ALIEN CRIMINALS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3273, 19 July 1911, Page 7

ALIEN CRIMINALS.

The Alien Criminal Bill, which has been before the House of Commons, will, it is to be hoped, do a good deal to rid Great Britain of alien criminals. It was supposed that the Alien Act passed by the last Tory Government would remedy the evil, but though it has done some good it has done a great deal less than was hoped. England still continues to grant hospitality to immense numbers of aliens even after they have been convicted of crime. Lax administration has undoubtedly been to blame in some measure for the failure of the Act to come up to the expectations of its sponsors, but what has been chiefly at fault is the remissness of the courts. As the law stands, an alien criminal can only be deported when a court sends up a recommendation to that effect to the Home Secretary; and the courts have been very chary, especially outside the metropolis, in making recommendations for deportation. In London only 28 per cent, of convicted aliens, and in the rest of England and Wales only 9 per cent., were in 1909 recommended fo rexpulsion. Why the judges or magistrates should thus have decided, in effect, that ninety-one (or seventy-two in . London) out of every 100 were fit and proper persons to continue in enjoyment of English hospitality, it is impossible to say. Perhaps they forgot-the provisions of the Act. Whatever the cause of such remissness, Mr. Churchill’s'Bill will supply a remedy. It reverses the procedure. The existing law says: “No expulsion unless special cause is shown for it.” The new Bill says: “Expulsion, unless special cause is shown against it.” The courts are to treat deportation as the rule, not as the exception, and will .be required to send up explanations in any case where for special reasons they do not recommend it. The Bill further increases the penalties for disobeying a deportation order. An alien returning to this country after expulsion will be liable to a year’s imprisonment, and to two years for a second offence. At present the penalty is three months and six months respectively. Other clauses in the Bill are directly inspired by “Sydney Street.” To rid the country of an alien who by perpetration of crime has abused its hospitality is an obvious piece of policy; but can anything be done to prevent crime by aliens? This is the question Mr. Churchill’s Bill attempts to solve. Recent experience has proved the presence in our midst of aliens who, Avhatever the reason of their settlement in this euontry may be, pursue in fact a life of professional crime, and in the course of it do not hesitate to shoot. To stop them at the port of entry is probably an impossibility. But Mr. Churchill thinks that much else can be done. He proposes to give the police power to treat aliens as “suspects,” and on complaint being made to that effect to authorise the court to require the suspected alien to find sureties for good behaviour, failing which he may be expelled. Further, an alien is not to be allowed Without special permission to carry or possess a pistol, and the police are to have the power, upon a magistrate’s warrant, to search for ' arms where there is reasonable grounds for believing that ah . offence under the Bill is being committed. — London correspondent.