NO WORK IN DOMINION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 633, 9 April 1929, Page 11

NO WORK IN DOMINION

DESPONDENT STOWAWAYS

SIX FACE MAGISTRATE Press Association WELLINGTON, To-day. Four men, Walter Yearsley, a motor mechanic, aged 21; James Higgins, seaman, aged 29; Clarence Richardson, a butceh, aged 31; and William J. Brinkman, labourer, aged 23, were charged before Mr. E. Page, S.M., today with stowing away on the Tairoa when she left Wellington for England on April 3. They were transferred to the Tainul at sea and brought back to Wellington. Mr. O'Leary, for the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company, said the men had conducted themselves well on both vessels and worked frell. Hhe point he wished to stress was that one of the accused had escaped in an American port where immigration laws were very strict. Tho ship might have been held up indefinitely until he was found. The company also would have been obliged to enter into substantial bond on behalf of each of the men. In reply to a question by the Bench, two of the accused said they had been in New Zealand for a few years, but could not get work. They had each tried to work their passage back to England, but twere not able to sign on a ship. They wanted to get back to England somehow, where they at least had a home to go to. They had no intention of getting off at an American port. Each of the accused was fined £5, in default 14 days’ imprisonment. The Makura yesterday brought two stowaways, Law Ke San, who boarded the ship at Papeete, and Tai Kelcena, a labourer, aged 17, who boarded her at Rarotonga. Through an interpreter, Law Ke San said he would rather die than return to Papeete. He was ordered to pay £2O, the cost of a third class return fare to Papeete, and, on a charge of landing in New Zealand without a permit, was ordered to be deported to Papeete, and pay the interpreter’s fee of 10s 6d. Kekena was fined £5, in default 14 days’ imprisonment.