FOUR STOWAWAYS IN AWATEA

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 145, 15 March 1939, Page 10

FOUR STOWAWAYS IN AWATEA

Comment On Growing Number Of Cases By Telegraph—Press Association. - AUCKLAND, March 14. Four stowaways were handed into police custody this morning when the Awatea berthed at Auckland from Sydney. Two were New Zealanders, and all' were admitted to probation by Mr. C. R. Orr Walker, SAI., when they subsequently appeared before him in the Magistrates’ Court. The men were Maurice George Meason, aged 35, bootmaker and confectioner, Sydney; Hugh Gillies, aged 39, mechanic fitter, Sydney; John Abler Anderson, aged 24, labourer, Takanini; and Cecil Charles Butterworth, aged 26, New Plymouth. Each pleaded guilty to a charge of stowing away. Senior-Sergeant Calwell and the purser of the Awatea both stressed that the offence of stowing away was becoming serious, no fewer than 12 men having been arrested lor stowing away within the last month. The magistrate remarked that the offence was becoming far too common, aud in some cases men with criminal records or tendencies were getting into the country.

“I think 1 will try a new way of dealing with these cases,” he added. "If I send you men to prison you will only be a charge upon the State when you' come out. You will each be admitted to probation for 12 months and ordered to pay £9, which is the amount of the fare, within three months. Probation will be in the interests of the country, for if will have the efleet of keeping you all under supervision for a period. If it is found that probation encourages the offence, then imprisonment will have to be imposed.”