“THE BIG SQUEEZE.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20476, 30 November 1934, Page 7

“THE BIG SQUEEZE.”

Shanghai Trotting Venture Failed. An amusing revelation of the corrupt working of Chinese politics was made on his return to Sydney recently by Mr. F. A. Smith, one of the Australian trainers who went to Shanghai to help a Chinese company establish trotting there. Bribery in China, said. Mr. Smith, is known technically aa “The Big Squeeze,” and is deeply entrenched in tradition. When his company applied to the authorities for permission for the irote, they v ere informed that, on receipt of £20,000, they would be at liberty to establish the sport. They argued against this decision, but finally agreed to pay, but, when they brought their money they found that the meu who ran the Mongolian ponies, the only opposition, had offered the Government more if trotting were banned. Mr. Smith’s company promptly raised their bid, but the others followed, and, to each new bid, the pony men increased their offer still further. “Finally,” said Mr. Smith, “we were talking in millions, and the pace got too hot. We quit, leaving the field to the Mongolian ponies. “It i 3 said of Australians,’* said Mr. Smith, that they will put their shirt on a horse, but the Chinese will go one better. They’ll put tlieir trousers on. They are the finest gamblers in the world.” If trotting nad been established in Shanghai, he said, the ponies would have been dove away with, for they galloped with stiff legs,' and an Australian horse need only canter to beat them.