chant bewails the depredations audits, his confrere in Shanghai hus really hardly less cause of complaint i the monstrous depredations of pilferers harbour. The magnitude this evil enforces the hope} resolution moved Mackay at the British Chambers of Commerce!
wy be productive of ord pilferage, 8 it does a little boy apple off an old in's stall, conveys no idea of the extent to wh stolen in Shanghai ago w case was recorded it laodulis, in conspiracy with brokers and loafers, disappeared! with a cargo boat containing paper, yarn and cloth to value of over Tls. 6,000, and nothing} more was ever heard of either boat or cargo. Scareely a week! passes but charge of theft in the harbour is heard in the Mixed Court and such cases probably do not represent a tithe of the losses that occur.
Mackay pointed out, Shanghai, now one of the chief ports of the world and through which many millions of tons of shi unally pass, quiring reputation for pilferage in the trade centres of every continent.
Every employer of oriental jour is aware of the difficulty of checking theft; but the root se i's harbour is the utter nadequiey of the river police] force. They do their best, 10 would them on this score.
But what can some thirty-thres men do, however zealous, in a Trarhour fifteen miles long on the ne erable jetties and. landing! places unprotected by any Cus toms barrier and with long' stretches of open foreshore, while in addition there is the! ago. They asked for forty-eight foreign and the same number of Chinese constables, twelve [sergeants, three inspectors and cone superintendent, with at least eight launches and four motorboats. When-one considers the extent of waters tobe guarded, this does not seem at all excess sive. Even when robbers can be caught, the question of jurisdiction' affords many loopholes. For apart from the Mixed Courts of foreign and international settlements, there! fare numbers of courts under Chinese control and it is frequently a matter of the greatest difficulty to find out m which of them all a prisoner is to be pro-secured. Further, there is the difficulty of collecting the necessary evidence. There may be no moral doubt of a prisoner's gait: in the circumstances of such eases, when a capture made, we maybe fairly sure that there is no mistake as to his being the right man. But the factual proof demanded by a court of law is unavailable.
The question of the Soochow Creek, of which Mr. A. W. Barkill spoke in seconding Mr. Mackay's resolution, presents additional problems, with whi our readers ave familiar. Until the creek is properly dredged, which the Chinese responsible for it will neither do themselves nor permit others to do, the congestion of trafic eamnot be removed; but there ix no doubt that a more adequate staff of police could do much to facilitate} the movement of boats, as, on lard, the management of our is} narrow and traffic-laden Nanking' Roa amply proves. Traffic difficulties are by no means confined, however, to the Soochow' (Creek. No captain navigating the Huangpu but will testify to the danger presented by the erratic small craft plying thereon, which ever increases in volume. To sum up, it is not suggested that the' Custom should relieve merchants and wharf owners of what—they should do for themselves in the matter of watchmen ashore and fon shipboard. But this still leaves an enormous area unprotected, apart altogether from] harbour waters, for which the! Customs has sole responsibility 5 and it is obviously absurd to} attempt this great charge with] the same force that was used when harbour and tonnage alike were but a fraction of What thes are now. Considering the amount of reverse annually collected in Shainghai, we cannot} jut think that the Customs authorities in Peking centd ford to be more libert. The resolution passed at yesterday's} meeting deals with a matter in which redress is possible, contrast with the meny whic nothing—but—disappointment awaits. Let us hope that that quite obtainable success will Py
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.