THE PASSPORT GAME.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIX, Issue 9653, 9 July 1919, Page 7

THE PASSPORT GAME.

Under date London, March 2, Chester M. Wright wrote to the Chicago "Tribune":—

Travelling in Europe is like trying to get into a house that is not only fu!H, but full of people who are not craving your company; Bucking the passport' game is the great sportnothing to compare with. it. Absolutely nothing!

He who goes through the endless performance and comes put with no Mack marks' against him must be a very solid sort of citizen, and he who goes through it and comes out smiling is more than human. Nothing will ever mar the serenity of his life—nothing short of an 'earthquake.'

For example, you arrive at Liverpool. Two sets, .of inspectors board the vessel. ' You pass set No. 1 in alphabetical order, slowly with many haltings and hesitations. Perhaps, also, you pass set No. 2. If your name begins with "W" you may be able to leave the ship four or five hours after she docks. Great joy—you are on land! Yes, groat joy. you AltE on Jiand, where your troubles have ju«t begun. You go to the police station to register. You learn that this- has to be done or you may be, thrown into prison

This is a simple little formality in which you tell'the officer the history of your life, together with the histories of as many of your forbears as you can remember. You spend a half-hour waiting and a half-hour relating biographical .sketches. Comes a point at which the policeman asks: "What is your. ancestry ?"

"American," you may say, as I did. "1 know, but your ancestry, tl mean." "American, I said," you repeat. "Yes, but before that?" he per-

sists. "American," j'ou persist. "Sounds English. 11l put it • down that wav, he counters.

"Might bo Irish," you sugge-st; "but it's American]," y&u insist, just because the tiling is getting your goat.

"Weii I'll put it down as British, then." he says, and you let it go au that.

lou reach London, and you hunt up a poi'ice station to register again. Maybe you ° wait in line for from a half-hour to an hour, if you intend travelling in. England 3 Tou are provided with a book, aiiU x.his book must be vised by the police every time you leave or arrive in town, it gets to lw a mad and merry chase, in which life means little but locating pqlicc .sta-

You have to state the object of your visit each time, if yoii are a business man your business is known before you get off the boat, and it is known at every step of the way thereafter. The Government have' a complete check on the business of every foreigner.

A groat many of the questions are ■foolisii. It happens .sometimes that as many a-s seven inspectors in a dine will ask you the same- question 1 in turn— perhaps "Where was your father boruh" It. would not be a matter'to cause surprise if ,some one.of these individuals should ask: "Why did your paternal great-uncle have pink hair and wear a gardoiiia in 'his button hole on Sundays!''" I witnessed a conversation something like this between an inspector and an American.

"Where were you on blank day; blank month, blank year?"

"I was in Holland.',' . .. "What happened there that was unusual?"

: "'I hoard a man say, as ho pointed to me, that I was a Socialist, and after that 1 wars followed for several; days by a detective."

"Why do you think this happened? "1 am.a Socialist, but Ido not knowwhy 1 was followed." This man then explained a. record of service in behalf of the war that should to known to every inspector in Europe. "Do you write," ho was asked. "I have written 15 books." "Have you some, of them here that we could read?"

"No, bub I've a book of poems that yon may read if you wish." "You' have a supply of copy now, presumably?" And so it went for 30 mmntes. borne hollow-domed pussyfoot had chumr to the trail of this man because he didn't know any better, and had turned in a report which had got into a little bound volume, and no every time this man turns around now in Europe he is asked to explain why lie isn't in prison, why he hasn't a pocket, full of bombs, and why he looks like' an ordinary citizen instead of looking Jlike the wild man from Borneo.

Yon go to France, passing more barriers' of this kind. You go nowhere- without a permit. You certainly do not leave the country without paying a visit to M. la Prefet de Police. Oh, you most certainly do not. [Notwithstanding the fact that your record is in the hands of every Government concerned, you wait three days before your passport is vised by the American passport bureau. This is your first .step in getting away from Paris. H you get an opportunity to deposit your passport at the bureau within two hours after you arrive you will be lucky. You may wait 'the better part of* a half-day. You get a number upon entering, which means nothing. On the. third day you return and get your passport, after ornamenting the place once more for an j hour or two. Then to M. lo Prefet. The prefecture is a barmlike place, and you nnd v yourself in. a corridor a block' long, "accommodating perhaps, two or three hundred people on errands similar to your own. It is cold and damp and 'suffocating. If you take with you a guide-interpreter you may finish'the. process of getting a vise in something like four or four and a-half hours. "What you do is this: Answer questions. Wait, answer more questions and then wait, wait, wait. After that you go to your room, go to bed, and call a doctor t , , -, Boforc tho armistice- the world had teamed to say with the French, "C'est la guerre." ' Now they say C'est .la Veil, in the "back areas" it doesn't make much difference. "C'est la" something frightful, anyhow.