ASIATIC PENETRATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 188, 29 October 1927, Page 9

ASIATIC PENETRATION

Trespassing Chinese Abuse Temporary Permit System NET CAST FOR STRAGGLERS r s l o imperturbable Leong Kwok, wearing a face like a mask, i his two years- in New Zealand were worth much more than the All 4 he was fined in the Auckland Police Court. Like one hundred of his countrymen, for whom police and customs officials are casting a comprehensive drag-net. Leong Kwok likes New Zealand.

A CTUALLY the round-up now in progress is the suspicion that a sinister system may lie behind the persistence with which Chinese, admitted under temporary permits, endeavour to overstay their authorised period in New Zealand. Every time a wealthy Chinese citizen steps out Irom the body of a Magistrate’s Court, to pay the fine of a benighted compatriot, observers nourish the thought that the apparent charity may be something more than a choice sample of Celestial philanthropy. The fear of an organised effort to plant Chinese into New Zealand, where living conditions are so infinitely easier than on the banks of the Yangtse, and where cheap labour helps in commercial competition, has been aroused by the recent revelations in Australia. From a Dutch steamer exhausted Chinese were smuggled ashore at Cremorne, Sydney, and the frustration of the plot led to the startling discovery of other illicit cargo carried to Western Australia by a second merchantman from the Netherlands.

PASSENGERS FROM AUSTRALIA Here in New Zealand no such alarming contraband has been found, nor is its presence yet suspected. Chinese come to New Zealand as steerage passengers on Union or Hud-dart-Parker steamers, and not as emaciated wrecks concealed in bunkers or ballast tanks. Their permits to land are granted under the system which denies to no alien, whatever his nationality, the privilege of spending six months in the Dominion. Having advanced the shallow pretext that they are here on holiday, or to visit relatives, the temporary immigrants pay a bond of £lO, and contract to leave the country after six months. It is a pact honoured often in the breach. The tourists are next found working 16 hours a day in a suburban market garden, and by the end of the six months they have generally contrived to lose themselves in a Chinese community which, to the average New Zealander, presents a baffling lack of distinguishing individual characteristics. The six months up, and the £lO unredeemed, the Customs Office writes to the vanished Celestial. Two letters are sent, and generally

go unanswered, and the next step is the issue of a warrant for arrest. A Chinese living in Hastings heard that there was a warrant out against him, and came hurriedly north to give himself up. Another man came from Hamilton to surrender, but these are exceptions. The inscrutable Chinese can usually shelter behind his national characteristics, one of which is a capacity to remain unruffled under examination by officials. EASILY LOST New Zealand’s Chinese population is now 3,500, and individuals are not easy to trace. One man wanted for opium-smoking, not arrested until this year. For a time, at least, the man • his permit can escape discovery or detection, but fines will become heavier as the warnings are ignored. Responsible members of the Chinese community claim to be trying to help with the round up of lingering holiday-makers, and as the settled Chinese is a good citizen, their assurances carry weight. Not only with the Celestial. of course, is the Dominion having trouble. An occasional Indian or Jugoslav may figure in pending prosecutions, but the proportion will be negligible. Chinese in the Dominions have been a problem for 50 years. They were first taxed in ISSI. when there were already 5,000 in the country, a figure that caused many politicians such uneasiness that they wanted to give each Chinaman £IOO to clear out. Not only is a poll tax of £IOO now applied, but a definite limitation restricts the number who can enter the country. Next week (on November 1) new legislation will introduce a system by which every Chinese who enters the country, whether temporarily or permanently, must be sponsored by a guarantor for any hospital, court, or deportation fees incurred through his presence. Thus is the yellow influx to be discouraged, but in the meantime the primary problem is to get rid of the trespassers still in New Zealand, and of these over one hundred are believed to be in the vicinity of Auckland.