SECRETS OF GUN-RUNNERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 285, 1 December 1934, Page 6 (Supplement)

SECRETS OF GUN-RUNNERS.

(By CAPTAIN PATRICK CLIFFORD.)

When I read of the controversy ovei the "arms traffic" my mind goes from jhe modest comfort of my London flat and drifts hack to China, and a wild cabaret show in the French Concession. There were half-naked Russian dancing girls, drunken men of all races, and a handful of respectable tourists who had visited the place for a thrill. One man in particular took my attention. He was a big, roughly-dressed fellow, who was treating money as though he hated it. There were tipa for waiters, five dollar bills for his dancing partners, and drinks for everyone who wanted them. When he staggered over to my table I sought to snub him by ordering champagne. I got it, at a cost of seventeen dollars, which he paid from a roll thicker than I have ever seen. This coarse spendthrift would not hi in the cabaret again for a month. Perhaps one day he would leave, never to return again. He did not know the meaning of fear, and he lived for adventure, ilk job was to run guns, ammunition and aeroplanes into Chinas Even at that time a Japanese warship intercepting his vessel and finding military contrabrand aboard would have meant death. He and his crew would have been shot without a thought, and the protests of the Consulate would probably have been received with Oriental courtesy and little more. To-day that man continues his job, despite the presence of a huge fleet off the China coast, and the fact that his own Government would not even protest if he were captured and legally executed by the Japanese. Millions of Pounds Yearly. The gun-runners of the world are the most fearless and desperate men to bo found. They go anywhere for money and are as resourceful as they are daring. Take, for instance, my friend of the cabaret, who once laughed in the face of a Japanese naval officer, with enough contraband aboard to blow np his ship. The gun-runner was bringing a cargo of rifles and ammunition from Hongkong to Wu-chow, and his ship—flying the Chinese merehant ensign—was intercepted at the mouth of the West River. Officially the ship carried a cargo of sandalwood —from which joss sticks ar*i made —and a thorough search for arms was instituted by the Japanese. They found nothing, and the British captain said good-bye to the Japanese boarding officer with exaggerated politeness. The Jap cursed him, but he would have been even more fluent had he known that every third bundle of sandalwood was in reality a carefully-made dummy, in the hollow centre of which were a dozen modern German rifles, which had reached Hongkong aboard a specially chartered tramp steamer from Hamburg.

The suggestion of a League of Nations' embargo on arms to Paraguay and Uruguay, where the war over the Chaco territory is now waging, is a good gesture, but I doubt if it will stop the gun-runners. Actually there is a perpetual embargo on the transport of war material save by special -license, and under an old international- convention, ships of war are entitled to hold up and search vessels suspected of carrying arms. Despite the fact, however, millions of pounds worth of forbidden weapons are exported each year from Europe, and fortunes are ma-de by the daring gunrunners of all nations. ° °

Desperate Men They Cannot Stop.

"Condensed Milk" for Liberia. On my visit to Monrovia, the Liberian capital, I happened to see enough rifles and machine guns to equip a battalion of infantry sent ashore, despite the fait that the country was, and is, under the League of Nations administration. The guns wcro intended for the suspect Liberian Army, which spends its time in attacking the border tribes for slaves. The League forbade its further arming, but under a blazing African sky, with a British warship less than 100 yards away, I saw the guns unloaded. Our captain was a man of many parts, and h© frankly told me —his only passenger— that we were carrying arms.

Such was his manner and reputation that the ship escaped suspicion. None the less, the cases of condensed milk •which the husky labourers carried ashore, were packed with hundreds of rifles, parts and munitions. British armament firms have not taken part in the gun-running industry since the days of the American Civil War, but they cannot refuse orders to Continental countries, who often arrange for the weapons to be sold abroad. Our arms are .in strong demand, but realising the impossibility of corrupting a British firm, the foreign buyers have various French and Belgian companies buy the weapons and pass them on. Guns are often obtained through Antwerp, where plenty of hard and fearless seamen are to be found. As recently as last year the German captain of a French tramp steamer was flogged and gaoled in Singapore prison for smuggling guns into the Federated Malay Straits. The offence is frowned on particularly in that area, because the bulk of the weapons find their way into the hands of Chinese pirates, who are willing to pay large sums for hardy pistols. As much as £25 is paid for revolvers, and £20 for' automatic pistols, which the Chinese do not like so much as the former weapon. Bluffing Their Way Through. Quito the most daring gun-runner I ever met was a certain Captain B , an Irishman. He was known to be smuggling guns to the Chinese antiNationalist rebels in 1927, and was warned by the British authorities that they would do nothing for him if he were captured by Chinese Government forces. B was taking a big cargo up the Peal River to Canton, during the worst of the fighting, and his boat was intercepted by half-a-dozen Chinese river gunboats. Called upon to heave-to, he refused to obey, and signalled that as a British ship~he would not take Chinese orders. It was a magnificent bluff and it worked. The Chinese commanders would not take the risk of firing, and the ship proceeded to Canton, here deadly cargo being unloaded into sampans and junks that very night.

In almost every country in the world seamen are to be found quite desperate for work of any kind. They are ready and willing to take any risks, which accounts for the fact that the big syndicates interested in gun-running have no difficulty in getting good men to take the forbidden cargoes aboard. Many such syndicates, however, prefer to bribe ship's officers to carry their wares in non-suspect cargoes.- Consequently many an innocent-looking liner, which the Japanese dare not stop for fear of international complications, steams boldly into a Chinese port, packed with weapons that may eventually be used against Japan.—(Copyright.)