THE ESMONDE CASE.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1921, Page 5

THE ESMONDE CASE.

STILL NOT ALLOWED TO LAND. AT AUCKLAND ON MAKURA By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night, He ought .to know something about the subject, as he has just spent two months gazing at the beauties of Port Jackson from the deck of the Vancouver liner Makura as she lay idle at anchor in Watson’s Bay, and he prefers the Waitemata. The coloring of Auckland harbor appeals to him very much. Our authority is Mr. O. T. Gratten Esmonde, and there is nothing of pique in his predilection for New Zealand’s rival of the great Australian showpiece of water. As he sat perched on a rail of the Makura this morning, smoking a cigar, Mr. Esmonde did not display the slightest feeling about his enforced stay on board the Makura. The only thing that really does worry him is that some enterprising Sydney newspaper blazoned it abroad that he was “on an important diplomatic mission connected with Irish affairs.” He never made such a claim, he says, and he is now wondering how he will explain the matter to his friends at home. Regarding his refusal to take the o*th of allegiance in Australia” he says' that he did so because it was got up specially for his benefit, and had never been used before or since. He took the matter as a personal insult. Mr. Esmonde said he was not allowed to land in Auckland, but he evidently has friends here, for before the ship had been alongside the wharf many minutes he had a group of shore people alongside him at the ship’s side. “No, I had not the remotest idea that I was to go through the experience I have just had, in Australia,” replied Mr. Esmonde to a reporter’s query. “When I left Vancouver I did not expect to have greatness thrust upon me in this way, and even now,” he added with a puzzled smile, as he returned to his familiar occupation of looking over the ship’s rail, “I have never been told why they won’t let me land.”