To the Editor of the "Nontu-Cuixa Dain News.
S1r,—Please permit mo through the medium of your valuable paper to say a few words on the inefticioucy of th I. M. Customs in the Tidesurveyors' branch of this vast service. I quite agree with your correspondent of a few weeks ago. No doubt there are some very smart men in this department, especially in Shanghai, but in outports they are few and far between; of the good ones I say nothing.
Lhave had a good deal of experience as far as this branch of the service is concerned, both while serving on steamers and also whilst being an employee of this service. In the first place a Harbour Master is supposed to know a little about navigation and seamanship, at least that has been my experience in all parts of the world except China, and here very often you will find an old soldier or even perhaps a ship fluker or a man who has been at some period of his life a China coast bum, filling the responsible position of Harbour Master and Tidesurveyor, a man perhaps who in most cases could not even take a four-point bearing. And yet these are the men who are in charge of buoying channels and doing other responsible work in aid to navigation. No doubt this state of affairs was all-right fifty years ago, especially in China, but think that it is quite high time that the direct heads of this vast service awoke to the fact that such an antediluvian way of working cannot exist a great while longer, especially with the enormous increase in shipping in the outports. I could mention one port in particular on the Yangtze where the Harbour Master, although one of the seniorfchief tidesurveyors in the service, knows nothing whatever about shipping or seamanship, or for that matter the proper way in which to run his harbour. Ho allows junks to come and anchor in the fairway, where they fare a great inconvenience to steamers getting alongside their hulks, while he away on one of the various Customs premises. I quite agree with your previous correspondent that men for this branch of the service should be drawn from seafaring men, if possible men who hold certificates of competency, but it should be ascertained that these certificates are genuine and not purchased forty yea ago, a thing easily verified by making onquiries of the Registrar-General Shipping and Seamen, Custom-house, London, or if other than British from an equally reliable source, Trusting I have not taken up too much of your valuable space, Smarky. 17th June.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.