SHUT UP ON ISLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 September 1924, Page 5

SHUT UP ON ISLAND.

•TREATMENT OF TOURISTS. NOT ALLOWED IN AMERICA. HERDED WITH CHINESE, FILTHY LIVING CONDITIONS. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. The difficulties experienced by recent arrivals at San 1 Francisco by the Maunganui from New Zealand owing to the operation of the new immigration regulations in the United States are graphically described in a letter written to the Herald by Mrs. Beryl Caton, of Devonport. “My mother, my son, and myself,” states Mrs- Caton, “left by the Maunganui with passports vised by the American Consul at Auckland, who assured both ourselves and the Union Company that we would have no difficulty and would be permitted to land. Judge our dismay when, on arrival at San Francisco, we found that under the new Act all aliens in transit through the States must put up a 500 dollar bond or face deportation. “In eases of passengers proceeding direct to England or abroad without stopping over in the States, the officials, in the circumstances, waived the provisions of the Act ; hut everyone who announced their intention of remaining foi a time in the States, and all passengers booked through to Canada only, were held up for the bond. In my ease it was necessary to get in touch with my husband in Los Angeles and to wait for him to put up the bond there, which could not be done immediately. as we arrived on a Sunday.

“ABOMINABLY DIRTY.” “About sixteen of us were taken across San Francisco Bay in a small tug, where our baggage was watersoaked and ourselves drenched with spray, and dumped on Angel Island. Here we found ourselves herded in close confinement in a barracks-like building, het, unventilated and dirty, among about 60 Chinese women and children, without privacy or privileges of any kind. The place was abominably dirty, and the only fresh air to be had was in an unsheltered runway covered both at the sides and top with stout meshed wire like a cage at a zoo, where the Chinese spat out food, lumps of fruit, peelings and what not just wherever they happened to be.

“The meals were served in a hot, sour smelling room, hung with ancient flypapers, on tables covered with none too clean American cloth, with cutlery of blackened tin and the coarest and commonest of china and enamelware. The unappetising.food was cold by th-? time we were herded down there, and though the Chinese did not dine in the same room, a number of Spanish and South American people did. and their table habits were far from inviting, to put it mildly. NOT ALLOWED OUTSIDE. "We were not permitted out of doors, and even friends who came from San Francisco to sec us were compelled to wait a couple of hours till the authorities thought fit to permit us to see them. It was only after the San Francisco papers, which were very indignant over this fresh menace to the tourist traffic, had given considerable publicity to our eases that an attempt was made to ameliorate the conditions by transferring the women and children to a hospital building. Fortunately I had made friends on the vessel who were able, by using their influence and guaranteeing our good faith, to gain an early hearing before the commissioners and secure our release on the second dav of detention.

“The remainder of the passengers,” continued Mrs. Caton, “remained under detention, and so far as I can ascertain, are still there. The officials themselves were uniformly courteous, but they are bound by the rules and conditions of the place, which is run not for whites but for Asiatics. About 30 passengers of the Tahiti, who arrived four weeks before we did, were released from Angel Island on the day 'before the Maunganui arrived. They were finally released because the Tahiti had left New Zealand before the new Act came into force. It took Washington four weeks to come to that generous decision, and from my brief two days’ sojourn I would no* willingly spend four weeks on Angel Island to gain admittance to paradise itself.”