GERMAN NATIONALS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 May 1940, Page 5

GERMAN NATIONALS

GENERAL INTERNMENT URGED

POSITION OF REFUGEE DOCTORS. VIEWS OF HOSPITAL BOARD CHAIRMAN. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, May 15. Application was "made recently to the authorities for the release of a young German X-ray expert, now on Somes Island, on the ground that his services were essential to the Auckland Hospital. Mr Allan J. Moody, chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, said tonight that he had told the police that in no circumstances would he have the man near the hospital, and that the person who supported his plea for release had falsely represented the facts. “I think the time has come when every German national should be interned at once,” Mr Moody added. “The Government should know that the responsible section of the community is greatly concerned about the large number of Germans, who are at present free and who .may be, possibly will be, a potential source of danger at any moment. “One appreciates, of course, the difficulties, but unless the public wakes up now it may possibly be too late.” Under no circumstances would he employ German, doctors on the staff of the Auckland Hospital, he continued.

Upon the subject of German doctors now in this country, he said: “It seems to me to be monstrously unfair that these men should be allowed to practice in New Zealand, when our own flesh and blood are taking up arms to make the position of refugee doctors safer and more secure in the future. It is going to be bad, too, on our own doctors who have enlisted, when they come back and find their practices in the hands of refugees. I understand there are at least 13 refugee doctor’ going through their course in Dunedin at present. I can only hope and trust the public will awaken to the position. One would not like to contemplate what would happen to British subjects in Germany now. “I am not making any suggestions against their bona fides, but in time of war and stress safety first should be the motto of everyone.” , Mr Moody said he made those comments, not in any spirit of criticism of the Government or its officials, but that it might strengthen their hands. What he had said was nothing more than what was being freely expressed on every hand in Auckland. As far as the interned German X-ray expert was .concerned, he was not wanted, nor would the hospital have anything to do with him. The hospital was equipped with British apparatus capable of doing all that was required of it, and the board’s policy was “British goods first.” No enemy alien would find employment at the hospital.