THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1925. THE DEPORTATION CASES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 7, 19 December 1925, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1925. THE DEPORTATION CASES.

The reasons,, as communicated by cable to - day, which the Eederai High Court of Australia has adduced for practically quashing the recent proceedings before the Deportation Board and ordering the release of Messrs Walsh and Johannsen—-or Johnson, as he prefers to be called —are so simple that one can only wonder why they were not announced when the decision itself was given last week. Briefly put, the Court has held that so far as Walsh is concerned the Federal statute invoked cannot be applied to him because he had acquired an Australian domicile before that law was passed, and so was not an “immigrant” coming within its operation. As to Johannsen the Court has said that the prosecution must fail because no specific act or | acts constituting an offence under I the statute were alleged for him to answer. The finding in each instance is thus based entirely upon purely ' technical grounds and does not in any way go to the actual merits. : So far as they a>e concerned matters stand just where they were. The High Court has found itself able to dispose of both cases on their legal aspects alone, and has j doubtless been quite pleased to confine itself to them. In all proI Lability the proceedings will not be carried any further. Though, no | doubt, it is still open to the Federal Government to appeal to the Privy Council for a review of the High Court’s decision, it will in all likelihood resign itself to the fact that ! the High Court has differed from its law officers on the interpretation of the Constitution and of the Statute. The only consideration that might influence it to puisne the cases further is, of course, to be found in the actions which Walsh and Johannsen have commenced with the object of recovering money damages. Tn any event, the people of Australia may congratulate themselves tn the fact that the proceedings, whether legally justified or not, have had the effect of bringing matters to such a crisis as to compel Loth organised and political Labour fhmneTiniil the Oonimonwe.ilth tn

bethink itself of the chaos towards which it was driving the country. The fact that the appeal tribunal has found that there was no legal warrant for the steps taken by the Federal Government does not in any Way alter the other fact that a strong majority of the electors have delivered their judgment that they were entirely justified. They have declared very definitely and distinctly that they have no place in their midst to spare for those whose sole mission is to stir up industrial troubles and incite to a resort to "‘direct action” on every offering ■occasion and so throw the industries and trade of the country into confusion. In doing this they have also, inferentially at any rate, given State Labour Governments a very strong hint that they will have no place for them either unless they unequivocally renounce and cut themselves entirely adrift from these elements of disorder and cease to afford them either express or tacit encouragement. That these Governments have laid the lesson to heart is evidenced by the haste with which each and all have set about trying to put themselves right not with their own thick-and-thin adherents only, but with the mass of the people whose interests they have hitherto been sacrificing to what they, quite blindly, considered those of their own immediate supporters. This may, perhaps, be regarded, if not as a death-bed, certainly as a sick-bed repentance, and the question is as to how long it may last once the fright that they have had loses its intensity. In fact, recent cable messages have indicated that in some respects these Governments are again showing a disposition to al’ow themselves to be coerced by the extremists among their supporters. They are, at any rate, showing obvious symptoms of still regarding themselves as the mere tools of that irresponsible caucus domination which has made American nolitics, Federal, State and municipal, a byword among the nations and has already got so strong a hold in the Labour ranks of Australia. Of all the Australian people the leaders of political Labour should welcome the opportunity that is now given to secure freedom from the shackles in which they have allowed themselves to be bound and to regain some measure of liberty of thought and action. The great body of the electors throughout the land has declared for a Government that shows itself fearless in the face of any attempt to hold up the activities of the people upon which their livelihood depends and determined to consult the interests of the community as a whole, not of one section only. Unless State Labour Governments now exhibit some ot the same qualities there seems every good chance that, when opportunities come, the people will again show their preference to be ruled by the men they elect, not by the bosses of the Labour Councils and the Trades Halls.