THAT ALARMING INFLUX OF " UNDESIRABLES." Who are the Sufferers?

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 147, 25 April 1903, Page 8

THAT ALARMING INFLUX OF " UNDESIRABLES." Who are the Sufferers?

A LITTLE cloud no larger than a man's hand has nsen up. It's an Australian cloud appaiently, and it issues out of stokeholes and places of that kind, and looks for jobs when it gets ashoie. It is generally supposed, for the edification of the daily paper readers, that the cli ought-ousted men, who come to New Zealand from the Commonwealth, aie all looking for your purse, and 'stowaways" are specially selected as undesnobles The stowaways now -ada>s who chooses his coal bunker 01 hold at Sydney docs not he by until he gets to Auckland or Wellington. He usually shows up first day out, when the dinner-gong goes He as a smait fellow if he can evade the ship's purser, and land in this colony without paying his fare. If he pays his fare, and is not an Asiatic, he has as much right to be at large in New Zealand as the crow ds of New Zealandeis who aie to be found m every nook and coiner of Australia. The 'alarming influx" of< undesirables has apparently not increased the crime sheets. You w ill find no preponderance of Australians in reports of police proceedings If conditions of life ma.de it desirable for a great many New Zealanders to clear out, it is not likely that the press in the country to which they journeyed would rise up and smite them w ith pen and ink. * * * The imputation that the Australian who comes to New Zealand is a sin-

stained sou], totally unfit for contact v ith the pure element hereaway, is not nice. There is no urgent necessity to cast rocks at our fellow -colonists who have been having hard times. A man is not necessarily a criminal because he comes across the Tasman Sea in a coal basket without a penny, and he is not necessarily a "desirable" even though he vas born in New Zealand and has a bank balance. Stowing away is llliegal, of course, and is promptly stopped if found out. * * * The number of criminal stow aw ays cannot be as "alarming" as. we are asked to believe, and if, among the many Australians landing by hook or by crook, a ne'er-do-well is found, we have police. The police are raised for the purpose of keeping a watchful eye on criminals. It is their special duty. The wonder is that Australians have not been included among those who are expected to pay a poll-tax. The "alarm" is not as great as it looks on paper, and the percentage of undesirables does not raise the- population by many thousands. * * * Britain is an open sanctuary for the saint and sinner alike, of all nations. A British colony is admitting weakness when it gets alarmed 1 at a few droughtsmitten kinsfolk coming along to sfhare ir what we believe is overwhelming prosperity. There is a cry for labour all over the country. The earth is yielding enormous returns. If we don't desare to be our brother's keeper, we stiLl might hold out the right band of fellowship to men among whom are a few who are bad enough to create the alleged "alarm" mentioned by the daily press.