§ MR. FELL (Great Yarmouth)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that 620 alien pauper lunatics are now in the asylums of the London County Council, and that interpreters have to be provided for them, as they are mostly Russian Jews; and will he say how these aliens came to be admitted under the Aliens Act, and whether there is power to send them back to their country of origin.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I have made inquiry of the Asylums Committee, and I am informed that there were on the 15th instant in London County asylums 614 alien pauper lunatics, of whom 167, or slightly over a quarter, were Russian Jews. The hon. Member's suggestion that these aliens were admitted under the Aliens Act seems to be un- founded. As regards 431 of them, the date of their admission to an asylum, not to mention that of their arrival in this country, is prior to 1st January, 1906, the date on which the Aliens Act came into operation. Of the 183 whose admission to an asylum took place since 1st January, 1906, 112 are known to have been in this country before that date, and only sixteen are known to have arrived since. As regards these latter, I have no information to show that they were insane on arrival. As regards the removal of these aliens from this country, if a certificate is obtained from the Court older Section 3(1)(b) of the Act on proceedings taken within twelve months of arrival, and is submitted to me, I have power to make an expulsion order under which the alien may be sent back to his own country. Advantage is taken of this power in all proper cases.