Immigration

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24899, 12 June 1946, Page 6

Immigration

New Zealand was named in the report issued last week by UNO’s Committee for Refugees as one of six countries which had expressed a desire to open their doors to refugees. Those who framed the report would not have thought New Zealand’s offer of assistance remarxable; for the committee owes its existence in no small measure to the interest shown in the refugee problem by New Zealand’s delegation to the first meeting, early this year, of UNO’s General Assembly. A great proportion of the refugees then living in UNRRA’s camps were Poles, Balts, and Jugoslavs, who constituted a problem because they felt they could not live under the governments of their own countries. The Slav delegates came to London seeking to force a solution. They suggested that refugees should not be entitled to any international assistance if they declined to return to their own countries. It was a cruel proposal; and it was vigorously attacked when it was debated by the Assembly’s Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian Committee under Mr Fraser’s chairmanship. Mr Fraser “regretted any suggestion that the ‘doors of mercy should be closed and another New Zealand representative. Miss J. R. McKenzie, described the suggestion as one that would “deprive of all meaning the • agelong right of asylum Again, a week later, Mr Fraser appeared before the General Assembly as a champion of the right., of refugees. In a long and eloquent speech, Mr Fraser commended the proposal that the Committee for Refugees be established, and defended it against amendments put forward by the Soviet. That committee, he believed, would do its job “ efficiently and would “ see that human rights are “ not infringed, that the dignity of ” refugees will be observed, and “ that the Four Freedoms our “ peoples fought for are not. sub- “ merged and trampled underfoot ” It would have been strange indeed il the Committee for Refugees had not been able to indicate that New Zealanc would help it to do its job efficiently. But what the New Zealand Government says in London is. it appears, not what it says in Wellington. The committee’s announcement does not mean, according to a statement printed in “ The Press " on Friday, that the Government’s immigration policy is Changed. That is, housing problems must be solved and servicemen rehabilitated before immigration can be encouraged; and that policy applies to refugees as well as to other types of immigrants. It has long appeared a timid, selfnullifying policy. It has become, now, a shameful policy as well, especially when contrasted with the Australian Government’s bold plans for encouraging immigrants at the rate of 70,000 a year.