stratum. Such people could never, even if they desired it, undertake unassisted, so expensive a journey. FEAR OF SUBMERGENCE BY ASIATICS The reason for the Australasian insistance on a white population alone is not hard to find. Unrestricted immigration would lead to submergence by Asiatic races. According to Doctor Thwing, India would be glad to send thirty of her three hundred millions there and China would welcome an opportunity to find homes there for forty of her more than four hundred millions. The seven millions of Australia and New Zealand would be lost completely in such an inundation, while the whole social structure would undergo change. Such immigration is unthinkable to the Australasian. He will not permit the overpopulated countries of Asia to seek relief at his expense, and his reasons for this attitude are sociological, economic and biological. Whatever may be said in regard to the first two reasons, the effects of the third or the mixing of white and colored races are purely speculative. Nor will the effects be known for some time to come, since biological experiments require long periods of time. Certain known cases of admixture seem not to have had happy results. The Eurasians are a case in point. In India, for example, these people appear to have the less worthy qualities of both European and native races. But whatever the eventual outcome of experiments in the admixture of these races may be, the Australasians are determined now to have nothing to do with such experimentation. It is not necessary here to enter into a discussion of the merits of this position any more than it was to pass judgment upon the attitude toward Orientals in the United States and Canada. In both instances, it has become a national policy practically to exclude them. Racial prejudice has been an active force in the world from the earliest times. Greeks hated barbarians and the Romans despised many living near their boundaries. Human Australasia, pages 19-20. OBJECTIONS TO ENTRANCE OF SKILLED Opposition to immigration in Australia and New Zealand in the past has been not alone against colored races; there has also been active opposition to skilled white labor by local carpenters, plumbers, painters and others who wish to maintain high wages by scarcity of laborers. These countries have always been hot beds of industrial unrest and fields of social experimentation. In explanation of this Doctor Thwing says: "Two interesting events, or movements synchronized in European and Australian history. The overthrow of the Liberal Democratic Movement in Europe in 1848 and the following years is contemporaneous with the discovery of gold in Australia. The hopelessness of securing, in the old country, political and economic reforms turned the thoughts of democratic leaders to the Southern lands. The Chartist Movement was transferred from the British Isles in the North Sea to the islands of the Southern Ocean. . . . Such men, coming to Australia, created the agencies and made the soil for the growing of social and industrial theories and movements." " Reasons such as those described are doubtless largely responsible for the liberal social legislation written into the statutes in these countries, and also for the dominance of labor. From this point in the discussion the two countries may well be separated for the purpose of presenting in greater detail the facts concerning immigration. Since the discussion of Australia is more extended, it seems best to leave that for another chapter and to deal with New Zealand here. NEW ZEALAND The proclamation of British sovereignity over New Zealand, known as the Dominion of New Zealand since 1907, dates from 1840. This country consists of two large islands 'Thwing, Human Australasia, pages 49–50. and many small adjacent ones in the South Pacific and has an area of 103,284 square miles, and in 1921 had a population of 1,239,980 exclusive of 52,751 Maoris and 13,209 Pacific Islanders owing allegiance to the Dominion. GROWTH OF NEW ZEALAND In studying the movements of population to and within New Zealand, there is observable here, as elsewhere in the world, a tendency toward the growth of towns. Forty-two per cent. of the people now live in urban centres. Special inducements are made to farmers and farm laborers to settle on the land, but the cities keep growing at the expense of the rural districts. The chief cities are Auckland with a population of 157,757, Wellington, 107,488, Christchurch, 105,670, and Dunedin, 72,255, and there are a number of smaller towns. The city industries that have developed are not especially distinctive of the southern hemisphere but are rather those that normally grow out of the needs of the population. Those listed include, (1) meat freezing and preserving, (2) butter, cheese and condensed milk manufacturing, (3) saw-milling and sash and door making, (4) engineering, (5) printing, publishing and book binding, (6) coach-building, (7) tanning, fellmongering and wool-scouring, (8) furniture and cabinet making, (9) woolen-milling; (10) tailoring, (11) dress and millinery making, (12) boot and shoe making, (13) clothing manufacture, (14) flax-milling. These fourteen occupational groups in 1920 employed in all branches 72,889 people in 4357 establishments in ten cities. The native population can supply these industrial workers, hence it is for other undertakings that immigrants are sought. They are brought in to develop the land, but they frequently find their way to the factories. Prior to about 1870, the country depended mainly on immigration for the greater part of her increase of population. •New Zealand Official Year Book, 1921-22; page 381. Since then the natural increase, that is the excess of births over deaths, has been the chief factor. This is shown in the table that follows: It should be noted that departure and return of troops of the Expeditionary Forces during the World War years are not included in the figures presented: Table showing increase in population from 1861-1920 due to excess of birth over deaths and excess of arrivals over departures: There appears to be a constant outgoing stream of people from New Zealand and it is interesting to note that two-thirds of the arrivals come from Australia, while five-sixths of the departures are booked for the same place. The large number of departures for Commonwealth ports is doubtless due to the fact that many persons sail from New Zealand to Australia to make that country a starting point for further travel.R New Zealand Official Year Book, 1921-22, page 45. A case in point comes to my mind. While attending an International Congress in Toronto, Canada, some years ago, I found that the New Zealand delegates had made the seven day journey to Australia in order to get better transportation to England and thence across the Atlantic. ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES In order to show the arrivals and departures by countries, for one year, statistics for the year 1920 are presented in the table which follows: 9 Table of Immigration to and Emigration from New Zealand for the Year 1920, Showing the Countries from Which Persons Arrived and to Which They Departed: The net increase by immigration for 1921 was only 11,021, a loss of 117 over 1920, while both arrivals and departures showed a considerable increase, 73,602 and 62,581 respectively. The details by countries given for 1920 are not recorded in the 1921 report, therefore the information for the earlier year was selected for tabulation. Since the first of April, 1921, a new system of statistics of external migration has been in vogue, so that later reports will distinguish between bona fide immigrants or emigrants, and travelers, visitors and citizens going away or returning. The situation has been in the past very different from that in the United States where practically • Statistics of the Dominion of New Zealand, 1920, Vol. 1, p. 21. |