On Emigration

From Our Archives: A Glimpse into 1960

Emigration is no solution to the population problem. Anyone who says otherwise is persisting in ostrich-like refusal to face facts

By Peter Ibbotson

The report of the ministers’ mission on emigration makes it abundantly clear that mass-scale emigration is not a practical proposition. The countries visited — British Guiana, British Honduras and Brazil — are at present under-developed; their governments are engaged on implementing development plans; but as the ministers’ report makes clear, these development plans do not call for mass emigration. Brazil calls for individual immigration of skilled men who have previously obtained contracts of work or for group migration of really skilled farmers.

Immigrants arrive in the UK in the 1960s. Pic – British Online Archives

British Guiana is concerned to develop her potentialities for the benefit of her own unemployed or under-employed people before considering taking immigrants. (Here it may be pertinent to record what Dr Cheddi Jagan himself told me when I met him in London last year. He said that British Guiana would be glad to take Mauritian immigrants, when, and only when, she had developed her resources to the extent that no British Guianese was unemployed). British Honduras would be prepared to consider a pilot scheme involving a few families, providing finance were available to meet the cost. And the necessary funds are just not there.

Despite this searching mission of the ministers, and despite the adverse report which they have brought back, there are still those who will cry from the housetops that emigration, not family planning, is the panacea which will solve all Mauritius’ population problems. Dr Millien has already done so. This purblind refusal to face facts, to abide by the results of enquiries carried out dispassionately, is something that has unfortunately bedevilled political and social and economic life in Mauritius for many years. Time and time again we have had teams of experts from the UK who have enquired into and reported upon this or that aspect of life in Mauritius. Time and time again their reports have been debated by the Legislative Council but not acted upon. Then, a few years later, another team of experts has been called upon to enquire afresh into the same subject; or perhaps to enquire into the findings of the first team… and so it has gone on.

Enquiry follows enquiry, report follows report, discussion follows discussion, but action seems always to be postponed. It’s not only the reports of outside experts which are ignored or duplicated; reports of commissions of enquiry set up by the Legislative Council from among its own members (with, perhaps, the addition of selected local experts) also have the habit of being received and pigeonholed without ever a decision being taken or action ensuing. (The reports on the cement industry and population are cases in point).

The Meade and Titmuss reports will inevitably call for action; for decisions to be made and taken. The future of Mauritius depends on these decisions being taken speedily and implemented speedily. Some of the decisions may be politically unpopular, but this is no reason for shirking them. Some of the decisions to be taken may well be antipathetic to the political thought of the anti-governmental groups; but this is no reason for these groups to oppose them. Every decision which will be called for by the two reports is a decision which is vital to the future of Mauritius; indeed, one might even say vital if Mauritius is in fact to have any future worth speaking of.

The decisions which will have to be taken under the Meade Report cannot be avoided. The government will not avoid them; the frivolous anti-government political groups must not be allowed to sabotage them. Should the Meade Report rule out the possibility or the practicability of this or that, which may perhaps happen to be a pet scheme of M. Koenig or M. Bissoondoyal or Dr Millien, then let us have an end of any more propaganda in favour of such a pet scheme. Now that the ministers’ report has clearly and unequivocally ruled out the prospect of mass emigration, let that be an end to it. The government will keep looking out for the opportunities of emigration on an individual basis; that is the only hope; but individual emigration will not do much to alleviate the pressure of overpopulation.

Eighty years ago, the historian J. A. Froude prophesied doom for Barbados; but today that island has a very dense population and a relatively high standard of living — due partly to intensive land cultivation and imaginative development schemes including a Development Board to assist new industries (a Board such as we have asked for in these columns for Mauritius; anticipating in our demand the recommendations of the Meade Report). It may well be that the full implementation of schemes for the development of Mauritius will enable the island to support a population of over a million; time alone coupled with the energetic development of the colony, will tell.

If, however development schemes cannot solve the problems, and family planning is not introduced as a means of checking the already inordinate increase in population, then one thing is as certain as it is humanly possible to be certain of anything at all — and that is, that emigration is no remedy. For one thing, there is the difficulty of cost, as the ministers’ report has made clear. For another thing, there is the difficulty of finding elsewhere to emigrate to.

Apart from the UK no commonwealth country allows unrestricted immigration of nationals from another commonwealth territory; and the UK cannot go on absorbing indefinitely masses of unskilled immigrants from colonial territories. (As a help towards individual emigration from Mauritius it might be worthwhile for the Government to get in touch with London Transport, British Railways, the Post Office and the British Restaurant and Hotels Association in order to investigate jointly the possibility for Mauritius of a scheme such as is operated jointly by the Barbados Government and London Transport and the BRHA).

There is a possibility, but only a possibility on which too much hope should not be placed, that the next meeting of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers (due early in 1961) will discuss this matter of migration from one Commonwealth country to another, and will discuss the possibility of putting all Commonwealth countries on the same footing as the UK; that is of having unrestricted immigration of Commonwealth citizens into Commonwealth countries.

In any case, there is a damaging aspect of emigration. Mauritius needs now, and will need increasingly in the future, a large supply of trained men; it is precisely these trained men and the potentially trained men, who are the most enterprising and the most likely to emigrate. It is precisely these same men whom Mauritius could least afford to lose.

If however, the loss of trained or potentially trained men can be faced with equanimity, then every avenue of emigration must be explored. The ministers have shown that mass migration is not feasible; there remains individual emigration. Perhaps Mauritians might be persuaded to serve in H. M. Forces abroad; are any attracted to the merchant navy? Are there economic possibilities in the lesser dependencies or in the virtually uninhabited islands of Seychelles (e.g. Aldabra) to which the Seychellois themselves seem singularly unattracted?

At present, therefore, emigration is no solution to the population problem. Anyone who says otherwise is persisting in ostrich-like refusal to face facts and is demonstrating his unsuitability to take part in Mauritian politics. The only solution to the social and economic ills that now beset Mauritius and threaten its future is a planned programme of capital development coupled with limitation of families. In no other way can Mauritius escape from the shackles of overpopulation.

7th Year – No 327
Friday 16th December, 1960

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