WORK OF TRIBUNALS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 December 1939, Page 3

WORK OF TRIBUNALS

DEALING WITH ENEMY ALIENS. ENTIRELY NEW PROBLEM. The 102 tribunals set up in England to deal with enemy aliens are tackling an entirely new problem. In 1914 every German man in the United Kingdom was a potential enemy simply because he was a German and was liable lor military service in Germany.

Today it is roughly estimated that 90 per cent of the 40.000 Germans and Austrians in Britain are refugees, and the bulk of them have left Germany because they were oppressed by the Nazi regime and have even less reason than British people for wishing the Nazis well. The tribunals, therefore, have a double job: to say whether the people brought before them are dangerous to Britain and. if not, whether they can be useful to Britain. The central organisation which represents all the refugee bodies has appointed a liaison officer who provides the tribunals with all the information it possesses about each of the refugees. The refugees who pass the tribunal get a registration card, and it is then for the Minister of Labour to say whether and how they shall be employed. They include very highly trained specialists in every branch of science and industry.