EXILES RETURN.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 169, 17 July 1919, Page 6

EXILES RETURN.

■WITH A TERRIBLE TAIiE. "WHY DON'T YOU WORK?" CONDEMNATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. The long, long trail of the Main Trunk line has been sprinkled with the lamentations of many Aucklanders who have come back home after three days of sightseeing and adventure by rail, to sny nothing of the many fine opportunities the New Zealand Government lias given them to grow familiar with the geography of the present Australian capital. By the time they reached their journey's end there were fifteen or sixteen of them, and when they came into Auckland last night their complaints about the cavalier treatment they have received since the New Zealand Government compelled them to remain in Sydney as exiles are freely mingled with rather outspoken comments respecting the trip from Wellington. CHINAMEN FIRST. Among the matters the returned exiles criticised most strongly was the method of allotting berths for them on the Manuka, the boat on which this first quota had come across the Tasman. They have stated that the original instructions issued by the Government here ordered the stranded residents to be classified according to circumstances, possibly so that the least financial would go first. Accordingly the committee prepared lists, but then instructions came that berths were not to be booked until further advice was given. This eventually came, leavijg the officiate free to act at their oß'n discretion, with the result, so the exiles state, that business men, tourists, theatrical people, and even Chinese, were brought across, while many of the exiles, even women with children, who had long since reached the end of their resources, were left wailing for a further term in Sydney. There are those among the returned exiles who say that other offers of transport were offered and declined by the responsible authorities, and consequently other large boats, not of the Union Line, came here with very limited passenger : lists. Those who arrived last night tell a pitiful story about women and children, with no money at all, crying on :tbe wharf as the steamer cast off, and I they say also that during the passage, when the crew were apprised of the position, the men had said they would never have brought the boat away had they known the facts of the situation sooner. WHERE WERE THE FUNDS? The exiles are very emphatic on the point that, despite all denials by Hon. G. W. Russell, the Minister at the head of the whole affair, the distress among the exiles was, and is, very real and very acute. Said one gentleman: "Mr. Russell said funds were ample, but we I saw nothing of them. We were stranded, 1 most of us with no money, in a city where the conditions were not at all .comfortable. It was very well for women to be told to go to work when there was no work to go to, and they were waitng, every day hoping against hope, for a boat. If it were not for the bungling of the New Zealand Government we could have been back three months ago, and now some of the most acutely distressed ladies are desperately waiting there still."