TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 15th APRIL, 1942 ENEMY ALIENS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4560, 15 April 1942, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 15th APRIL, 1942 ENEMY ALIENS

PUBLIC attention on the presence of enemy aliens in our midst is bound to be increased by the discussion on the subject which took place at Monday’s meeting of the Otorohanga County Council. In passing it is well to remember that more than once since the beginning of the war court proceedings have revealed that alien new-comers to this country have been in possession of firearms. Such a case was heard in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court on Monday, when ceedings have revealed that alien before being interned had handed over to the safeguarding of a woman friend a box containing, among other things, an automatic pistol and ammunition. Presumably the enemy alien did not purchase the weapon here. How, then, was he permitted to enter the country with. such a thing in his possession ? The question should_be made the subject of departmental inquiry, especially as this is not the first time that the thoroughness of customs examination of aliens’ belongings has been open to doubt. The defendant in Monday’s case was the woman who had received the pistol from the enemy alien and who, in turn, had placed it in the keeping of another person. For this she was fined £l— amount of penalty usually incurred by some petty breach of local by-laws. Such leniency for an offence of this dangerous kind is indefensible. This country is in peril, and breaches of the law governing the possession of firearms should be most rigorously dealt with.