UNITED LABOUR PARTY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 525, 11 December 1912, Page 3

UNITED LABOUR PARTY.

CONDUCTED BY THE DOMINION EXECUTIVE COUNCIL. (The Easter Conference of the United Labour Party voted to make no paper its special organ, but to provide official news and comments to any paper promising to regularly publish the same. The paper is not responsible for this column, and the party assumes no responsibility for any utterances of the paper except for its own official uterances in this department.)

OUR INTEREST IN IMMIGRATION

The courts have lately been busy with more than one of our newcomers The charges have all been serious, and prove that we have been subsidising ships to bring us undesirable immigrants. The undesirables are certainly a small proportion of the whole, but we don't want even one. Any sort of Biitish immigrant will not do for New Zealand. That pillar of British Conservatism, the London Times, would seem to think so, for it recently said: — Government inducements to emigrants should, perhaps, be more carefully supervised than is at present the case. We can keep our better population if we try, and the Dominions can still find ample material for their needs in the classes which they now repel. If those sentiments are at all popular in Home circles, then the New Zealand Government ought to let it be known they are not popular here. We are trying to build better than the older civilisations, and we want a happier and healthier people. Importing mental or physicalgiiiisfits will not help towards attaining our ideal, and we are not prepared to welcome the lame and the halt, even though they come from the home of our fathers. That is one side of the immigration problem. If we intend importing people, non° but the fit are good in vestments. Now comes this question. Do we want immigrants? The only satisfactory answer is "Yes" (under proper conditions) and "No" (under present conditions). Unlock the land, so that those condition >vho wish to become primary producers will n °t be forced to stay in the cities and compete with city workers for city jobs. When there is a reversal of the present position—land ready for people, instead of a score of applicants for each block of land —it will be time to applaud an immigration policy. If immigration simply means building up city populations and increasing the competition for jobs the workers need not be expected to be enthusiastc iin its support. The best population for any country is-its home-grown. An infusion nf new blood is also beneficial, But we have lost much population during the past few years—some of it native born, and therefore best —by the emigration to Australia. And now comes the cry of unemloyed from Australia. We will get back some of our lost sons and daughters in the natural order of things. We have emigrating and immigrating, and if things unfortunately go wrong in Australia our balance will be quickly restored. I am writing this not to-day mainly to explode some fallacious estimates. In every city we hear employers of labour declare that they could employ so many men, Women, or juvenile workers in addition to present staffs. If vou ask for further particulars they profess *o have made elaborate calculations of the work they have lost through want of labour. All that supposed demand, however, is built on wrong assumptions. To illustrate, let ua take a concrete case. In the clothing industry the demand for female labour is supposed to be particularly keen. 1 know of cases of shortage of work, but that does not affect my immediate argument. Let us suppose that a large clothing order is to be made up. One firm refuses it; perhaps two or three others do likewise — in some cases this one order may have gone the gamut of a dozen firms, and still remain unplaced. Each of the dozen manufacturers estmates this as an order which he missed through not being able to make it up on the moment. and so the supposed demand for labour in this case is estimated largely on a multiplied market. If the first firm had completed the job the others would never have known of it. This one instance will show how dangerous it is to place much weight on the repeated agitation for more city workers. In New South Wales elaborate estimates of the shortage of labour were made. A wholesale immigration policy was adopted. Employers give specific assurances of certain stated periods of certain employment for imported labour. To-day many of those assurances have been repudiated and many workers are workless. New South Wales has reversed its immigration policy. There is no need for us to go through such an experience. But it Would be wise to keep our eyes open and to be watchful as to the future policy of immigration. J. T. PAUL.

There is still discussion concerning the securing of a high tariff for the New Zealand boot industry. The New Zealand manufacturers have open before them an opportunity to secure greater advantages in production than it is possible to secure for them by any tariff to which the people of New Zealand would give their consent. The greatest loss in New Zealand production as compared with production in Germany, Great Britan, and Americia has been well stated in recent correspondence given to the public by a British manufacturer. The, high coat, of- production in New