CONTROL BILL IS UNDER DISCUSSION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18992, 11 February 1930, Page 9

CONTROL BILL IS UNDER DISCUSSION.

IMMIGRATION MEASURE IS GIVEN EXPLANATION

(United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received February 11. 11.40 a.m.) CAPE TOWN, February 10. The Minister of the Interior, Dr D. F. Malan, quoting examples in America and Australia, established a strong case when moving the second reading of the Immigration Restriction Bill, which has aroused strong protests from Jewish meetings throughout the Union. Dr Malan showed that the loss in British people for the last six years had been 1500, while aliens had increased by 1400. He contended that the tide of immigration which had beaten on the shores of America was being thrown back to the shores of South Africa. He mentioned that 900,000 from Eastern Europe had applied for admission to America and 15,000 had been admitted. The Bill, he said, proposed no restrictions on British nations, the United States and Western Europe, while an annual quota of fifty applied to other countries.

The Minister has not followed Australia by fixing an unallotted quota of a thousand a year applying to South Africans domiciled in other countries, such as the Boers who settled in Argentina and also experts to start industries. The Minister described criticisms that admissions should be based on qualifications of character and not the country of origin as positively mischievous. He stressed the fact that every nation had the right to control its destiny by controlling its composition. The Leader of the Opposition moved to refer the Bill to a Select Committee.