DEATH OF A NEGRO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20219, 2 April 1929, Page 9

DEATH OF A NEGRO.

SINKING OF I'M ALONE.

FRANCE MAKING INQUIRY. QUESTION OF COMPENSATION. (Received April 3. 9.55 p.m.) United Service. LONDON, April 1. Tho Paris correspondent of tho Daily Mail says the French Foreign Office has instructed the French Ambassador at Washington, M. Paul Claudel, to inquire into the circumstances attending the death of the negro Leon Maingay on the occasion of the sinking of the schooner I'm Alcne. The Ambassador has also been instructed to demand ample compensation if the sinking of the vessel should be proved to have been illegal..

The auxiliary schooner I'm Alone, registered in Canada, which was suspected of being a carrier of contraband liquor, was sunk off. the American coast on March 22 by a United States coastguard craft, the Dexter. A negro member of the crew of the schooner, Leon Maingay, ,was killed or drowned. He was said to have been a French subject. A message from Washington stated that the man originally came from tho French Atlantic of St. Pierre et Miquelon. It was maintained in some quarters that Maingay was a naturalised British subject. Nevertheless the French Consul at New Orleans made representations to his Embassy, which investigated the matter. There are two factors of prime importance in the situation which are still undecided. The first is whether the I'm Alone was 14 or 15 miles out at sea—as her master, Captain Randall, vehemently affirmed—and, therefore, outside the treaty jurisdiction of the United States. The second point is whether tho schooner was in truth a British ship or merely a rumrunner masquerading under the British flag. Steps are now being to de eidc these two points.