LEFT TO NEW ZEALAND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 277, 23 November 1943, Page 4

LEFT TO NEW ZEALAND

POPULATION ISSUE NO SURPLUS IN BRITAIN (P.A.) Auckland, Nov. 21. The question of whether post-war New Zealand could look to British immigrants to Increase its population was discussed on Saturday by Sir Walter Layton, leader of the group of British newspaper proprietors who are making a short tour of New Zealand. He is recognised authority on economics and has served on many British and international financial and economic missions and committees. Sir Walter was asked whether Britain would be able and desire to assist any Dominion immigration schemes in a substantial measure. “It is very desirable.” said Sir Walter, “that New Zealand and Australia should increase their population. 1 feel that both should carry an increase much larger than by hundreds of thousands, but the trouble with the British population is lhat it is stationary and will shortly be falling. It will have an increased number of old people and a decreased number of breadwinners, a condition that has not been helped bv the war. In addition, from an economy, standpoint it J will be short of workers. “Politically, too. England will not want to denude herself of population. We have only just enough to meet the manpower requirements thrust on us by the war. and have not been able to meet them without, strain. > With the Dominions, we had to carry the brunt of the burden for a long period and if we had had much smaller populations it Ls questionable whether we could have hung on. “We believe there should b° a strong England in Europe. We believe England has been and must continue to be a w'holesome influence in Europe, that we have helped Europe to civilisation, and can help to lead her to a more civilised future. We believe also that there w r ould have been an even worse mess than there is now if there had been no England, “The conclusion, therefore, is that while there will he quite a, number of British j>eople who will he thinking after the w’ar in terms of settling overseas, they will not ho measured in millions or in hundreds of thousands.”

It followed from this, said Sir Walter, that for those Empire countries which desired large post-war increases in their population, there were only two solutions. One was by immigration from alien countries and the other was by increase of their existing British populations. Sir Walter said he firmly believed that the world of the future would need a great, increase in people bv the British race. They had already given much to millions of people of other races, and he held to the view that they could and must continue to help the world, having regard for the population Increases of other races only temporarily checked by the slaughter* of the war. This obviously demanded increased British populations. With their large unsettled spaces and many other contributing advantages, said Sir Walter. New Zealand and Australia seemed to people such as he to be ideal areas for increasing [heir British populations bv increasing their birth-rate. The effect of what he had said, he added, was that New Zealand could not expect much help from Britain if she unshed to expand her population by any very considerable extent, and that, if alien immigrants should be unacceptable to her, then any increase in her population lay in her own hands.