CONTRACT LABOR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XII, Issue 1069, 10 December 1903, Page 2

CONTRACT LABOR.

AMERICA EXPELB A NEW ZEALANDER,

Per Press Association. Auckland, last night. Kenneth Harper, until reoently a clerk in tho Bank of New Zealand at Dunedin, was brought back from the United States by the b.b. Sonoma. He informed an interviewer that in August last he was appointed to a position in a San Francisco bank. On arrival he was informed hdwas prohibited from landing by the contract labor law. , Tho bank appealed to Washington, but the Custom House decision was upheld. Harpor vyas informed that ho must yplgrp to the colony whenpe ho came, The bank proposed to transfer him to their Vanoou. ver branch, but the authorities insistod on tho observance of the strict law. The Oceanic Company was required to bring him back to New Zealand free of charge, the Customs officials carefully seeing him on board. .

At Honolulu Harper was removed from the steamer, and refusing to enter a prison van was marched to gaol and kept in detention in a yard with a large number of Chinese and Japanese prisoners until the time of the steamer's departure, when he was again placed on board. Mr Harper leaves Aqojslanfl at the end of the juons to talje the position in Vancouver, vyhiqh ip still open to him. It is understood that the. Jaw, whioh was rigidly enforced in Harper’s case,, is one passed principally with the object"of preventing large crowds of undesirable persons from being taken into the States uadf% contract with employers, to the detriment of the American workman. The law, however, seems to have been made to apply to all classes of labor, and the case under notice is one result of it. It would peetg to bp an arbitrary eqfqrpetijent of tbo ijta'iufce.'-'-'