t
No.3061/1914.
sir,
)
C.
473
27977 RECY
sclosure i
Go Kem
Hongkong, 16th June,
1914.
I have the honour to inform you that pirate
gangs in the Shun Tak District have committed a series of out-
rages on junks working under contract with the Sanitary Depart-
ment of the Colony, and the arrangements of the Department have
been in consequence so seriously dislocated that I have no
alternative but to appeal to the Faval Authorities for assist-
ance.
し
2.
Certain conservancy contractors are employed by
the Sanitary Department to remove the refuge of the City, these
contractors convey the material in junks to depots in Wang Lin
(probably Tang Li in the Admiralty chart) in Shun Tak. The
contractors have apparently been in the habit of paying tolls
to a local pirate gang for permission for their junks to voyage
unmolested. The tolls hitherto amounted to $3,000 annually.
Recently, however, numerous other pirate gangs have sprung up
en route and their demands became so exorbitant that the
contractors coulghet comply with them. The junks were in con-
sequence seized and held to ransom,
3.
Vigorous protests were made by this Government
to the Chinese Authorities, and after some delay a Chinese
Gunboat was on two occasions despatched to the scene, and some
of the captured junks were at length released. No attempt was
made to clear out the pirate strongholds along the route and
the released junks were unable to proceed back to Hongkong for
fear of the pirates who were so incensed by the action of the
contractors that they now threaten to destroy the junks on the
next occasion and kill the crew. In the meantime a large force
of so-called "Pirate-Resisting Troops" who are stationed in the
Commodore R. H. Anstruther, R.N.,
C.M.G.