WHAT THE AUSTRIANS SAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11323, 17 January 1899, Page 5

WHAT THE AUSTRIANS SAY.

Several of the Austrians interested in the' action of Lhe New Zealand Government were found by a Daily Telegraph representative in a restaurant in George street, Sydney, on their arrival in that city'by the Konigin Luise. About a dozen of the men assembled, and, apart from their want of knowledge of English (says the Telegraph), there was very little lo distinguish them from the ordinary style of foreign sea-going men. Several of them were fine-looking, upstanding fellows, with frank, open countenances, and of intelligent appearance. The worst of them might have been taken for fairly comfortable labourers. Two •or three of the immigrants—they were all Austrians—wore gaudy shirts, crewelled round the collars, and at least one, who sported a neat cap, was distinctly, as the Americans put it, struck on ' his shape. They conversed readily with the press representatives in two or three dialects of the Slavonic tongue. They talked volubly," and though none of them spoke the national language, such as it is understood ■in Vienna, several amongst the number did not appear at all ignorant for their class. One, indeed, who was familiar with Italian, gave a most intelligible statement of their position, and he was supported in all his main 7 facts by several of those who conversed in the Slavonic dialects.' The man who knew Italian was a painter by trade,, and lie said the men all felt that a very great injustice was being perpetrated in their not being allowed to land in New Zealand. They knew nothing of the new restriction until they got to '.Melbourne, where they -met two ol their country men who had been refused admission. So far aa they knew, when they left Trieste, New Zealand was perfectly open to them, and some'of. them had embarked the savings ol years in the enterprise. What had- attracted them to the far off, isolated British colony, was news they had received from friends who had been at the antipodes for years. Thoy estimated that at least 2000 people bad. emigrated from the district whence they hailed— Dalmatia—to • New Zealand. Some o.i these had done very well financially, and the news they sent back to the homeland had encouraged others to look far afield and gather their spare florins to pay'the fare by. steamer to the land where milk and honey flowed. jf " How much did their passage cost? JUs hyes'opened, and his arms and shoulders moved rapidly. His calculation in Trieste currenoy made the sum £16 from the Austrian port through to Auckland, and the crowd stood round in reverent silence while the sum was mentioned. And then the base treachery of it; the unfeeling, immovable hatred ot the Government which, after they had oxpended this sum in reaching the fai country, refused to" "allow them .to land. Such perfidy was surely nover met with. " What were they in Dalmatia? "—He was 3 painter, and others agricultural labourers, another-an artisan, others labourers in the city, and so on. He earned four francs a day, Bald- the agricultural labourers three francs and a'meal in srood seasons. They had not come to New Zealand because . they wore st&rving at home. Thqg^L had their homes: some had a little land, and they had enough to eat and wine_ to drink. Some even had 'wives and families. It was the prospect of earning move money that had attracted them. . If the difficulty with tht> New Zealand Government could not bo patched up, they would stayin Sydney and see what they could do in 'New South "Wales. None- of them had enough money to pay theit passages home again. "There wors. eight of their companions on the steamer who were not allowed to land in Sydney. One was an Austrian who.had been in New Zealand four times before. He had his son with'him, and the -son could land,;but the father could not. They looked upon their lot as very hard. A suggestion that they had come out to work on the goldfields under contact to some New Zcalandor was stoutly denied, and the painter, for his part, said if he could have got work at his trade in Auckland, he would have taken it, and would not have gone to'the gumfields. Now they would have to keep, themselves from 'starring in Sydney as best they could.