The Making of New Zealanders

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 801, 26 November 1954, Page 26

The Making of New Zealanders

isolation as much as New Zealand needs new _ influ-ences-the sort we get from travel or from mixing with people who have grown up in societies different from our own-and it’s a good idea to -remember that when we feel resentful, as some of us do, of the influx of nationals from other countries. It’s not a bad thing to remember, also, that many of those who come to New Zealand as aliens are eager to become assimilated. Last year, for instance, 526 foreign nationals living in New Zealand applied for naturalisation. and in due course most of them will become citizens of this country. Many also have wives and children who will become New Zealanders by registration when naturalisation is granted. What conditions must an alien satisfy before he can become a New Zealand citizen? This is the question answered in New Zealanders from Overseas, an NZBS programme written by Anthony Bartlett which may be heard from 3YZ at 10.0 p.m, on Wednesday, December 1, and later from other National stations. Up till 1948, the programme points out, there were in law no New Zealand citi-zens-we were all just British subjects. But in 1947 nationality experts of Commonwealth countries had decided in conference that each country should establish its own citizenship status. Legislation passed in 1948 made New Zealand citizens of most people living in New Zealand, and among other things it provided conditions which aliens must satisfy if they were to become New Zealanders. One important new condition was that the applicant should have a sufficient knowledge of the responsibilities and privileges of New Zealand citizenship, A COUNTRY that lives in The sort of knowledge a new New Zealander has to have doesn’t always come easily. One of. the older provisions, for instance, is that he must have an adequate knowledge of the English ‘language, and to help new arrivale-or

old ones, for that matter-to acquire it, language classes are arranged by the Education Department wherever six or more adult aliens will attend. In the Wellington district alone there are about twenty classes, and the programme takes listeners along to two of these classes-at Island Bay and at Titahi Bay. Listeners will hear members of Italian and Austrian communities: in these places talking about some of the things they like and don’t like about New Zealand, and of some of the difficulties they encounter in trying to get a true picture of the New Zealand scene, Language is not, of course, a problem for every alien who wants to become naturalised. It wasn’t for one of the speakers in New Zealanders from Over-seas-Mabel Sang, of Napier. She was naturalised a couple of years ago, becoming the first Chinese national to be naturalised in New Zealand since 1908. Actually she only just missed by a few months being born a New Zealander, and one of the reasons she wanted to be one when so many Chinese don’t is that in her work and in social activities outside she has been treated and made to fee] like any other New Zealander. And that is as good a tip as any for those who want to know how best to encourage other foreign nationals to settle down as New Zealanders. All aliens are registered with the police from the time they arrive in New Zealand, and when an alien decides to apply for naturalisation it is the police who have the task of making sure that he satisfies the conditions laid down by law-in other words, that he has the makings of a New Zealander. The last part of New Zealanders from Overseas describes just how the police go about this job. Of course, the police don’t make the final decision. Their report goes to the Internal Affairs Department, and in most cases the applicant is accepted. It’s only a matter, then, of an Oath of Allegiance ‘taken before a Magistrate or a Justice of the Peace, and New Zealand has another citizen, and the British Commonwealth another national.