PER SPECIAL WIRE TO "STAR."

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3479, 18 February 1880, Page 2

PER SPECIAL WIRE TO "STAR."

(Pbess Association.)

AUCKLAND.

Last night. • French Communists in Auckland. .

Arrired, in Manukau, the Auckland schooner Griffin from New Caledonia with 25 Communists whose terms have expired, many of whom had their passages paid by the French Government. 31 days out the provisions gave out, and they were supplied by the barque Loongana hence to Hobartown, but this also failed, and the last drop of water was used up when they approached land, and a ca*e of wine was broached.

The Communists by the schooner Griffin arrived in Auckland by the evening train, eleven of them are political deportes, the balance offenders against the •rioiiual code., They have been amnestied

by the French Government, nnd their passages paid to Auckland. Accompanying the party ar# one woman, one child, and three girls—the wife and infant of one political doporte, and the daughters of another. The men are of various trades—a compositor, lithographic printer, butcher, baker, painter, writer and grainer, music master, and laborers. They are anxious to get to work at once. They seem a quiet, intelligent, atfd respectable lot of men.

Sailed : Ship Ben Nevis for Lyttelton, s.s. Eotorua for Kussell and Sydney. The Irish Belief Fund amounts to £500 and is expected to reach eight hundred. The surplus funds derived from the last visit of the Christchurch cricketers is to be devoted to the erection of a pavilion on the domain ground. This day.

, Later re the Communists. There is great indignation here at the landing of twenty-five Communists—nine of whom are convicts under the criminal code—from the schooner Griffin, chartered by the French Government to conrey them to New Zealand. The vessel was only provisioned for a ten days'voyage, and encountering bad weather ran short. Fortunately she fell in with the barque Loongana bound to Tasmania, which supplied them; these stores, however, were all finished the day before the vessel arrived in the Manakau. The Herald, in a very strongly worded article, calls on the people to rise to a man and resist, if need be forcibly, the " scandulous attempt of the authorities of New Caledonia to saturate this colony with the off-scour ings of their bagnios." . It demands that Sir Hercules Robinson shall support any measure his Ministers make take, and sayi the occasion imposes a special duty on the Mayor in the discharge of which it trusts he will not fail.

Mr Lewis, Under-Secretary of Native Affairs, continues making reductions and changes. Williams, of. the Bay of Islands, is expected to get compensation for the loss of office, his district being placed under Yon Stunner, of Hokianga. Aubrey, magistrate at Whangarei, re* tires.