The Dominion FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 1925. KEEPING OUT UNDESIRABLES

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 271, 21 August 1925, Page 8

The Dominion FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 1925. KEEPING OUT UNDESIRABLES

Parliament spent an hour or two yesterday in considering a Bill in which the member for Wellington Central (Mr. Fraser) proposed to deprive the Attorney-General of his present powers in the matter of prohibiting the entry of undesirable immigrants, or ordering the arrest and deportation of such persefns if they succeed in entering the Dominion. The discussion should serve a useful purpose in showing that "there is full justification for vesting thfse powers in the Attorney-General, and that they represent nothing more than a necessary safeguard. Both Mr. Fraser and Mr. Holland who supported him wasted a good deal of time in enlarging on liberty and the right of free speech. Much that they had to say in general terms on these questions was in itself perfectly sound, but was beside the point so far as the proposal submitted to the House by the member for Wellington Central was

concerned. . As Sir James Parr fairly contended, the issue before the House was not free speech, but the natural and inalienable right of any country to say who should be admitted to free citizenship within its territory. In any reasonable outlook, this right must be admitted as a matter of course. In this country, for instance, we enjoy probably freer speech and greater liberty than the people of any other country on earth, but it certainly is not to be suggested on that account that we aie bound to<open our doors to the scum of the earth. It is absolutely incompatible with liberty and freedom of speech that we should grant free entry to revolutionaries intent on promoting violence and stirring up class hatred. •The exclusion of undesirables of this .type is not merely consistent with such democratic liberties as obtain in New Zealand, but is an essential means of safeguarding these, liberties. Mr. Fraser told the House of Representatives last evening that people who talked about revolution should be laughed at. T. his cheerful advice sounds merely foolish when account is taken of the outrages and upheavals for which Russian and Russian-inspired revolutionaries have been responsible during the last few years, and of the methodical plans these people are making to extend their nefarious activities. . , It is worth}' of note, for instance, that at its fifth conference, held at Moscow in July last year, the Third International paid particular attention to the extension of revolutionary activities in the British Empire. A manifesto issued by the International in the same month declared that: “Revolutionary enlightment for the peoples of the [British] colonies is becoming a question of life and death for the proletariat.” . . The reports of this conference demonstrate that in their designs upon the Empire, as in what they are attempting elsewhere, the Bolshevists are relying much more upon secret conspiracy than upon open propaganda. It is important, also, that a certain number of British subjects are taking part in these activities, not only in Great Britain, but in other parts of the Empire., In a long list of shipping hold-ups and similar incidents in Australia, there is suggestive evidence that these enemies of social order are not labouring wholly in. vain. Mr. Fraser yesterday set emphasis on the fact that the powers it was proposed to abolish applied only to British subjects, but it is evidently very necessary that such powers should be held in reserve against a limited number of individuals who masquerade unworthily as British subjects. The fact that the man Lyons who was deported recently under the powers vested in the Attorney-General is not a Communist but a member of the I.W.W. is of small importance. The practical point to be kept in mind is that powers of summary action represent the only effective means of dealing with conspirators who rely on secret and underhand methods of stirring up revolutionary disorder. . As to Mr. Fraser’s contention that powers of this nature should not be entrusted to any one man/ no one in this country needs to be told that the Attorney-General and the Government to which he belongs are responsible to Parliament and to the people who elect Parliament under a free and universal franchise. The suggestion that a dangerous development of autocracy is involved at once becomes absurd when it is considered that the people have full power to overthrow the Government if they disapprove of its actions, or of the actions of any individual Minister.