CHINESE SMUGGLED INTO AMERICA.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9341, 9 January 1909, Page 8

CHINESE SMUGGLED INTO AMERICA.

GOVERNMENT SMASHES RING. The continued leak of Chinese into the United States by way of , Mexico has grown to such proportions (writes the San Francisco corespondent of the Melbourne Age) that the Federal Government has practically reorganised the immigration bureau on the Pacific coast, 1 discharging a number of officials and limiting the territory covered by others. Itpas transpired that a regular business is made of smuggling Chinese over the border into California from Mexico, and that a number of Government employees were in the ring. At least 5000 are. believed to have been thns bronght into the country within the last two years. The traffic has proved very profitable to those engaged in it. The price for delivering a Chinese safely at Los Angelos, in Southern Oaliforp'l 'was £55, and for delivering east as New York the rate was £IOO. One of the men dismissed from the service was John Canfield, an inspector in charge of t.he border line between Mexico and Southern California. Canfield was a prominent member of the smuggling ring, bnt he managed the matter with consummate craft. No suspicion attached to him until recently, for the reason that he was actually capturing more Chinese than inspector. His record was thought to be the very highest on this account. It now appears, however, that very many of the Chinese “captured” by Canfield were men who were anxious to re - tarn to China, and permitted themselves to be taken, so as to be provided with free transportation back to their native land. Under the very

mild immigration law no punishment can be imposed upon a Chinese caught while endeavouring to sneak into the country. All that happens to him is that he is shipped back to China at the expense of the American Government. As the Chinese whom Canfield thus “caught” doubtless paid him for his .kindness, he had a double source of dishonest income, and found the traffic immensely profitable. A proposal is now being discussed to punish Chinese caught trying to smuggle into the country by putting thorn to enforced labour without pay for two years, deporting them at the end of that term. The ring of smugglers had become so bold before the Government broke it that arrangement? had been perfected to make a half-station, so to speak, of the island of San Nicholas, about 25 miles off the coast, below Los Angelos, The plan was to form a sohooljon the island for the inatrucion of Chinese in English. The raw Chinese were to be coached into apparent familiarity with American ways and talk. Ihan in batches of five and sis they were to be taken to the mainland in fishermen’s boats,, The fapt tbat the Mesican Government enoonrages Chinese labour makes it necessary that constant watchfulness be maintained by the United States Government. The Mexican authorities make no endeavour to keep the Chinese out of their country.