ENEMY ALIEN ACT.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 December 1918, Page 7

ENEMY ALIEN ACT.

ITS RESSTRICTED DEFINITION. In reply to the previous resolution in regard to enemy aliens of the Taranaki executive of the Farmers' Union, the Premier forwarded the proposed Act dealing with this matter. At the meeting on Thursday, Mr. Buckeridge gave a resume of the Act and the amendments that were finally made to it.

Mr. Maxwell moved that the executive express its regret that the definition of a person of enemy origin was so restricted, and feared that the Act as amended would not now be the means of effecting what the executive desired. Mr. Astbury: How far would you have gone!

Mr. Maxwell: Full enemy blood. If a man had only half-blood one did not know what his nature might be, but there was a very general feeling that the sooner all full-blooded enemy aliens got out of the country {lie better Mr Astbury remarked that lie knew lads, sons of full-blooded enemy people, who were born in New Zealand and spent their whole existence here, and he would question any doubt thrown upon their loyalty He believed they would be just as loyal to the British flag as any other lads, and these were the boys whom the Act, based on the definition suggested by Mr Maxwell, would hit

Mr. Maxwell did not believe that any full-blooded enemy alien could be loyal to the British flag. Mr. Astbury further pointed out that the boys he had in mind had been reared in English State schools, and their whole environment and associations would have an influence on 'their nature

Mr. Maxwell: If a son tff any of us went to Germany hnd lived there for a number of years, would we even then expect him to be a loyal German and supporter of their flag against our 3? Continuing, Mr. Maxwell said that national sentiment lived for a very long time. It was not a question of one life only, but of tens of generations. The motion was carried.—<St&r.