FRENCH COMMUNISTS IN AUCKLAND.

Western Star, Issue 345, 17 April 1880, Page 7

FRENCH COMMUNISTS IN AUCKLAND.

The arrival of a second shipment of Communists, &c,, from New Caledonia, has revived the old agitation as to the propriety of taking steps to prevent the admission of criminal offenders from that penal settlement. The peculiarity of the present batch is that more than one-half aie free French colonists, some of whom have suffered severe pecuniary losses in mining and mercantile speculations, and who, seeing no prospect from the present depression in New Caledonia of improving their pecuniary position, have come on to Auckland One man was pointed out to me who had lost 200,000 francs in speculation there. Some of them had been resident in New South Wales and Victoria, and had gone over to New Caledonia, attracted by the glowing accounts given of nickel mines, and the heavy military expenditure going on through the presence of a large force, in addition to that arising from the existence of the penal settlements. Others had arrived therefrom France misled by the colueur de rose representations of the emigration agents of the French G-overnment, who, 1 like those of our own Colonial Government, were not over particular in separating the legendary and apocryphal from the canonical in their descriptive narratives. As to the deportes and liberes—nine in number —most have saved £2O to £lO apiece daring their enforced detention, and as all paid their passages through Messrs G-illies and Co,, the agents of the vessel that brought them to Auckland, it is hard to see that any action can be taken against them by the New Zealand authorities, or what representations can be made to the French G-ove**nment. Fully half the offences with which these men are charged arise under the military code. Taken as a whole, the shipment is much superior to that by the schooner Griffin in every respect, and it is to be hoped that, like the advance party, they will bo successful in quietly falling into the ranks of the community as la*W-abiding, industrious citizens. Not a single complaint has been preferred to the police against the men who have as yet landed here, and it is rather remarkable that while many of our own countrymen are lounging about street corners and publichouse bars, complaining that they cannot find work, these Frenchmen have had n<» difficulty, with all the odds of nationality and language against them, of making at least a decent livelihood. The free French colonists are a very respectable class of men, and they assure me that unless matters mend commercially at New Caledonia we may expect further accessions shortly, and that numbers are also leaving for New South Wales and Victoria.—“ Otago Daily Times.”