THE ARRIVAL OF THE UNFIT.

Observer, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4, 5 October 1912, Page 2

THE ARRIVAL OF THE UNFIT.

Wanted, a Barrier That Will Bar,

THE Hospital and Gharitable Aid Board has been making aggrieved complaints of late of the number of undesirable immigrants arriving here;—the chief cause of complaint being that many are penniless, and are suffering from diseases, which, according to the law, should debar them from " entry. Recently couple of consumptives were placed on board ship for return. It's hard on them ho doubt, but it has to be done if this country intends to make itself healthy. Last Thursday another case of consumption and destitution came before the police court. The man pleaded drink and consumption as the extenuating circumstances of a petty theft, and said that he had arrived by the Makura from Vancouver. Considering the frequency of these prohibited immigrants one naturally wants to know what is wrong, whether the duties of the port health officers are too much for them, and whether it wouldn't be advisable to discover if they should get an assistant or something.

This matter of prohibiting the unfit from importing themselves into a youthful and developing country is a serious one. There is quite enough locally-bred population suffering from contagious disease for the Department of Public Health to look after and lor the public purse td support, and as it

is the aim of every community to keep itself up to the highest state of physical fitness, it is necessary that any person deficient in mental or physical health shall be debarred from entering the country. The reasons why persons suffering from infirmities likely to be transmitted, or which are likely, to make them a charge upon the public purse, are too obvious to need mention. Even the most fatuous of our parliamentarians is able to realise that it is undesirable that infirm persons should be allowed to propagate their kind and so transmit and spread their deficiencies in this country.

What New Zealand wants is a complete and efficient system of medical inspection at the ports. The cursory chest-thumping and tongue inspection, which at present passes for medical examination is of no use—apparently is doesn't suffice to detect even marked symptoms of disease. We want, instead of this perfunctory, make-believe examination, a system as close-meshed and thorough as America conducts on Ellis Island. Auckland is not the only port in the Dominion through which prohibited immigrants slip into the country—the Wellington Charitable Aid authorities have also their complaint to make regarding the support of people who should never have been allowed to land. It can be safely assumed that the number of such cases that comes under official notice represents only a lew of the debarred infirm who actually land here. ' v

A few days ago the Auckland Charitable Aid Board had to consider the case of an aged foreigner who applied for relief. He had arrived I-ere not quite two years ago and was suffering from an incurable disease. He was not naturalised, and so the Board decided that it would be cheaper to send him back to his own country than to pay his board and medical bills indefinitely. That is one example of how the lack of medical discrimination burdens the public purse. To try anS eliminate disease from its indigenous population is quite enough for a young-country, there is no need to import disease in order to exercise philanthropy. Of course, there are numerous good-hearted but narrowvisib'ned folk ready to complain that a rigorous inspection of immigrants and visitors would ruin this country's chance of getting necessary population, and would give it a bad name with the lordly tourist. Well, judging from the experience of America, it wouldn't. Tit people would still come.along, and the tourist who baulked at the idea of a searching examination wouldn't be missed.

Even if a close-meshed Ellis Island system of medical examination did have the effect of keeping large quantities of immigrants from coming here, there would be no great harm done, for a small, healthy and prosperous community is better than a large population with a large proportion of disease and indigence. There is no particular advantage in possessing a large population, though a large class of people have a fixed belief that quantity is better than quality. The injunction of the old Israelitish patriarch to "be fruitful and multiply"

was sound wisdom for desert dwelling tribes who depended on fighting strength for existence, but the Founder of the Christian faith lived in a populous city and had seen something of degeneracy and disease when he said, "It would have been well for this man if he had never been born/

It is better for New Zealand' that moral and physical degenerates shall never be allowed to enter here, and to prevent them from entering we need an adequate system of inspection of those who would enter. For assisted immigrants there should be strict inspection at the points, of departure and arrival. We want to make a sound race, and as far as possible we try to engendered locally, but these efforts avail little if disease is permitted to be imported. Obviously there is something wrong with the present half-hearted method of inspection and a system well-staffed and authoritative is badly needed.