVELOPMENT.

At the annual dinner of the Yorkshire Society last night, Sir Joseph Ward made a very sane and timely speech—especially apt just now, when vociferous agitators are declaiming against immigration. He urged that borrowing could not continue unless there-; was-, a-more than, normal, increase of population ;. a fact;-surely obvious enough to any "ordinary' ■intelligence^ lgaving altogether out; of the count the question, whether borrowing-should'■■■con-tinue at., all,; ._. However that may be, Sir' Joseph made dirt a gocd cas3 for immigi-ation. .Tli^. matter is one that should ,by no means be let slig. Despite.all assertions of the agitators, tlie^.o is a constant demand for labour in tho factorios smd in many of the agricultural and mining districts. Apart from that, the infusion of new blood is an-excellent stimulant. In this small and remote country all men have a natural tendency to run into grooves. We want men of quality and resource; and co lone; as they arc European their nationality is a matter of slight moment. Tho Danes and Italians make excellent citizens, and we can never have t^'o many of the Germans and tho French. To talk of over-population in New Zealand, as things stand at present, is to talk the,wildest and most idiotic kind of nonsense.-