“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1937. THE ADVANTAGES OF POPULATION.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 367, 23 February 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1937. THE ADVANTAGES OF POPULATION.

The policy of redistributing the populations of the Empire countries appealed more before the depression than it does now, but most people give the question only superficial thought, declaring with an air of finality that when 40,000 men are without regular work it would be folly to bring in more to compete in the labour market.

The fact is that there is no suggestion that they should compete. There is ample room in the Dominion for from 3,000,000 to 5,000,000, and the idea is that those who come here under a carefully-thought-out policy should not lack finance or ability to accommodate themselves to prevailing conditions.

The trouble in the past has been that a large proportion of the immigrants from Great Britain were highly specialised workers who could find nothing to do in New Zealand in their own line, and were hopelessly unadaptable. Others became a burden on the taxpayer because they had no monev to tide them over while they were seeking employment. Generally speaking, the system was a pronounced success and accounted for a great deal of the prosperity enjoyed during the period embracing the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth.

We have in the Hon. W. E. Barnard a strong advocate of a sane immigration policy, and it is not improbable that the Government may be induced to take a keen interest in the movement when it has obtained a definite understanding as to the provision of adequate finance by the Imperial authorities. The Council of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution expressing its belief that the time is opportune to reconsider this question, and Brigadier Green, of the Salvation Army, is actively engaged in stimulating enthusiasm throughout the country.

Of course in this, as in all matters of national importance, it is necessary to proceed slowly. The interests of those already in the Dominion must be safeguarded before further responsibilities are undertaken, and that Ministers have in hand at present opening up new avenues and further exploring the old ones. It is preposterous to entertain for one moment the thought that there is not sufficient work for the population we are now carrying. The trouble is that a wrong sense of industrial values has been established and one half of the country has been economising at the expense of the other half.

Clearlv the best wav to face the question is to reverse the processes by which wholesale unemployment was created in the first place, and that means the expansion of our national activities by organising essential public works which, in their turn, react on ordinary business and bring permanent benefits. With the way prepared by the application of courageous measures, the new scheme could be exploited with perfect safety, and it would be practically self-supporting, if we read aright the intentions of those prominently associated with the proposals. Great Britain is willing, apparently, to purchase a living for a certain number of millions in this Dominion in return for the solution of her unemployment problem.

It will afford her considerable relief even at the price, while we will have probably double th 8 population to share the joys of comfortable existence and the sorrows of taxation. One of the advantages of this would be that there would be more mouths to feed with our own produce and the need for finding new export markers would be correspondingly rediw.ed. With three, four or five million people to feed and tourists entering New Zealand in the *enr of thousands every year, ft would be possible to substantially augment the ranks of our primary producers without any risk of over-supply.

There is ample scope for the extension of land settlement on these conditions, and, with a prooerly-balanced country, we should be menaced by no serious dangers from within or without. Undoubtedly in populating a dominion of such dimensions as ours there is safety in numbers restricted to what can be economically maintained at a reasonable standard of comfort.