THE PAMPERED ALIEN ENEMY.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 816, 18 February 1916, Page 6

THE PAMPERED ALIEN ENEMY.

Absurd Leniency. | T is a fairly safe bet to make that I there is not to-day in, the whole of Germany a single Englishman or Englishwoman outside a prison or an •interned camp. In the Old Country a very different state of affairs has prevailed, and we are not surprised to read that there is an ever-growing agitation for Germans in. England to be treated with greatet severity. The .murders committed by the Zeppelin crews have justly aroused the deepest indignation, and England resonnd& with the cry for reprisals. "We have been stupidly lenient here in the Dominion in dealing with the Gei"inans : in our midst, and the Government has been lamentably lax in this matter. Mr, Allen seems to think, for instance, that he can avoid responsibility by referring cases of Germans being -. at liberty to that mysterious body, the Aliens Board. This Government is far too fond of passing on its responsibilities to the shoulders of irresponsible boards, but the average citizen rightly considers that this should not be. It was this precious Aliens Board which dealt in a way with the notorious "Von Zedlitz case, giving a report thereon in which the real point at issue was either obscured or ignored. Later on, as we all know, Mr. Massey himself went into the matter and dealt with it promptly, drastically, and in a way which gave

satisfaction to everybody outside an arrogant few. We "wish Mr. Massey would find time to. go personally into the question of certain Germans who are well-to-do being allowed at large whilst their poorer and less influential compatriots are not only sent to Somes Island, but kept there. * «■ * * If, howeyei.*, we have been lax in New Zealand in dealing with the Hun in -our. midst, the British Government appears to have been ten times more so. A week or two before th e last mail left London a most extraordinary case was reported in the * London . papers. , A special constable on duty at a'little village named Great Messenden was fined £5 for neglect of his duty. In defence, ■ She declared that when he . started special constable's work be had fifteen hundred- pheasants, and had to leave them unprotected in order to take up the duty of guarding the game preserves of a German millionaire, who had, if you please, a son fighting in the German Army. Other capes have been cited of wealthy Germans being allowed to be specially interned on their own estates, and suffering no inconvenience of loss of liberty, whilst on the other hand' German barbers and waiters were hauled off-to the- internment camps. This sort of thing strengthens the old theory that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. Such a thing is bad enough in times of peace, but it is worse still in war time-—and when enemy aliens are concerned. No doubt, if the truth were only to come out. it would be found that the mysterious lights and flares by which the Zeppelins were guided in their raid on the eastern counties were used by wealthy Huns, landed magnates, whose game preserves are guarded by British special constables.