PILLAGING OF CARGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18157, 31 January 1921, Page 5

PILLAGING OF CARGO

HEAVY.LOSSES INVOLVED,

1 EXPERT METHODS EMPLOYED.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.

LONDON, January 28. Lord Inchcape’s letter to the press has drawn further attention to the serious pilfering among overseas cargoes, which it is estimated caused a loss in London alone. of over £3,000,000.

The Australian Press Association is informed by shipowners that the Australian trade losses frequently amount to £2OOO per shipper per voyage. One company recently showed pilfering losses at the rate of £250,000 per annum. The owners are unable to allocate? the chief leakage among the shipping houses, packers, railways, British dockers, and Australian wharf labourers. They point out that pilfering by crews is negligible, and is easily to be differentiated from the expert methods used prior to shipment, which make it impossible to detect oases which have been pilfered and repacked.—A. and N.Z. Cable.

FORCE OF SPECIAL POLICE,

A PROMISING SCHEME

LONDON, January 28.

The shipowners, in view of the heavy claims, have recently established, at a cost of £35,000 per annum, a special plainclothes police force for work at the Lon- ! don docks. The members of the force belong to the port police, but the shipowners' pay the entire cost of their special work aboard ships. Mr Gosling, of the Dockers’ Union, approved of the scheme prior to its inauguration, declaring that he would welcome any project which would remove the stigma froih the dockers. The force is not expected to begin to show any results immediately, but the already increasing prosecutions are promising success, and the dockers have not raised t any difficulties. The Australian owners are gratified with the Overseas Committee for having' adopted a similar scheme at Australian ports.

OFFENDERS SENTENCED.

LONDON, January 28. At the Old Bailey a stevedore was sentenced to 12 months’ hard labour for pilfering from a Cunard liner in the Thames. Two ship’s firemen were sentenced to four months and a third to six months on a charge of receiving stolen goods. It was stated that pilfering in the Black Sea service during the last 12 months had amounted to over £20,000. —A. and N.Z. Cable.