DEPORTATION POWERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16375, 24 June 1927, Page 7

DEPORTATION POWERS

A SAMOAN ORDINANCE MR. HOLLAND ACTS TOO LATE (Parliamentary Reporter.) WKLLLNUTON, this day. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. H. E. Holland, faced a very uncomprising Prime Minister in the House yesterday when he made a last-hour attempt to stave off' tho gazetting of a Samoan ordinance amending an immigration ordinance of 1924 so as to confer certain powers on the Administrator to deport persons guilty of political offences. Mr. Holland raised the matter as an urgent question, pointing <>ut that it was extremely important as an Order in-Councii might he gazetted that night. It proposed, he sau), to take away from native-born Samoa its, or Samoa n- born whites, the. exemption from deportation orders, and conferred on the Administrator the power to deport them. He asked the Prime Minister to withhold publication of' the order until the House had had an opportunity of discussing it. Mr. Coates. who had previously remarked that while he would be pleased to listen to a- question he would not undertake that day to answer it, gave a reply to this query. The Order-in-Council, he said, did not place this power in the hands of the Administrator, but in the hands of the Gover-nor-in-Council. "The next point is whether the order will he withheld, 'the Government has decided that it will proceed with the Grder-in-Council, which is completed, and it is only a. matter of publication." Mr. Holland: And you will not give the House an opportunity of discussing it? The Prime. Minister: The opportunity arrives when the Gazette notice is tabled in the House. Mr. Holland: Before it comes into operation? Mr. Coates: No, the Government is well informed on the issue, and has decided to take certain action, and I am not able to hold out any hope that it is likely fft relax the course decided upon. As a matter of fact the Order-in-Council which was the subject of tho question was published soon after the House rose.