The Naval Review The copyright of this article rests with the author, or the author's estate.

Piracy in The South China Seas II

WITH the destruction of the fleets of Shap Ng Tsai and Chiu Apoo the good old days of ship to ship piracy may be said to have ended. The net result was not very beneficial to the native trader, for instead of the "squeeze" that he had grown accustomed to paying to the commanders of the large fleets who patrolled each trade route, he now became the victim of the scattered remnants of those fleets, as well as of a number of in­dependent practitioners who took the field as soon as the big combines were broken. Immunity for foreign flags had been secured, however, and as long as the prevalence of native piracy did not seriously threaten Hongkong's trade, the British autho­rities were satisfied. The next thirty years were comparatively quiet and it was not until the steam launch began to appear on the river and in the delta that piracy took a new lease of life.

This time the complaints came from the other side. The following, extracted from a despatch of Viceroy Li Han Chan's, addressed to the British Consul General at Canton in the year 1890, states the position from the Chinese point of view. .

"I have the honour to inform you that Colonel Cheng, in charge of the Shunte garrison, and T'ao, acting magistrate of the Shunte district, represent that the pirates in Kwang­ Tung are both numerous and fearless and unlike the pirates ordinarily met with elsewhere. These pirates for the most part make their nests in Hongkong and Macao, and to this fact is to be attributed the frequency of piracies on the river. The river in the jurisdiction of the magistrate is indented with creeks connecting with the sea and communicating with Hongkong and Macao waters. These waters can be reached even by a small boat, and bad characters can at pleasure come forward and retire, and their pursuit and arrest are fraught with difficulty.'”

"The Colonel and the magistrate have ascertained that on the 21st day of the 11th moon, pirates misrepresented themselves at a locality in the Shunte district known as Ta Pa T'on, as braves entrusted with the apprehension of smugglers, and proceeded in a steam launch to commit depredations on pas­senger boats and kill any of the crews who offered resistance. The commission of the act of piracy in broad daylight by pirates from native vessels is in itself bold and lawless. But the audacity to proceed in a steam launch and in a public manner obstruct the free navigation of the river and join with others to make piratical attacks resulting even in the murder of such of the crew offering resistance, is, in point of fact, a more serious disregard of the law. Ordinary pirate boats can be spied from a distance by the soldiers sent after them and can be circum­vented and arrested. But steam launches progress at a speed tantamount to flying and could not very well be stopped, so that not only cannot their characters be detected at a glance, but even pursuit is out of the question. Moreover, the mercantile class cannot very well get out of the way of pirates on board launches, so that the harm they suffer is considerable and if no surveillance be exercised to prevent the use of launches it will be found impossible in the future to put a stop to piracy and to maintain the peaceful continuance of trade. The colonel and the magis­trate, in their joint deliberations consider that bad characters who depend upon piratical attacks for a living, cannot possibly accumulate such large sums as to purchase launches on their own account, and that foreigners in Hongkong and Macao repeatedly charter their steam launches to native trades people, making these charters a source of profit."

The colonel and the magistrate, having thus got together, put their spies on the trail and discovered that the name of the launch was "Piwen " and further that there was in Hongkong a Frenchman of that very name (actually Captain Pitman, an Englishman) "who reaps profit from the purchase of old launches which he leases to the Chinese to carry cargo." The Viceroy asked that in future all launches hired out by foreigners should be made to obtain a licence from his yamen and to enter into a bond for their good behaviour while in Chinese waters."Internal piracy" was now the accepted method. The gang boarded the launch or steamer as passengers. At a given signal they would produce arms and take possession of the bridge and engine room. If the prize was a launch she would generally be used by her captors to secure and plunder as many junks as possible before the authorities were thoroughly aroused. When this happened the pirates sunk or abandoned the launch and dispersed to their own homes with the booty.

In 1890 the SS. Namoa, a coasting steamer of about a thousand tons, was the first important victim of these tactics. While the passengers and officers were at lunch the pirates rose and overcame the crew. They fired several shots and threw stinkpots into the saloon and called to the captain to come on deck. He went up and was immediately shot dead. Several of the crew and passengers were killed or wounded. The vessel was taken into Ping Hoj, [A large village at S.E. corner of Bias Bay about 40 miles East of Hongkong] that notorious nest of pirates, at dusk. Six junks were waiting there for the plunder which amounted to several thousand dollars. Before leaving, the pirates knocked holes in the boats and drew the boiler fires.

