Norfolk Island

The High Hand In

That Dictation Test To the Editor.

Sir, —Your correspondent’s article in “The P.I.M.” for September, head ed “Norfolk Island Farce,” dealing with the deporting of so-called un desirables, would be amusing were it not so inaccurate.

I am the “undesirable,” “delin quent,” or what you will, who was compelled to undergo a dictation test in French, and who “unfortunately,” as your correspondent would have it, passed with “flying colours.”

Whether I passed with flying col ours, I know not, nor care, but as I am still polluting the otherwise pure Norfolk Island air, I take it that I was not altogether unsuccessful.

Insofar your correspondent is quite correct. But I did not have to under go this test for making and selling a “mild, illicit beer.” There was no charge whatsoever against me when I was called upon by the Powers That Be to pass a dictation test. (I might mention, by the way, that our local constable had received written authority to go and “forcibly arrest without a need of a warrant,” should I fail to put in an appearance!) My premises were searched during my absence and some bottles taken away which might have contained water, or anything else, until proved by the Government analyst in Syd ney to contain alcoholic liquor. But, three days after this search, and before the samples taken away had even been sent to Sydney and, there fore, before there was any charge against me, I was compelled to sub mit to the indignity and humiliation of a dictation test in a language with which I “unfortunately,” and by mere chance, happened to be familiar.

I might mention that I am also conversant with Spanish, Hindustani, African Dutch, and two African nat ive languages.

As an ex-officer and, I trust, a gentleman, of the British and Indian Armies, with a good record of 51 years’ war service, I submit that I was most unfairly treated, and that the procedure was contrary to our conception of British justice.

It was not until two months later that the Government analyst’s re port came back, and I was further punished by being fined £10, or three months, for being found in posses sion of liquor containing over 2½ per cent, of alcohol.

Quite 60 per cent, of the “main landers” here brew their own beer, and if the same procedure was ap plied to them as to me, and they were not cognisant of any European language but English, then Messrs.

Burns, Philp would have to extend the accommodation of the “Morinda” in order to make room for the exodus of banished “undesirables”!

I respectfully suggest that your correspondent should have made sure of the facts before sending them up for publication.

I think, in fairness to me, that you will publish this letter, and thank you in anticipation of such courtesy.

I am, etc.,

Magna Est Veritas.

Although the accounts furnished by our own correspondent and by “Mag na Est Veritas” differ in a few de tails, they are agreed on the main facts, which suggest that the man in question was treated in an extra ordinarily high-handed manner by the Norfolk Islands Administration. No doubt, there is another side of the story—the official side —which we have not heard; and if there is a law relating to liquor, no matter how absurd and most liquor laws are absurd —it must be administered. But this Norfolk Islands method of ap plying a sudden, far-fetched dictation test, in order to get rid of persons whom someone dressed in a little brief authority considers “undesir able,” is about the most ridiculous thing we have ever heard in connec tion with Islands administration. It savours more of South American re publicanism, or the mediaeval prac tices of Mediterranean potentates, than of modern government. N.I. should not rest until the liberty of His Majesty’s subjects there is freed

from this kind of threat.

Ed. P.I.M.