A PURPOSE SERVED

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 49, 27 February 1923, Page 6

A PURPOSE SERVED

The legislation requiring all British subjects to take an oath of allegiance before landing in New Zealand was passed when the world was much disturbed. It is disturbed still, but there are signs of the rule of reason reasserting itself. Men are not being swayed so easily by passions, nor being led so readily to follow strange gods. At the time that the Act became law, in 1920, there was certainly a feeling that there was need for it. In two years there has been a change. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's unqualified condemnation of Bolshevism and the refusal of the Glasgow Labour Party Conference to admit Communists are proofs recently afforded of the altered temper of the people. It may be said that very few people have been debarred by the oath of allegiance from entering the Dominion ; but that cannot be stated with certainty. It is known that few were refused entrance after making the voyage, but it is not known how many refrained from making . the journey because they knew they would be debarred from lauding. All the time, however, the oath has been more or less a ground for complaint by loyal subjects. The Government could not meet these complaints by discrimination, and it appears to us that the wisest course is now being adopted in repealing a measure which has served its purpose. The good sense of the great majority, supported by sound education, will, we hope, prove a sufficient safeguavd again the mivclviiiatioaß and juppagiuida of disloyalists..