INFLOW OF ALIENS

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20513, 1 June 1938, Page 8

INFLOW OF ALIENS

PERTURBATION IN BRITAIN EVIDENCE OF SMUGGLING IN (Times Air Mall Service) LONDON. AprJl 16 Home Office officials are perturbed about the number of foreigners who are landing - in England without permission, says the staff reporter of the Dally Express. An Immigration officer giving evidence at Grays ( Essex) Police Court in the case of a German said that there were far too many such cases, and he added—“lt is suspected that many foreigners stow* away in small boats. In many cases we have no check on them at all. The Home Office regard it as a serious matter.” Before the court was Otto Witt, aged 46. described as a Hamburg business man, who was arrested when trying to get into Tilbury Docks. He had no passport and 6aid he wanted to 6ee a friend on a Danish ship. No one in the Danish ship knew him, however. He said he had landed at Harwich, but the authorities there had no trace of him. Smuggled Over An official said to me yesterday: “We know that there have been a number of foreigners landed here In the last few months, but we have been unable to discover exactly how they got in. "There is reason to believe that some of them are smuggled across the Channel in motor boals, apart from those who stow away in crossChannel boats. "Attempts are made from time to time by passengers on day trips from France to land here by means of forged identity coupons—Frenchmen, Italians and Belgians require no passports on these day-trips—but only occasionally do they get through.”