MORE PEOPLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2123, 4 May 1920, Page 3

MORE PEOPLE.

DOMINION’S GREATEST NEED. MR. T. E. SEDGWICK AND HIS SLOGAN.. “The present condition of the Dominion is due to the migration of a few hundred thousand people and their descendants. That has made New Zealand worth £1,000,000,000 whereas before their advent she was worth nothing.” This is the slogan of Mr T. E. Sedgwick, who lias been in New Zealand for some months advocating a vigorous policy of immigration, both to relieve the congestion at Home and to make this New Zealand mightier and mightier yet.

A Press representative bad an interview with Mr Sedgwick Just before his departure for Australia, where also he hopes to increase the interest taken in the foundation of a country population. With regard to the possibility" of over-production, Mr Sedgwick pointed out (hat, whilst the war had cheeked the increase of the belligerent nations, they had continued to multiply at a slower rate. Again, while the world’s people were more numerous, the world’s live stock had declined by 150 millions, notwithstanding that the standards of living in Britain, Europe, and Japan had advanced as regards both clothing and food. Ollier factors were the proximity of Canada., the'United States, and Japan, all needing mutton and wool from New Zealand and from Australia, and the tact that, the United States lias become a food-importing instead of a foodexporting country. There was also to be reckoned with the improbability of our commercial instincts declining before our Imperial sympathies, as the prospects of the Old Country, taking all our food and other raw products within a Sew years hence, were extremely gloomy. More production here, however, depended upon more population.

The desirability of increasing our secondary industries so as to increase the value of our exports and to secure the spending capacity of the workers of the Dominion, was also emphasised by Mr Sedgwick. Not only, he argued, should prices fall for woollen goods, hinds and saddlery if they were manufactured here to supply ihe local requiremenfs, but ample markets awaited us overseas, where sophistication or adulteration of manufactures, essential during the war, was difficult now to extinguish, whilst Xew Zetaland had a reputation for purity of

production. The domestic problem,- he added, should be largely relieved, d not solved, by encouraging the migration of some of the ISO,OOO British war widows, mostly young and often possessing not only one or two children, but also pensions for both mothers and children, payable in any one of the Dominions. ’These constituted a most desirable lona of domestic worker in the IcK-k----hloeks, where the mother wmdd become a friend to the “missus’ and useful if the latter were si.de or wished to visit relatives or friends at a distance', whilst (lie oilspring would become absorbed into Die farmers’ or settlers’ families and act ns an anchor, as well as an interest, to their mothers, thus discouraging their drifting from job to job, or Irving town life. Idle land gills of Britain constituted a large class of. splendid material for domestic assistance in the more settled areas, and they had lost their traditional fear of animals, from mice to cows. For domestic help in artisan families, branches should be established here of female orphanages at Home, whither the girls could be broug'ht out at the age of 12 or 13, “lopped off” as New Zealanders for 2 years, and then placed out, if possible, with apprenticeship, to selected wives of artisans with families within a twenty mile radius ol the -add branch orphanage. This should largely cheek the present decline ot the hii’th-rate, which, in the absence of such help, is leading to ra.ee suicide.

The ex-soldiers should also receive every .encouragement to settle, urged Mr Sedgwick. They might he a. few yearsolder than the hoys he was most interested in; hut many-of the present ex-soldiers ot; Britain would have come out as hoys if the war had not required their presence elsewhere. Anyhow, New Zealand should indent with the Home Government for 24,000 ex-soldiers to make up for the 10,000 ol our howkilled at the front, the 2,000 who l ad taken their discharges at Home, and the reduced productive capacity of our wounded and disabled men. This would enable the railway-, roads, and bridges to he proceeded with; the hydro-electric works to he completed in good time; while our secondary industries could he advanced, and our defence would he. more assured and our debt spread thinner over more shoulders. The British Government had promised to pay the fares for all exsoldiers and sailor's, their wires (or widows) and children; also the fares of female ex-war workers, such as V.A.D.’s and land workers, who could he absorbed in the and who were approved by the Higli Commissioner; But, Mr Sedgwick pointed out, the offer was only open until the end of 1921. The New Zealand Government had extended their policy of assisted immigration for rural uorkcis, domestic servants, and persons nominated by people already in the Dominion, and had greatly improved their system of receiving and distributing immigrants. A great want still existed, however, he said, as New Zealand had no training camps 'in the rudhut'uts of agriculture, eitlD er for' immigrants or for local

youths,- save those of the latter who fell into the hands of the police and had the good fortune to he sent by the magistrate to the Boys’ Training Farm at Weraroa. Such a centre he held, would constitute a splendid memorial to any fallen soldier, and all the beneficiaries could be called by his name.