WHY PIRACY PAYS IN CHINA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18248, 5 August 1921, Page 3

WHY PIRACY PAYS IN CHINA

Mr. H. Worley, a Methodist missionary in China, makes the tollowing statement in an interview publisned by the New York "World': — Piracy along the coast is a regular business.” Worley went on, “and it is not regarded the way safe blowing, for instance, is regarded in America. Here every man is supposed to be a citizen. You will help a policeman catch a thief, won’t you? You are on the side of law and order, at least that is the general ideal. But in China it is quite dierent. People are with the lawbreakers, help them escape, conceal them. This came about in a curious way. The Manchus, who ruled the country until the revolution of 1911, were conquerors of the country. They swept down from Manchuria nearly 300 years ago and took possession. They were hated by the people. Their Government, was obstructed passively, for the most part, but in every imaginable way. So, naturally enough, pirates, who are rebels of the purest sort, have the enthusiasm of the people behind them. They menace the authority of the central Government, and that is pleasing to the people. Now that there is a Republican Government, do you think it makes any difference? Not a bit! The custom of throwing sand in the gear box still holds good. I have met Chinamen on the islands who don’t know that there is any new government. They haven't any newspapers or railway trains. “So, you see, a pirate isn’t such a bold, bad man. He takes as much chance as a housebreaker in this country. Along the coast you find village after village in the priate business. Each village is composed of family relatives, a sort of clan. The old men were priates once, the young ones are brought up in the best piratical fashion, and they stick together. If a pirate is caught he has the whole village behind him with all its wealth, and if necessary a string of villages will club together to help him. With this money it is easy enough to buy the magistrate, and the man is set free. “But they don’t kill if they can help it, partly on account of their religion—which is a combination of Confusianism and a low type of Buddhism, and forbids the taking of life —and partly because it is bad policy. For if a priate has robbed a man and the case comes up before the magistrate, which is seldom, since the affairs are usually settled out of court, it is easy for the pirate to say: ‘What! I have robbed you of 1000 dol.? You are mad, you never had that much.’ But if he has killed a man they can say to him ‘There is the body.’”