The affair created a great stir in Hongkong which was by this time over its early troubles and rather fancied itself as a law-abiding colony and a desirable place of residence. H .M.S. Linnet went off with all despatch and arrived on the spot within 18 hours of the outrage. The good people of Ping Hoi were astonished to hear that the pirates had made use of their city and harbour as, a base of operations. A military officer was dis­covered who regretted that the civil mandarin was away at Canton. He promised to make all enquiries though he did not anticipate any result under several days, and, indeed, thought it would take a month or two to enquire fully into the matter!

The Viceroy on being informed of the occurrence wrote to the Consul General in true viceregal style. "That these criminals should have had the audacity to plunder a British ship of money and valuables on the high seas is truly the extremity of lawlessness, and it urgently behoves me to give peremptory orders for their capture and trial." This did not take anybody in. We kept a ship off Ping Hoi for some time to convince the inhabitants that we were really interested in the matter. One of the ringleaders was caught by the Macao police, but com­mitted suicide in prison. Four men were beheaded by the Chinese authorities in Kowloon six months after the piracy. There the matter ended.Junks still suffered from the attacks of their fellow junks. In September 1899 Ngan I Ha reported a fight with pirates off Bias Bay. "On the 5th of the 8th moon I sailed with 25 passen­gers and a cargo of sugar, pigs, salt, vegetables and garlic from Cheung Sha, for Hongkong. When off Ping Hoi a boat of about 100 piculs capacity and with about 15 men on board, came within I100 feet of my junk and opened fire with muskets and rifles. The pirates came alongside and threw stinkpots and tried to board. I and my crew repelled them with spears and they retired." He reports nine casualties on board his vessel, including his son shot through the body but not killed. The two most seriously injured passengers were put ashore as soon as possible. . . . "as I was afraid of them dying on board.”.

Towards the end of the nineties, the river traffic on which Hongkong depends for meat, firewood and much of her export trade, was seriously interfered with by piracy. Even the ferry boats plying across Hongkong harbour would fail to turn up at their destinations having been pirated midway between the island and the mainland. They would be found some days later abandoned on a. sandbank, after a short life and a gay one among the silk and rice junks and the passenger boats, of the delta. Chinese pleasure parties including one or two gaily dressed young women, would hire a launch for a day's outing and go off on a piratical picnic very different from that form of innocent enjoyment which is so popular on Saturday after­noons in Hongkong.

Canton was getting into a bad state of misgovernment again. A series of weak or anti-foreign viceroys had let matters drift into the hands of subordinates. All our protests were answered with stereotyped expressions of dismay and promises of im­provement in the future; but it was very rarely that a genuine pirate lost his head as a result of official enterprise. All this was changed when the Dowager Empress, tired of the lawless­ness of the Cantonese, sent the aged statesman Li Hung Chang to be her Viceroy in the south. In spite of his 80 odd years Li was full of vigour, and though Chinese to the core, his wide experience and able brain allowed him to see that disregard and contempt for the foreigner and his ways, were not the surest road to his own and his country's security.

Our co-operation in suppressing piracy was at last sanc­tioned, and a British Naval captain undertook a tour of the West River and delta to report an the state of the Chinese patrols. His remarks were not complimentary. The gunboat Kung 0 was found at Kongmoon, where she had lain for six weeks during which time her commander had not been on board and her only occupation had been the levying of "squeeze" on the passing traffic.

