WHY CHINESE PIRACY IS HARD TO SUPPRESS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6804, 7 January 1929, Page 8

WHY CHINESE PIRACY IS HARD TO SUPPRESS

“CUT AND-RUN” TACTICS. NAVY RECEIVES NO AID FROM VILLAGERS. How is it that the British Navy, which has wiped out slave traffickers iu the Persian Gulf and swept the Red Sea clean of Arab raiders, is unable to suppress piracy in China? asks a .naval officer in the London Evening News. Ever since the news of the Anking outrage, when a British ship was attacked by pirates, this question has been asked with a good deal of uneasiness. As one who has had some experience of the navy’? war against the sea bandits of the East, perhaps I may bo able to answer it. - First, look at the atlas. British sea' power has a long arm in China, it reaches 1800 miles inland right to the Upper Vangtse region. Throughout all this vast stretch of seaboard anti, river there is a population which regards piracy and brigaudngo as honourable, lawful and, indeed, praiseworthy professions. Chinese pirates are organised like trusts and corporations, with elaborate spy systems, through which they are kept informed of likely victims anil favourable openings for business. Cowardly Rascals. Nearly always their procedure is the same. A gang of pirates joins a ship as ordinary passengers, and loot? her, if they see a chance of doing it successfully. If they see no such chance, they remain ordinary passengers until the end of tho voyage. Very seldom will they attack. a vessel from outboard, for they # are cowardly rascals, and, though they will murder as readily as they will rob, they have little stomach for fighting. Their practice is to run the captured ship into Bias Bay or one other of their lairs, take all they can out of her, and then vanish ashore.

Once there, search for them is hopeless. A warship may come along in due course and bombard the “stronghold,” as it is popularly misnamed, into which the theives have vanished. A few ramshackle houses are knocked down; but if anybody suffers it is not the pirates themselves. They have vanished into the blue.

Supposing a warship lands a party for tho purpose of capturing pirates who have gone ashore at any particular place. A smiling, apologetic headman will meet the party on tho beach w'ith the assurance that all the culprits have gone into the interior, which is probably the tnith. Innocent Executed. But if this story is not accepted, and the headman sees that prisoners must be forthcoming, he will promptly hand over to justice a number of perfectly innocent folk from his village. Indeed, Chinese local authorities will go so far as to themselves lop off the heads of these innocent victims when they deem it necessary. It is quite easy for the authorities to substitute the innocent for the guilty in this way without any objection being made by the victims. For there is an ancient Chinese custom of “substitution,” under which n condemned man may purchase a substitute to suffer in his stead. There are always Chinese who are prepared to sell their own lives in this way for the benefit of their families. Some years of service on the China station convinced me that piracy in China will never bo completely sup pressed until the mentality of the Chinese is altered. And I doubt whether that will ever happen.