CARGO PILLAGING

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 84, 9 April 1926, Page 8

CARGO PILLAGING

A NOTABLE DECREASE

TWO CAUSES STATED

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

Losses due to cargo pillaging, which formerly were very extensive in Auckland, have lately shewn a gratifying decline. One warehouse manager said that only two cases of pillaging have come under his notice during the past two years. Others in similar lines of business tell of the same happy experience. For the decline in pillaging, two reasons are assigned. The first is the passing of the wartime and post-war code of reasoning that "what is yours is mine.'' In the years immediately following the end of the war, losses from pillaging reached unprecedented proportions, the landing of eases and packages from which goods had been abstracted being of almost daily occurrance. The opinion is . expressed that this peculia- twist in the public conscience, in which common honesty had no place, has disappeared with the return of more settled times. The second reason for the decrease is per-

haps a more potent factor. -A closer supervision is kept upon the unloading of vessels. Special watchmen are detailed for duty in the holds, while the police keep a vigilant eye upon the operations on the waterfront generally. In the case of one vessel which recently discharged an English cargo at Auckland; the wages paid to the watchmen amounted to £80; but this expenditure is regarded as a good investmtnt. It is not suggested, of course, that all the pillaging takes place when the ships are discharging at New Zealand ports. Frequently blame has been sheetec 1 home to thieves handling cargo before or while it is being placed on shipboard, while pillaging lias taken place during the voyage. Happily the experience of New Zealand "%nerchants opening cases purporting to contain valuable goods and finding instead paper, old sacks, and

'make weights" of various descripSions, is now very rare.