Brussels, Nov. 4.
"China wants peace, but she' is determined to continue her resistance as long as Japanese aggression persists," declared Dr, Wellington Koo. the chief Chinese delegate, in a speech noted for its moderate tone at the opening of the Nine-Power Conference yesterday, which was marked by complete agreement bes tween the United States, Great Britain and France to seek a purely peaceful solution of the Sino-Japanese conflict, Dr. Koo declared that, "Peace at any price will neither render justice to China nor credit to civilization, Peace must be based on the principles of Article One of the Nine-Power Treaty. Knowing your devotion to the principle and sanctity of treaties, we assure you of the wholehearted collaboration of the Chinese Government,"
The meeting this morning is understood to hava agreed to extend a further invitation to Germany and to appoint a sub-committee of three or four states to approach Japan.
An unofficial, informal meeting of the delegates to the Nine-Power Conference, including Russia but not China, is at present discussing when gangsterism, A man will approach a shipper and offer to protect his cargo from other gangs for so much money. Shippers sometimes prefer to pay a small amount rather than risk valuable cargo.
On the S.M.C. pontoons lately, the gang element has confined its activities for the most part to insistence on unloading cargoes at its particular prices, despite the fact that the customary procedure is for the crews. on the trucks to do the unloading.
Widesp-ead inquiries reveal that the racketeers vary the nature and strength of their approaches according to what shipping interests they are trying to squeeze.
Gang Fees Vary One foreign firm here had to pay one cent per sack of flour unloaded by the gang when this cost would have been obviated had the gang allowed the trucking coolies to do the work. A better mark for the gang was a Chinese firm which paid twenty cents per picul of rice in similar circumstances. The only power of the gang is gained by intimidating other coolies who would work for less, The firm that has complained this week to the S.M.C. has paid three, four, and five times standard prices for the working of cargo at S.M.C. pontoons. A representative of the firm told a "North-China Daily News" representative, as a small example, of a parcel to be brought from the lighter to the office in the Settlement. It cost ten cents to have it taken all the way from the wharf to the office but the gang charged six cents just to take it off the lighter on to the dock.
It is not the coolies who actually work the cargoes that gain from the racket but the unseen powers who control them, The Shanghai Municipal Police have small patience with shipping interests who allow themselves to be squeezed by paying the racketeers and then crying out there is racketeering on the waterfront, It is the weakness of the shippers that encourages racketeering. If a shipper, fearful for his cargo, is a soft mark, he becomes the prey of racketeers,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.