STOLE TO GET BREAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 550, 31 December 1928, Page 16

STOLE TO GET BREAD

CRIME IN AUSTRALIA JUDGE GIVES HIS VIEWS Many of the crimes which have helped to swell ths calendar of the New South Wales courts in the past year have been those of housebreaking by people who steal to get bread. Unemployment has caused much poverty across the Tasman. It is the opinion of Judge A. Thomson, of the New South Wales district courts, that the proportions of crime in New South Wales have been exaggerated in the eyes of the outside world. The judge said this morning as he landed from the Maunganui that much of the crime in both the towns and country districts in his State was caused by housebreaking by people who did not have bread with which to live. This was a direct reflex of the unemployment situation caused by the temporary industrial depression which was almost world-wide. In addition to this industrial laxity, the wealth of New South Wales had been curtailed largely by the effect of the drought upon the wheat crops. Generally, however, prosperity was steady. Judge Thomson, who visits ‘New Zealand frequently', goes South this evening to attend the bowling carnival at Wellington.