MINISTER’S VOLTE FACE

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 455, 24 June 1937, Page 3

MINISTER’S VOLTE FACE

MRS FREER NOW ACCEPTED Australian Public Puzzled Sydney, June 3. Last Wednesday Dr. Page, as Act-ing-Prime Minister, announced that the Government has decided to lift the ban imposed seven months ago on Mrs. M. M. Freer, and to permit her to enter Australia. As Mrs. Freer has been living in New Zealand ever since’, the facts of the case should be well known to Dominion readers.’ The Federal Minister of the Interior, Mr. Paterson, in explaining to the Federal Parliament the course that he had followed, said that from information which he had receive from India, he had come« to the conclusion that Mrs. Freer would be an “undesirable” visitor to Australia. But he declined to give any clue to the nature of this information, and he left Mrs Freer and her reputation subject :to the most invidious and injurious conjecture. Minister's Decision. It was subsequently disclosed that

the of the Minister of the Interior had been prompted, at least in part, by a letter sent to the military authorities by Mrs. Dewar, the wife of the officer whom Mrs Freer proposed to marry. The Minister, shocked by the suggestion that Mrs. Freer might “break up a happy Australian home,” decided to keep her out of this country. Obviously such a course, especially as it was not supported by any tangible evidence, was arbitrary and unjust in the extreme, and the public indignation that Mr. Paterson’s action aroused was vastly increased when it was learned that there were two women named Freer living in India for some years, and the Minister had apparently mistaken one for the other. By the time that these facts had been disclosed, Mr Paterson and the U.C.P. —the political party to which he belongs—had evidently decided that their public prestige depended on their success in enforcing the ban against Mrs. Freer, and though several leading U.A.P. men — notably Mr. McCall, M.P., and Mr. Menzies, the Federal Attorney-Gener-al protested against the arbitrary exclusion of Mrs. Freer as unjust, foolish and dangerous, Mr. Paterson and his supporters had their way. All this happened six months ago,, but nothing has occurred since that would be likely to make M nitters change their minds about. Mrs Freer, or to render her less “unde-sirable” than she was before. Yet Dr. Page is now in a- position to say that by a. unanimous vote Cabinet has decided to permit Mrs. Freer to enter Australia. The only explanation that Dr. Page has offered for this remarkable change of front is contained in the follow-

ing clause of the official announcement: “Having regard to all the circumstances of the case, including the fact that Mrt Freer has been resident in New Zealand for more than six months, Cabinet has resolved to lift the embargo.” This suggestion that Mrs Freer —a woman of British birth who had lived for years previously in a British dependency—was rendered less “undesirable” by staying six months in the Dominion was so ludicrous that 't aroused general discussioiq, and Dr. Page made a belated attempt to evade criticism by protesting that the- reference to Mrs. Freer’s stay In the Dominion “had no legal significance.” Suffered Remorse. Those who have criticised the Federal Government .adversely for i'tiS unjust and arbitrary Vreaitment of Mrs. Freer have not been slow to find explanations of their own. They point out that in the recent Gwydir election, in which .the U.C.P. sufferer a serious reverse, the Labour Opposition made great capital out of ,the Freer case, and they suggest that in view of the coming Federal elections Ministers are not prepared to risk the consequences of this injustice in a second appeal to the people.