IMMIGRANTS LEAVE COUNTRY

Taranaki Daily News, 7 August 1922, Page 2

IMMIGRANTS LEAVE COUNTRY

FLAT DENIAL TO MINISTER’S STATEMENT. A flat denial was given to a statement by the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. W. Nosworthy), who also happens to be Minister in Charge of Immigration, by Mr. A. Spencer, the president of the New Zealand Land Settlement and Immigration League, in the • course of his remarks before the Auckland A. and P. Association. Mr. Spencer declared that immigrants were pouring back to the Old Country, many as soon as they possibly could get the wherewithal to do so. His statement had been fully endorsed at Wellington by Mr. W. J. Polson, president of the Farmers’ Union Conference. The Minister had stated in the House, however, that in two years and four months 19,615 immigrants entered the Dominion. Of this number, Mr. Nosworthy had declared that only one per cent, had again left the country. From inquiries made by Mr. Spencer, he had found that the third-class accommodation on all ships leaving for the Old Country had been fully booked in the past. The overflow showed no signs l of lessening. Mr. Spencer had also been informed that in numerous cases the money for passages was being found in England. Another unsatisfactory factor, he said, was the fact that the men were treated unsatisfactorily by a section of the labor, unions. The Government appeared to have no settled land policy to offer them, and coupled with the present lack of employment in the Homeland, they were being driven back to Britain, where they knew they would receive unemployment money. New Zealand muit throw open its undeveloped and consequently unproductive lands in order to remedy this. “Does the Minister know that the Government is trying to prohibit these people from leaving New Zealand by refusing passports, unless they refund the nomination money paid by it for their passages to New Zealand?” he asked.