LIFE OF THE CHINESE

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 October 1939, Page 3

LIFE OF THE CHINESE

PIRATES AND PRICES. Stories of pirates on the high seas and men and women made to walk the plank are not confined to boys' storybooks even in 1939, writes H. le Gay Brereton from Hong Kong to the “Chicago Tribune.” In a British court of law in Hong Kong recently six men were charged with murder. The sole survivor- of a crew of nine related how he and his companions, with their hands tied behind their backs and some of them with weights tied to their necks, had been forced at pistol point to walk the plank to what the pirate gang hoped was certain death.

Wong Kwan-sik, the only survivor, was luckier than his companions. He escaped a blow aimed.' at his head, escaped rifle fire aimed at him as he floated in the water, and had sufficient strength to remain floating on his back for several hours —and he happened by a. pure chance to float into the path of a passing ship. Relating his experiencves, Wong said that he and his companions were sailing their junk to Hong Kong with a cargo of nearly 1000 tons of matting when another Chinese vessel bore down on them and a member of the pirate gang fired several shots at them from a rifle.

The junks drew alongside' one another and the cargo vessel was boarded in true storybook style by six men armed with rilles and revolvers. The crew were lined up with their hands behind their backs and forced to watch while their captain was made to jump into the sea. with a large stone tied to his neck. He disappeared immediately. The remainder pleaded for mercy and offered the pirates £6O a-piece for thffir lives, but the money was not considered worth the risk a survivor’s story might cost them, and the pirates tossed them all overboard, fired a few shots at. those who were seen to float, and then set about looting the ship.

Apparently considering themselves safe from detection after destroying, as they imagined, all the evidence against, them, the pirates sold the cargo at considerable profit and came to Hong Kong to splash their looted wealth.

Unfortunately for them, one of their victims had survived, and he also had made his way as quickly as possible to Hong Kong to report the matter to the British police. The intricate system evolved by the police for dealing with dangerous Chinese characters soon was to bear fruit, and after rumours had been picked up of the presehce in Hong Kong of a. pirate gang only a short time elapsed before Wong was called upon to identify his would-be murderers, who now face a. British court on charges of murder. In former days their pleas might well have been not. guilty to charges of piracy on the high seas.

China, in the midst of her chaos ami tribulatioan, is developing a rural economy which can withstand an indefinite period of war. according to the American trade attache. Julean Arnold, who was in Hong Kong recently.

Though he gives the Chinese credit for several accomplishments, particularly the transfer of many manufacturing industries from the coastal areas to the west and south-west, provinces, Arnold had several criticisms, too.

China’s biggest need at. the moment is some sort of co-ordination of transport services, he said, and since most cf her transport is by motor-lorry more thought and time should be given to the training of drivers who at present are very bad and proving very costly. The present practice is to teach people how to drive trucks and not to bother to teach them how to service them. The result is that a fair proportion of the vehicles in China always are laid up and their average life is short. Drivers, too, should be equipped with picks and shovels and obliged to repair the roads as they go along and maintain a fairly respectable surface.

A. CHINESE RACKET. Chinese in Hong Kong have a new racket. It involves little trouble and makes a big profit —except, that after a certain number of times it becomes dangerous. At least one person has died from it. It is the selling of forged cholera inoculation papers. The plan is that the Government having decreed that no person is allowed to travel to the neighbouring colony of Macao without. a cholera inoculation certificate, coolies with nothing better to do attend the Government centres and obtain their inoculation and certificate free. This is promptly sold to some other Chinese who is travelling to Macao-—no passport being required for the journey.

There is a. limit, however, to the number of times a person may safely be inoculated during a given time and at least, one. Chinese has died’ from over-inoculation. Evidence showed that he had visited the. hospital at least fifteen times over a period of a few weeks. Tourists in the Ear East these days are happiest visiting Shanghai, where conditions are rapidly approximating those which prevailed in Germany alter the war when the mark began to slump. In Shanghai to-day foreign currency is worth almost fabulous numbers of Chinese dollars —an English pound may be exchanged for between sixty and seventy and an American dollar tor about fifteen. Indications are that a further depreciation of the national dollar is certain. No wonder that American and British sailors are glad to be posted to the Far Eastern station.

It. has not taken long for prices Io follow the dollar’s downward trend, and recently tourists were living at ihe Far East's most luxurious hotels for as little as two shillings a day. During days of violent fluctuation the majority of shops are not inclined lo make sales.

Feminine customers of a lingerie shop in the centre of Shanghai were put. out considerably when the man ager of the csiablishment brought till business to a standstill to announce that io prevent the shop going bankrupt a. 20 pci’ cent, incease was added from that instant to all price lags. Ollier shops simply discouraged customers as much as possible or refused to make sales, while ships leaving for overseas ports could not cope with the crush of exports being sent away by business men who were taking advantage of the opportunity to buy Chinese products at the new low levels.

Night club and hotel patrons suffered severely when most establishments raised prices ol drinks by half' Whisky suddenly became ” dollars 50 cents a nip. Ever increasing quantities of scrap iron are finding; their way from Hong

Kong to Japan, much of it paid for with Chinese currency confiscated by the Japanese in the occupied' area. Available statistics reveal that Japan is by far the largest buyer of scrap in Hong Kong, a fair proportion of it being shipped in German ships. In 193 S Japan bought only a quarter of Hong Kong’s exports of scrap, but in May this year, the last month for which official statistics are available, she purchased well over threequarters of the total, besides fairly large consignments, which went to Japanese controlled territory in North China.

All manner of goods and formerly useless junk now are bought up by Japanese agents in the colony, with the result that decrepit cars have become worth more as scrap than they aie as registered vehicles. 'i iirough lack of any mills of its own Heng Kong itself imports comparatively large amounts of steel from abroad largely from Australia and America since Britain cannot supply her total needs. The Austral inn product is cheaper than the AmericanThis steel is mainly used in the building of ships—two 10,000-ton liners just having been completed and many smaller vessels being on the stocks of. one of the British Empire’s greatest, shipbuilding centres—and certainly one of the cheapest. Foreign agents have often pressed upon the Chinese -Government, the need of training men to treat, their vehicles with some care and attention, hut the Chinese mentality is such that as long as a machine goes it is considered satisfactory—when it stops it is worn out.