A SOURCE OF DANGER.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 April 1918, Page 4

A SOURCE OF DANGER.

We would direct attention to the report appearing elsewhere in this issue of a case heard at the S.M. Court at Manaia, last week, wherein a Swiss obtained judgment from a dairy farmer for money due to him. The case, it seems, was not contested by defendant with a view to escaping payment of the money due, but for the purpose of showing up the behaviour of the man in question. The evidence tendered showed that the man (if he can be designated by. such a term) should consider himself lucky that lie is not behind prison bars, for his behaviour was about as reprehensible as it could be. Our purpose in directing attention to the case is to raise a warning of what is possible when all the eligible men of the Second Bivision are called up for active service, unless the Government takes prompt measures to deal with the alien question. Time and again the attention of the Government has been called to the fact that while men are being called from their farms to go and fight, numbers of aliens are coming into Taranaki and securing farms or demanding high rates of pay for labor on farms. Instead of improving, the position is getting worse. Labor must be obtained if the dairy farms are to be worked, and as New /ealand-born labor is becomuig, necessarily, increasingly difficult to secure, recourse must be made to aliens. The danger of employing this type of labor is exemplified in the case in point, and it is a danger that before now has been pointed out to Ministers. Now, the point is, why does not the Government do something to control aliens? It cannot, of course, intern them as it can enemy aliens, though the most dangerous of the latter have their full liberty, mainly because of the influence that they can bring to bear on the powers that be; but surely the Government should be able to devise means for profitably utilising their labor. It is monstrous that while our own people are made to bear severe loss and make severe .sacrifices, an alien element is able to exploit those who remain at home, and even take advantage of the absence of the

men folk to make improper advances to the women. If this i.3 possible now, what will happen later when all the lit married men arc called up? . Have not' the Second Division reservists the right to ask that the (lovenimcnt lake prompt measures to put aliens 011 some footing of equality ao far as sacrifice is concerned? This is the point. Aliens are enjoying all the rights and privileges we as a free people have by great sacrifices in the past obtained, and which we to-day are fighting to maintain. This being SO, is it not a fairHliing that if international law prevents them being called up to assist in fighting for the principles that are the bulwark of our Umpire, and, indeed, of civilisation, they should be asked to do their duty by the country of their adoption by assisting in the necessary work of production of foodstufls, at the same rate of pay and under the same conditions as apply to the men who are called upon to fight? We do not suggest that all our SViss colonists are of the same blackguardly stamp as the man mentioned, for many of them are citizens of which Taranaki has every reason to be proud, but it is a fact that many of the new arrivals are out to take advantage of the necessities of the settlers, and unless something i s done by the Government, it is conceivable that before very long miH .h of the best country in Taranaki will be in the lands of these aliens, whose loyalty to e country of their adoption is, unlike