THOSE IMMIGRANTS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8341, 30 January 1913, Page 6

THOSE IMMIGRANTS

The Hon. W. P. Massey had a little to say at Hastings yesterday concerning tho scheme of the Government to import 25,000 immigrants annually. This was not being done, ho said, in order to bring tho wages down, but to keep otir industries going. This is all very well, but it has not yet been made clear that tho existing industries will absorb anything like 25,000 newcomers annually without throwing out of work many of those already in employment and causing acute congestion of the labour market Besides, Mr Massey is shifting bis ground. At Rotorua, ho was emphatic on the point that it was farmers he intended to import in such vast numbers, and now ho faces round tho other way and, his hearers being sympathetic, tells them the 25,000 strangers are intended to keep our industries going. Probably they are intended also to create greater competition in the labour market for tho work offering and is a part of that muchvaunted square deal. However, Mr Massey has not lost sight ,of the farmers even in tho awe-inspiring presence of his entertainers the Hawke’s Bay squatters. “What wo want,” he said some•what grandiloquently, “aro agricultural settlers and small farmers to take up the lands of the Dominion and .become producers.” In all sincerity, wo ask which lands? Mr Massey is certainly putting tho cart before the horse. What wo want is land on which to place settlers and enable them to become producers. The settlers are already here, but now that Mr Massey and the squatter party are in power, they cannot get land hn which to farm.