BRANDY IN HAYSTACKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

BRANDY IN HAYSTACKS.

METHODS OF SMUGGLING.

MYSTERY BOATS AND CARGO

LIQUOR IN BALES OF STRAW.

Rum. brandy and silk are being smuggled across the North Sea as well as across the English Channel. "The only difference is that they como in fishing boats and coasting barges, are landed at marsh farms, instead of in tho heart of a town, and are sent up to London hidden in trusses of hay and straw. Au Englishman. who is interested in the smaller shipping trade between France and Britain, made this statement recently, following on revelations of the nature and extent of the smuggling which is going on between France and Sussex. This illicit trade m silk and spirits is common talk among the seafaring population of Boulogne and other French ports, and it is understood that a considerable amount of dutiable goods is also sent over from the Belgian and Dutch coasts. The writer's informant, who is a respectable business man, buys large quantities, of hay, straw, and fodder from the remote marshland farms of the Essex coast. That was how he first came in contact with smugglers. "Quite recently,

he stated, "I went to a marsh farm in Essex to buy some stacks of hay, which were to be loaded in my own barges and taken by water to London. This farm, like many ip that lonely marsh country, stood half a mile back from the foreshore, and was approached by a creek, half dry at low tide. Much of its produce was sent away by water, and the farmer, in turn, imported bricks, cement, and other things from Holland and Belgium, which came across in the great red-sailed barges you see on that coast "We loaded several stacks in the first barge, and then started on another which stood by itself at the head of the creek. In a few minutes one of the men shouted to me. I went to him up the ladder, and there saw a case of brandy buried under the thatch of the stack. "The farmer came out of the house at that moment, very angry, and said that this particular stack was not in my contract, and that I must leave it alone. He was right, and I was wrong, so I said nothing to him about it, as I could see he was most suspicious. Wo rethatched the stack as though nothing had happened . Later I made enquiries and learned that a Dutch barge had called at the farm a few days before, and that a black ketch from Walcheren had also been in the river. One local man told me that he knew quite well that the stuff Went to London in bales of strivw." The writer adds that he learned also from another informant in this port that five or six English "free traders" have rented a warehouse in a certain port which they use as a central store and clearing house.