ALIENS--AND OTHERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12174, 24 November 1917, Page 8

ALIENS--AND OTHERS.

We hope that the new War Regulation which has just been gazetted giving the Government power to intern not only aliens who are disaffected but also " strangers," will not remain a dead letter, but will be put into active operation. It has been notorious that ever since t(h e outbreak of the war the Government has not handled this question with the firmness which the voice of the country imperatively demanded, and that to-day numbers of not uninfluential aliens are roaming the country without let or hindrance, whilst others who in pre-war time occupied humble positions and were consequently not able to serve the Fatherland were they ever so inclined, are safely banished in internment camps. We have no fault to find with the action of the Government in intarning these humble individuals; we believe that in taking precautions against the alien menace the powers that be should err on the safe side. But if it has been deemed necessary to intern the humble, are there not much greater reason why the more powerful should be deprived of all opportunity of doing harm. We think there is, and herein we are convinced the Government has shown weakness. We know that there are many aliens still at largei whose sympathies are unmistakably with their own countrymen, and consequently we hold that the Government should have taken measures to ensure that they would have no opportunity of either assisting their own nation or of fomenting discontent amongst our own people. Other countries hare found it necessary to adopt stern measures to thwart the conspiracies of the aliens in their midst, and while our isolation might very well be considered a safeguard, ehaiti is soarcely a justification for the inaction of the Government in this respect. It, is all very well to express confidence in the loyalty of those aliens who have made their homes in our midst, but a, leopard cannot change its spots, and there can be little doubt but the sympathies of the great majority of the aliens in this Dominion, except! perhaps

in the case of those who have spent nearly all their lives in the country, ,are still with their home land. What would wa think of a Britisher who after twenty-five years in the land of the Huns, threw off all allegiance to Britain, and avowed himself a Prussian? Blood is assuredly thicker than water, and such being the case the Government should see to it that no possible alien, mischief-makers are permitted to rro free. The proper place for nil those who are not true to the British flag is in internment camps, where their opportunities for doing mischief are nil.