"BEST IMMIGRANTS"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 122, 25 May 1937, Page 11

"BEST IMMIGRANTS"

NEW ZEALAND BABIES

JUDGE EMPHASISES NEED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, May 24. The urgent need for an increased birth-rate in New Zealand and the importance of filling the Dominion with Britons before some nation filled it with other people was emphasised by Mr. Justice Callan, president of the Auckland branch of the Royal Empire Society, who presided at the Empire Day dinner tonight. The comments were made in the course of proposing the toast of "The Empire and New Zealand." i Originally, he said, the toast he had been asked Jo propose was that of "New Zealand and the Empire," but he considered'that since the Dominion was really a member and the Empire a body the order should be reversed. The chairman said that entitled him to ask whether New Zealand was as healthy as it ought to be or as it could be. "I speak subject to correction by experts, but I have always understood that in arty living organism a requisite of good health is that there be a constant renewal of life," he said. "That I believe to te a law of Nature. "Now it has recently been asserted that we are in some measure in rebellion against the, law of Nature. If thit be true, then to the extent it.is true New Zealand is not in good health but in bad health. Upon such a topic in such a place obviously I can say no more, but, having been charged with proposing,the health of New Zealand, at this juncture-J do not think I can say , less. I think it would be both cowardly and hypocritical' to do so. "I hope, and I hope earnestly, that in the near future, as a sign of recovered health, there may speedily appear and'be steadily maintained a distinct increase in the flow of the best immigrants into New Zealand.. For New Zealand the best immigrants are native-born New Zealanders." There was another law of Nature that might be remembered, arid it was that Nature abhorred a vacuum, he said at a later stage of his address. "If we will .not fill this country with Britons, it is certain. that sooner or later someone will fill it with some other kind of people and that will be anything but pleasant.1' ,