PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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Reference :-
C.O. 882
8
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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52. This does not matter to " Smith & Co.," even should they know of or suspect it when the whole of the "Atlas" cargo has been re-delivered it will still be shown that 4,625 tons have been fully accounted for; and frequently even no loss from breakage or dust (most certainly involved by handling), will be shown! 53. This practice has been, I may say, common for some years. -teamship owners who instigate it are known.
The Chinese
54. As Chairman of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company I have, for a long time, worked to check and stop it; but I have had the same opposition or indifference as mentioned in paragraphs 34, 76, 77 and 78 hereof.
55. I reported the practice to the Board of Directors of the Company in Singapore; explained how it was done, and even told them of my sources of discovery and disclosure that left no doubt as to the existence of the practice. (As a matter of fact an actual theft of two whole lighter loads of coal delivered to the receivers by the Company's coal department employés did transpire to Europeans of the staff.)
56. I proposed as one means of checking this thieving-that a rule be laid down that no coal to Chinese purchasers should be delivered from the Company's premises into lighters between sunset and sunrise, while there could be no European super- vision on the wharves. (Much of this thieving was the more readily done and facilitated by the lighters being loaded at night time.)
57. In this proposal I was vigorously and tenaciously opposed by a Director on the Board, who is a partner in let us say, a Smith & Co." Most of the coal sold to the Chinese ship owners who thus prey on the coal trade of the port is sold to them by a " Smith & Co."
58. Again, it will be said by the outside reasoning man, that surely a double system of swindling that apparently must have the effect produced by a candle burned at both ends, cannot last for ever? It surely must be discovered through the visible vanishing of coal stocks?
59. No people better know that this would certainly happen unless they saw to making at least some provision against it, than those Chinese employés of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company who have become well-to-do over these swindles. And here is how they do it :-
60. There are masters of many steamers bringing coal cargoes to Singapore, who would not, even if they could, enter into a conspiracy such as the morality of the master of the "Atlas" permits him to do; there are others who do not know of the practice and to whom it would not occur; and there are, again, some to whom the Chinese coal department men of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company would hesitate to suggest such a proceeding lest, mistaking the character of the master there would he resentment and exposure, and demand for dismissal of those suggesting such manipulation. The latter work with exceeding caution, and in the case of any master with whom they think it would involve danger to themselves to suggest an illegal practice, they not only leave him alone, but, on occasions, they proceed to penalise him in the very opposite direction.
61. The records of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company will show that from time to time various steamers discharging coals weighed out on the premises of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company have found that their cargoes have weighed out materially short of the laden or "Bill-of-Lading" quantity, some of them quite alarmingly so; in much heavier degree than would be accounted for by breakage, dust, and loss of moisture.
62. These are among cases where there has been no bribery by the captain, and the Chinese coal-handling staff of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company has selected them from which to take what I may term their "unrecorded reserve" of coal, that will go towards making up for what they steal and surreptitiously sell to Chinese steamship owners.
63. In a case of this kind the steamer's bill of lading will show that she loaded in Japan, let us say, 4,700 tons. The weighing out of the cargo at Singapore will bo so manipulated as to prove" that it consists only of 4,550 tons; the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company will thus only account to the coal importer of Singapore for +,550 tons; while the Chinese employés of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, who handle its coal business have, out of this one cargo, 150 tons of coal "up their sleeve as it were, to sell for their own account, as well as to go towards making up for fictitious "surpluses" that they have created for those steamers that have bribed them.
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64. Swindles of this nature, involving not hundreds of tons but running yearly into thousands of tons of coals, have for a long time back been perpetrated on the ('ompany's premises at Singapore. The Directors and the Managing Director have been told of them, but either they are indifferent on the subject, or they are dis- believers, or it suits their individual interests not to bother their heads on the subject. 65. Two years ago, or thereabouts, I caused the summary dismissal of the Chinese Superintendent of Tanjong Pagar Dock coal department. In connection with his dismissal he made an appeal to the Company's Manager (Mr. James Sellar) to intercede with me for his re-instatement. The Manager told him that if he would make a clean and open breast of his irregularities in coal handling it might help him. He made up and handed to the Manager a list of the coal cargoes the discharging weights of which he had recently manipulated; and that list showed that he had surreptitiously provided some thousands of tons of coal, alleged by the Company not to be on its premises, but all the same there in fact, though not in name, from which he could sell coal on his own account to Chinese and others, or make up for fictitious
surpluses" that had, by manipulation, been created for some steamers.
66. It will be seen that here again I have not been writing from merc impression, but from knowledge, and evidence that cannot well be gainsaid.
67.
left the Chairmanship of the Tanjong Pagar Dock ompany in March, 1904. Up till then I was, and for long had been, steadily engaged in endeavouring to check and put an end to the practices that I have described. From time to time I did check them, and dealt summarily with Chinese employés of the Company suspected of being concerned in them. But with any laxity in closest scrutiny over these matters, and any cessation of drastic punishment visited on the employés suspected, the system of swindling is certain, among the Chinese employés, to revive promptly and be practised vigorously.
68. For the Company the condition of matters is serious, because it acknow- ledges to have on its premises the custody of coal that it is responsible for, but which logically cannot be there. If that is so, then the Directors are allowing to be built up a liability against the Company that no provision is being made to meet-a liability, indeed, that the Company cannot know nor measure the extent of. Or else steamers that find it necessary to use the Company's facilities are being cheated out of coal that is clandestinely appropriated by Chinese employés of the Company and converted to the purposes of these latter.
69. In any case, even though it be not apparent just now, the port will in the long run suffer, if these irregularities be not absolutely put an end to.
70. The practices I have referred to can, unquestionably, be stopped. 71. But I feel satisfied that under present conditions there can never be com- plete eradication of these evils, nor can the possibility of their revival be eliminated, So long as the Singapore Directorate of the Company has in its constitution a majority of men who (as coal merchants in the position of "Smith & Co.," and as local agents for steamers that may be disposed to conspire as a " Khalif" or "Atlas" would) have interests of their own that must come into conflict with the highest interests not only of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company but of the port.
72.
And the same argument applies to the London Consulting "Committee that has on it a majority of men who are the Senior and Directing partners and partici- pators in the businesses of those " Smith and Companies" whose managers, and other nominees of London shareholders, have a controlling majority on the Singapore Board.
73. It is in the nature of things that Directors in that position will always hesitate (or even oppose, as in my experience has been done) in anything to be done for the Company that may on the other hand produce the effect of disturbing or dislocating their own particular trade-overturn in coal, or that will place in jeopardy their own particular steamship agencies.
74. That is the position to-day of a majority not only of the Directorate in Singapore, but of the Consulting ('ommittee in London of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company.
75. The majority on the Directorate holds the power of what shall or shall not be done to rectify, check, or stop irregular practices. The effect of these practices upon their own coal trade and business they must have inner knowledge of; from them, as guardians of the interests of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, should properly come initiation of disclosure, inquiry, and rectification. there has been no such initiation nor movement.
But in practice
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