LETTERS
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Economics of Migration
Dear Sir,
I welcome Lionel Bell's cogent reply (7th July) to my article on the economics of immigration of the previous issue.
I certainly agree that there is only 'one true market rate for labour which is the least [consumers] can get away with'. The point is that migration of labour reduces that market rate. But Mr Blair has said in his CBI speech in 2004 "some [of those vacancies] are for unskilled jobs, which people living here are not prepared to do ".
It is this assumption by Mr Blair which encourages a helot class stuck in jobs which pay wages which no native worker will accept. If immigrants were not available, market rates for such labour would have to rise until native workers accepted the jobs.
Lionel Bell also states that 'money can always be created for investment in profitable projects'. This somewhat Keynesian view assumes there is, therefore, no immediate constraint to capital formation. Certainly, if a new, potentially profitable, project appears investors will re-rank their reassessment of projects and may divert some capital into this new venture. In addition, consumers may decide to forego some consumption and add to investment. However, the arrival of a new profitable project does not increase the resources or factors in an economy (we are assuming they are all employed at equilibrium in a closed economy). Therefore, resources must be diverted from other investment or consumption.
What I am not clear about is whether Lionel Bell regards the arrival of migrant labour as a "profitable project"?
A classic statement on migration economics is put by the US National Academy of Sciences in 'The New Americans', a report commissioned by the US Congress and published in 1997 and constantly referred to.
"If immigrants have exactly the same skill distribution as domestic workers

(the same fractions are skilled and unskilled workers) and if they have brought sufficient capital with them to maintain the US capital/labour ratio, then natives will neither benefit nor lose from immigration. In this case, all inputs and national output will increase by the same amount and the wages of all workers will remain constant."
Obviously if they do not bring that capital with them and it is provided by natives, it must, therefore, be a diversion from natives' investment in increasing their own capital or from natives' consumption.
Fortunately we have estimates by the Economic Research Institute of the Dutch government showing that if capital is fixed, the arrival of an additional 5 per cent migratory workforce with exactly the same skill distribution as native labour only increases GDP as a whole by 2.9 per cent, thus reducing the GDP of natives [Note that this refers to production and not accumulated wealth].
Think of it another way. If money can always be found for profitable projects and capital equipment supply is not important, it would make no difference to the GDP of early America if the Pilgrim fathers had chucked all their resources of capital equipment overboard before landing. The world Zionist movement must also have been wasting its time raising billions for supplying capital for Israel over the last one hundred years. ANTHONY SCHOLEFIELD London
The EU Rules, OK!
As many eurofacts readers will know, EU Directives require the use of 'supplementary information' on packaging or labelling of products or produce to cease unless a derogation, (permission to continue using supplementary indications), is applied for by the government. This has not happened and the present government has set a date for ending the display of this information, which of course, is

normally expressed in traditional British imperial units. Therefore, from the 1st of January 2010 it will become illegal to display anything other than metric units.
On the 30th January 2006, John Gardner, Director of the British Weights and Measures Association wrote to Mr Sutcliffe at the Department for Trade and Industry asking if they could confirm that mention of the pint will be banned on milk bottles, non-returnable milk containers, and imported cartons of^ fruit juice based on the US pint. The DTI was also asked if imperial units such as the pound and half-pound would be banned on labels describing the contents of jars or containers of items such as coffee, jam, syrup, and preserves, etc. John Gardner also asked the DTI to provide the government's own view on the matter.
The DTI recently responded to the BWMA Director's letter as follows: The DTI will take no view or actions on supplementary indications until after the European Commission has decided what to do. The DTI will then hold a UK consultation on 'government proposals'. The letter was on grey paper with a dual DTI/Foreign' Office letterhead.
So apparently there is liaison between the DTI and the Foreign Office on this matter. This surely indicates that the Foreign Office, via the DTI, will ensure that British industry and commerce comply with the European Union's Metrication Directives on and after the 1st January 2010.
Isn't it nice to know that the Labour Government and the Civil Service are working so purposely for their masters in Brussels to ensure elimination of our British way-of-life, culture, heritage, and history? Brussels rules; OK! DEREK NORMAN Cambridgeshire

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eurofacts 28TH JULY 2006