TREATMENT OF ALIENS

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 66, 15 September 1917, Page 3

TREATMENT OF ALIENS

Several correspondents have written to The Post on the question of the employment of aliens; "Nemesis" considers that "those members who are endeavouring to bring before Parliament the danger we run through aliens in our midst are to becongratulated on doing a great service to the country." The correspondent asserts "that much dissatisfaction exists among patriotic people, who find strong, able-bodied aliens making high wages while' New ■ Zealanders.; are fighting _ for their country, sacrificing everything. "Nemesis" wants to know if _the Government lias not power to utilise these men, or whether they, should not be taxed, "as they are reaping all the benefits and running no dangers." ■) "In your Parliamentary report, I see that Mr. Witty is complaining of a German scholar at) a technical school," writes "Patriotic Mother," who suggests that careful enquiry into such matters should be made in the North Island. "Surely," says the writer, "it-is time we woke up and looked into such ■matters instead of postponing our actions towards our enemies, while we .are sending our last man to fight them at the front. Are they to. still 1 prosper in their positions while we make sacrifices,, and send our husbands and fathers?" '

"Quite British" writes:—"l do not know whether to be more amused at or indignant because of the wild, diatribea ait councils, or meetings, or so forth, concerning those whom we gracefully term "The Perils in Our Midst!' What with people who can't sleep at night because someone with an , Austrian grandmother hasn't been interned, or because Herr Someone is getting prosperous at New Zealand's expense by learning wool-classing-(I wish he would give me the recipe), or because other Herrs are walking about 'at large,' having an audacious desire for a' little air occasionally, having the baseness also to 'wear clean linen, what with all these things, we in New Zealand seem in such an excited condition that I have had,to take refuge with our. returned soldiers who, perhaps because they really have done something for their country, are quite calm on the subject of local perils, and don't demand sacrifices of the innocent. The moderns are fond of talking of our toleration, and condemning our ancestors for the want of it; we plume ourselves because we do not persecute in religion; that, however, is because we don't seriously care, about religion. When there is anything we do seriously care . about, such as nationality, we can be just as one-sided as our ancestors. New Zealand has interned a number of people on Somes Island. Now that they are costing a lot of money we aTe getting ajigry with them." , ' .