CONTRABAND CARGOES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22226, 28 September 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

CONTRABAND CARGOES

BOOM TIME FOR SMUGGLERS NEW USE FOR YACHTS ISLE OF WIGHT ACTIVITIES Smuggling is booming in the Isle of Wight writes the special correspondent of a London journal from Ryde. People who live there are convinced oven, that smuggling has become a principal industry of tlio island. And they seem to have good reason for their belief. As everyone knows the time when the list of dutiable goods was extended was considered appropriate for " axeing " the coastguard service in all directions. To tlio smuggler that meant more opportunities of gain, less risk of detection. Ever since then the Isle of Wight has been a smugglers' paradise. It has 60 miles of coastline abundantly supplied with little creeks and coves where small craft can land contraband at almost any hour. And I am told the total number of available watchers is about a dozen. In the Isle of Wight, as elsewhere, the day is 24 hours long. Dividing the twelve earnest seekers after smugglers into shifts there are as many as four for every eight hours and one for every 15 miles! There is no place in the world where people can <zo down to the deep in a yacht or a small craft with so little questioning or interference. You do not need to be in the island long before realising that it has a race of people, who arc rushing oif to out-of-the-way places in cars and picking up things off yachts at all hours of the night. Just before closing time-at one of the Ryde hotels I heard a motorist say that bo had left his pipe in a yacht at a place about 17 miles distant and

would have " to pop along and fetch it." After he had left somebody said: "I wonder if ho left his tobacco on the yacht too!" If gossip is to be believed, many fashionable yachtsmen are making their golf and bridge money by running spirits. But, of course, hearsay is not evidence.

Goodness knows, many landing places are quiet enough in daylight. There are Wootton Creek, Newtown Creek and King's Quay all extremely handy and private. Just by Wootton is Fishbourne. Fishbourne is a great place for dispatching suitcases and other cases in motor-cars. People round Fishbourne are beginning to wonder whether a colony of tailors and hosiers has sprung up in the English Channel. Yachtsmen seem to have so many suits when they return. I explored Wootton, Fishbourne and the surrounding neighbourhood in the hope of meoting a Customs officer. I

was told that there was little chance ol meeting one nearer than Cowes. A local inhabitant gave me as his opinion that " they did not catch one smuggler in a thousand in tho Isle of Wight." The reason is that the modern smugglers are resorting more and more to towing devices. Somo of the craft they use have hollow helms, and rudders into which a chain can bo fitted attached to u submerged raft. Some of those rafts are allowed to drift considerable distances and are picked up at night, becauso they are fitted with a lamp that shows up in tho dark above tho surface of tho water. Official quarters admit that detection of smugglers is difficult, and therefore when one is caught the usual course is to sue for a penalty of treble duty. Spirits and tobacco are still the favourite smuggling cargoes.