INFLUX OF ALIENS

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1927, Page 11

INFLUX OF ALIENS

WEST AUSTRALIAN PROTEST. In a statement concerning what lie described as the present unsatisfactory attitude of the Commonwealth Government toward the influx of aliens, the Chief Secretary of Western Australia, Mr. J. M. Drew, stated that there was an extraordinary proportion of aliens resident in the mental institutions of the State. Mr. Drew said that he intended to ascertain from the Commonwealth Government whether the countries of which these people were citizens could refuse to take them back, and who was to pay the cost of the deportation of these “bad bargains,” accepted on the State’s behalf, but not by the State’s wish. The annual congress of the Returned Soldiers’ League at Perth, by a large majority, carried a resolution viewing with alarm the influx of Southern Europeans, which, it was declared, tended to create unemployment and to lower the standard of living. It was decided to ask the Federal executive to approach the Federal Government with a request that the influx should be restricted, or, preferably, suspended entirely. A delegate said that aliens were required to produce £l4O on landing, but the one sum was being used to bring out scores, (he money being paid back to an agent at Fremantle, and returned to Italy to be Used by another immigrant.