Any person who enters the Commonwealth may be required within one year to pass the dictation test, and failing be deemed a prohibitive inmigrant. An immigrant failing on the dictation test and deemed fit by an officer may be admitted by depositing security of £100 sterling, but subject to the requirement of obtaining within thirty days an official certificate of exemption or of leaving the Commonwealth. The deposit will be forfeited for violation. Prohibited immigrants found within the Commonwealth in evasion or contravention of the law will be liable upon conviction to imprisonment and deportation.

Any person not a British subject convicted of any crime of violence against the person after serving sentence may be subjected to the dictation test and to expulsion on failing to pass.

CONTRACT IMMIGRANTS.

The act of 1905 regulates the status of immigrants under contract to perform manual labor in the Commonwealth. Unless otherwise prohibited by law, immigrants may land if the contract is in writing, made in the interest of a specified resident, and approved by the minister of external affairs. The minister will approve the contract when a certified copy is filed with him if it is not made to affect a labor dispute, if difficult to secure a resident worker of equal skill and ability, if its wages equal those current in the place of performance, and if the contract embodies a statement of these specific limitations of law.

If the immigrant lands before the contract is approved it becomes void; the immigrant and employer are subject to a penalty; and the immigrant may elect to demand of the employer a specified sum, not over £50, for his expenses until employed or for his return passage. The employer will be subject also to a penalty for any false representation misleading the immigrant to his detriment.

The application of the dictation or literacy test above referred to is not compulsory under the Australian law, and as a matter of fact it is imposed on only a small per cent of the immigrants, the records showing that of the 391,207 immigrants admitted to Australia from 1902 to 1908, inclusive, only 57 were subjected to it. It is provided that the test shall be in some European language, but it is seldom, if ever, applied to Europeans, its purpose being mainly the exclusion of Chinese and other Asiatics.

From 1902 to 1907, inclusive, 1,143 immigrants were refused admission to Australia, the number in each year being as follows:"

Only the total number of rejections is known for the year 1906, but of the 1,090 persons rejected in the other years mentioned 746 were Chinese, all of whom were refused admission because of failure to pass the dictation test. Immigrants are rarely rejected for any other cause, the distribution of the 1,090 rejections above considered being as follows: Failure to pass dictation test, 1,034; likely to become a public charge, 50; insanity, 5; criminality, 1.

a Compiled from Parliamentary Papers of Australia.

CHINESE IMMIGRATION.

There were Chinese in Queensland as early as 1848, but the number of that race in all the Australian colonies was inconsiderable prior to the rush to the Victoria gold fields in 1851. The influx of Chinese at that time was the immediate cause of the adoption by all the colonies of a policy of Chinese exclusion which, with a greater or less degree of effectiveness, has continued ever since. Several methods of exclusion were tried, and finally the dictation test, previously referred to, was adopted by the colonies, and, as before shown, was incorporated in the immigration law of the Commonwealth following the federation in 1901. It appears that the law is not directed solely against the Chinese but against other Asiatics as well.

Asiatics, however, are not entirely excluded from Australia, for, according to the records, 8,768 Chinese, 3,224 Japanese, 2,641 Malays, and 2,165 other Asiatics, were admitted from 1902 to 1908, inclusive."

a The Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, No. 2, 1901-1908, p. 1106.

PART III. NEW ZEALAND.

From 1901 to 1908, inclusive, 271,890 immigrants were admitted to New Zealand. Of these, 76.2 per cent came from the commonwealth of Australia, 17.2 per cent from the United Kingdom, and 6.6 per cent from all other countries. The "net immigration" for that period, however, was only 78,285, owing to the comparatively large number of persons who emigrated from the Dominion to Australia and elsewhere. This is illustrative of the fact that the immigration and emigration movement in Australasia is largely intercolonial.

It is recorded that prior to 1891 more than 115,000 immigrants had been brought to New Zealand wholly or partly at state expense." The practice of directly assisting immigration was discontinued by New Zealand in 1890, but the government still continues to arrange with shipping companies for reduced fares for desirable settlers."

THE NEW ZEALAND IMMIGRATION LAW.

In 1899 New Zealand enacted a law designed to exclude undesirable immigrants. This act provides that it shall be unlawful for any persons included within the meaning of "prohibited immigrant land in the territory of New Zealand.

PROHIBITED IMMIGRANTS.

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A "prohibited immigrant" is defined to be any idiot or insane person; any person afflicted with a dangerous or loathsome contagious disease; any person arriving in New Zealand within two years after the termination of any imprisonment for an offense, not of a political nature, punishable in New Zealand by death or imprisonment for two or more years, and to whom no pardon was granted; or any person unwilling or unable and failing to write and sign in any European language an application for admission in the prescribed form, provided he shall have the right of final appeal to a magistrate.

EXCEPTIONS.

Any person not diseased, criminal, insane, or an idiot, appearing to be a "prohibited immigrant," may lawfully land on condition that he deposit in advance, with an agent of the Government, the sum of £100 sterling, and obtain, within fourteen days, an official certificate of exemption from the prohibition of the law. Upon specific compliance with these regulations the deposit will be refunded, but in the absence of such compliance the deposit will be forfeited to the State as payment of the fine for landing as a prohibited immigrant.

• The Seven Colonies of Australasia, 1901-2, p. 535.
New Zealand Official Year Book, 1907, p. 125.

PENALTY.

Every "prohibited immigrant" unlawfully landing in New Zealand is liable to a penalty of £100, removal from the State, and detention in prison or custody, not less than six months, pending removal from the country. Upon payment of £100 or upon securing two sureties of £50 each that he will leave the State within one month, he will be released from detention.

LIABILITY.

If "prohibited immigrants" are transhipped from one vessel to another for the purpose of bringing them to New Zealand, both vessels will be liable to the prescribed penalty, and all vessels may be detained in port until the penalties imposed are paid.

RIGHTS AFTER CONVICTION.

Upon conviction of any prohibited immigrant, and after a fine has been imposed, the court may order the time of payment extended to a period of three months, with sufficient security.

REMOVAL.

For the removal of such immigrant a contract may be made for passage to the nearest port to his own country or to his original home; and, if destitute, sufficient money shall be supplied him for maintenance during thirty days after the end of his voyage.

THIRD PERSONS.

Every person is liable to a penalty of not over £100 who wilfully assists in any evasion or contravention of the law. And in addition to other penalties any person wilfully assisting an idiot or insane person to enter New Zealand shall be liable for the cost of maintenance of such person while in the State.

CHINESE EXCLUSION.

In common with Australia, New Zealand has experienced a Chinese immigration problem, and in 1907 the Dominion parliament enacted a law which provides "that any Chinese proposing to land in the Dominion shall be able to read a prescribed passage of not more than 100 words in the English language."