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them when they get here. The other matter considered of very grave importance is the question of medical examination of immigrants, which was touched on more fully by Mr. Turner ; and I do not want to go over that ground except to point out that there were given to us in evidence by the head of the Immigration Department specific instances in which immigrants applying to come to this country under the assisted scheme, after undergoing a thorough examination and being turned down for health reasons as being more likely to become liabilities to the country than assets, have paid their own passages and come out at their own expense after passing a cursory examination by the Board of Trade. The object of the medical examination of nominated persons is not to save the difference between the fare paid for an assisted immigrant and the fare an immigrant pays for himself, but to see that we do not get as members of the community immigrants who will become a charge upon instead of an asset to the Dominion. But until the medical examination is just as strict for the immigrant paying his own fare as for the assisted immigrant, our medical examination, in effect, only determines whether an immigrant shall come out at a reduced fare or for the ordinary fare. Ido not think I need say more as to these proposals, which were unanimously adopted ; but I would like to refer to what was said by Mr. Weston at the commencement of the consideration of these reports, to the effect that the work of this past fortnight has at least had the result of enabling the members of the committee from the two sides and representing the various interests to see more clearly the point of view of the other people. I endorse that; and I would add that the fact that there are three items upon which we have been able to come to unanimous agreement in regard to recommendations to this Conference indicates to me that with a little more practice and more frequent meetings we might also be able to solve these other problems which seemingly are too difficult just at the present moment. I am sure that we have all gained considerably by the companionship of each other for the past fortnight. Mr. Henderson : I have not had a great deal to say at this Conference, and Ido not propose to say much now, but this subject of immigration was one I had the privilege of looking into in England last year, and I agree with the report. The methods adopted by the Government and its Immigration Department in the Mother-country seem to be unexceptionable. I was amazed at the amount of care exercised in regard to Government immigrants. I was astonished to find that the inquiries regarding certain persons for whom applications for assisted passages had been made were much more comprehensive in some directions than would be made, for instance, by an insurance company which intended to issue a policy on the life of a citizen. The personal inquiries that are made seem to be much more valuable than the medical examination insisted on. lam not at all sure that the medical examination is as complete or satisfactory as it should be, because necessarily it has to be made by local practitioners in many instances, and occasionally no doubt there would be an inclination on the part of the local practitioner to perhaps stretch a point in order to allow a villager, we will say, to get away to a new country with an assisted passage. But on the whole the Government system is, I think, as complete as it is possible to make it, and I am quite satisfied that the complaints that are made about our immigration policy are founded on a misconception, as a rule, with regard to the Government methods. The point has already been stressed that there is no medical examination, and there is 110 check upon the emigrants who pay their own passages ; but some personal inquiries I have made in New Zealand since I came back have convinced me that we have many migrants coming into this country, and becoming a charge upon the country, who should never have been allowed to come here. At the same time, it is always well to remember that if a strict and rigid medical examination were insisted on without some such safeguards as are set out in clauses relating to the prohibition of the migrant who is medically unfit, and those who would be likely to become a charge on the country —unless you have some such check as this you would be likely to exclude from New Zealand another Cecil Rhodes, who, had that prohibition of immigrants been in force in South Africa on the ground of medical unfitness, would never have reached South Africa, as he was one who was medically unfit. I want now to go back to another matter of a little more personal nature, although the personal aspect of it is of really no importance. It is this : some one has sent me a copy of a journal called The Imprint, which is issued in the interests of the New Zealand printing-trade workers, and in the course of a reference to the Industrial Conference this journal says this : "We notice that the only representative of the printing trade at this industrial conference is Mr. Henderson, managing editor of the Lyttelton Times; but, unfortunately, we cannot expect Mr. Henderson to stress the wishes of the employees." It continues in that strain. I wish to say, sir, that I do not think any delegate on either side of this Conference came to it deliberately with the idea of stressing the interests of either side. I honestly and conscientiously believe that the delegates on both sides of this Conference came here to do what they thought was best in the interests of the whole community, and not in the interests of any particular section. I know the only speeches I have made, and the only contributions I have attempted to make to any debate either in committee or in open conference, have been, I think, inspired with the idea of protecting employees rather than with the idea of promoting the interests of employers ; and I am quite sure that very much the same thing can be said with regard to the attitude of any other delegate to this Conference. It is perfectly true that the Government summoned twenty-five representatives of labour and twenty-five representatives of employers to this Conference, with the idea of getting all the different points of view on this matter and threshing them out here ; but it would be a mistake, and we think it would have been a wrong suggestion, to say that the workers' representatives came here solely in the interests of the workers, or that the employers came here solely in the interests of the employing class. The one fact which has been obvious throughout the whole of the proceedings, I think, since the first day we met has been the earnestness of the delegates, and their anxiety to see that the work which was done—if we could do work — was in the interests of both employers and employed. I think they did not mean to stress, sir, the personal aspect as of any importance at all; but the general aspect

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