§ SIR W. EVANS-GORDONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether aliens who support the plea of being political refugees by statements that they have been personally concerned in and guilty of murderous outrages abroad have been given, and are for the future to be given, permission to land and reside in this country.
§ SIR HOWARD VINCENTAt the same time may I ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to a recent case at Bow Street Police Court, where the Russian prisoner admitted that, although indigent, ailing, and otherwise undesirable as an immigrant, he had gained admission to this country by alleging that he was a confederate of the revolutionaries who, in recent months, have committed upwards 1423 of 3,000 murders in Russia, and was consequently a refugee from justice; and if he will direct immigration officers and immigration boards that all assertions of political refugeeship by destitute immigrants, or those suffering from trachoma, tuberculosis, syphilis, and other contagious diseases must be scrupulously verified prior to acceptance, and that no participation in outrages involving human life be accepted as constituting a claim to the hospitality of Great Britain, in accordance with the Parliamentary declarations of his predecessor, the late Sir William Vernon Harcourt, on 6th May, 1881.
§ * THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE, Leeds, W.)The first part of the Question put by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Sheffield relates to an extradition charge against one Zingar at Bow Street, which was a matter entirely for the Court. I am informed that when the man appeared before the Immigration Board at Grimsby he was admitted as a political refugee because he was believed to be in special danger if returned. An immigrant cannot claim to be admitted as a political refugee if he is suffering from diseases likely to render him a detriment to the public. As regards the statement made in this House by Sir William Harcourt in 1881, I am in full agreement with it. I think I shall have the full concurrence of the House in saying that proved participation in outrages involving human life cannot be accepted in itself as constituting a claim to the hospitality of Great Britain.
SIR GILBERT PARKERasked whether it was not a fact that Zingar assigned as a reason for desiring admission to this country that he was charged with committing crime.
§ * Mr. GLADSTONEThat is not the information I have received from the Immigration Board.