CRITICISM OF MIGRANTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20332, 13 August 1929, Page 9

CRITICISM OF MIGRANTS.

PASSENGERS ON BEN DI GO. AN APOLOGY TENDERED. SYDNEY, Aug. 12. It is reported that after the liner Bcndigo left Fremantlc the passengers held an indignation meeting, as a protest against the statements of Mr. Collingwood Ilughes, an ex-member of the House of Commons, who is a passenger with his wife, and who had made condemnatory remarks about tho class of migrants voyaging to Australia in the ship.

Mr. Hughes stayed in his cabin with the door locked and refused to attend the meeting, although ex-service men on board promised him their protection.

110 was prevailed upon to write an apology for his references to Australia House and the medical officers concerned, but denied using some of the words attributed to him. Later Mr. Hughes, under escort, attended the meeting, where the passengers received his verbal apology in a tense silence.

There were riotous scenes on the liner Bendigo on August 0, when the migrants attacked Mr. Collingwood Hughes, formerly member of the House of Commons for Peckhain, London, because he had criticised them iu an interview at that port.

Mr. Hughes said he had been asked so frequently to reply publicly to questions relating to tlie migration of British subjects to the Dominions that he felt he lacked knowledge of the subject, and had decided to seek first-hand information.

So he booked a passage by the Bendigo, on which there were about 150 Govern-ment-assisted migrants. These people were no credit to England, and would bo of no benefit to Australia, which should shut its doors against them. The type of immigrants absorbed by Canada was altogether different. Several of the Bendigo s complement were either cripples or showed signs of imbecility.

Mr. Hughes said he considered the method of selecting migrants in England for Australia must be radically wrong.