Li's term of office brought about an improvement in the Chinese patrols, but his successor let things slide back into the oId groove. From 1902 till 1908 there seemed to be no' remedy against continual petty annoyance to our trade. When in July of the latter year the river steamer Sai-Nam owned by a British company in Hongkong, was pirated while on her run between Canton and Wuchow, public indignation demanded that something should be done. The Sai-Nam was a stern-wheel passenger steamer of about 400 tons, with a British captain and engineer and four armed Indian watchmen as a protection against pirates. She was also fitted with steel grill doors to shut off the wheelhouse and captain's cabin from the remainder of the ship. After dinner Captain Joslin, the engineer and Dr. Macdonald (a medical missionary and the only European passenger an board), were talking on deck outside the saloon door. One of the Indian watchmen came running forward pursued by an armed Chinese. The captain knocked the latter down, but received a bullet in the stomach. A number of armed men rushed up the ladder from the main deck and when the three Europeans and the watchman made for the ladder to the boat deck, they found themselves headed off by a second band who had come from forward. They took refuge in the saloon under the table to avoid the fire poured in through the portholes. A stink pot thrown in rendered this position untenable. Dr. Macdonald, the captain and the watchman bolted out by the starboard door, the engineer by the port. The latter ran the gauntlet of several Chinese who fired wildly at him. He reached the stokehold unscathed and remained concealed behind the boiler in spite of a determined search. Captain Joslin, faint from his wound, fell down in the cabin forward of the saloon. Dr. Macdonald who was probably also wounded, at once proceeded to attend to him, but the pirates entered and shot the doctor through the head. The captain feigned death and after kicking him and removing a ring the pirates left him. The watchman was wounded but escaped to the boiler room. The ship was then taken to Fu Wan a small village a few miles from Tai Ping, a well-known stronghold of pirates. After the pirates had gone, the captain in spite of his wound was able to bring his ship back to Canton.

An inquiry by the Consul General brought out the following points.

1. The number of pirates who took part was probably 50 or more. The booty was small compared with the risk run.

2. Deliberate intention was shewn to murder Europeans.

3. The plot was carried out with ease. In this respect it was noted that the gratings to the bridge were never kept closed. The guards carried revolvers, but they were unloaded by an order of the previous captain given after the accidental firing of his weapon by one of the guards.

Our Consul General at Canton gave the Viceroy no peace. He drew up a list of things to be done and claims to be met and even chased the poor old man down to his country residence at Whampoa, whither he had fled to escape the worries of office. The British representative declared that foreign powers were really shocked at this latest example of Chinese inefficiency and unless some drastic steps were taken they would be forced to in­tervene. Definite and permanent measures were necessary to put down robbery and piracy. Viceroy Ts'en, a little hurt by such direct speaking replied- "have I not already decapitated over 15,000 robbers since my appointment, I executed 50 only two days ago and this does not include many shot and otherwise destroyed. Am I not honestly doing my best?"

In spite of the greatest opposition both active and passive, a strong British patrol was put on the rivers until such a time as all our claims had been satisfied. There was an officially in­spired outcry in the native press at first, but that soon subsided. It did not take long for the cultivator and merchant, who pursue their business as little disturbed as possible by governments and high imperial considerations, to realise the blessings of law and order, even though brought to them by foreigners. China's national pride was roused, however, and the Viceroy produced -­ probably from his private purse-the £20,000 indemnity that we demanded.

Attacks on large ships were unpopular for some time after that, but when the revolution broke out in 1911 unrest and disorder were again rife and as usual found an outlet in piracy. Having carried out half a dozen successful ventures in a small way - junks, river launches and such like - one gang tried for bigger game and captured the Tai On, a river steamer of 500 tons. The $25,000 booty was easy money, the one person who offered any resistance being a lady missionary who locked her­self in her cabin and was only dislodged by the introduction of a stink pot through the port hole. Since she spoke Chinese she was then called upon to act as an intermediary between the officers and the pirates. The captain declared that they owed their lives to her calmness and courage. She was presented by the government with a Bible and a travelling clock.

The Tai On was such an easy prey that ten days later another attempt was to have been made and was only foiled by the customs officers discovering three baskets containing 11 fully loaded revolvers with spare ammunition attached to each, amongst the Chinese baggage on board. Further search un­earthed 14 more, but the alarm had been given and the owners of the luggage were not to be found. One of the gang respon­sible for both these attempts turned King's evidence. He doesn't seem to have benefited much, for he was forwarded to the Canton police authorities who promptly popped him into gaol for a large number of crimes to which he had not confessed. He petitioned the Hongkong Government as follows :­

"Strange to tell, the Hongkong and Canton administrations, so far from giving the promised reward for the arrest of these men, have actually had Lau Tin detained in the common gaol, thus doing a terrible injustice. Lau Tin, though ready to die, must needs air his grievance; and so, knowing his Excellency the Governor to be a just man, who gives reward for merit and punishment for crime and scorns to go back on his word and lose the faith of men, Lau Tin now makes this petition to state the grievance he has in being detained in gaol after having brought criminals to justice. He begs His Excellency to telegraph to the military governor of Canton requesting Lau Tin's early release. Lau Tin will be extremely gratefu1."

