A PRESSING NEED.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 June 1920, Page 5

A PRESSING NEED.

MORE POPULATION. In his address to the shareholders of the Bank of New Zealand at Wellington yesterday, Mr. Harold Beauchamp said:— It seems to me that one of the pressing needs of our country at the present time is population. All classes of thu community are suffering from lack of labor, and the present production of field and factory could be, with case, almost doubled if the necessary labor were available. The energetic prosecution oi | public works in the country j» also greatly impeded by the dearth of necessary labor. The natural increase of the population is much too slow to meet the needs of the country. According to the last census—that of 1916—t]ie European population was then 1,099,449. The increase in ten years from 190G, whea ■the number was 888,578, was equivalent to only 23.7 per cent., or an average increase of only 2.37 per cent per annum The average annual increase for tho twenty years ended in 1916 was 2.81 p.vr cent. This, of course, includes the increase resulting from ordinary immigration during the period. Such an increase is far too small for a country calling for population to win its latent wealth and develop its capabilities. It haß not been the policy of former Governments in recent years to give that encouragement to immigration which the needs of the country seem to demand: but I am glad to say that there is every prospect of greater immigration activity on the part of the present Government. Unless some special effort be made, im migrants will undoubtedly be attracted elsewhere and be lost to New Zealand. The Commonwealth Government, it was recently announced, have an immigration campaign in view and intend to adopt extraordinary measures to divert the surplus male and female population of the United Kingdom to Australia. It is to be hoped that the New Zealand Government will be no less aggressive.