Wily Chinamen

Horowhenua Chronicle, 10 August 1911, Page 4

Wily Chinamen

Another instance of the ways of the wily Chinese, attracted by their countrymen's .glowing accounts of Australia, and anxious to reach the 'haven of plenty, has been revealed by the Federal Department of External Affairs. The Acting-Minister has four photographs identical in appearance, but yet of four different men. There were Chinese who had attempted to get into the Commonwealth on exemption letters granted to others. Each Chinese was decked in similar garb, and wore the habitual bland expression which makes it; so difficult for the Customs officers to distinguish one from another. According to evidence collected by the Customs Department, arid, hacked by the disclosures made at the recent .inquiry-in Western Ansralia, several gangs are at work on Ghina trying to pass excluded aliens into the Commonwealth. One of the methods is to huy exemption letters of returned Commonwealth residents and substitute other photographs for , those . pasted on the letters. The Hong Kong gang appears to be particularly enterprising. A photographer there keeps «a large stock of European clothing, and as far as possible. Europennises the Chinese before despatching them to Australia with .transferred letters of exemption. The four Chinese in question swore on arrival that the phoographs sliown on their letters had been, taken by a. Townsville photographer, whose, name they had been taught. But the protographor denied this completely. The Customs Department is going to greater pains than ever now in its examination of Chinese who 'bring letters of exemption to the Commonwealth.