During 1912 and 1913, in addition to many small captures, half a dozen river and coasting craft were seized and very large hauls made from them. No British ships suffered; precautions had been strictly observed since the Tai On affair. Among other foreign vessels the Norwegian SS. Childar was pirated - an affair which was not without its humorous side. When the ship was three hours' steaming from Hongkong no less than 170 out of the 250 souls on board declared themselves pirates. The ship was taken into Bias Bay where the unwelcome passengers decamped with a miserable $5,000 worth of plunder, and very little of that in hard cash.

Lou Mei was arrested in connection with this piracy. He made the following statement. "I was the ringleader, I brought 33 men. Chan Wan Po brought 44. Chan Ah Kot brought about 50. Wong Man Tsai brought about 50. In all there about 170 men, each provided with a cloth badge, but a few without badges joined in. We first went to Wai Tak Tsoi Lan (tea house) in Yaumati to consult and assemble before going on board. When the time arrived we split up according to our languages [The leaders were probably not from the same district, and their followers might speak the hakka, hoklo or punti dialects.] to buy tickets and go on board." Lou Mei was very disappointed for he and the other ringleaders lost over $300 each on the affair. "My original idea was to pirate a Douglas ship; but, since the boarding house people said this ship had put up its prices and no one was willing to travel by it, it was thought that the ship would not sail. The only other ship sailing was the Childar, and we had no option but to buy tickets and pirate that. Consequently we got no dividend. Had we succeeded in taking the Douglas ship we might have got $300,000 and the jewellery of a large number of passengers. It would have been a big haul and we could have started a revolution." Lou Mei also confessed to being implicated in several other piracies. He was only 24 years old and his youth­ful enthusiasm and a tendency to bring in too many of his friends, undoubtedly reduced his chances of rising to any eminence in his profession.

On April 27th 1914 occured the last of the series of piracies that began with the attack on the Tai On in the previous year. This time the Tai On suffered again. She sailed from Kong­moon under Capt. Robert Weatherall, the mate and chief engi­neer were the only other British Officers on board. She also carried four armed Portuguese guards. According to the official figures there were 433 native passengers, but with the miscel­laneous hangers-on who travel in all Chinese ships there were probably well over 500 souls on board.

At ten p.m. when the ship was clear of the narrow delta channels and was crossing the wide estuary of the Pearl river, the chief officer, who was on watch, heard shouting and shots. The captain, coming out of his room with a loaded shot gun, found a Chinese attacking the chief engineer. He shot the Chinese dead. The Tai On's bridge was divided from the rest of the ship by locked steel gratings, in accordance with the regu­lations then in force. The officers and the two guards on duty found themselves within the grill and the pirates found them­selves outside and so unable to obtain control of the helm though they had possession of the engine room. This was a serious matter for the ship was stopped, and though all the lights had been cut off at the dynamo, Captain Weatherall was busy on the bridge sending up rockets and burning blue flares, while the other steamers on the Kongmoon run were fast coming up to see what was the matter. The pirates realising that unless they took the bridge they would be caught like rats in a trap made some determined rushes, but the defenders firing from behind the steel dodgers at the side of the wheelhouse held them at bay. In despair, the pirates set fire to the ship and then it was every man, pirate and passenger for himself. The captain climbed down to the fo'c's'le and let go both anchors when the ship swung round head to wind and was soon enveloped in flames from stem to stern. One hundred and eighty survivors were rescued, including the captain. Fifty-three bodies were picked up at sea and the remainder perished in the flames.

It is obvious that the rescued included pirates and passen­gers alike, and on return to Hongkong a searching investiga­tion was made. Six wounded were sent to hospital and eight other suspicious cases were detained, they having no clansmen or business friends to speak for them. Ten of the fourteen were finally held on suspicion of being pirates. Two of these died of their wounds and the remaining eight were sent to Canton where they confessed to their crime. Two of them turned informers. On their information four more arrests were made at Hollywood road in Hongkong, including Koh Ah Kau, the "Fagin" of the gang. The informers then went to Macao where nine more arrests were made.

