IMPORTED "WASTERS."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 79, 20 August 1912, Page 5

IMPORTED "WASTERS."

UNDESIRABLE NEW CHUMS. THE WIFE DESERTER AND THE ' PROFLIGATE. Auckland, August 17. Increasingly frequent among the assisted immigrants is becoming the wife deserter, the "quitter" who has not the moral stamina to face the responsibility he has gaily piled up in the Homeland, and who shuffles off to tne colonies, leaving a wife and family to the hazards of the street or the charity of the poorhouse authorities. One such case came under thfi notion of the authorities in Auckland the other day, and a Star representative, who m.-jde inquiries, was informed that it was by no means an isolated instance. He was shown figures and facts which proved conclusively that the immigration policies of the colonies contribute in a very considerable measure to wife and family desertion in Great Britain. In fact, the figures collated on the subject showed that by this means the colonies in the last twelve months have taken the bread from the mouths of 1127 persons—3os wives and 822 children—who have consequently luid to be succoured by the State charity institutions of : Croat Britain; and of "these 97 wives and children have their natural breadwinners sheltering in New Zealand and Australia. j , , It has been found, when they, have been traced, that the deserters bring with them the vices which wrecked their married life at Home. There is the profligate, who continues his drunken excesses, and the man of predatory social habits, who secures the ministrations bf conjugal life and escapes the responsibilities. < ' . It can hardly be contended that this class of importation will prove, a source of strength to the country, and the attraction to it of the men described 13 a palpable weakness in the immigration system. Once here, they are beyond the. ■ reach of the law as it present stands, * for none of the colonies provide for the deportation of a wife deserter from , other lands. The problem is not an entirely new ■ 1 one. Sir Joseph Ward, at the Imperial , Conference of 1911, proposed a resolution recommending reciprocal legal provision in the constituent portions of the I'.mpire to meet such cases, and Sir Joseph's resolution was passed, but no ; such legislation has been passed, and the moral cowards who come within the category of runaway husbands continue to edge quietly into the emigrant rush from Great' Britain, and find sanctuary in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. k