STRANDED AUSTRALIANS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18927, 27 January 1925, Page 9

STRANDED AUSTRALIANS

SAD PLIGHT IN LONDON. "UNEMPLOYED AND STARVING." LONDON. Jan. 9. There is a movement in London to appoint a competent committee, including non-official representatives, to investigate the plight of stranded Australians. There are believed to be several hundred, including ex-service men, drifting throughout Britain, from one charitable institution to another, in the most dire ■condition. Australia House has been strongly criticised in some quarters for its inability to help. It is charged against Australia House that applicants received scanty consideration, and the stereotyped reply, "No funds available." The only help extended in most cases is to provide a letter to shipping companies, asking them to sign on the bearer on the first vacancy in a ship. Although they think that it is the Commonwealth Lino's concern, the shipping companies respond whenever possible, but 15 distressed. Australians applied for jobs at one Anglo-Australian shipping company in the past few days. The official argument is that if it were known that public funds were available it would be a strong inducement to hundreds of discontented Australians to leave home on a voyage of adventure, knowing that they could rely on Australia House for a return passage. Chock to Emigration. Mr. R. W. Wilton, a former Melbourne estate agent, states that he regards the unemployed, ragged, and starving Australians as the worst advertisement for Australia, and believes that their presence is calculated to dissuade suitable emigrants. He says that the whole position could be quietly investigated and cleared up, without washing dirty linen in public. An ex-servioe man, C. J. Sturman, demobilised in Tasmania, states that he returned to visit his dying father. The latter recovered, and Sturman's savings, dwindled. He applied to Australia House, and he says that he was .told, " You had a trip at our expense," meaning the trip when he came to the war. A Police Court missionary last weekappealed to Mr. Wilton on behalf of another Australian charged with begging. A university man had given hiiy an cellent character. Ronald Home, formerly employed in the children's relief department in Sydney, has written for assistance for himself, his wife, and child. He believes that if he managed to return, the department would re-employ him, as they had promised to do. ( Australia's Name at Stake. The latest application is from a woman who lived at Kirribilli. She is the mother of nine sons, six of whom fought in the war. The woman came to England ip war time, accompanied by her three younger sons, for the purpose of nursing a wounded son. She has secured passages for two of her sons, and appeals for assistance for herself and a son stranded at Brighton. It is felt that Australia's good name is imperilled, by permitting her people to become a charge on English charities. New Zealand has done better —hardly a single New Zealander is destitute in England. The Australian High Commissioner, Sir Joseph Cook, states: " There are two classes of stranded men. Australia House is debarred, by a decision of the Home and Territories Department, from assisting stranded seamen coming on a single' voyage. Regarding the other class, over £IOOO has been disbursed in. three years, in amounts of from £1 to £3, in paying for board of genuine cases. Each is decided on its merits, and everything possible is done to treat them sympathetically." __ I '