The Yangtze pilots are to be congratulated upon having at last} obtained a Pilotage Board, which will be able to enforce a certain standard of knowledge, issue! licences and subject apprentices to examination when a vacancy occurs among the pilots. So ends an enterprise upon which the pilots have n set for ten long years. Some months ago we gave an account of the attempt to get a set of regulations for the licensing' of pilots on the Lower Yangtze} enforced by the Diplomatic Body and how it broke down. Subsequently Myr. Raaschou suggested. that what the pilots had failed to get done by compulsion, they might contrive by voluntary arrange: ment among themselves. The matter was referred to the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce) and thence back to the pilots. The Pilotage Board is the result. It consists of representatives of the S. G. C., of the British Senior Naval Officer Commanding on the Yangtze, of the Woosung-Hankow Pilot Association, of the Marine Underwriters Association and of the Consular Body. There is also} a Board of Appointments consisting of men in every-day touch with river conditions, and the licensing rules are those drawn up by Captain Ford. Tyler when he was! Coast Inspector, with some modifications. A good deal of thanks is! due to the Danish Consul and Admiral Barrett for the happy conclusion of affairs and to Mr. H. P. Wilkinson for drafting the articles of association. The new Pilotage Board has no authority over Chinese and Japanese pilots. But the remedy here lies with the underwriters. With the first accident in which a Chinese or Japanese is pilot, if not before, we imagine that insurance rates will go up in respect of ships not handled by a man licensed by the Board.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.