LAW DEFIED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 271, 15 November 1934, Page 7

LAW DEFIED.

UNWANTED VISITOR.

RETURN TO SYDNEY.

Deported New Zealander States

His Case.

JAILED IN TEST IN DUTCH

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

(Received 11 a.m.) SYDNEY, this day. The Customs authorities in Sydney yesterday diligently searched for a man named Gerald Griffin, who is alleged to have arrived in Sydney from New Zealand under an assumed name last Monday. He was prohibited from entering the Commonwealth about a fortnight ago and was shipped back to New Zealand.

The Customs officials said he disguised his appearance by using horn-rimmed glasses, but his baggage was being detained.

A man purporting to be Griffin last night gave Press representatives an interview. He threatens to take legal action against the Commonwealth, and says be is determined to see his mission through at the Anti-War Congress in Melbourne.

Griffin, in his interview, pave details of his deportation a fortnight ago, and explained that he arrived on November 3, and after being subjected to a dictation tost in the Dutch language, in ■which he failed, was transferred to another vessel, which left an hour later for New Zealand.

"I have returned to fulfil the mission for which I was appointed, and that is to discuss relations between the opponents of war and Fascism in Australia and New Zealand," he said.

Asked when and how he came to Sydney, Griffin replied: ''I arrived early this week, but came to Sydney only this morning. 1 intend to remain here until I have made my object clear to the public of Australia.''

A Canberra message says that the Attorney-General, Air. R. O. Mehzies, announced that the report that Griffin had evaded tho Federal immigration authorities and re-entered Australia would be investigated immediately. " If it was found that Griffin was in Australia steps would be taken by the Commonwealth Government to arrest him, and he would bo dealt with according to law.

Any person who was a prohibited immigrant, and who was found in Australia, was liable to imprisonment for six months or deportation, or both.

A Press Association message from Wellington on November 6 stated: —

"I am that Dutchman," said Gerald Griffin, of Wellington, native of Ireland, and a British subject, who returned from Sydney to-day, as he showed a reporter a clipping from a Press cablegram to Xew Zealand stating that a Dutch passenger, who arrived at Sydney by the Monowai, had been shipped back to New Zealand by the Marama because he failed to pass the dictation test in Dutch.

Griffin said he knew nothing of Dutch, and could not be expected to know it, but surmised that advantage was being taken of some technicality of Australian law to exclude him. He was asked no questions beyond his name, even though he suggested that he was being confused with another person.

Griffin did not set foot on Australian soil, but was taken across the Union Company's wharf from one steamer to the other between the Monowai'a arrival and the Marama's departure an hour later.

"My main object in visiting Australia was to attend the forthcoming all-Australia congress against war," he said. "I am rational secretary of the New Zealand movement against war and Fascism, and was to have attended on behalf of that body. It is not a Communist organisation, and one of the leading figures in the Australian movement is Bishop Burgman, of New South Wales. I am not a member of t'le Communist party."