Strike of Stevedores at, Foochow The recent short-lived strike of [stevedores at Foochow has its ex. planation in a peculiar story of pilfering and squeeze, while the steps taken by the Customs to cor= rect this have already resulted in legitimate trade being benefited, according to reports received from the southern port.
The system in force at Foochow is for cargo to be unloaded from ships at Pagoda Anchorage into lighters. The and must not be opened until th reach Foochow itself, where
break the seals and examine the Customs themselves carg Des ing is carried on to an appreciable extent, and the goods stolen are smuggled ashore and sold at a cheaper price than can be offered by, firms engaged in legitimate trade, Tt seems that the Mghters a under the control of certain Customs brokers. They make no charge to their clients" for passing cargo through the Customs, neither do they pay the lighter crews an ade~ quate salary. The latter are allowed to their squeeze by pilfering goods, and it is not very-dithcult to send what they have stolen ashore between Pagoda and Foochow. This is, of course, provided they can manage to get the lighters open.
The recent, strike occurred in cone sequence of two lighters that travel led from Pagoda to Foochow and arrived with the seals broken or The frst lighter arrived with the als broken. The Customs made the owners pay a fine of Tis, 100, A month later, however, another lighter belonging to the same company arrived at Foochow and it was found that the seals had been carefully opened and then closed. down again. This time a fine of Tis, 600 was ordered, Owners of lighters became wor ried over a fine of this size, as they realized that the slightest slip was in the future to cost them dear, and they already saw their profits vane ishing. "They therefore got together and jointly wooed the stevedores of 'They must have spent at least $500 in entertaining the stevedores' guild at feasts, and as a result of their persuasions they got stevedores to go on strike drastic action of the Commissioner of Customs, ing, abi was most fortunate, as Actually the strike came to noth-
the merchants at the time were not ina position to withstand areal Ta the meantime, the Customs Foochow are preparing to use the new Customs seal, rectangular in shape with rounded corners, in place of the old seal with rounded en The mew seal is already in use other ports.
This will make tampering with seals on lighters not quite so easy, which apparently is already realized, one foreign firm is already in of an order for certain goods which have not been a paying proposition legitimate business for some time past, during which per-fod they have been sold at low prices by Chinese fins who have bought them from smuggler
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.