FIFTY CHINESE FOUND ON DUTCH VESSEL HUDDLED IN SMALL TANK

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 2Sth October.
Following closely ou the capture of a dozen Chinese smuggled into Sydney from tho Dutch steamer Arendskerk, Customs officials at Fremantlc made the startling discovery of 50 Chinese cooped up in a- water tank at the bottom of the hold of another steamer of the same line, the Almkerk. Conditions were disclosed outvying anything told of the slave trade or of blackbirding in the South Seas. TEREIELE CONDITIONS. Evidently the Chinese weie secreted in the bottom hold by someone aboard the steamer and kept there until Australia was nearly sighted. Then about twenty-four hours before the vessel berthed the Chinese were forced into a water tank under this bottom, hold, and herded into a space about ten feet square and four feet high. The Customs officials made a thorough search of the ship, and after removing large quantities of cargo from the hold, the tops of the water tank were found. Then groans were heard, and in feverish haste the bolts on the tank covers were removed. The covers were lifted, and the foulest of foul odours issued. So foetid was the air tha.t acetylene torches lowered into the tank were immediately extinguished. Gas masks were requisitioned, and equipped with these Customs officials were lowered into the tank. INFERNO OF HORROR. An amazing sight mot their eyes. There seemed to be a pile of corpses. Nothing in Dante's "Inferno" could have been worse. Fifty Chinese, everyone of them inert, unconscious, were at the bottom' of the tank, which held foul bilge water a foot in depth. Their limbs were entwined, and as the fresh air through the aperture revived them slightly, they raised limp hands to the Customs officials as if begging to be released from their prison. None of the Chinese could stand. One by one they had to "be lifted-through the aperture of the Jank. "Another three hours in that prison,'? said a doctor who examined them, ''and they would have been all dead." Many of the Chinese bore bruises on bodies and heads, evidently inflicted as they struggled to reach the two or three narrow pipes carrying the only air into the tank. INTERNATIONAL "TRADE." This is the largest haul of prohibited immigrants made in the Commonwealth. It is stated that a regular; trade is carried on in Chinese slaves for gardeners and others. As much as £100 is given for a Chinese landed, the new arrivals being kept from observation until they learn, something of the language and how to "dodge" the police. That the investigations arising from the Alinkerk discovery are likely to be of an international character is indicated by the stated belief that Rotterdam, the home port of the Dutch steamers on which the recent discoveries have been made, is the headquarters of an international smuggling gang, which employs Chinese members of ships' crews as agents to smuggle their countrymen into countries where they are not permitted to land. MANY DEATHS. One of the worst features of this trade is that many Chinese are alleged to meet their death on the way out, in order to save the agents who contract to hide them on the vessels from compromises. Thus in the Almkerk's case, 52 passports for Chinese were found, but only 50, Chinese were brought to light. The Chinese themselves said that 57 of them came aboard. What happened to the "deficit"! That is a feature of the discovery that is interesting Australian investigators, and though the task of proving that missing Chinese died during the voyage would be stupendous one, it is possible that charges of causing deaths may yet be lodged against someone on the boat. As it is, the captain of the vessel has a penalty of. £5000 hanging over his bank account, and several Chinese members of the crew have also been charged. Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 107, 2 November 1927, Page 13