THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 1909. THE EMIGRATION PROBLEM.
Before Sir Joseph Ward left the Dominion to attend the Naval Conference he dealt with the emigration problem, quoting the official returns of arrivals and departures in order to show that the population of New Zealand is being maintained. These are the figures giv n by the Prime Minister: 1909 Arrivals. Departures. Januarv 5,822 2,233 February ,4,141 2,857 March 3.347 4,785 April 2,372 4,015 May 2,437 3.551 18,119 17,441 It was subsequently stated, upon the authority of the Tourist Department, that "there has been nothing, as far as the Tourist Department is aware, to show that the quarter ended June 30th will show any more than the normal ebb and flow of population." But the official figures for June, unfortunately, entirely upset, this cheerful prognostication. They are:--1909. Arrivals. Departures. June 1.927 2.671
The completed returns for the first six months of the year are:
Arrivals in the Dominion 20,046 Departures from the Dominion 20,112 Excess of departures 66 This may not appear, at first sight, to be a very alarming table, but if it is borne in mind that for the whole of the half-year passenger vesseis from the United Kingdom have been regularly arriving, loaded with immigrants, thousands of whom have entered the Dominion with the intention of settling among us, it is evident that the nominally small excess of departures has a very serious meaning. We have never sought to exaggerate any shortcomings in the public administration, or to magnify any national difficulties, says the Auckland "Herald," but it u impossible to hide the fact that thousands of our best workers are leaving our ports to seek employment in Australia. No blame attaches either to land-seeking farmers or to employ-ment-seeking workmen who betake themselves to kindred States where they hope to find opportunity denied to them here; hut it is surely just to blame an Administration whose gross neglect of public duty ha
brought New Zealand to this undesirable pass at a time when its waste lands cry aloud for development. We have for vears pointed out that it is exceedingly detrimental to the fair fame of New Zealand and altogether unjust to industrious immigrants, to encourage immigration during the comparatively slack winter months. The great difficulty we have to contend with is not the plight of unaccustomed strangers, harshly awakened from their offici-ally-inspired dream of finding that "a New Zealand winter is like an English spring," but the position of capable and acclimatised colonials, inured to our conditions, and versed in our requirements, who find the land locked against the settler and the cities bympathetically depressed by this wilful paralysis of our agricultural development. It ig these hardy | colonials who are emigrating, while the British immigrant, who has yet to be colonialised, is taking their place. We believe wholly[in the right of the British-born man to come to this British State. Nor can any intelligent man doubt that, in spite of maladministration and drawbacks, sparsely-populated New Zealand at the worst offers greater ultimate opportunity for the industrious worker with a family than over-crowded Britain. For our national security, as well as for our industrial development, it is necessary that our population should be greatly and steadily increased; British immigration, under carefully considered supervision, is therefore gieatly to be desired and should be generously encouraged. The emigration of the New Zealander, in the search for work or in the quest for a little holdingtis an unqualified injustice to the emigrant and an unmitigated evil to the State.
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Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9557, 2 August 1909, Page 4
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591THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 1909. THE EMIGRATION PROBLEM. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9557, 2 August 1909, Page 4
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