ALIENS IN BRITAIN. A NEW BILL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 91, 19 April 1911, Page 7

ALIENS IN BRITAIN. A NEW BILL

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HOME SECRETARY. SEVERE PENALTIES. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received April 19, 9 a.m.) LONDON, 18th April. In the House of Commons, Mr. Winston Churchill (Home Secretary) said that he proposed to introduce a new Aliens- Bill. The measure would Tequire that in certain specified cases two sureties for their good behaviour for five years after arrival in Britain must be provided by aliens. Those who have at the time the Act conies into operation been resident in Britain for five years are to be exempted from this clause. The penalty for aliens returning to Britain after having been expelled is to be twelve months' imprisonment for the first offence and two years' for the second. Mr. Churchill added that the Government intended introducing a Pistol Bill in the House of Lords. This announcement caused laughter. Mr. Churchill said the Bill would require aliens to obtain a permit to keep pistols, and also enable their premises to be searched. [The Houndsditch outrage and the fight between the police 'and Anarchists in London caused an agitation in favour of more stringent regulations regarding the admission into Britain of aliens. An Aliens Act was passed in 1905, and under ite provisions a better state of things than had hitherto existed was brought about, as the following figures will show. From a " Statement With Regard to the Expulsion of Aliens," issued by the Home Office in May, 1910, it appears that the alien prison population reached its highest point in 1904, having increased (with small fluctuations in 1895 and 1899) ever since 1893— the first year for which figures are available — and at a greater rate than the total prison population. In that year (1904) the aliens numbered 4396, or 2.22' per cent, of all the convicted prisoners received into prisons. In 1907 (the second year of the operation of the Act) the number of aßene had dropped, by 36.33 per cent., to 2799, aaid though the total convicted prisonetrs had also decreased (by 11.98 per cent.), the proportion of aliens to the whole had fallen to 1.60 ft per cent. In 1908 there was an increase of 10,077 in the total number of convrcted prisoners, and this was reflected in a slightly more than proportional increase in the number of aliens, which exceeded that of "1907 by 200. Thisslight check in the decline of alien prisoners was more than recouped in the year 1909, when, with a decrease of 1888, or 1.02 per cent, in- th© total number of convicted prisoners, fho aliens among them decreased by 670, or 22.34 per cent., and numbered only 2329, being the lowest total since 1897. During th.c year 1909, _ the question of expulsion was determined in 486 cases.]