MIGRATION POLICY

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 145, 15 March 1939, Page 8

MIGRATION POLICY

“Shilly-Shallying” By

Government BUSINESS CRITICISM Middle Course Suggested A declaration that he was losing patience with the shilly-shallying policy of the Government in regard to immigration was made by the president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, Mr. P. E. Pattrick, in his address when moving the adoption of the report at the annual meeting of the chamber last night.

“Strong representations regarding tlie urgent need for immigration have been made to the Government time and time again, but it is increasingly evident that the Government, despite a good deal of lip service, has no real desire or intention to evolve any sort of immigration policy that is linked with tlie realities of the situation,” Mr. Pattrick said. “The most that is being done is to import a handful of artisans from Australia to do work on housing for the State that could have been better done by private enterprise, if the State had not tied private enterprise hand and foot with restrictive legislation. Tlie Middle Course. “The only reason that the Government seems to be able to produce as an argument, against general immigration is that it is not prepared to bring out thousands of immigrants and dump them on the wharves to find a livelihood for themselves, and thereby bring down the standard of living,” he said. “But there is a middle course between that and a too rigid exclusion policy, and I can only say that these continual conflicts between exuberant Utopian conceptions on tlie one hand and economic necessities on the other, are going to bring us to a pretty national fix.

“The standard of living that has to depend on shifts, props and high fences is not going to be able to withstand the first blow of adversity. Surely it is time we had a little more of the long, national view in this matter and a little less trade union myopia. “If only we could consider immigration just as a defence question, involving the .preservation of our homes, our lands, our families and our very lives, we might be somewhat less concerned with trying to lead in social experiments a world more slow-moving in these things than we are, and. more concerned with trying to retain our place in a world far more militant than we are. “Nations are stinting themselves of food and other necessities to build up mighty armaments, to support their territorial ambitions, and we in New Zealand are striving to establish and maintain an extravagant national scheme to give the individual financial social security, while at the same time our preponderantly ageing population qualifies more rapidly for pensions than for the bearing of arms to defend that which we have. Our national budget devotes 5 per cent, of its total expenditure to defence, at the same time as Britain, on whom we choose to lean so heavily, is spending 23 per cent, of its budget on defence, as well as many millions of borrowed money. If we are to build New Zealand into a nation, is not adequate provision for defence, in place of hanging on to the apronstrings of the parent land, one of the first marks of a nation?”