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In
inspection at Hongkong the pirates did not generally go
on board there but at such places as Shanghai, swatow and
Amoy where there was put little searching of passengers,
any case the searching of passengers was often ineffective
owing to the fact that arms had previously been smuggled on
board with the collusion of the crew and the Compradore's
staff. It would have been noticed that when the pirates
left a pirated ship they often took the Compradore with
This was not in order to hold him for ransom but
LİMM.
because the Compradore was in the conspiracy.
Mr. Yoshizawa expressed himself in fæour of a
search of passengers on embarkation so far as this was
practicable. But if arms were already smuggled on board,
examination of passengers was clearly futile.
Siz M. Lampson dwelt on the difficulties of ex-
kmining passengers at ports other than Hongkong. The
Maritime Customs were the only thiness authority empowered
by Treaty to search foreign ships and they could not under-
take the task for the purpose of piracy prevention. It
would never do to wllow irresponsible bodies of Chinese to
search forsign vessels as they would probably be actuated
by political or other undesirabie motives. He thought
there were three lines of approach in studying the question:
(1) Administrative action of the type already
discussed, i.e. search of passengers and ships.
(2) Juber preventive measures.
(3) Punitive action
As a basis for practical discussion sir M. Lampson then
handed round copies of the document attached as annex A.
After this document had been read wona. Varé ask-
ed whether the action already undertaken against Bias Bay
had been successful.
sir C. Clementi said that on the first occasion
landing