WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 March 1928, Page 4

WELLINGTON NEWS

1 MPORTING WAGE-PAYERS. (Special to “ Guardian AYELIiINGTUN. March 12. When considering immigration the lirst thought, and perhaps Ihe only thought, is to import members of the working class or quite forgetting that to have wage-earners ive must liave wage-payers. This subject is ndumhrated by Rear-Admiral Robert H. Lawson. (Ml. (retired) who settled in the Hawke's Hay district over a year ago. As he says, it is a desirable thing that the white population ol (he Empire should he more evenly spread. Difficulty lies not in the good will of the free nations composing the Empire hut in the hard economics of the situation. In every community the adult population may he divided roughly into two groups—wage-payers and wage-earner-. Wage-payors make their living by the investment ol savings and by taking certain linaneial risks, great or small, in the activities from which they derive profits. From these profits come wages required by wage-earners, whose work earns the hulk of the profit, hut who possess no savings to invest. Mr Lawson goes on to remark: “Let ns say that immigration should he cheeked when there is any tendency for the average standard wage to fall. , Let us suppose that the group of wage-payers at present in this tountry can a (lord to pay to per week to difll.tlOd wage-earners, that is C1.000.11l If) per week in all. M hen wages iise unemployment heroines rare and the flow of immigration is allowed greater freedom. When wages fall unemployment increases, and a cheek is put on immigration.” There are two ways of adjusting the hnhmeo. oneway L by refusing to add to the number ol wage-earners, and the other is hy adding to the iiumhof of wage-payers. The wage-earner can he imported-■he is given every facility under our immigration scheme —hut can the wage-payer he imported:- To this question I lie Rear-Admiral says: “Every year in the Ghl Country some thousands of educated, responsible men. who served the Empire in many and various capacities, are retired on life incomes of from C.TiO to Cl("m a year. Quite CS per cent of these spend their lives in the Old Country or in Europe. About lour rears ago a far-sighted man, Sir Roland Ronnie, got tired ol asking himself this question, and proceeded to make a test. lie had held a high position in South Alrica lor many years, and that was his favourite part of the Empire. ile retired Irom the Public Service and went to England. Ile rampaged round London : he cajoled; he ridiculed, he brow-heat, he stirred up the imagination of the great until he had got together a large’committee. He begged for money: he started a Loudon office on an absurdly inadequate income. He advertised his most elaborate scheme. It was called the Empire Community Settlement Scheme. It was designed to provide an inexpensive communal jumping-off place in South Africa for the retired men with fixed incomes. It set forth the advantages of a new country in their declining years, and for the settlement of the children in life, in the course of a lew months, in spite o! the lack ol limits or advertising, there were -applications from the heads of over a thousand families ill the Hourne scheme. I otirne left his London lommiftee and office to deal with the ilritish end, and toured South Africa interviewing liiinn: iet s, landowners, xunapmes and municipalities. While lie did this I was assisting the committee with regard to applicants for New Zealand, which was

ond in popularity on the list. Later I was fortunate enough to lie selected to | join Ronnie on his second lour of South j Africa. The scheme failed because it I was too big a first step, too elaborate, 1 and immediate funds were lacking. Hourne wanted to find some puhiicspirted body which would spend L'do.OdO to L'oO.OOO on building and laying out. The solid financial hacking should have been obtained lirst. As it was subscriptions and donations tell off. Government support failed because negotiations took too long, and the London office was closed.” Rear-Admiral Lawson does not consider that this should lie the end. He thinks there are many thousands of these small to moderate fixed income and life income men at Home who would come out it those first few months could lie bridged inexpensively. He considers any municipality or group of. public-minded men prepared to take some small linaneial risk could work out a small scheme which should in a few years promote and .sustain a steady flow of wage-payers to a selected locality like New Zealand. Ihe scheme of importing wage-payers is worth considering. New Zealand is favourably circumstanced :>s an attractive settlement country, and we could draw that class of immigrant from India, where retirement of military and civil officers is of daily occurrence, and from the Old Country, where many families struggle to keep up appearances.