MIGRATION

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 29 November 1927, Page 7

MIGRATION

MEMORIAL TO DOMINION’S SECRETARY FEATURES OF PROPOSALS. MR AMERY’S SYMPATHETIC REPLY. Wellington, November 28. Mr Amery to-day received a memorial ca migration. This set out the position at some length, arguing that the essentials of any scheme likely to be successful were :— (a) Careful selection of peonle likely to adapt themselves to Dominion conditions. (b) Provisions of housing accommodation and definite employment immediately on arrival (c) Opportunity to acquire the necessary practical experience to admit of their assimilation without disturbance of the labour market. (a) Opportunity eventually to become owners of their own homes and farms, (e) Encouragement to investors with security and on a profitable basis. The memorial laid down that the measures adopted should not be dependent upon the Government or local bodies for either finance or management, but §houuld be supplementary to. aud in substitution for. Government migration activities. A SUMMARY. The features of the proposals might be summarised as follows: — 1. Investment in New Zealand of British private capital, with surety of sound security and reasonable return on investment. “ 2. (Opportunity for a largely increased number of migrants settling in tlie Dominion, with provision for employment and housing having previously been arranged for each one of them. 3. Such increased migration being applied to new developments would not mean the displacement of any worker already employed in the counit. Opportunity for the migrant to find remunerative employment at unskilled work during il..- first few years of his residence in the Dominion, and at the same time affording him training which would enable him to be ea’siiv absorbed into the economic life of tile Dominion at the end of that period. 5. Private enterprise, ensuring sound business . methods, carrying through the schemes without harassing the Government of the day or being impaired by political influence, at the same time in no way interfer

ing with the ordinary migration policy of the Government. 6. The employment of British capital in portions of the Empire free from the proved risks of investments in foreign countries. Mr A. L. Hunt, Dominion Settlement Association, and Mr Carr, expresident of the Wellington Chamiier of Commerce, presented the memorial and briefly outlined its« scope and the scheme of migration suggested. CO-OPERATION NEEDED. Mr Amery gave a sympathetic reply, in the course of which he alluded to the unemployment question. The Dominion had passed through a serious phase of unemployment during the past 18 months, more serious, he understood, than had been the case for many years. During the past seven years Great Britain bud had unemployment on a scale more serious than had been known for two or three generations. They regarded that unemployment as not due merely to the fact that their population was so large. That was not tljeir problem. it was disorganisation of the balance of the world’s industry. and it was on those lines of better distribution of the balance ot the industries, not only of the world, but still more in that inner and more intimate world of ours, which we called the British Empire, and to which we looked for a true solution. The problem of nation-building within the Empire was not that of shifting the unemployed out of Britain and leaving it to chance whether they were employed elsewhere or not. but, of co-operating with the dominions to seeing to it that the right type of men and women were coming out to help to strengthen the community, and especially on that side where, world production was so deficient today—namely primary production so that the balance within the British Empire mav be more effectively redressed. and in order that we might co-operate with greater success in the common task of building up and assisting each other’s work.