§ MR. HAY (Shoreditch, Hoxton)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware of the fact that of 1,069 prisoners tried at the North London Sessions between July and December, 1901, 164 (or approximately 15 per cent) were foreigners, most of whom were convicted of offences such as burglary and stabbing, and many of whom appear to have followed a career of crime or to have been known as bad characters in their own countries; and whether, having regard to the fact, as appears from the Census Returns recently issued, that the proportion of foreigners so convicted to the number of foreigners in the County of London is approximately six times as great as the proportion of British subject so convicted to the number of British subjects in the County of London, he is prepared to take measures to prevent foreign criminals arriving in the United Kingdom.
§ * MR. RITCHIEI cannot say anything as to the accuracy of the figures cited by the hon. Member, but as an inquiry is to be held into the whole question of foreign immigration, no doubt the statistics bearing on it will be duly investigated.