THE ALIEN ENEMY DEFENCE

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9093, 12 July 1915, Page 3

THE ALIEN ENEMY DEFENCE

A FEW QUESTIONS. To the Editor ‘'N.Z. Times.” Sir, —In May last the Minister ior Defence was engaged In making a speech in defence of the German in New Zealand. Last month another Minister was occupied in defending the payment of £'i oo a year to an alien enemy prisoner on parole, and suggesting that other people who did not share his benevolent views wanted to behave like blackguards. Why does Mr Witty, M.P., ask absurd questions about soldiers paying for their beds? Where is the money to come from if our soldiers are not made to contribute to support the enemy they are hired to defeat? There is a more serious question still. Tlie Cairo report of German spies and snipers in Australasian ranks prompts us to ask how far the apathy of the New Zealand authorities contributed to further this evil? What are the risks wo are taking of getting a transport or hospital ship torpedoed by the assistance of information supplied by alien enemies at large in New Zealand? Why have Ministers and members on both sides been wasting their time on purely party campaign, instead of whole-heartedly joining hands in the great question of world-wide importance, saving the Empire and crushing the greatest criminal of the ago, the Kaiser and the gang of criminals who surround him and who profess allegiance to him in all parts of the British Dominions?

Why are persons who have heen convicted and imprisoned for treason reinstated, on their release from gaol, in important positions? Why does not the Patriotic Society, which has done such splendid work, and the Wellington public, which has responded so magnificently with funds, present a petition with ten or twenty thousand signatures to Parliament, praying it to shelve .-.11 party questions, to shove on one side intriguers of mixed German and British blood and their proGerman supporters, to devote their energies to the war, and to muzzle and control all alien enemies and their supporters?—l am, etc., PATRIOT. July 9th, 1915.