I do not see the possibility of effective cooperation; & even with this condition there will still be, as past experience shows, great danger of their being employed as routine cruisers to prevent smuggling rather than vessels employed to search for pirates.
In the first, the Provincial Authorities have a very direct & personal interest; in the latter, only one that is remote with a very lukewarm feeling for the well-being of traders & the prosperity of trade to back it. So long as piracy affects their own trade exclusively, they do not see what foreigners have to do with it. They admit that if wholly unchecked it may also become a danger to foreign vessels & in that case allow that they are under some Treaty obligations to cooperate with suppression. But still without a well-organised Naval service, however small, cooperation must be more or less delusive if not absolutely mischievous by the delays incident to combined operations & the certainty of combined movements being communicated to the pirates in time to allow of escape.
As to the proposal to station a Chinese gunboat in the Hongkong waters, I cannot help thinking there are serious objections. In the present temper of the Hongkong community, it will be viewed with suspicion & scarcely fail to be the object of hostility on the part of the authorities & the K-H community. It will not be conducive to good relations either with the Chinese or the local community. If any Officer were on board, they will be pretty certain to meddle with matters not in their province, either to levy squeezes on native boats, or otherwise check & control their movements between the mainland & the colony. They will make secrecy & promptitude of action alike difficult to secure.
Thus it would seem that a Chinese gunboat so stationed will not effect the end contemplated; & very probably will lead to results altogether different & more or less incompatible with the suppression of Piracy.