A WILD TOWNSHIP.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 September 1924, Page 1

A WILD TOWNSHIP.

PROBLEMS OF 'HIE “OUT BACK.’ SYDNEY, Aug. 28.

For ;i long time things had been going Irom had to worse tit, the wild little North Queensland township of Banyan—supposed to he “dry” in the sense in which the word is understood in liquor parlance, as it is without question in the climatic sense—hut a crisis came hist week, when it spiritmaddened resident raced up and down the main road terrifying the inhabitants with shot after shot, from an automat 1c pistol. Suspected sly-grng shanties were raided and several guilty purveyors of spirits were hailed to the Court at Innisi'ail. . And the evidence there showed what things can come to when the wild characters who gather in some of the remote and isolated townships determine to run things in their own wav and are not held suHicieiitlv in cheek owing to the diliiculty of thoroughly policing the vast territories of Australia. The .Magistrate had giovn severe warnings to wrong-doers from the notorious hide township. And now he would listen to no appeal for leniency in the form of a fine instead of imprisonment. “To prison they must go,” ho declared, and “sent tilling” the grogsellnrs for periods ranging from three to six mouths’ imprisonment.

"Banyan,” declared ATr O’Kelly, the .Magistrate, “is an isolated locality, and it has been a veritable cancer on industrial peace ever since I have known the place. There is a type of men down there of the extremist element, who do not require any grog to make them attempt to break the law, as they have done in the past. There are individuals there who want to Like the reins of law and order in their own hands—men who want to run any particular way. Appeals have lii'cii addressed to me in the past, and 1 have actually been inlormei! that a certain notorious gang at Banyan used to iqii'n ulial they i ailed a Court down (111. r, It i : Ml, b, I i'!l" that hot It tbe police and the Poll'. Mn;-i Irate look a firm, stand in eonnexioii with eertaill matters in that particular locality. This trouble is largely attributed to sly-grng. I have been repeatedly Spoken to by officials of the Australian Workers' Union about the enormous amount of harm that is being done to workers in that district, also to men on the railway line, through this pernicious sly-grng selling. I must remember that my duty to the public is to try to rid this district of the evils of sK-grog. If I cunnnf wipe it out, I shall do so as far as Hje law allows me to do so. 1 have repeatedly warned people if they come before me for this oll'cnce they arc likely to get the fall penalty of the law. It. has been said, in spite ol all tlie warnings that have heen given, and the prosecutions, that have taken place in the past, that 1 I or 12 sly-grng shanties still exist in the Banyan areas. It is the shucking happenings tlmfc have taken place at Banyan which prompt me to impose imprisonment 111 these cases. Madness and orgies have characterised Ban van in the past, hut I can tell the people who have been responsible lor these tilings that they will have to fall into line with other places, and keep the law, and behave as any decent British community behaves.”