The gang responsible for this outrage was the same generally as that which had in the last twelve months plundered the Tai On (first piracy), and the American, Chung Wah and Shing Tai-the latter only a month previously, when $40,000 plunder had been easily obtained. For an account of the hatching of the plot we are indebted to one of the informers, Li Fat, who was responsible for bringing many of his accomplices to justice. Li Fat, a fisherman from the delta district of Shun Tak, was born and brought up in a fishing junk. Since his marriage he had lived with his wife at 8 Shui Tai Wai-a street in Macao. About three weeks before the piracy one Leung Yeung invited him to his house, number 15 in the same street. They had previously had dealings over the piracy of the Shing Tai, when Li Fat was in charge of an accomplice junk. Leung Yeung asked him, as he was acquainted with the sea in the neighbourhood of Macao and the West River, to join their enterprise as pilot: his duty being to take the Tai On to a place within three hours' sail of Macao where a junk would be waiting. He was also to engage a junk to take the arms across to Hong­kong. This he did on April 4th. The following day 20 of the pirates including Leung Yeung, came to Hongkong by the steamer Sui Tai and stayed at a water front boarding house. Li Fat was taken to Ko Kau's house in Hollywood road, where the latter interrogated him as to his knowledge of the sea near Macao and his past record, which seems to have been suffi­ciently grimy. On April 5th, Ko Kau came to the boarding house to confer with Leung Yeung. The rest of the gang were then told that owing to the ship being still in dock the attempt was off for the present and they must all return to Macao. It had been their intention to put the arms on board on a Sunday night. The ship when on her normal run arrived at her wharf on Saturday morning and remained there until 7 p.m. on Mon­day. Sunday night was therefore the best time in the week to smuggle arms on board. During the ensuing fortnight the pirates hung about the house in Shui Tai Wai waiting for orders. On Sunday 19th, Leung Yeung brought them to Hong­kong again and they stayed at the same boarding house. Next day Ko Kau called and after he had left, Leung had to inform his braves that once again there was a hitch. Chan Fo, the lamp trimmer of the Tai On, who had been entrusted with the task of putting the arms on board, had bungled the business and aroused one of the Portuguese watchmen, with the result that the arms had to be hastily dumped into the sea to avoid discovery.

The party broke up again after that, but on April 27th, Li Fat came to Hongkong with two others by the steamer Tai Shan. They met Leung and the rest of the gang at the water front boarding house. Leung gave them money and told them to travel in the Tai On that night as third class passengers. There were to be ten of them on the lower deck while Leung with 14 others would travel first and second class. The piracy was to commence three hours after leaving the wharf, and when the ship was under the pirates' control Li Fat was to pilot them to the agreed rendezvous. where the junk was to be waiting. The last meeting of the gang seems to have taken place three days before the piracy at Leung's house in Macao. Ko Kau came over from Hongkong for it. The delays must have disheartened the pirates, for Leung had to exhprt them by say­ing "Do not fear. Did not the Kwong Chu Wan and Shing Tai pass through my hands?" Li Fat finished his tale by saying that when Leung and several of the pirates had been shot by the captain, and other ships were seen coming to the rescue, one So Wa set the ship on fire crying " Ngo ti tai ka sze tok " (let us all die together).

Thanks to the captain's brave defence it is almost certain that every pirate on board paid the final penalty. Seventeen were shot outside the east gate of Canton city. Several charred bodies were found in the chain locker of the Tai On. One of these was identified as Chan Fo the ship's lamp trimmer who had been in league with the pirates, and five other bodies bore bullet wounds. The headquarters of the gang was also thoroughly smoked out owing to the prompt action and co­operation of the Hongkong, Canton, and Macao police.

There was not another serious outbreak of piracy until 1922. Captain Weatherall could have given up his ship and saved the lives of all on board, but by his brave defence he removed a menace from Hongkong and set an example of the highest bravery and devotion to duty.After the piracy of the Tai On in 1914 there was a period of comparative quiet lasting for eight years. The pirates had received a lesson they were not likely to forget. The only break in this peaceful period occurred in 1916 when the S.S. Kochow (350 tons) was captured near Samshui. [A port of call on the West River between Canton and Wuchow below the Shui Ring Gorge.]. The main objective was an official of the Native Customs who came on board with $8,000 in cash. The pirates came with him and had no difficulty in shooting the captain, the only European on board, and obtaining control of the engine room. The captain, who received five bullet wounds, lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand as well as all his personal belongings. His so called British owners - Hongkong Chinese - thought they were treating him handsomely in paying his hospital bill and re-engaging him, on his discharge, at an even lower wage than before.

