CONTROL OF ALIENS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 25 October 1940, Page 2

CONTROL OF ALIENS

REGIONAL AUTHORITIES TO BE APPOINTED APPEAL TRIBUNAL Regulations gazetted last night provide for the appointment of regional aliens in the districts under their conti'ol. and for the appointment of an aliens appeal tribunal to hear appeals against the recommendations of these authorities. The members of the present Aliens Tribunal will become the Appeal Tribunal. Immediate steps are to be taken to appoint the regional authorities. “Two major questions require to be decided in dealing with the question of control of aliens,” said the Minister of Justice. Mr Mason, in an interview last evening. “The first is the administrative mechanism to secui'e that all cases shall be promptly dealt with. In the new regulations this mechanism takes the form of regional authorities to conduct an investigation of the case of every alien, and a central authority to act in effect as an appellate body, though it will be competent for the central body to deal with any problem or case irrespective of whether the matter has been before a regional authority. % “Thei'e will be a regional authority in each police district, and in the larger districts more than one au-

thority. Thus the work will be done quickly and methodically and the case of every alien without exception will quickly be brought under review. The present Aliens Tribunal (Mr Justice Callan, Colonel C. H. Weston, K.C..

and Mr J. H. Collins) is constituted the central authority. Steps arc being taken immediately to appoint the regional alien authorities. “The second major question to decide is ‘What is the definition of an alien?’ It has been found an impossibility to give a simple answer to this question. The regulations provide for certain classes of persons to be registei'ed as aliens, but it has been found essential to provide for power to exempt any person in any of these classes from the provisions of the l'egulations. On the other hand, owing to the influ-

ence upon a person’s loyalty which may be exerted by marriage or relationship to aliens, there has been constituted a wide class described as

‘persons of alien origin or association,’ who are not in the first instance classified as aliens for the purposes of the l'egulations, but who may by notice served upon them be brought under their scope and requii'ed to register.”