Chinese Returned To NG

By Mr. Calwell

IN a special chartered plane, Mr. Cal well’s Department of Immigration sent nine Chinese from Australia back to New Guinea on August 28. Aus tralian newspapers said that the charter of the plane was arranged “secretly.”

All of the Chinese had gone to Aus tralia in 1942 as evacuees: all had gone into business or had taken jobs there and did not want to leave. However, they said that they bore no grudge against the Australian authorities and were returning to New Guinea “because they did not want any trouble.”

Plans had been made by Australian Im migration Department to fly a number of other Chinese to Hong Kong. However, an injunction restraining the Government from deporting them was obtained and a decision of the High Court is now awaited.

Legal opinion is uncertain as to whether the Chinese who have been sent back to New Guinea would be able to return to Australia if the High Court upholds the appeal against deportation.

Meanwhile, the Chinese-deportations war between Mr. Calwell and Australian newspapers continues. Mr. Calwell says that these men are “scum—who are living in the filthiest slum conditions”: that most of them were deserters from shins which had called at Australian ports during the war, and that therefore they were traitors.

Australian newspapers (who do not like Mr. Calwell, anyway) describe them as upstanding citizens.