BRITISH ALIEN BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17141, 22 April 1919, Page 5

BRITISH ALIEN BILL.

POWER OF RESTRICTION.

BOLDER MEASURE URGED. A. and N.Z. LONDON. April 20.

Mr. E. Shortt, the Home Secretary, moving the second reading of the Aliens' Restriction Bill, said that considerable difficulty existed in dealing with enemy, neutral, and friendly aliens now resident or desir-1 ing to come to Britain. There were ' 24,200 enemy aliens still interned at the armistice, and also 21,000 at 1 liberty. Nineteen thousand had been repatriated, and the remainder, was rapidly decreasing, depending on ships available. There was a total of 200,000 aliens now in Britain. No proper machinery existed ' for the exclusion of aliens before the i war. Twenty-eight Orders-in-Coun- i cil had been issued, and th Bill pro-1 posed to continue those regulations i for two* years. A committee under a judge was considering the cases of, enemy aliens unwilling to be re-1 patriated. Many members supported the motion for rejection, on the ground that the Government should boldly declare a policy of the absolute exclusion of undesirable races and legislate accordingly, instead of leaving particular cases to the Home Office acting through Orders-in-Council. It was declared that this was the only way of preventing England again becoming a dumping ground. Sir Hamar Greenwood, UnderSecretary, assured the House that there was no danger of the Home Office forgetting the pledges given by the Premier and Mr. Bonar Law. He added that there were 92,000 Russians in Britain, 19,000 Italians, 16,000 French, and a large floating population of Scandinavian, Chinese and other foreign seamen.

The motion was withdrawn after Sir Hamar Greenwood had promised to limit the scope of the Bill to otfe year.