The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. MONDAY, MAY 23, 1927. INDUSTRY AND IMMIGRATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 51, 23 May 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. MONDAY, MAY 23, 1927. INDUSTRY AND IMMIGRATION

POME good results from the recent banqueting tour of the Dominions by British newspaper proprietors and a few working journalists are promised. A special effort is to be made in Great Britain for the promotion of emigration to oversea lands within the Empire. The question has been taken up with unusual enthusiasm and thoroughness by the Empire Press Union whose delegation to Australia and New Zealand (this country receiving merely a rush visit) last year appears to have been impressed with the need for a better system of migration publicity and organisation.

It has been decided to form a permanent link between the newspapers and the migration authorities, principally for the purpose of giving more informative attention in British journals to the needs of the Dominions and also to the interests of their immigrants. It is about time new methods were adopted. There are several excellent features in the new journalistic scheme of co-operation with the migration officials representing the various Dominions and colonies. It has been recommended, for example, that representative newspapers should devote a regular column to migration siibjects, the news to comprise answers to correspondents and settlers’ experiences without any exercise of favour. That is to say, prominence will not be given only to favourable reports. There need be no fear of a spate of adverse propaganda in the British newspapers. An “agony column” for disgruntled and disillusioned immigrants in the far country may be an occasional feature in some journals with socialistic tendencies, but it will be more than counterbalanced by the testimony of optimists and officials. The Press Union has urged newspaper proprietors in Great Britain to give more news space to official reports on migration. Thus it may be expected that what is lost on the merry-go-round will be made up on the swings.

As far as New Zealand is concerned there is no reason for complaint about lack of publicity. Indeed, the Dominion’s special effort in recent years has been literally a howling success. The results have been so successful in raising the tide of immigration, to our shores that the narrow field of industry has become inundated with unemployed migrants and with New Zealanders flooded out of their billets.

What really is wanted is an efficient crusade in Great Britain for the emigration of British industrialists with large capital to New Zealand for the purpose of establishing industries for the manufacture of more of the Dominion’s raw materials into goods. And the crusade should be supported in this country by a revised tariff, which, as in Australia, would make it profitable for British manufacturers to transplant plant and skilled workers to a land of opportunity. This would be more advantageous to the Empire than any attempt to train a costermonger to become a debt-ridden farmer on over-valued inferior land.

THE JUBILEE OF A NATION

CABLED news regarding the preparations being made to fittingly celebrate Canada’s sixtieth year as a nation recall the early colonisation of that great country by a few traders who sought furs for the luxurious; the time, in later years, when the troops of Wolfe stormed the heights of Abraham and took Quebec, to add another jewel to the British Crown, and to the early development of the colony under that same rule that has shaped the destinies of the free sister Dominions. It was early discovered that Canada possessed many resources of immense wealth, apart from fur. Population grew, and with it the idea of uniting the British North American colonies under one Government. This was proposed as far back as 1789, but it was not for many years later, after the introduction of the railways, that the idea became really feasible. The question entered the realm of practical politics in 1858, when, as the result of the efforts made by the British-America League, a body formed to counteract the movement to annex Canada to the United States, a mission was despatched to England, to sound the Imperial authorities on the subject. It. was even then too early, and lack of co-operation between the various States and repeated changes in the Ministries of England and Canada caused a delay of several years. Finally, however, a conference between delegates from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario, and delegates from the Imperial Cabinet, was held in London, and a bill empowering federation was passed through the Imperial Parliament, receiving the Royal assent on March 29, 1867. Three years later Manitoba was admitted to the Confederation, and British Columbia came in the next year, followed, two years after, by Prince Edward Island, and in 1880 all the British possessions in North America, except Newfoundland, were annexed to Canada.

The progress since made by Canada has been a source of satisfaction to all her sister Dominions, and her loyalty to the Empire, often doubted by those to whom the wish was father to the thought, was proved in the Great War, for Canada sent over 400.000 of her men to the front. The economical history of Canada since federation is remarkable. In 1867 her population was three and a-half millions, occupying 377 square miles of territory. To-day she has 10,000.000 people, occupying nearly 4,000.000 square miles. Her annual trade total was £34,000,000 sixty years ago ; it is now £400,000,000. The British North America Act was promulgated on July 1. 1867, so that Canada is now rapidly approaching the celebration of her diamond jubilee. Her progress has been remarkable in every way, and sister Dominions will be heartily in accord in wishing continued growth and prosperity to the Lady of the Snows.