CRIMINAL IMMIGRANTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2358, 22 November 1921, Page 4

CRIMINAL IMMIGRANTS.

AUSTRALIAN OBJECTIONS

NINETEEN FROM NEW ZEA- „ LAND.

The recent observations regarding the “dumping” of criminals into Australia, which were made by the New South Wales Minister for Justice, Mr W. J. McKell, were apparently prompted by the refusal of the Federal Government to issue passports for two persons with police records who wished to leave the country.

The question of deportation was first raised by the Premier, Mr James Dooley. In reply to a question in the Legislative Assembly, he said he believed there were two men who were to be conditionally released from gaol on the ground that they were to be returned to England. The Government did not say that any Australian should be sent away from Australia to another country, but it" did say that a man who was a recent arrival and had a record in another country, should be sent away to that country and the Government should have the right to do that. He had been informed that recently a few men with very bad records had arrived in Sydney. If the State Government was to be compelled by the Federal Government to receive those men, New South Wales would become a dumping ground for such persons. T-he State Government did not stand for that sort of thing and he would do his best to prevent it.

Mr McKell added that the two cases mentioned by the Premier were not the only ones in which the Federal Government has refused to grant passports. Permission has been refused in the ease of a Swiss, who has been convicted on numerous occasions in New South Wales, and has been declared an habitual criminal, and also in the case of an Englishman whose release had been recommended by the Judge, so that lie might leave the country, in view, of the fact that he was a seaman, and was in Sydney only on a casual visit when he got into trouble. “I would like to point out that while the Federal authorities are refusing to grant passports to criminals born in other countries, they are, at the same time, failing to take the necessary precautions to prevent criminals from overseas landing in Australia,” said Mr McKell. For instance, since the passport system was introduced, wc have had an influx of the worst criminals who have ever come to Australia, England supplying eight, South Africa, eight, America three, Asia three, and New Zealand 19. At the present time 46 per cent, of our prison population consists of persons born outside of Australia, and if these persons are prevented from leaving Australia, and large numbers of additional criminals are allowed to come into the country, it is only a matter of time when our gaols will be filled almost entirely with overseas undesirables, and an intolerable and unfair burden for their upkeep thus placed upon the taxpayer of this country.”