HON. L. AMERY

Hokitika Guardian, 30 November 1927, Page 4

HON. L. AMERY

migration problems discussed. WELLINGTON. Nov. .28. The public reception to Mr Amery by the Mayor filled the Town Hall, deS] i to unfavourable weather. The speeches made by the Mayor (Mr Troup), the Hou A. D. M'Leod (on 1,,-half of the Government), and the Chief .1 list ice. and by Mr Amery in reply, were on the same lines as in other places. Mr Amery again expressed his admiration of what the e.'iily settlers, who had landed in thick liiisli amid hostile natives, had accomplished in a little over eighty years, and added that ihere were no tasks greater than having to learn .something about one’s own Empire. Previous to the reception, Mr Anicrv received a memorial on migration This set out i lie position at Home length, arguing (hat the essentials ol any scheme likely to he successful were; (a) careful selection of people likely to adapt themselves to Dominion conditions; (b) provision of housing ace nnmndalion, and definite employment immediately on arrival; (e) opportunity to acquire the necessary practical experience to admit el their assimilation without disturbance of tlie lahour market; (d) opportunity eventually to become owners of their own home sand farms; (e) encouragement In investment of capital by British investors with security anil oil a profitable basis. The memorial laid down that i his measure adopted should notin' dependent upon the Government or local bodies for cither finance or management, but should he supplementary to and not in substitution for Government migration activities. The features of the proposal might be .summarised as follows:—(1) Investment in New Zealand -of British private capital with surety of sound security and a reasonable return on investments. (2) Opportunity for a largely increased number of migrants settling in the Do- ■ minion with provision for employment, and housing having previously been arranged for each one of them. (3)1 Such increased migration being applied to new developments would not mean displacement of any worker tilready employed in the country. (4) Opportunity for a migrant to find remunerative employment, its unskilled work during the lirst few years of his residence in the Dominion, and at the same time affording him a training which would enable him easily to he absorbed into the econniie life of the Dominion at the end of that period. (A) Private enterprise ensuring sound business methods in carrying through the .schemes without liarrassing the Government of the day or being impaired by political intlueuce. at the same time in mi way interfering with the ordinary migration policy of the Government. (6) Kinploymeiit of British capital in a portion of the Empire free from the proved risks of investments in foreign countries. Messrs A. L. Hunt, of the Dominion Settlement Association, and Air i Carr, ex-president of the Wellington I Chamber of Commerce, presented the j memorial and briefly outlined its scope and the .scheme of migration suggested.

Mr Amery gave a sympathetic reply. in the course of which he alluded to the unemployment question. 'Pile Dominion had passed through a serious phase of unemployment during the past eighteen month's, more serious. he understood than has Iteen the ease for many years. During the past seven years Great Britain had 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 large. That was not their problem. Their problem was tho disorganisation of the balance of the world’s industry, and it was bn those lines of better distributing of

the balance of industries, not only of • the world, but skill more in that inner and more intimate world of ours which we called the British Kmpire. to which we looked for a true solution; therefore our interests: and the interests of the problem of nation building w ithin the Kmpire was not that of shill in.;; unemployed out of Britain, of leaving it. to chance whether they were employed elsewhere-or not, hut of co-opera 1 in;; with the dominions in seeing to i! that the right typo of men and women were coming out to help to strengthen the community, and especially on that side where world product ion was deficient to-day. namely, primary production. so that the balance within the British Kmpire may 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.