THE LANGUAGE TEST.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 804, 29 April 1910, Page 6

THE LANGUAGE TEST.

FOR NEWCOMERS. MERCHANT'S STRANGE EXPERIENCE.' What appears on the face of it to be a somewhat extreme interpretation of the requirements of the Immigration Restriction Aot has.been brought under notice by a well-known business-man—a German by birth—who recently came into conflict with a Government officer or officers on his arrival at the Bluff from Melbourne. According to the Act any person not of British birth who is healthy (excepting only Chinese) is allowed to enter the Dominion if he can read and write in any European language. In the case under notice, our informant, who is a man of culture, and has been m New Zealand on business on five previous occasions, without any question having been asked him, was haled beforo a Government officer and questioned, and informed that he must satisfy the officer that he could pass the education test. ' I was ■ naturally indignant at being looked upon as an undesirable immigrant, said our informant, "and I argued the case with the official, but to no effect." The zealous officer, it appears, produced a printed form with a few sentences in German on it and asked the new arrival to read it. This the viator refused to do, and as a result he was asked to accompany the official to a certain office, where further argument ensued. Subsequently the new arrival did read tho German, and, upon further inquiry, he states that he learned that the officer Wuo conducted the examination did not' understand the German language himself. "1 did not read it all'in German—l introduced some French, and tie ex-, aminer was none the wiser," said the indignant informant, "and if I had translated what I really said' it would have opened the eyes of that officer." Continuing, the complainant stated that he had come to New Zealand ott business and was quite capable' of transacting that business, in pjpof of which he could point to his five previous trips, and he did not think .anyone could suggest that he was an undesirable person, taking the very widest meaning of the term. He had never before been .questioned by the authorities in any shape or form, and when on this occasion he had been questioned he was quite prepared to do anything in reason. What he had been subjected to, however, was utterly ridiculous. It was farcical to be examined in his mother tongue by an official who did not even understand the very "'subjeot in whioh he was supposed to conduct the examination. Was it not, he' asked, sufficient test for it to be proved that he could speak English fluently? ."I have swallowed my indignation since getting this far north," concluded the visitor, "but I am ventilating the case in the hope that it may save others, tourists or business men, the 'annoying experience which was forced on me at the southernmost end of your Islands."