"Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1937. A SERIOUS OBSTACLE

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 436, 18 May 1937, Page 4

"Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1937. A SERIOUS OBSTACLE

One essential point appears to have been overlooked by those who strongly advocate immigration as a means of increasing our population. Major R. H. Howell, Secretary of the New Zealand Association of the Public Schools of Great Britain, remarked at the annual meeting of that body that “people in general of all sorts have no desire to move overseas or even to contemplate it.”

A close study of the position is illuminating. Despite the fact that there are wide, open spaces in every part of the world under the British flag the people cling to the heart of the Empire, England and Wales becoming increasingly congested, carrying more population to the square mile than any other country in the world. That, of course, is characteristic of all races.

As a rule they have a distinct distaste for changes of residence which dis'turb the equanimity of their lives. That, we think, is the most cogent argument against the plea of Germany that her colonies are essential to the proper development of her national ideals. The dependencies Germany possessed before the war maintained only a few hundreds of white people and the same may be said of this Italian. Even Japan, though she has virtually controlled the destinies of Manchuria for thirty years, has in that fertile country only 629,000 of her countrymen, against 32,000,000 Chinese. This immigration is at about twice the rate of the movement of population from Great Britain to New Zealand before the depression brought the suspension of the system. Japan has been complaining of the urgent need for more elbow room, yet, little more than a day’s journey from Kobe lies an area one seventh the size of Europe, which will grow anything, and the increase of Japanese in Manchuria in twenty years is scarcely perceptible. It is probable that, with the resumption of the propaganda maintained in Great Britain by the New Zealand Government migration would assume somewhat the same proportions as twelve years ago, and with increased persuasiveness might be even doubled. But, we want something more overwhelming than that. Ihe idea must be to break down the disinclination to move by offering attractive conditions. In the past immigrants have been permitted to come to the Dominion to take pot-luck. Some of them were specialists. The 20 years’ plan provides for ‘1 cn nnn oduct, i on ° f new P°P’ jlati °n on a wholesale scale 150,000 would have to be brought to the country on an average every year. If Major Howell’s conclusions are correct, and we believe they are, a marked change of heart would have to be induced in the people of Great Britain to maintain a traffic of anything approaching these dimensions. Our Government would have to do something more than utter the platitudes that have done service in the past. This may be God s Own Country,’’ and may possess all the charms claimed for it, but people will want much r lore alluring assurances before they will leave a comfortable fome to embark on what is at the best an enterprise fraught v/ith uncertainty.