THE HUMAN INTAKE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4954, 22 March 1926, Page 3

THE HUMAN INTAKE.

NEW ZEALAND IMMIGRATION.

ARMY’S OFFER DECLINED.

While the New Zealand Government is grateful for the co-operation cf.the Salvation Army in immigration, it does- not propose to accept the Army’s offer of extended services in the direction of increasing the immigration or altering the control thereof. The. Government • hopes by its own measures to increase the annual immigration from a maximum of 10',000 to 13,500, but it is not proposed to depart from present methods of controlling the; volume of immigration. Such is the effect of the Govern-

ment’s reply to the proposals made some' weeks' ago by the Salvation Army through Commissioner Lamb, who. made a special trip to New Zealand as director of the Army s migration work. In stating the Government’s policj ,the Minister in charge oil the Immigration Department, the Hon. W. Nosworthy, said that the present methods of the' department were sufficient to ensure the annual supply of that number of immigrants of good character for which the Government could at present provide assisted passages, and it would therefore be inadvisable to seek the. co-operation ,of the Army further than the extent which existed under the present arrangement,, which it was the desire of the Government to continue, namely, the provision of £5OO per annum for the services of the Army in respect to the reception of immigrants. 1 ■ln accordance with the above statement, the Government cannot accepx. the Army’s proposal to establish, with Government financial ._ assistance, young women’s hostels at Wellington and Dunedin, and boys,' hostels at Oamaru and Fielding. Neither can it jiccept the Army’s offer to select intending migrant families in the Old Country and give/ them a certain a,mount Of training before they leave. .According to an address delivered at Dunedin by the Und4r-Secretary of the Department Immigration, Mr H. D. Thomson, New Zealand has received in five years ,45, 000 . Gpvernmentasrsisted immigrants, of which less than 1 per cent, have failed. In the matter of Government-lent passage money, there are at present 700 such loans, and less than '5 per cent, of the borrowers have bailed to repay the first instalment on due date. -Up-to-date the’ New - Zealand Government had secured. from the Imperial Government approximately quarter of a million- as assistance with passage money. ■