Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1938. MIGRATION AND SELFISHNESS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 December 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1938. MIGRATION AND SELFISHNESS.

JN Britain and in the Dominions, something is heard at times about the alleged selfishness of the countries of the overseas Empire in refusing to admit rapidly and freely large additions to their present populations. This theme was developed elaborately by the writer of an article published recently in the “Nineteenth Century.” Having observed that Australia and New Zealand could each support four times their present populations and that the population of Canada might at least be doubled, he went on to declare that : —

It is Australia, however, which must appear to the rest of the world as the most selfish of all countries. Geographically this vast island would seem to be the natural outlet for the surplus people of Eastern countries., whose teeming hundreds of million inhabitants have no chance of achieving in their own lands those higher standards of living which contact with Western civilisation has made them aspire to. Nevertheless, Australia puts up a colour bar and says, in effect, “none but white men admitted. This would not be so bad if White men were, in fact, admitted in anything like the numbers requisite to the White Australians establishing a moral right to maintain so exclusive a policy.

Although the writer quoted, who is an Australian, did not discount the wonderful development of the island continent by a population smaller than that of Greater London, nor the manner in which Australia acquitted itself in the Great War, a good deal of what he had to say may be described quite fairly as. disjointed nonsense.

If, for instance, Australia opened her doors wide to immigration from Eastern countries she ■would not in the slightest degree relieve the congestion of humanity in those countries, save at the most momentary view. The places left vacant by the emigrants would speedily be filled up, making their homelands as crowded as ever. On the other hand, the admission to Australia of some millions of Asiatics' would debase the social and economic standards of the Commonwealth, and reduce it to a condition beyond redemption. It is true that there is fine human material in many of the Asiatic countries, but the evils of the coolie standard are to be remedied, if at all, in the lands in which it has developed; and not by allowing it to extend into other territories in which better standards have been established. :■ j

If there’ is any force in the charges made by the author of the “Nineteenth Century” article, it is in his contention that the white populations of the Dominions ought to be built up much more rapidly. With this it is possible to agree unreservedly, subject only to the reservation that the increases in population which unquestionably are desirable must be made by orderly and constructive methods and not by methods which ■would lead to disorganisation and hardship.

It needs to be recognised in any serious consideration of this question that responsibility in the matter of building up the white population of the overseas Empire does not rest by any means solely on the peoples and Governments of the British Dominions. Responsibility is shared, at least, by the people and Government of Britain. At the simplest view, for example, it is perfectly open to migrants from Britain to enter the Dominions freely, in very much the same conditions as did many of the present inhabitants of these countries, or their recent ancestors. Some provision is made also for the admission of foreigners. Assisted immigration has, it is true, largely been suspended, but in the present state of the world that is hardly an adequate foundation on which to base a charge of selfishness on the part of the Dominions.

An effective solution of the problems of migration into the overseas Empire demands, amongst other things, economic cooperation between the Mother Country and the Dominions. It demands, in particular, a considerable modification of the standpoint taken by the writer quoted above, “that most of the self-governing countries under the British Crown are still, and will long continue to be, dependent both economically and strategically upon Great Britain.” Whatever may be thought of the strategic position and outlook, the idea that the countries of the overseas Empire will long continue to be dependent economically upon Britain is very easily over-emphasised, and that not only from the point of view of the Dominions.

If the Dominions are to become less dependent strategically upon Britain, or, to put the position rather more happily, if they are to become elements of greater strength in the common security of the Empire, they must become progressively less dependent on Britain economically. The essential demands of the situation in this respect have been recognised freely aijcl in generous terms by the present British Prime Minister (Mr Neville Chamberlain) and other leading public men in the Mother Country. They are, however, very commonly ignored, or rejected in the leading trends of British commercial and industrial policy, over which successive Governments exercise only a limited influence and control.

As Mr Chamberlain and some others have affirmed frankly, it is an essential condition of a substantial increase of population in the Dominions that they should freely expand and extend their industries, both primary and secondary. The interests of the whole British race, and indeed those of humanity at a larger view, demand that industries should be fostered and developed throughout the Empire to the best advantage of all concerned, and not that the economic dependence of the Dominions upon the Mother Country should be maintained to the greatest possible extent.

At present, New Zealand is endeavouring to expand its secondary industries. Apart from any question of the further investment of British capital in this country, British industrial and commercial circles might greatly assist this development, if they would, merely by the removal, for example, of restrictions on the acceptance of exports of processed, or partly processed raw materials from this country. With British cooperation, the export from New Zealand of such items as wool tops, wood pulp and others no doubt might easily be developed and the way opened to broader industrial development. In British commercial practice, however, much is done to restrict and impede progress on these lines in the Dominions, and therefore to restrict and impede their growth in population. An important part of the answer to the charge of selfishness made by the writer of the article mentioned above is that, the Dominions would gladly co-operate in a policy genuinely directed to the development of the Empire and the better distribution and increase of its white population.