POPULATE OR PERISH!

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 46, 9 February 1943, Page 7

POPULATE OR PERISH!

Do you value, living in New Zealand under the Union Jack? Do you desire that your children should also? Do you think there is a danger of another flag flying here? If not, on what do you base .such confidence? Viscount Blcdisloe, who loves New Zealand, who is trusted; and revered by its people, who is looked upon as a thoroughly responsible authority, says : . . There is no more vulnerable country on the fa.ee of the globe than New Zealand." Many other authorities, could be quoted who hold similar views. Why? Because New Zealand is frittering away its heritage. Its population will become stationary* in a year or two and. thereafter decline. It has but 15 people to the square mile and declines to. take in British migrants. Under such circumstances, by no process of reasoning could New Zealanders justify continuing to occupy the country whilst densely crowded nations rightly seek room for expansion. The Biblical injunction is-: , "Increase and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it." Certain so-called heathen nations have obeyed the law. We, a so-called GhriiJtian people, have disobeyed it. This is certainly bad enough, but equally bad is our unwillingness to permit Britishers from the crowded Mother Country to settle here. Having deliberately done both these things, the clear inference is that we have decided to "peter out." Ln other words, we have determined to

commit national suicide. Wlicn wesjs, realise how bountiful and how beautiful our country • is, then the -choi.ee of such a fate is indeed strange. But, having made this weird choice, does the ordinary New Zealantler really believe: thait we shall be permitted to pursue such a course and in our own good tinie? Surely lie does not. and, if not, then his present apathy as; regards the future must certainly indicate that he is indifferent as; to what flag (lies from the mast-head of Government House. Does Nazism, Fascism, Bolshevism or any other ism—any one, or all, or each in turn—appear as acceptable' as the conditions he now lives under? Such self-delusion would indeed be pitiable if it exists, and, if it does not exist, how can the .real issue be longer ignored? The writer hears one of your readers say, "In any case it is too late to do anything now." Ill' such a one is prepared to "throw up the sponge" that is his choice, but there are others who are prepared to light on to the last ditch. Nothing short of a miracle or a spiritual revival will bring about any material increase in the birthrate, and, in any case, ; this cannot happen in time to /save the danger that besets our Dominion. Migration of British people—■ planned, and organised—is therefore the only hope. Migration on a substantial scale hitherto untliought of. At least 50,000 new settlers per annum for the next twenty or fifty years is the only hope and the sooner this sinks deeply into the consciousness of the "man in the street," the bigger chance there is of this proving a real hone and not a forlorn one. Ah! but what about migration in wartime? True, most forms, of adult migration must perforce wait till hostilities cease, but there is still a huge and highly desirable stream that can be directed, from crowded Britain to empty New Zealand. Youths and children—particularly orphans;—migrants who will so soon assimilate with the .community that in a few years they are indistinlguishable. Orphans for whom the future holds out little hope of a reasonable future in the Old Land. Orphans, who are to-day being evacuated in tens of thousands from the cities and maintained in the country under all the stress of war conditions. Here, therefore, lie the high-

est hopes—lor the orphans themselves—for those who desire New Zealand to remain British—for those who realise their obligation to assist the Motherland in this time of dire need. Never mind the details of tlie scheme, for ail we need, to do in the beginning is to follow in the footsteps of Western, Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and British Columbia. Wh;it is wanted immediately is a clear, honest answer to the question — is New Zealand worth saving for ourselves, our children and the British Commonwealth of Nations? New Zealand —15 persons to square mile. Japan-—1,500 persons to square mile.