To meet the case of a passenger offering more than ten per cent. of his passage money ax tip, a welfare fund was formed by the company into which anything more than' the ten per cent. was paid. This fund being administered for the benellt of the tea-boys. Extortion was cheek: ed, Where formerly "the tea-boy: had been paid no salaries but lived upon the tips they could extract from the passengers, now they were a salary basis, were allowed to accept reasonable "cumshaws," had welfare fund of their own, and had the threat of dismissal in the background with plenty of fellow members of their union on the company's waiting list, anxious to lake over their Jobs, All this sounds very simple, By. frm and tactful handling, many of the China Merchants! problems have been overcome. The question ansas: Why cannot the foreign. companies follow suit? The answer is two-fold, First, that a Chinese may reasonably be expected to negotiate with a Chinese and understand his. psycho-Jogy better than a foreigner, And secondly, that the company had the necessary, Government backing.
In the days of the abuses, the backing was the other way round, The compradores backed up the tea-boys, who were employed by "them and who were, incidentally ttle better than whart coolies, And the compradores were backed up by other powerful interests, hint Ing not a tittle at Shanghai's water front gangsterdom. Against. oppos tion such as this the company wanle have been helpless without Goverament support.
How far the foreign companies' aiMeulties are rooted in the menace of gangsterdom, which 1s common in other countries'as well, it is not easy to judge. The waterfront gangs ace tremendously powerful and. their ramifications reach far back and into high places. 'Their organizations are complicated and secret, and their protection of members is usually. effective and quickly forthcoming. Is, therefore, "highly probable that they have a' great deal to do with present undisciplined conditions among the ower' paid Chinese on foreign vessels.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.