May 9.
The British community in China has had much occasion to, congratulate itself on the type of naval officers who have been on duty here, and the fact that Rear-Admiral Hugh Tweedie has now taken up the pen following his retirement from the command of the Yangtze Flotilla will give no cause for complaint. Admiral Tweedie, who preceded Admiral Mac-Lean, was obviously a born commander of units of mosquito craft, if that term may be used by a' layman without offence to those serving under the White Ensign. He commanded one of the original monitors de: fications at Zeebrugge, and subsequently he was lent to the Italians for service with a squadron of monitors operating the Adriatic. So highly praised was his work in this command that when, after the Battle of Jutland, changes were made in the Grand Fleet, he was promoted to be Commodore and had command of the Destroyer Flotilla of the Fleet—about a hundred and fifty ships. He came to China in. 1927 to take command of the Yangtze Flotilla, and only recently in the Home papers he has been giving his impressions of his work there. The value of these notes of his is very great, and call for congratulation for' their honesty and courage. Take for instance the following significant, paragraph:—
The spell ashore (in Shanghai) is merely an interlude in the strenuous work of watching the river, (Yangtsze), for it is not! too much to say that without the: protection afforded by this sec tion of the British Navy, trade on the river and its banks could! not continue. The gunboats are the one bulwark against chaos and disorder, and it is a ficant fact that despite the Iawless and barbarous nature of much of the country through which the river runs, the Customs returns for Shanghai increase progressively for each year, As is usually the case when a sailor sets out to give a narrative of his work scant justice is done to the personal aspects of it. In connection with the speech of General, Chiang, Kat-ok at the People's Convention where he blamed the foreign concessions for most of the trouble in the spread of the opium trade, it would be: illuminating to obtain a Chinese official opinion on the experienc which Admiral Tweedie underwent in his flagship. So daring are the smugglers and so profitable is the trade that on one rip they had the nerve""—it is difficult to find any other word for it—to utilize the Bee for the prosecution of their nefarious ends. Naturally the offenders were speedily dealt} with: they were Chinese employed in the flagship, and when an investigation was' made two men confessed to being the cul-brits. The rest of the story is Gest told in Admiral Tweedie's own words:—At a part lower down the river, the two men disappeared.
feared they had fallen victims to the officials ashore. I made in-(quiries but they denied all know-Jedge of what had become of the two men from the gunboat. I eventually discovered. they had een imprisoned but failed to get any further in the matter.
Later it came to light that!
these to unfortunates. had con:
fracted to bring, the opium down Shin. bot" since T had. discovered this particular town in
and thrown it overboard, they were held Kable for what we would call a breach of contract, ard had their heads cut off as a H.MS. Bee had for days eon steaming through a stretch of the river, the: banks of which on either side were ablaze with fields of poppies, and in the face of such evidence it is hardly Possible to agree with what was said at the People's Convention as to the responsibility. of the Settlements and Concessions for the state of affairs of which the Nanking Government complains. difficulties facing' those having That is only one aspect of the
to do with the Yangtze Flotilla, and, as has been" mentioned, Adi Tweedie - has not stressed the continued strenuousness of the work on hand. For instance during his time' there was one stretch on the river, extremely tortuous and difficult of navigation, where pirates daily and nightly removed the navigation marks, always waiting for a ship togo ashore and then to loot it. The—business went on for three months, and daily it was the duty of British gunboats to replace these navigation marks so. that not only could British and foreign but Chinese ships pass in safety, The work was. arduous and of dreadful monotony, and seldom Was it relieved by the chance of bringing the -pirate-bandits to action on the banks. Then over and above all this there must be given due appreciation to. the danger of the river. So grea this that in 1927 it appeared as if HALS. Mantis, then at Chung king, guarding the small foreign population there, might have to abandoned, perhaps blown up, It is known that the alternative of bringing her down the river at low water where her length made turning in the narrows a highly dangerous operation was left to her com manding officer, Commander Douglas-Hamilton. He and a very great and courageous American pilot, Captain Torn roth, decided to take the risk. Balks of timber and reinfer: ments of cement were utilized to protect the hull against the event of her striking a rock, and the journey was commenced. When safety was reached after four days' steaming in these most perilous waters, with innumerable narrow escapes, the commander of the Mantis and her pilot were reduced to sha: dows, Such isthe spirit of the Yangize Flotilla that the public knew little regarding the case until many months Inter when Captain Tornroth was presented with a piece of plate by the British Admiralty, So the work goes on, and in his article Admiral Tweedie has certainly not under-estimated the difficulties or the importance of the Flotilla's duties,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.