Referring again to the boarding of lis vessel by officers from the Customs cruiser, Captain Maley said, "They told us that we were supposed to have ammunition on board and that they had suspicions of the ship. I requested them to arrange' for a search party to board the vessel when she arrived at Woosung on her journey.ta Shanghai but they did not agree to this.'
Describing later events, he told the reporter that a Captain T. Tanabe of the Maritime Dept, Chinese Maritime Customs, sent his card to the British vessel with a request that the vessel proceed to Tsingtao. Again the request was made that the vessel should be searched at Woosung but no answer was received to a note sent to Capt. Tanabe nor were signals answered. Later the ship was searched with the result that the pork was discovered.
In Tsingtao, he continued, the Japanese authorities asked to see the ship's log and papers but were met with a polite but firm refusal and when the Birmingham arrived the Customs authorities, to everyone's surprise, denied having detained the British vessel by force. "They just slipped up and didn't know which way to get out of it" added Capt. Maley. In ihe end the navy blamed the Customs and the Customs the avy and he was at a loss to know who would pay for the oil and demurrage.
Shortly after his arrival, Capt. Maley, who has been in Shanghai since 1920 when he left England, pro-laceded to the offices of the ship's owners and later to H.M. Consulate where he related his story of events on January 28.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.