JAPANESE DETAINED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18526, 12 October 1934, Page 5

JAPANESE DETAINED

ALLEGED POACHING ACTION BY AUSTRALIA CANBERRA, Oct. 11. Alleged (o have been poaching in the vicinity- of the Western Islands, a Japanese vessel, the Yocikinc Maru, has been detained, and its crew of 24 and Captain Gomi have been placed aboard the Macdhui, now en route for Rabaul, where they will be charged with breaches of the fisheries and quarantine ordinance of the mandated territory of New Quinea, and also with being prohibited immigrants. 'There are six tons of .trociis shell aboard the detained,vessel. The recently-published Sydney cablegram concerning looting 'of a dwellingfin the owner’s absence) at Ilaggerstein island by men from a Japanese sampan, on September 5, adds one more episode to several similar. Ilaggerstein Island is stated to be 125 miles from Thursday Island.

On August 30 a sampan (presumably the same) wag. at Possession Island. Thursday Island reports state that, two days before, a black lugger was cruising among islands near Possession Island. Men landed from it and set fire to the grass. Their purpose is believed to have been to signal the sampan, which on August 30 arrived from the direction of the Gulf of Carpentaria and anchored at Possession Island. These movements were watched by James Robert Clarke, who served in the British Navy during the war as a chief petty officer, and who for five months had been prospecting on Possession Island. Thirty Japanese from the sampan landed on the beach. Clarke, who was working near the beach, was greeted by the Japanese leader in English. Clarke asked what they wanted, and received the reply, ‘‘That’s my business.” The leader then had a look round, and after he bad given an order in Japanese, the men commenced to remove ore from Clarke’s workings. The leader said that they wanted it for ballast. Clarke objected, and pointed out better stones for ballast, but received the curt reply, ‘‘l like this better.” The men moved about three tons. Before departing in the direction of Cape York the Japanese leader remarked that he thought lie would take Clarke with him, as if left behind lie might talk too much.

According to the Thursday Island report, Clarke states that the master of the sampan was of the Japanese naval officer type, while the crew had all the alacrity of trained naval men.