ALIEN INTERNMENT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 125, 28 May 1915, Page 3

ALIEN INTERNMENT

.*. — __ FEELING IN AUSTRALIA. (FROM OtJlt OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, 21st May. Since the news of the murderous sinking of the Lusitania "there lias arisen all over the States a wave of resentment, which is being expressed in demands for the wholesale internment of people here who are of German, or Austrian origin, especially German. Municipal bodies, including the City Council of Sydney, are being moved by this wave. Organisations of workers and other bodies are being called upon to consider motions in favour of wholesale internment. Thus far the Minister for Defence, Senator Pearce, has not shown himself disposed to act in accordance with demands such as that made by the employees at the big Government railway workshops at Melbourne to the effect that all Germans, naturalised or not, under 55 years of age, should be interned. It has, however, been decreed that all German clubs in the Commonwealth must be closed up, and there have been issued new war regulations which extend the liability to internment of people of alien descent, whether naturalised or British born, who are held to be disaffected or disloyal. In some quarters the strong urging is made that all persons of enemy alien race should be made to pay a heavy poll tax. Some correspondents to newspapers, and their number is legion, state that in evidence of 'their detestation of such a crime as the Lusitania affair, Germans who have absorbed enough of British sentiments ought to be expected to subscribe to a special fund. Others call upon Germans to declare their sentiments at public meetings and through the public press. And all the time others say that German cunning may now be expected to show itself in subscriptions to special funds or by public declarations of sentiment intended to cloak hStred of everything British, and readiness to injure Britain's cause when safe opportunity offers. So far we have not had here scenes of violence and looting such as are reported from England and New Zealand. The nearest approach, to anything of that kind up to the present took place in Melbourne. A crowd, made up largely of the larrikin element, gathered for an attack upon the premises of the Deutscher Turn Verein. But the police were ready, and dispersed the mob just when a bombardment with road metal was about to begin.