THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1909. THE UNDESIRABLE ALIEN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3116, 16 February 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1909. THE UNDESIRABLE ALIEN.

There has never been a time in the history of the world when population underwent such a shifting from one f country to another as at present. In Europe one stream, starting in Russia, is setting eastwards steadily tD Siberia, that huge and fertile province which is larger in area than Europe itself, and which is now being rapidly settled with Russians destined to supply the armies of the Czar with \ human war material for use against a possible foe from Eastern Asia. Another and a far larger stream sets westward, sweeping more than 1,000,000 emigrants a year from Europe across the Atlantic to the Two Americas.

Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia head the list, and between them

make up nearly three-fourths of the total number of trans-Atlantic homeseekers. But a percentage of those who leave their native places in Eastern, Southern, and Central Europe do not cross the ocean. They merely cross the English Channel and make their way to London, desiring to share in the liberty and prosperity of the fortunate English who have received so many thousands cf aliens in the past without asking questions, and vho have recently bpen so rudely awakened to the dangers that they run. Kussian brigands running amok from Tottenham to Walthamstow and punctuating their course with pistol shots, ha"e ruuaed the Londoners to ask themselves why they admitted such desperate villains into their community, and whether something cannot be done to prevent the recurrence of such an untoward incident. When the last census was taken there W2ra 141,000 foreigners residing in London. That is to say, 29.84 per 1000 of the population were foreigners. There are many foreigners in England who are above suspicion and who are cordially welcomed as members of the public, because they constitute a source of either intellectual or industrial

strength to the community. But there are others who are not above suspicion, who keep the police constantly busy, and who occasionally introduce methods which they have adopted under the iron rule of an unsympathetic despotism intD a country which has manhood suffrage, responsible government, and a fres press. How is this danger to be dealt with? That is the problem. How in London to preserve its reputation as a city of refuge for the | political ideal st while at the same time protecting itself against rhe imported brigand and homicide? The clamorous demand which has been made for some effective restrictions seems to show that the exclusion of the unfit is at last being recognised as a sound maxim Dy Londoners. The coroner's jury at the Tottenham inquest pointed oat to the Home Secretary the pressing danger which the citizens incur through what "The Times" calls "the facile entry of alien degenerates"; an ex-chief Commissioner of Police has urged that severe measures should be taken with aliens of the criminal type, and the daily press has thundered for reforms. But it is only a lictle more than three years since the imperial Parliament passed that piece of legislation known us the Aliens Act, 1905, which was expressly designed to prohibit the inj trusion ut undesirable immigrants.

Foreign lunatics, paupers, and persons actually convicted of an extradiction crime within the msaning of the Extradiction Act vverj carefully prohibited by the new legislation, tut it was expressly provided in the measure that no immigrant should be excluded who sought admission to the United Kingdom in order to avoid prosecution or punishment for "an offence of a political character," even if he had no visible means of support and was likely.to become a charge on the rates. The law-ab'ding alien pauper was expressly prohibited but the pauper who was "wanted" in his own country for an offence of a political acter was welcomed with open anas. The desperate exploit of Hefeld and Jacob is likely to lead to an amendment of the Aliens Act, 1905, but thejmost useful lessorf to be drawn from it may not improbably be the lesson of increased stringency of supervision overall the foreign im'n.igrants. It should not be difficult for the pJice to classify them with tolerable accuracy. Political idealists may safely be let alone so long as they confine themselves to the propagation of ideas. But the bomb-mak-ing, ievolver-carrying politician must be rigorously discouraged, and happily the existing Act gives the Government power to expel any alien, authority being vested in the Home Secretary to decide whether the individual deserves expulsion. The other nations of Europe will breathe more freely if definite measures are adoptee} in England to clip the .wings ot the Anarchists the political assassins, and the homicidal alien cranks who have hitherto found a haven of refuge in London so long as they abstained from acts of violence on British soil.