Immigration

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24907, 21 June 1946, Page 6

Immigration

What was chiefly interesting in the Prime Minister’s statement on immigration before the Labour Party conference yesterday was not the promise to consider at once the findings of the Parliamentary Committee on Population; not the reference to arrangements which would have to be begun for a “ progressively “ expanding scheme ” of immigration “ within the next few years ", when, the housing shortage will be .overcome; not the assertion that the

Government has given immigration much thought. The committee’s report may have considerable value in guiding long-range population policy; the Government did not need to set up the committee to learn the facts or to make up its mind about the short-run possibilities of immigration. As soon as the Prime Minister talks of developing immigration later, when the houses are all built, all the urgent, practical interest drops out of the subject. If the Government has thought much, it has thought unprpfitably. never advancing beyond the difficulties to the opportunities and the need to grasp them. The importance of the Prime Minister’s stafe-

ment was confined to one remark and one fact; the country is so short of workers that the Government had been obliged to seek at least 1000 migrants, single men and women, from Britain. This represents “the initial stage” of the Government’s immigration policy." It is important because it acknowledges that immigrants are, in fact, needed, and that immigrants can be sought and selected. But if the initial stage of Australian policy can provide for 35,000 immigrants next year—that is, half the proposed annual intake—and if the reason for taking 35,000 instead of 70,000 is found in shipping, not in housing, and if the housing shortage in Australia is greater than in New Zealand and progress in overtaking it is slowar, then why is the New Zealand Government so much less enterprising and so much less enthusiastic?/ In New Zealand, obstacles and delays and doubts; in Australia, drive, speed, and conviction. The comparison is melancholy. The Prime Minister’s statement was footnoted in the cable news yesterday. New Zealand House, asked by intending migrants about the prospects here, is reduced to the abject reply, “At the moment we are not *in a position to advise ”, It is a moment that has lasted months.