Aliens in N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24600, 23 June 1945, Page 6

Aliens in N.Z.

The Returned Services’ Association conference, as reported yesterday, adopted three resolutions dealing with enemy aliens, two of them being in principle and purpose quite fair. The first called on the Government to investigate enemy aliens’ activity in purchasing property or businesses or establishing businesses, since January 1, 1934, “with “a view to enabling the public to “form an opinion whether pr not “the interests of returned service“men have been prejudiced”. The resolution does not affirm that they have been; but, since the public has been arid is disturbed by rumour, all interests —including, in the long run, those of the alien himself —will be served by setting the facts beyond question. Naturally it follows that, if the facts show that supervision and control have anywhere missed their proper purpose, the harm done will be undone. On the other hand, it follows that, if the facts show that supervision and control have been effective, it will be well to let well alone. On the face of it, the resolution means nothing more. How simply and how soop the question it asks can be answered remains to be seen; but it may be suggested that, if the Government has been vigilant, it will be in a position to speak promptly and to final effect. The second resolution, which is really wide enough to embrace the first, calls on the Government to announce its “policy in. regard to “ enemy aliens ”, No comment is necessary. But in its third resolution the conference went beyond the unassertive requests of the others. It demanded a policy which will return to Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy, 'within two years from now, all citizens of those countries who have arrived in New Zealand “since 1939 a strangely chosen date—and which will strip them of all money or property in excess of what they declared on entry, the excess to be sold for the wives and dependants of servicemen. It is encouraging to find it reported that the resolution, though carried, was not unopposed. It ought to be op* posed. Sooner or later, many of those who voted for it will be ready to rescind it, there can be little doubt, as an expression of extreme and hasty opinion. To put a minor point first, the resolution is incon-

sistent with the reasonable requests for an investigation of the facts and for a statement of Government policy. The resolution waits neither for the facts nor for a policy consistent with them. It does not discriminate between aliens against whose conduct some fair charge may be fairly proved and aliens, whose conduct and good faith will come out from any test, clear or with positive credit. Where the resolution does, discriminate, it draws the line blindly. There is no reason whatever to suppose that, if enemy aliens' are to be divided into sheep and goats, all the sheep entered before 1939 and all the goats afterwards, The second and major point can be stated quite briefly. The resolution' exhibits something of that ugly intolerance which, before Hitler’s Germany became the world’s enemy in arms, made it the world’s shame; it exhibits something of the cruelty with which Hitler’s Germany drove out its thousands of exiles, first plundering them. New Zealanders have not fought in order to learn from the enemy such political lessons as these.