In 1922 commenced a series of piracies that reflect discredit on our methods of piracy prevention. The SS. Sui An (1,040 tons), a river steamer running from Hongkong to Macao, was the first victim. One Sunday evening the usual holiday crowd was returning from a day at the "fan tan" tables. When the ship was clear of the Macao channel, the captain left the bridge in charge of the chief officer, and went aft with some of the passengers to admire the sunset. Firing started on the main deck where some eight or ten pirates travelling as second class passengers, attacked the two Indian guards stationed on that deck. One of the guards was shot dead and the other retired to the boat deck pursued by the pirates. The captain ran to­wards the bridge, calling to the two guards on the boat deck to follow him, but he and one. guard were shot down near the engine room skylight; the other guard was wounded but managed to reach the bridge. The chief officer was unarmed and the wounded guard was trying to load his rifle (which he carried unloaded at the master's order), when the pirates came on the bridge. They snapped their revolvers, but the ammuni­tion was finished. They then put the chief officer and the guard out of action with blows from their butt ends. The ship was taken to Bias Bay and the loot transferred to Junks the following morning.

A commission was appointed to inquire into the piracy. Their report is interesting, and, to a mind accustomed to order and discipline, is incomprehensible. Several of the piracy pre­vention regulations were proved to have been broken, but this was not held to be anybody's fault. Indeed the regulations were so framed that they could be easily evaded, and it was so long since shipping had been troubled by a piracy that there was little or no attempt at enforcement. The commission recommended that the regulations should be revised and indi­cated the lines which this revision should take.

Two years later the new regulations came into force. During those two years Hongkong learned a lot more about piracy. Several British ships suffered including S.S. Hydrangea, an ex-flower class sloop. The regulations were opposed throughout by the Mercantile Officers' Guild, who held that the matter should rest entirely in the hands of the Navy, and that the ship's officers and the Hongkong Government had nothing to do with the protection of ships from piracy on the high seas. I think this rather extraordinary attitude may be attributed to two main causes. First the very low standard of officer employed in the river trade. Secondly the slack way in which the regula­tions for the prevention of piracy had been drawn up and administered, and the fact that the police had the largest say in matters concerning the protection of the ships.To take the first cause. Every waterfront bum and drunkard in the Far East considered Hongkong as a happy hunting ground where, if the worst came to the worst, he could get a job on one of the river steamers. To understand the conditions which brought about this state of affairs, the Hongkong Ship­ping Regulations and the mentality of the Chinese business man must be considered. The Chinese are perfectly capable of running the river traffic themselves - in their own way. This way means that, to the western mariner, the ship becomes a loathsome mass of putrescence and corruption, but somehow continues to run until the bottom drops out or the pirates get her and she ends her ignorable career by drowning all her com­pany. But while she runs large profits are made and the owners have nothing to complain of. To combat this state of things it was ordained that no passengers should be carried unless the vessel submitted to annual survey by the harbour authorities and sailed under British officers and engineers. At first the Chinese owners took what officers they could find. But it was soon obvious to both owners and officers that British and Chinese ideas of how a ship should be run were not the same thing. The owners discovered that there was one type of officer who gave no trouble and suited them admirably.

This was the waterfront dead beat. Drink had usually brought him down, but occasionally a sober man would he forced into the unpleasant trade when old age or general incompetence had made it impossible for him to get another job. These men are paid a miserable wage and are expected to leave the running of the ship entirely to the pilots and compradores. They sign an agreement for twenty-four hours' notice on either side and they know that if they thwart the owners in the least thing - out they go, and half a dozen other wrecks are waiting in the sailors' home to step into the vacant berth. Here was material that was not likely to command a pirate proof ship.

I have drawn the picture in its worst light, for careful consideration of the piracies of the last twenty years shews that the slack ship is marked down and falls an easy prey. The notable exception was the attempt on the Tai On, under Cap­tain WeatheraIl, when the pirates got more than they bargained for. A good proportion of the river trade is run by a British company - British in name at all events. Their ships are kept clean; their officers are well paid and have a prospect of pen­sion. Yet it was one of these ships, the Sui An, that was the first victim of the recent outbreak of piracy. What an easy prize she was too! Grills to the bridge unlocked, officers unarmed, guards with their rifles unloaded. All these things were well known to. the pirates.

