INTERNING ENEMY ALIENS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1940, Page 9

INTERNING ENEMY ALIENS

GREAT CHANGE IN OPINION. There has been a great change in public opinion in Great Britain recently on the necessity to intern the great majority of aliens. “The Economist” says:—There can be no standing on ceremony when the nation is in daily peril, and the Government’s new powers to intern all enemy aliens and restrict the movement of other foreigners will be opposed by none. There is no question of persecution or the setting up of penal camps on • Nazi linos. It is still true that a distinguishing mark between us and the Germans is in our treatment of minorities. Probably the very large majority of the Germans and' 1 Austrians in Britain are our friends and Hitler's savages foes. If so, they will show their friendship by going willingly into restraint, comfortable but complete. We can take no chances at all now and wholesale internment will be protective custody for the genuine refugees themselves as well as for us. Far more difficult is the problem of our own nationals. In Norway and Holland the cruellest blows were struck by Norwegians and Dutch-' men. Here the worst Quislings wil\ have British names and British an-', cestry, and it should not be hard to pick out the most likely saboteurs. The hardest task is to mark down the silent traitors, though enough is known about Fifth Column publicity and enemy associations before the war to provide the material for ruthless surveillance and a large-scale combingout. Power now exists to detain British subjects with little or no proven British association.