GRAFT OR "SQUEEZE"

Taranaki Daily News, 8 October 1928, Page 15

GRAFT OR "SQUEEZE"

IN AMERICA AND CHINA. From Philadelphia comes the news of the discovery of a huge graft conspiracy on the part of officials, and the world “graft” has a sinister meaning in the United States, although in New Zealand to speak of a man as a gafter is to pay him a high compliment. -But “graft” is not peculiar to America, for it exists in other countries though under different titles. With us it is known mostly as “secret commission,” although in glaring cases, as in the alleged fraud in connection with the Sydney City (Corporation, the word used, is “graft.” There are many forms of these secret commissions which are paid for various services, some being legal, and others distinctly illegal. In China it ia not called “graft,” but “squeeze,” and some remarkable evidence of the extent to which commercial corruption handicaps the operations of native undertakings in the Ear East, is given in the report of a Government committee on the accounts of the China Merchants’ Steam Navigation Company, The evidence shows that in the charges for fuel, supplies, repairs, and for various services, so much is added to the original cost by those having what are colloquially known as “squeezes” that the earning of any profit is either rendered impossible or extremely difficult. A common method of “milking” the company was for work and orders to be given subsidiary undertakings in which those concerned in the “squeezing” possessed a controlling interest. These devices are perhaps not entirely Eastern, but the practice of them has certainly been brought to a finer art than in the West. The China Merchants’ is the largest as well as the oldest steamship company owned by Chinese. In coastal, as well as inland river trade, it does not fall behind British owned lines. It has also wharf, stores and other facilities as good as any other company, yet the financial conditions of the company are most deplorable; in fact, bordering on bankruptcy. If the Chinese are ever to set their'house in order they must begin with the “squeeze” complex.