HOW CARGO IS PILLAGED

Evening Star, Issue 17706, 6 July 1921, Page 7

HOW CARGO IS PILLAGED

THE CUTE YANKEE AT IT. The losses from pilfering ships’ cargoes are serious, indeed. Tho estimates of Customs officials in the Commonwealth rrive the total value last year in .Sydney aldiio at £68,587, while the Melbourne Steamship Company had a total of claims in respect to pillage and short-landed cargo amounting to £12,295, and of these claims 80 per ce'nt. were actually paid. Tho Commonwealth Line of steamers was also sufferers, having to pay claims over £6,000. But, while it is perfectly true that the waleraiders at Australian ports do some amount of pilfering, the blame does not wholly rest on them. Since the Pillaging Commission sat at Sydney a ease has come to light which the Victorian police regard as a. new aspect of pilfering, more American in character than Australian. A. consignment of cased beer, specially bottled for export, was taken from Abbotsford brewery to tho Reward-Smith steamer Cooma for shipment to Brisbane. Four of tho cases were found to be heavier than the others, although they bore no outward evidence of having been tampered with. When opened each was discovered to contain, not four dozen bottles of beer, but bricks and scrap wood. It was clear that the work could not have been clone on tho wharf or on shipboard, and subsequent investigation showed that the lorry from the brewery had stopped at a house in Richmond, and there the robbery was ■methodically and carefully carried out Cases have been found to have been filled foi two months following arrival fix in the United Elates, ami when they were opened they were found to contain bricks am; old" American newspapers. In this in stance tho loss amounted to £2,500. Evidence given by a Customs official before the Commission in Me.bourm showed that five or six eaves out of a consignment uf thirteen —part of a consignment of patent leather irom Lew Yol —contained stones and papers. As the newspapers bore a date between the date ;hc consignment left the factory and the date of shipment, it was dear the robbery took place at that stage. The loss wa. estimated at £2,700. Proficient as some colonial waterside workers appear in the art of pilferinc. evidence given before the Cnmmisdon i” •Sydney would seem to show that they would need to get tip very early to detea the New Yorker, While the cases they were supposed to have been shipped ii were rolling along in the hold of a Irani! bound for Australia hundreds of razor were being openly sold on the waterfron n New York.

The claims against the U.S. and A. Line running from New York to New Zealam and Australian ports reached the cm tremoly high total for the year 1920 o £70,350 for pillage and £27,113 for short landing, many claims under the hiUe head having been for a similar reason to these made under the former.