2nd October.
Ir is really good news that the Consular Body are practically unanimous in their determination that the opium hulks must go.
For forty-one years they have been an eye-sore and a nuisance". Most of the shipping people recognise what a nuisance they are, and if they are not an eye-sore, why don't their owners moor them in front of their! own windows?
Until 1860 they were at Woosung and then they were brought up to Shanghai, because this was considered safer anchorage. In 1877 an attempt was made to get them moved over to the Pootung side, but it fell through, At last we believe that their doom is declared.
Their supporters have started a report that the real object of their removal is that wharves may be built along the Bund foreshore. This is a red herring; no one can build godowns or wharves on the river frontage between the Soochow Creek and the Yangkingpang.
Their raison @étre has departed and they must follow it. 'Choy were at one time the only bonted' storehouses in Shanghai, and only importers of opium were allowed the privilege of storing their goods in bond. But "now there are bonded warehouses on shore, and the opium hulks are an intolerable anachronism.
But, say their supporters, opium is a very valuable commodity and offers great temptation to thieves, and it is much easier to keep off depredators feom a hulk than from a godown. This reasoning would apply to a valuable commodities, Other merchants manage to protect their silk and so on, tradesmen their jewellery, bankers their stocks of specie, on shore; why cannot opium merchants protect their drug?
Another argument for their retention is, that the Customs suthorities must 'e them under their eye. But the vision of the Customs is not limited to a radius of 300. yards from the clock-tower; and it will supervise the opium just as well when it is transferred to godowns on shore.
Half the best reach of the river, a river which is narrow enough already for the traffic, is constantly blocked by these ugly and unnecessary floating warehouses, and the public do not hear of one-tenth of the accidents that they cause.
But, say their supporters, they act as a breakwater and protect the small craft at the jetties a'ong the Bund. This is the only claim for commiveration they can take, snd the service that they render at times in this; capacity does not at all compensate forthe permanent obstruction they offer to the traffic on the river, Unfortunately in one way, fortunately in another, it is only certain lines of steamers, those which go to wharves above the Yangkingpang, that suffer from the obstruction the opium hulks present. If all the steamers that come to Shanghai were hampered by them as some are, they would have been removed years ago.
Their removal has been mooted over and over again since and even before 1877. But Shanghai is a place in which vested interests wield an extraordinary power. And yet it is safe to predict that when the hulks have been removed the owners of them themselves will be glad they are gone, so limited is their real use now. The flagstaff of the Yuen Fah can be taken out and set up on the foreshore in order that the Canadian Pacific steamers may still be sig-nailed.
Finally; it would be a happy thought if the owners of the Wellington and Yuen Fah would present them to the Municipal Council for conversion into a public swimming bath in the summer months. In a word, we earnestly hope, and we are sure the hope is. general, that the movement the Consular Body have inaugurated by their letter to the Taotai will shortly end in the dis-um hulks from their present moorings.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.