WE ARE LIVING IN A FOOL'S PARADISE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5315, 30 January 1947, Page 2

WE ARE LIVING IN A FOOL'S PARADISE

POPULATION PRESSURE WARNING FROM SIR OLUTHA MACKENZIE IN INDIA. a Copies of the evidence and findings of the New Zealand Commission on Population have just reached me in this distant Himalayan valley. Much of the evidence was sensible and forthright, giving warnings of present trends, emphasising dangers, and pointing out our great opportunities. The rest is sorry stuff, writes LieutCol. Sir Clutha Macfkenzie from Dehra Diun, India. Among the witnesses were men who, seemingly unaware of how the rest of the world lives and of how human and economic forces have their own way of dictating events, spoke sincere nonsense. They felt that population was near saturation point, that agricultural growth had almost reached its limit, that housing would he too diffiicult also, that markets were lacking — indeed, a state of mind which suggests that New Zealand has arrived, if not at saturation point, at least at stagnation corner. The evidence of a few of the 'Govemment witnesses, sad as it is to relate, gives the impression that they might have been influenced by a desire to please their masters, whose negative, defeatist attitude towards immigration has long been public knowledge. It would be diffiicult otherwise to account for the remarkable statements uttered by those normally intelligent men. What stands out most in the proceedings is that ultra-con-servatism which stubbornly opposes change and progress — dominates New Zealand's outlook and politics to-day It reveals the existence of minds which cannot picture a !N!ew Zealand other than they have known it in their own school and wofiking days. They cannot picture our farms other than they are, our cities bigger and more numerous, our industries on a far wider and more varied scale; and, many of them, being the secretaries c|f Sftnall laboi^r unijDns, are 0Ve!rwhelmed with the importance of preventing the possibility of a change, for there might be risk in it; one could not guarantee that they would all be heneficial. It is the deadening mentality of the "closed shap." To them the commission's report, with its -soothing generalisatiohs, will be happy reading; 'but it is only a balm to the dwellers in a fool's paradise. Plus 5,000,000 a Year. I wish they could come and sit beside me here on the garden terrace wherejl am typing" this comment. The valleyrfloor is 2000 feet ahove sea level; the hills — they might be the Tararuas or the Ruahines — rise steeply to eight and nine thousand feet. "The soil is sandy and stony; and, unlike New Zealand, rain and1 sunshine are : not served out as a mixed grill, but in a hrst course of bone dry months, ; followed by a second course, a gener- i ous one of 80 inches of rain in as : many days.

Wherever the lie of the land allows, it has been terraced into tiny fields where wheat, rice, millet, sugar antl pulses grow. Every mountain spring, every small stream has been captured and its waters led along the hillside? to the humble plots. Such valleys lie empty in New Zealand or, perhaps, are grazed lightly hy a few sheep and cattle. The people here are hungry. 6 In spite of all their labour, they cannot grow enough food, yet they make no'attempt to restrict their families. They don't Iknow how, and, anyway, they don't want to. A man, if he is to stand the best charce in his futuro life, must have a son to carry out hjs death ceremonies; and, so high is child mortality, that he had1 better have three or four sons to ensure the survival of one against the time that he, the father, should die. This, of course, usually entails his having a like number of daughters. Thus, starvation or no starvation, the population of India surges ahead. ■In the few short months the New Zealand Co.mmission on Population was ploughing its unconvincing furrow, the population of India increased by more than the Dominion's present total. 'It leaps ahead by fiye million a year — 100,000,000 every 20' years. Something miust happen! It is this state of things throughout Asia which drives me to urge upon my fellow New Zealanders the speedy peopling of our country. If it were not for this, the "we're all right as wc are" attitude would not matter so much. As things are, we may be 1'ucky enough to remain undisturhed for another half-century. Beyond that time, as an under-populated land of infinite promise, we should be threatneed with unending danger and an almost certain and deserved doom.

An Asiatic Heaven. New Zealand's sunshine and rain, her mild summer® and gentle winters, her cascading streams and many rivers, her trees and' shade tally closely with the Asiatic's picture of heaven; and, if that heaven also happens to be a population vacuum, an awakened, starving Asia will want to fill it. Those of my countrymen who have cast their eyes over a 'Ghinese market garden or who themselves industriously till their own back gardens, will know more truly than some of the witnesses hefore the commission whether New Zealand has reached the limit of her agricultural expansion. Let it not be thought that I in any way advocate a lowering of our standards towards existing Asiatic standards of living; my advocacy is solely that we should people our country to its reasonable maximurfi under our present standards. All of ius have two great desires; to ikeep New Zealand a prosperous white man's country, and1 to do what lies in our power to avoid another world v/ar. To populate "with white people while there is yet time 'is the lirst esesntial to both these aims. Japan planned war, quite irrespective of what Germany was doing, because of her problem of over-popu-lation. The same forces are at work ' throughout the rest of Asia. Ednxcation, medical services and sanitation

will accelerate even the present population growth. . The comfort and prosperity,. which ultimately hring about a falling hirthrate and the aecompanying national lethargy , which the commission witnesses reveal as existing now in New Zealand', will prohably not come in Asia for a hundred years — the time-, lag between rapid growth in population and the suceeding decline in virility. The lessons of history suggest that Asiatic countries are on the threshold of one of these evolutionary cycles of struggle, expansion and ' prosperity. This expansion in Asia is j natural and beyond the contr.il of the ' Asiatics themselves; and, whether ) they want to or not, it will force them ( to consider the problem of living I space. j JPossiblC Judgment. I We are in hopes that a world body, j such as U.N.O., will take over the , solution of the problems which haye ' hitherto been the so'urce of wars. It : is not outside the bounds of practical i politics to suggest that India, for ex- : ample, might present a case to this ' world-organisation, asking that New i Zealand be handed to her, .pleadihg j that while India had millions of her j people in a chtonic condition of star- j vation, New Zealand, with a potential , capacity for 25,000,000 at Asiatic 1 standards of living, stood almost empty. She might suhmit that New Zealand's white population of two million could be transferred without undue hardship to Australia, with its ample ! margin for increased settlement. We should not have a moral leg to stand on. The World Court might conceivably rule: "In our judgment India has made out her case.| It is our decision that the present white inhabi'tants of New Zealand shall be moved to Australia, to whose Government we also give a directive to receive them, where productive and economic con- | ditions will adequately permit of their I satisfactory absorption; and New 'Zealand will be handed over to the Government of India. The financial arrangements are set out hereunder. . ." The world,, has always been and always will be a place .of change. Nations and races will continue individually to g'ain or lose in strength of numbers and character. No matter whether the affairs of nations will in future 'be decided by war or by world ! arbitration, the strong wi'll still come , to the top and weak sink into oblivion. • If we in New 'Zealand fool ourselves ' by the self-deceptions of such wishful ; thinking as paraded themselves in j such sorry procession hefore the com- ! mission, we areNndeed for it. i Either we must give a good account i of our stewardship or we will be ; forced out. (Goyernments say: "You, j as occupier of a farm, must farm if i efficiently, or we will find someone : who will." A World Court, or the j forces which make for wars, demand j in the same strain: "Populate your j land adequately, or we -will find some- i one who will." The commission is like the poor ! farmer who, looldng across his weedy, ! undeveloped fields, thinks up every j feeble excuse as to why hi® land is j like that and as to why it can't carry j more liveStock. Let us New Zealand- j ers, hiding our heads in the sand, J pray that the report will not fiall into j the hands of statesmen, economists j and men of wisdom in other lands. For my part, 'I shall take good care that no-one in India sees my copy.