GERMANS IN AUSTRALIA

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1916, Page 4

GERMANS IN AUSTRALIA

NATURALISATION FARCI ;

GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE

Speaking at the luncheon given in Melbourne in connection with the. annual celebration by the Australian Natives' Association of Foundation Day, the Act-ing-Prime Minister, Senator Pearce, said that last year Australia had sent to the front 30,000 troops, to-day 134,000 troop* had been sent; and in addition 80,0w more were in the various camps of tli« Commonwealth in training. (Cheer**). It behoved them to see that Gorman influence and German methods did not livo within the Commonwealth again, li was with that end in view that the.Commonwealth Ministry had taken the very drastic step of appointing a trustee to receive all shares in Australian companies held by alien enemy wbects. That was a very drastic step to take, and it might have serious consequences, but the Ministry was determined to carry it out, so that it would not detrimentally affect Australian interests, or interests of Australian shareholders, and he believed that wit'h the exercise o( care and ripe judgment that could bo aecoinplislied. (Cheers).

The treatment of naturalised person* was, of course, a very complex problenj, Many of these people bad settled there and thrown in their lot with them entirely; many of them had married Australian women ,and in many eases wera true Australians. All this had to be borne in mind, but naturalisation to a German, or an Austrian, was a very different thing from naturalisation to on American or a Frenchman. Any German or Austrian naturalised in the Commonweatlh O ould, by merely signing his name in the book at the office of the Consul-General, divest himself of that naturalisation without the knowledge of the country that had given him" hi« naturalisation rights, (Cries ot "Shame!") Some people accused the 1 Federal Ministry of regarding the naturalisation certificates as scraps of paper, to be torn up; but that was not the Federal Ministry's view of the naturalisation papers—it was the German and Austrian Governments who,' by issuing that right to their subjects, had treatw all naturalisation papers as if they w«r* scraps of paper to'be torn up, (CheeM).