IMMIGRATION.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1684, 26 February 1913, Page 6

IMMIGRATION.

It would ECiuii that some serious attention is at last to be given to the question of - immigration. For a good many years past this subject has been labelled dangerous. Different Governments luivc taken it up in a fashion, and during the past live or six years a number of assisted immigrants have been brought into tile country, but the somewnut chilling attitude of organised Labour has not encouraged any aetive effort. Yet the country badly needs tho right class of immigrant,-and the Labour organisations have nothing to fear, provided proper care is exercised in the selection pf those who are to be assisted here. There has, for instance, been a scarcity of farm labour in the Dominion for years past. That ' scarcity has hampered the farmers o£ the country, and incidentally prevented the land being_ worked to the best advantage. This has directly or indirectly meant some loss, to everyone. The. more the land is made to yield the greater the spending power of , the community, for t the wealth produced goes circulating round in one form or another, through the different channels of trade and commerce.It is not an,easy thing, apparently, to secure the right sort of immigrants to* supply the needs of' farmers—that is to say, immigrants experienced in farm work—but if the task , were more systematically and more < vigorously undertaken, better results might be attained. Failing this, or perhaps supplementary of the effort to secure experienced farm labourers, more might be done in the way of bringing out boys ' irid youths who could be trained' for farm work, and later on becoiiic useful settlers, Then there is, of course, the scarcity of domestic ser-vants—a-.'perennial complaint—which affords scojic for immigration efforts, •and to which-the Labour'organisations can take no exception. In this connection, however, it would seem desirable that greater care should be exercised in the selection, and also ii)'the supervision 011 the voyage out/ of those assisted by the State to come to' New Zealand in search of employment. /Then, again, th(> v.-oollen companies are continually .''complaining- of difficulty in securing experienced 'workers, and' possibly there are other directions in which the .country would benefit by the introduction of suitable immigrants without in any way prejudicing the prospects of labour gen-' orally. . The imnfigration figures of the past'few, years show that ' the population has been very little increased by this means in rccent times, 'and if the Massey Government tackles the matter on sound lines it should provide a needed -stimulus in important directions affecting the well-being of all classes.