AN UNHAPPY RETURN

Otago Witness, Issue 3871, 22 May 1928, Page 51

AN UNHAPPY RETURN

FORTUNE SEEKER’S HOMECOMING.

AUCKLAND, May 19. Deported from Canada to his native country, a helpless invalid with a broken back, a young Gisborne farm labourer, Francis Raymond Hyde, reached Auckland to-day on board the Aorangi, and is now in the Auckland Hospital. Hyde’s story appears to cast some reflection on Canada’s treatment of strangers within her gates, and it is possible that more will be heard of it through legal action or otherwise.

Hyde left New Zealand about the end of September last to try his fortune abroad, having little more than his third-class fare to Vancouver. Up to that time he had been engaged in milking cows and doing general farm work on a property near Gisborne.. He is nearly 25 yours of age, but as he lay in the Aorangi’s hospital yesterday he looked several years younger, despite his sufferings. When he reached Vancouver he went to an employment agency, which sent him to Mr W. J. Park (president and general manager of one of the largest milk producing organisations in British Columbia). Mr Park wanted a hand for a farm about 30 miles from the city,/ and engaged him, saying he had a manager named Smith on the property, and that Smith was running it on shares. On November 11, only three weeks after his arrival in the country, he was driving a dray loaded with wood, when the horse, which was blind in one eye, swerved, and ran one of the wheels on to a log. He was thrown to the ground, and the wheel, dcscending-from from the log, passed over the middle of his body. He was taken to a private hospital in the neighbourhood, where it was found that two of his vertebrae had been erushed and that the spinal cord had been severed, completely and permanently paralysing the lower part of his body. An operation was performed, and after several weeks he was removed to the Vancouver General Hospital. He had very little money, but he was able |to obtain the services of a firm of lawyers, which took some steph to obtain ! compensation for him. It was found that Smith (the manager of the farm) had no means, and Park, who was understood to be the owner, was approached. His legal advisers disclaimed i all responsibility, declaring that Smith was the lessee of the farm, and that Park was was not the injured man’s employer. This, Hyde stated yesterday, did not harmonise with what either Park or Smith had told him, or with the way in wliich the farm was managed. Hyde has brought with him a letter from Mr Park’s solicitors, and bearing the signature of an eminent King’s Counsel, and headed “ Without prejudice.” It reads in part as follows:— Our client, Mr Park, very much regrets that you have met with the injuries received by you, but repudiates any liability in any respect in connection with injuries received by you. Without prejudice however, Park is prepared to make you a small gift, but it must not be taken in any way as an admission that he is liable to you in any manner in respect of the injuries received by you. As Hyde had been informed that the workers’ compensation law of British Columbia did not apply to farm labourers, and there was no compulsion upon a farmer to insure his employees against accident, he took no further action. However, he accepted the sum of 200dol (£4O) offered him by Park in the terms of the letter. While negotiations were going on a commission of inquiry, consisting of Dominion Government officials, vsited him in hospital, and after they had questioned him he was notified that he would be placed on board one of the New Zealand mail steamers and re- ' turned to his home at Gisborne.