CHINESE FINED £150.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 9, 12 January 1926, Page 6

CHINESE FINED £150.

OR 12 MONTHS IN PRISON.

ATTEMPTED EVASION OP TAX.

SMUGGLED ON TOFTJA.

! On December 27, 1925, three young Chinese arrived in Auckland from Suva, smuggled away on the s.s. Tofua. They endeavoured to land in the Dominion without paying the entrance fee of £100 required by the Government from each of them. They were apprehended. In the Police Court this morning, Lee Chun (27), Wong Chun .(20) and Wong Joe (26) pleaded guilty to the offence, and were each fined the maximum £50, in default 12 months' imprisonment. Prosecuting, Mr. A. V. Perm, Collector of Customs, said he had statements from each of the three Celestials, in which they admitted the offences. They had all been in" New Zealand before on temporary permits. They had exceeded the six months' limit allowed and had been shipped back to Fiji. When the Tofua left Suva just before Christmas they smuggled aboard and were discovered when the ship berthed at Auckland on December 27." Accused had made themselves liable to a fine of £50, in default 12 months' imprisonment. "This is rather a bad case," added Mr. Perm. "If the men are deported only, without punishment, there is no deterrent to this kind of thing. If they are simply sent hack they stand to win every time." Mr. J. W. Poynton, S.M.: Why not make a penalty for defying deportation? It is nonsense, this tenderness about deportation. Aliens were never welcome in any country. If they are fined £50 they get into the country for half the amount laid down by law. The maximum penalty was then in-, flicted, plus interpreter's fee and taxi fare, 12/6. '~__.