TROUBLED DAYS IN EUROPE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23106, 4 February 1937, Page 10

TROUBLED DAYS IN EUROPE

EXODUS OF FUGITIVES STEADY STREAM OF ARRIVALS (Special to Daily Times) WELLINGTON, Feb. 3. Fugitives from the troubled days in Europe, many foreign immigrants land at Wellington from almost every overseas passenger ship that calls. The Maunganui. which arrived today from Sydney, (arried as her quota four German Jews escaping from the persecution of the Nazi regime, and a large party of Dalmatians, driven from their own country by the economic unrest and the dread of war. The German migrants would say nothing of the conditions which had forced them to abandon the land of their birth. " They are afraid for their friends and relatives and for themselves if ever they should want to go back there," explained a prominent member of the Wellington Jewish community, who met the strangers at the wharf. Apparently even into peaceful New Zealand extended the long arm of the Nazi intelligence service.

'' If it were thought they had said anything against Hitler their families and they themselves, if ever they fell into Nazi hands, would be taken to concentration camps and tortured," he said. "Even we of their own race cannot get any specific information from them."

The Dalmatians, however, were more than willing to say why they had come away from home. "It is much better in New Zealand," said one. " I was out here five or six years ago, so I know. Here you can live. It is not so in Dalmatia. There the wages of workers have fallen by half and you can buy practically no thing for the money. Food is very dear. It costs a lot to live, and now everyone is saying, ' There will be war,' but war is no good for the working people. When our friends here in New Zealand wrote us letters saying there was a Labour Government here which was making it a good place for the working people we decided to come." He mentioned that there was already in New Zealand a Dalmatian Dopulation of about 3000 They did not restrict themselves to restaurant-keeping as did the Greeks, or to fishing as did the Italians, but were willing to try their hand at anything Ii was difficult for them to take up farming or embark on any large scale enterorise on arrival because their Government restricted the export of capital Indeed, one man had found such obstacles to his migration that he had been obliged to come away without bringing his wife or family who. however, he hoped would be able to join him in the not-too-disianl future