The second cause for complaint - the impracticability of the regulations and the supervision of shipping matters by the police. There is one outstanding case. Both the old and the revised regulations for the prevention of piracy laid down that certain parts of the ship should be grilled off. They also omitted to state that the doors of these grills should be kept locked. When this little oversight was discovered, the inspector or sergeant in charge of the police who search passengers and ships for arms, received orders personally to lock all grills and turn the keys over to. the captain before the ship might leave the wharf. Now most of the river steamers in 1923 were like a complicated wire puzzle. The grills that the regulations required had gradually been added to. as each new piracy shewed some new weakness in the defence. When the policeman had locked all these grills they were supposed to remain locked until the end of the voyage. Take one case. It was one of the 39 articles of shoregoing bureaucratic faith that every deck must be grilled off from every other deck. That meant that the hatch between the fo'cs'le and the capstan flat below was grilled and locked. If the chief officer while leaving harbour wanted to let go an anchor in a hurry he could not send his men below to tend the capstan and compressors without getting the keys from the bridge. Similarly the men letting go aft could not reach their quarters forward without climbing round the grills­ - a bad example to possible pirates. Of course none of these things happened. The grills were opened by the captain imme­diately the policeman had gone, or else the crew had their own private keys. The problem is undoubtedly a thorny one, but in my opinion it has been badly mismanaged.

One further complaint by the merchant officers guild deserves notice. When piracy is rife the coast and river trade 'is undoubtedly a dangerous trade. In the years 1922-23-24 the casualties to officers through piracy were very severe. One would expect that in recognition of this fact there would be some scheme for insurance or com­pensation. But there is no Employers' Liability Act in Hong­kong, and until the government took belated action in 1924, officers had no financial incentive to attempt the defence of their ships against piracy. They stood to lose all, for they were always the first to be shot, and to gain nothing.

I hold it as the basic principle in piracy prevention that no ship commanded and officered by average mercantile officers who are paid as they should be, who are in fact and not in name in charge of their ships and who are kept up to the mark by a minimum of official supervision and regulation, will ever be pirated. It is, then, the Government's duty to bring such pressure on the owners as shall ensure their putting the larger view of the security of trade under the British flag before the immediate advantage of their own pockets. In view of the small number of officers borne the government must also insist on such structural alterations as shall ensure the bridge and engine room against surprise. They should also provide, on repayment, a sufficient number of reliable armed watchmen to enable the officers to attend to their navigational duties with­out any worry as to the security of the entrances to the bridge.

To sum up I advocate……

1. That the river and coastal trade of S. China should be recognised as presenting special features and risks outside ordinary maritime practice.

2. In view of the Chinese owners indifference to the needs and rights of his employees, the harbour master should be given special powers to deal with owners who endeavour to "squeeze" the pay of officers, or in the least particular inter­fere with an officer's full and customary powers on board ship.

3. Fit such grills and bullet proof protection to engine room and bridge as shall enable officers to guard against a surprise. Leave all other matters of defence to the discretion of the master.

4. Increase the standard of training and discipline and re­duce the number of Indian guards carried. I know of no ship requiring more than three guards - two on duty while under way - provided they keep watch and are accommodated within the protected area of the bridge. .

5. Make W/T compulsory in ships over a certain size.

6. An officer from the West River patrol to board ships periodically with an armed party. Inspect ship throughout and satisfy himself that everything is in order - arms loaded, signals ready etc.

First and foremost ensure the officers proper treatment and back them up in maintaining complete command of their ships. If the Chinese owner tries to employ a "cheap" officer, the guild will see to it that both owner and officer are reported. No body of men will allow their standard of wages to be brought down while there is a remedy to hand.

NOTE BY THE HON EDITOR.-It will be noted that the Navy will always have to deal with piracies in Chinese seas and rivers until the policing is so effective that piracy is not worth the risk. It is hoped 'that members of the Naval Society who have had experience of such matters on the China Station will suggest remedies. A general dis­cussion of the problem would be valuable to officers serving on the Station, but any proposals made must bear in mind that rules can only be enforced if agreed to by ship owners and masters on the one hand and international sanction on the other.