RESTRICTIONS ON EMIGRATION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2814, 4 July 1916, Page 4

RESTRICTIONS ON EMIGRATION

STRINGENT REGULATIONS. A statement regarding the regulations governing the issue of passports and permits to leave New Zealand was.mado last evening by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon. (f. W. Russell.The Minister said that in consequence of the large number of men who had gone to the war, it was necessary to make the regulations much more stringent than hitherto, as it was. necessary that every man who could be of use in the Dominion should be retained here. A nuniber of nien who had endeavoured to enlist, and who had teen rejected as medically unfit, appeared to bo under the impression, that it was only necessary to product a corticate to this effect to obtain a passport or permit. Such people, said the Minister should disabuse thoir minds of thia idea at once, as they wero required in the Dominion, to take the place of men who had gone to the war. Instructions had been issued that in cases in which application was made for passports or permits by men of military age or approaching military age, a most rigid examination must bo made into the eirciimstanccs aid reasins for <U*arture before the applications were granted. Some New Zealanders appeared to think that they need only state tfielr desire to.work in a munition factory or join some branch of the Imperial war service to be able to secure a permit to leave the Dominion. In all such cases the applications would bo refused by the Internal Affairs Department. ..... Practicallv, the only men of military ago to whom permits to leave would bo granted, continued tlie_ Minister, would bo returned soldiers and" men who could provfi their bona fides as visiting shoarers or slaughtermen, who had come to New Zealand in the ordinary course of their occupations, and who desired to return to their own country. In the case of the latter men, careful inquiry would bo made, and if it was discovered .that a iron had remained in New Zealand for more than one season, he would be regarded as a Kew Zealander. In cases in which men stated that they desirc-d to visit relatives or friends in Australia, inquiry would bo made as to whether tiiey had disposed of their properties, and whether tlioy were talcing their fann. lies with them. When a man stated that he intended to return to tho Dominion within a certain time, he would bo required to make a statutory declaration upon I'.ho point before a Justice of tho Peace. * \