NEW SETTLERS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4992, 25 June 1926, Page 3

NEW SETTLERS.

ABSORBING the MIGRANTS; MINISTER REPLIES TO CRITICS. The various criticisms levelled at the Government’s immigration policy during the no-confidence deba.te were replied to by the Minister in charge of the department (the Hon. W. Nosworthy) on Tuesday. Mr Nosworthy said that for seven years he had listened to the s'ame old charges that immigrants were being brought into the, country on false representations. In connection with unemployment, it was no use keeping on urging the Government to do its duty in the matter.- The Government was going to do all it could to relieve the position. The system of nomination, continued the Minister, had s . been repeatedly criticised by the K Labour Party, and he was -frequently ’ called on by members! of the Opposi- ’■ .tion to investigate cases of immigrants who were out of work. In most cases it had been found that they not immigrants at ajl. The immigrants coming in were of a fine type, and the Government would be foolish if tit did not take the opportunity to ge.t them while it could. He did not think that the population of New Zealand was increasing so fast they could not do with immigrants of the best Anglo-Saxon stock. He had sufficient faith in the future of New Zealand to believe that these immigrants could be absorbed, despite the reasonable fluctuations in the labour market; and this absorption was in fact taking place. Mr Nosworthy also stressed the fact that by taking some of Britain’s surplus population New Zealand was helping to solve the grave problems of the Mother Country, whose markets were and whose unemployed num<bered hundreds of thousands. X. For the, pa r st year, added the Minister, 8922 migrants had come in under State assistance, and 3529 came in on their own account. Of the. State-a'ided immigrants 30 per cent, of the males went direct to the; farms, per cent, to the country districts, and 35 per cent, stayed in the towns. Not more than ‘5O per cent, of the migrants were wage-earners, the balance being juveniles a,nd schoolboys.