A BACK ENTRANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15923, 8 May 1912, Page 8

A BACK ENTRANCE.

The statement that, undesirable immigrants are finding their way into this country as deserters from vessels that visits its ports suggests some rather alarming possibilities. The stokehold of a steamer, as everyone knows, is not usually a place where the nicer virtues are cultivated, and the difficulty that shipowners have ip finding recruits for what is perhaps the most unpleasant of all labours causes them to accept almost any human material that comes to hand. The man who would be a stoker is not required, speaking generally, to produce any certificate of good character or to show a clean bill of health. The demands of the shipping service in the case of a sailor are higher, but the casual deck-hand again may represent a distinctly bad type. Apparently the number of seafarers who desert their ships in New Zealand ports is fairly large, and though a few of the offenders are haled on board again by the arm of the law the majority of them become a part of our permanent population. We do not wish to suggest by any means that every deserter is an undesirable immigrant, but it is obvious ihat a backdoor is open for the entrance of men who on physical or moral grounds are not at all likely to promote the wellbeing of the dominion. ' The danger of the position is increased by the fact that these men come amohg us without the knowledge of tho police and health authorities, who are able to exercise some measure of supervision over the people who arrive as passengers on vessels from abroad. The matter seems to call for official attention.