DOMINION’S DANGER

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21057, 8 March 1940, Page 7

DOMINION’S DANGER

PAUCITY OF POPULATION DOCTOR’S WARNING (Special to Times) PALMERSTON N., Thursday Dr. Eric Stubbs, of Oamaru, speaking at the Rotary Conference on the need for a larger population, said that the next ten years might well be decisive in the whole future of the country. “Either we may remain British or we may be progressively subdued and submerged by foreign invasion,” said Dr. Stubbs. “For any material increase in our security, New Zealand needs an average of 80,000 immigrants a year for the next 10 to 15 years.” Could immigrants be absorbed in such numbers? he asked. He thought so, if we were prepared to take certain small risks on inconvenience and hardship, and endure some degree c-f restriction of our standard of comfort and luxury.

Pr. Stubbs stated that for immediate leisure and luxury we were sacrificing the future of our race. If our leaders realised that and clearly proclaimed the fact, people would willingly co-operate to avert the danger threatened. “We cannot gain security solely by our own efforts,” the speaker added. “We are so small a country that unless we have strong friends we are always at the mercy of any powerful aggressive people. If we achieve security it will be as a part of the British Empire, or at least of an Australasia that has undergone a renaissance. Let us do our part in bearing children and in cooperating for the better distribution of the peoples of the Empire, so that we shall be less tempting to alien eyes.”