100 DESERTIONS FROM SHIPS A MONTH

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25227, 4 July 1947, Page 8

100 DESERTIONS FROM SHIPS A MONTH

BIGGER PENALTY SUGGESTED (PA.) WELLINGTON, July 3. One hundred men a month were coming before the courts for deserting their ships in New Zealand, said counsei for the New Zealand Shipping Company (Mr H. R. C. Wilde) in th? Magistrates Court to-day. when a man was charged with ship desertion. Counsel said the shipping companies were prosecuting these men not only own /easons though the difficulties caused by deserters were great, but in the public interest. Counsel for the defendant, Mr Stacey, objected to Mr Wilde's general statements on desertion but Mr J L Stout, S.M., said he thought the public ought to know the extent of it ," e w as interested himself and had 'thought it to be about 1000 a year Mr Wilde suggested that the penalty was not sufficient, being only one month. Mr Stout said he thought the New Zealand penalty was as light as that in any Dominion. Mr Wilde said a large number of the men were unquestionably undesirable characters. They came before the Court again and again. He suggested that the Magistrate might make some comment on the matter of penalty, but the Magistrate replied that he frequently commented on such matters. "The statute, 50 years old, is inadequate to meet circumstances when men are coming in at the rate of 1200 a year and are being awarded citizen, snip of the country at the price of a month at the expense of the State,” added Mr Stout. Tile defendant in the case, Harold Leslie Jones, ship's carpenter, charged with deserting from the ship Tower HUI in Wellington, was sentenced to x weeks ’ imprisonment. the Magistrate remarking that the defendant had already spent a week in custody on remand.