NATION BUILDING

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 214, 29 November 1927, Page 11

NATION BUILDING

MIGRATION NEEDS OF DOMINION MEMORIAL TO MR. AMERY {From Our Resident Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, To-day. CLEAR statement of the migration needs of the Dominion is set forth in the memorial presented to-day to the Right Hon. L. S. Amery, who replied reviewing the aims which inspired those seeking a solution of the problem of nation-building. The memorial is subscribed u by 4 1 public bodies, including the Wellington Manufacturers’ Association, the Dominion Settlement Association, in* Wellington Dairy Farmers* Association, the Wellington Stock Exchange, the New Zealand Manufacturers* Federation, numerous church bodies, and other organisations. It sets out the position at some length, urging that the essentials of any scheme likely to be successful were: (a) The careful selection of peopl' likely to adapt themselves to Domini.. ll conditions. (b) Provision of housing accommodation, and definite employment immediately on arrival. (c) Opportunity to acquire necessary practical experience to admit of their assimilation without disturbance of the labour market. (d) Opportunity to eventually become owners of their own homes and farms. (e> Encouragement to investment of capital by British investors. with security, and on a profitable basis. The memorial laid down that the measures adopted should not be dependent upon Government or local bodies for either finance or management, but should be supplementary 10 and not in substitution for the Government migration activities. SUMMARY OF PROPOSALS The features of the proposals might be summarised as follows: (1) Investment in New Zealand of British private capital, with a surety of sound security and reasonable return on investment; (2) the opportunity for a largely increased number of migrants settling in the Dominion, with the provision for employment and housing having previously been arranged for each one of them; (3) such Increased migration being applied to new developments would not mean the displacement of any worker already employed in the country; (4) the opportunity for the migrant to find remunerative employment at unskilled work during the first few years of his residence in the Dominion, and at the same time affording him a training which would enable him to be easily absorbed into the economic life of the Dominion at the end of that period: (5) private enterprise, ensuring sound business methods eairying through the schemes without harassing the Government of the day or being impaired by political influence, at the same time in no way interfering with the ordinary migration policy of the Government; (6) the employment of British capital in a portion of the Empire, free from the proved risks of investments in foreign countries. Mr. A. L. Hunt, of the Dominion Settlement Association, and Mr. Carr, ex-president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, presented the memorial, and briefly outlined its scope, and the scheme for migration suggested. SYMPATHETIC REPLY

Mr. Amery gave a sympathetic reply, in the course,of which he alluded to the unemployment question. The Dominion had passed through a serious phase of unemployment during the past 18 months—more serious, he understood, than had been the case for many years. During the past seven years Great Britain had had unemployment on a scale more serious than had been known for two or three generations. They regarded that unemployment as not due merely to the fact that their population was so large, but to the disorganisation of the balance of the world’s industry , and it was on those lines of the bet ter distribution of the balance of industries, not only of the world, hut still more in that “inner and more intimate world of ours which we called the British Empire.” It was not u question of shifting unemployed out of Great Britain, and of leaving it to chance whether they were employed elsewhere or not, but of co-operating with the Dominions in seeing to it that the right type of men and women w'ere coming out to help to strengthen the community, and especially on thac side where world production was so deficient to-day—namely, primary production. Mr. Amery said there v*a the question of the functions of the Government and those of the private indiv’dual. He entirely agreed with the ! view that there was a great field in this matter for private enterprise side hv side with and supplementary to whatever might be lone by the Gov j eminent. Exactly what field it should cover, and the fern private enterprise j should take, was cf course a matter • on which he could not pronounce a I definite opinion at, the moment. The | whole question was one for careful i study. He desired to lav stress on ! the importance of after-care. Each immigrant was an individual cast, and an essential condition of success was that the individual should be proI perly looked af at the start, and be given every chance to make good. ! In that respect, with our organised ! communities, the position was dif ferent to that which existed in the early days of settlement.