XN000022-1980-10-17 — Page 11

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For the rest our major problem has been immigra-

tion into an already much too crowded territory. Refugees from

Vietnam and immigrants from China. There was a period last

summer,

year.

before the Geneva Conference, when 1 000 a day were

arriving by boat from Vietnam and another 1 000 from China by

The Geneva Conference in which the land, boat or swimming.

United States played such a decisive part stopped the

Vietnamese flow. But immigration from China continues and

the numbers amounted to just under 100 000 in 1978, nearly

180 000 last year, and it looks like being not much less this

Additions at this level to a population of only 5 million

with a low and well controlled natural growth rate, could

insidiously erode standards of life that have been worked for

and earned over the last two decades. We are taking strong

measures to intercept the stream and so are the Chinese to whom

it is just as damaging as to us. But stopping a population

movement once it has started is no easy matter and to do so

with humanity and compassion, as well as efficiency, is a very

major problem. There have been similar movements into Hong Kong

in the past and all have been brought under control by the action

/of the

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