EMIGRATION PLANS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 171, 6 August 1937, Page 5

EMIGRATION PLANS

Prolessor Belshaw Stresses Need for Care POPULATION QUESTION (From Our Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, Last Night. Material fact-ors which must affeet a judgment as to whether immigration to the Dominion would be advantageous were diseussed in a thought-provoking leeture last night by Dr. H. Belshaw, Professor of Eeonomics at the Auckland University College. The speaker divideg his address roughly into two parts. The first dealt with the effeet on New Zealand markets of a deelining population elsewhere, and the second with the results of a deelining population in this country. It was in the latter conneetion that he diseussed immigration. , Hia final tho'ught was that the case for immigration would probably be strengthened if investigations revealed the likelihood of a deelining population, and those investigations, he said, should be made. The speaker did not favour an increase in population with a view to lncreasing production on the land. If the overseas market continued to ex- . pand in the traditional manner expected in New Zealand, there would be little doubt of the desirability of an expanding population. If the British inarket remained about the same level, however, expanding output in primary industries could lead only to a jeeline in the aggregate receipt from exports. This argument would be all the more cogent if the anticipations of a deelining British population proved correct— and earlier in the address Dr. Belshaw stated that this decline was definitely anticipated, Another point he made was that the securing of immigrants from Great Britain did not necessarily mean a market at New Zealand 's doors instead) of Britain. It would be better, he said, to take immigrants from coun- . tries which were over-populated rather than from the Mother Oountry. This would avoid reducing the markets in Britain. In any case Dr. Belshaw doubted whether many immigrants of the type New Zealand would welcome would be forthcoming from Britain. He discounted the view that a larger population would help in the defence of the country, and he pointed out that a net annual immigration of 10,000 would enable the country to reach the mark set by the Five Million Club only in some 345 years, even if the present population remained stable and the immigrants succeeded in establishing themselves. Dealing with the effeet on New Zealand markets of a falling population overseas, the speaker said that he was not being unduly alarmist in suggestmg tl)at the British market would be anlikely to absorb inereasing quantities of New Zealand 's primaTy products without such a fall in prlce as would endanger the profitableness of the Dominion 's export industries. It seemed, too, unlikely that • the eff ects of a deelining population would be off* set by increased per capita consumption. "These conditions present us with problems of adjustment to which serious attention should be given in the determination of present and future policy," he added. In regard to the bearing on land, he questioned whether it would be appropriate to develop new areas, or even to promote closor settlemeut. Possibly the encouragenxent of a more diversified type of farming offered a means of alleviation. "If these views are sound," Professor Belshaw said, "it follows that attention should be devoted to the development of alternative Tesources so that labour and capital which would otherwise go into farming may bo remuneratively employed in other direc- ; lions .... I urge the need for a rej eonsideration of traditional policy."