UNEMPLOYED TRICKED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 365, 28 May 1928, Page 16

UNEMPLOYED TRICKED

PLAUSIBLE STORY OF WORK IPI^NELSON PARTY OF TEN STRANDED Press Association NELSON, Sunday. Details have been revealed of an alleged confidence trick by which a number of unemployed were induced to part with their last few pounds in the hope of finding work at a 2,000-acre farm in the Nelson district. Some of the men involved say that about three months ago an advertisement calling for a business agent was put in the Wellington papers. The successful applicant set about engaging the 150 men which his employer, a woman, said she required. There were many applications, but when it was found that money was required most of those who applied were forced to drop out. Tlie woman said she wanted the men to develop a 2,000-acre mining and timber-growing property. She said there was plenty of gold waiting to be mined, in addition to timber-cutting for firewood and posts. She also wished to construct roads to and through the property. The tale was very plausibly told, and some of the applicants who had a few pounds to spare eagerly accepted the easy conditions offered. The woman asked for £3 for each applicant’s fare to the farm, plus £3 for a fortnight’s food until the works became established. Some of the men paid the full amount, but others who had less were allow.ed to proceed to Nelson on the payment of £3 only. Eventually a party of 10 hopeful workers, including a married couple engaged as cooks, left Wellington with instructions to proceed to a certain hotel for breakfast if they were not met on the wharf by a motor-lorry. A lorry was not there to meet the boat when it arrived in Nelson, and the party proceeded to the hotel where, to their temporary dismay, the proprietor informed them that he hsid received no word of their coming. However, he accepted their story and gave them a ineal. Later he received a reassuring telegram from Wellington, on the strength of which board was given.

The unfortunate men then found themselves stranded in Nelson. Some eventually went to the relief camp at Kawatiri, and others tried to find work about the city. Two of the victims, both single men, walked in from Kawatiri on Wednesday and on Thursday made application to the Charitable Aid Board to have their fares paid back to Wellington.