PASSENGERS' MORALITY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 223, 26 January 1911, Page 2

PASSENGERS' MORALITY

CHARGES AGAINST FEMALE IMMIGRANTS. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Yesterday. Every now and again it is publicly stated somewhere in New Zealand that things are not always as they should be among the immigrants on board the Home liners, and charges of varying seriousness are made against the character of some of the female passengers to New Zealand. The most recent allegation is by Mr. Smith, a passenger by the Rotorua, who stated in an interview in the south that a number of girls of obviously loose character were imported by the steamer. The charge was referred to the Labor Department by a pressman. The vagueness of the charge was found to be the chief difficulty in the way of framing a reply, for the Department did not know whether Mr. Smith was referring to assisted domestic servants or to female passengers who came out on their own account.

The Department denies that the allegation could refer to any assisted passengers who came by the Rotorua. The lady in charge of the women's employment branch mingled with the women and heard them talk, but came across no evidence whatever of the presence among them of girls of "obviously loose character."