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closure 3. closure 4.
Aclosure 5.
83
in appointing the Committee was to obtain practical advice
as to the steps necessary to make our anti-piracy regulat-
ions effective without being unduly irksome, and as the
extension of its activities to a general discussion of
such questions as a system of naval patrols, which is not
a matter within the competence of this Government, would
in my opinion merely have resulted in wasting the time of
the members I declined to enlarge the terms of reference.
Messrs. Brown, Chau and Laurenson accordingly withdrew
from the Committee, which as a consequence has since
remained in abeyance, and in January submitted the
enclosed document as a 'Minority Report'.
3.
I enclose also a copy of a letter from the
Chamber of Commerce, in which it is stated that the
General Committee and the Shipping Committee of the
Chamber unanimously approve of the 'Minority Report' and
a copy of a letter from the Commander-in-Chief on the
China Station containing his observations upon it.
The Commander-in-Chief lays stress on two
points,
4.
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the objection to grilles as being a hindrance to life-saving in case of accident, and the necessity of ensuring that the guards are under the entire control of the Haster while the ship is at sea. With regard to the grilles the system has its obvious imperfections, but it was necessary to adopt some method of restricting the
movements of passengers, and a wholesale reconstruction of river steamers to this end was out of the question. The
present arrangements are largely of a makeshift nature,
and I propose to examine further the practicability of enforcing permanent structural alterations which will
attain the end in view without contravention of Board of Trade regulations. Any steps in this direction, which
·
involve expense to shipowners, will without doubt be
strenuously opposed.
5.