FIFTY CHINESE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19154, 10 November 1927, Page 11

FIFTY CHINESE.

FOUND ON DUTCH STEAMER HUDDLED IN SMALL COMPARTMENT. (ntOU OUB OWX COMESPOJ^EN'. SYDNEY, October 28. Following closely on the capture of a dozen Chinese smuggled into Sydney from the Dutch steamer Arendskerk, Customs officials at Fremantle made the startling discovery of fifty Chinese cooped up in a water tank beneath a hold of another steamer of the same line, the Almkerk. Conditions were disclosed outvying anything told of the slave trade or of blackbirding in the South Seas.

Evidently the Chinese were secreted in the bottom hold by someone aboard the steamer and kept there until Australia was nearly sighted. Then about 24 hours before the vessel berthed, the Chinese were forced into a water tank under this bottom hold and herded into a space about ton feet square and four feet high. The Customs officiate made a thorough search of the ship, and after removing large quantities of cargo from the hold, the tops of the water tank were found. Then groans were heard, and in feverish haste the bolts on the tank covers were removed. The covers were lifted, and the foulest of foul odours issued. So foetid was the air that acetylene torches lowered into the tank were immediately extinguished. Gas masks were requisitioned and- equipped with these Customs officials were lowered into the tank. Pile of Inert Bodies. An amassing sight met their eyes. There seemed to be a pile of corpses. Nothing in Dante's inferno could havo been worse. .Fifty Chinese, everyone of them inert, unconscious, were at the bottom of the tank, which held foul bilge water a foot in depth. Their limbs were entwined, and as the fresh air through the aperture revived thorn slightly, they raised limp hands to tho Customs officials as if begging to be released from their prison. None of the Chinese could stand. One by one they had to be lifted through the aperture of the tank. "Another three hours in that prison," said a doctor who examined them, "and they would have been all dead." Many of the Chinese bore bruises on bodies and heads evidently inflicted as they struggled to reach the two or three narrow pipes carrying the only air into the tank. Chinese Slave Trade. This is the largest haul of prohibited immigrants made in the Commonwealth. It is stated that a regular trade is carried on in Chinese slaves for gardeners and others. As much as £IOO is given for a Chinese land>d, the new arrivals being kept from observation until they learn something of the language and how to "dodge" the police. That the investigations arising from the Almkerk discovery are likely to be of an international character is indicated by the stated belief that Rotterdam, the home port of the Dutch steamers on which the recent discoveries have been made, , is the headquarters of an international smuggling gang, which employs Chinese members of ships' crews as agents to smuggle their countrymen into countries where they are not permitted to land. One of the worst features of this trade is that many Chinese are alleged to meet their death on the way out, in order to save the agents who contract to hide them on the vessels from compromises. Thus in the Almkerk's case, 52 passports for Chinese were found, but only 50 Chinese wore brought to light. The Chinese themselves said that 57 of them came aboard. What happened to the "deficit"! That is a feature of the discovery that is interesting Australian investigators, and though the task of proving that missing Chinese died during the voyage would be a stupendous one, it is possible that charges of causing deaths may yet be lodged against someone on the boat. As it is, the captain of the vessel has a penalty of £SOOO hanging over his bank account, and several Chinese members of the erew have also been charged.