IMMIGRATION QUESTION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5082, 31 January 1927, Page 2

IMMIGRATION QUESTION.

POSITION IN W ZEALAND.

NEED FOR INVESTIGATION.

Ministers are being assailed on all hands concerning the influx of assitted immigrants, “to xhe detriment, as, one complainant puts it," eft honest native-born workers, who are being pushed out of employment by the new arrivals.” That the position is becoming serious may be judged the, protests that are appearing throughout the New Zealand press. One authority, after visiting a large portion of the North Island, expresses the opinion that, “signs are evident of a severe depression, intensifying as the winter, advances. Is it ’fair to people of this country to crowd them out employment by arrivals from the Old Land ? Does it not mean that when the winter comes on us we shall have thousands of unemployed, who will have to be kept by creating work for them to be paid for by the alreW over-burdened taxpayers and ratepayers ?” This writer contends that "shortly New Zealand will be faced with a very serious problem of unemployment,” and that the position will be greatly aggravated by the presence of a large army of unskilled workers brought from the Old Country. Dealing with the subject, a southern contemporary says that officially the Immigration Department makes light of the complaints, which, it says, arb continually appearing in the newspapers in regard to idle hands and straitened circumstance,but it is compelled to admit the presence of large numbers, of unemployed in the country, and the difficulty of placing either men or women arriving from overseas without friends to assist them or a skilled trade to support them. The published figures do not nearly represent the full magnitude of the trouble, quite a number of worthy people hesitating to reveoj their true position; but even the published figures make it clear that in the very busiest season of the year many hundreds of men are out of employment, apparently by no fault of their own. There are others, of course, who contend the nativeborn toilers have little to fear by the competition of men from overseas if they are really workers and not merer ly incompetents, for their practical graining and fitness for their tas ( ks • give them an advantage over new--comers who have to learn colonial methods of doing things. Tn some* trades and occupations, of course;, this advantage is perhaps not so preponderaiting, but in the dairy industry One frequently notices that the farmer does not want employees from-over-seas until they have learned New Zealand conditions. Where a good deal of the trouble lies is' in the. case, of the colonial who will not attempt to give; service commensurate with the wages. In most trades there, is 8 minimum award, and it is safe to say that 80 per cent, of the employees inthat trade are paid the basic wage.. Thus employee,s are “On the level,” be’ they colonial or from overseas, and if a colonial cannot give better service than a “new chum” he will not get much sympathy from any but the professional agitator, who makes it his business to provoke ill-feeling between employer and employee. The Minister in charge of Immigration, no doubfy is 1 doing all that is possible from his point of view to relieve theaccumulating distress. His efforts* may be, however, somewhat hampered, if not actually negatived, by a' continuance of a policy of immigration, the wisdom of which is doubtful under present conditions. To what extent assisted immigration is affecting the position is a problem seeming to demand urgent! investigation, and such investigation should due attention not only to the effects and resuits of the Government’s policy in the pasiij, but also to such economic phenomena as are likely to affect New . Zealand’s welfare for a number of years to come. We should, however, urge that if the Government sees fit to set up a commission to investigate and report, then that report and recommendations should be placed before Parliament for adoption, with 6he full weight of Cabinet behind it: not merely pigeon-holed, as so many other ' recommendations of commissions have been.