"TRAGIC DETENTION"

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 41, 17 August 1923, Page 7

"TRAGIC DETENTION"

CONDITIONS AT ELLIS ISLAND

BRITISH AMBASSADOR'S REPORT,

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPTRIGHT.)

(AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZEALAND CABLJ ASSOCIATION.)

LONDON, 15th August. Sir Auckland Geddes, the British Ambassador at Washington, reporting to Lord Curzon on the Ellis Island immigration station, recommends that United States Consuls be authorised to refuse' visas o! passports for those who are obviously prevented by law from entering America, and suggests that immigrants be either approved or disapproved in their home countries. After examining the system of administration, the report concluded that it was impossible to administer the immigration stations under the existing United States law without hardship. The tragedy of detention on Ellis Island must be hateful for all possessing any sensibility.

Ellis Island is a tiny spot in Upper New York Bay, about a mile and a half from the southern extremity of Manhattan Island, on which the City of New York stands. Within a mile of Ellis Island is Liberty Island, where stands the great Statue of "Liberty, Enlightening the World," the most imposing American emblem presented to the .eye of the new arrivals. Ellis Island is a Federal institution, and is built over with barracks and administrative offices where immigrants arriving by Eastern routes are examined before being admitted to the main land. The suggestion that intending immigrants should be refused passports to leave their own country is similar to that made by Mr. Davis, the American Secretary for Labour, a few days ago. Hitherto freedom to emigrate, tombined with the restriction of immigration by means of the quota system as well as by examination for fitness at Ellis Island has resulted in innumerable. cases oi hardship. Great numbers of people, ignorant of what awaited them, have in the past spent their life savings for the journey, only to be refused admittance and seat home impoverished.