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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

EPIC.O. 882

8 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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3. I refer to irregularities that, unobserved by and unknown to most people of Singapore, have been allowed to come into the handling of coals in Singapore by the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company's native employés (Chinese), which irregula- rities, if not stopped absolutely, may prejudice the good repute of the port.

4. Excepting coal at the wharf of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Naviga- tion Company (which is a small private wharf exclusively for the purposes of that Company), the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company has what is practically a monopoly of all coal handling in Singapore.

5. By this is meant that it is upon the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company that falls the duty, work and responsibility of berthing all steamers that import coal to the port, and of discharging, receiving, and storing on its premises all such coal. (Peninsular and Oriental Company excepted.)

6. In the same way (with the like exception) it is upon the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company that falls the duty, work and responsibility of handling practically all the coal that has to be delivered to the vast number of coal-consuming steamers that look to Singapore for the supply and replenishment of their bunkers.

7. The overturn (in and out) of coal on the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company's premises may be put at something approaching 14 million tons per annum.

8. Coal is an item in the trade-overturn of Singapore that has largely helped to make Singapore what the port now is.

9. On the careful and satisfactory handling of this coaling trade largely depends a continuance of Singapore's prosperity, certainly that portion of her prosperity arising from the port being recognized as one at which coal supplies can always be counted on, and on the reputation (most essential as an attraction) that consuming steamers bunkering at Singapore can rely on receiving full weight of coal that they pay for; also, on the reputation that steamers, bringing cargoes of coal into the port, are honestly dealt by.

10. It is upon the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company alone that rests the very onerous responsibility of satisfactorily fulfilling these duties and conditions.

11. Much of the coal is imported by, and belongs to, Singapore merchants, who trade in it. The Tanjong Pagar Dock Company are merely the responsible receivers, storers, and re-deliverers of the coal. The Company does not deal in ownership of coal. (It is purely in a position analogous to that of warehousemen.)

12. On the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company's premises there are no weighing "bridges" or "platforms," nor any automatic mechanism for weighing coals in large bulk. All weighing in done manually.

13. Every ton of coal is discharged and re-delivered in large baskets; these are of a capacity of 14th to 14rd cwts. Each basket thus filled with coal is carried on a short pole between the shoulders of coolies-two coolies to a basket.

14. These coolies carrying a coal-laden basket pass a beam scale, they drop the basket of coal on to that for a second, the scale clerk records its weight; the basket is at once picked up by the same two men, who trot away with it to its destination.

15. Coal is usually weighed either by taking the weight of every basket, or by weighing every tenth basket; and in the latter case an average is arrived at.

16. Of coal imported into Singapore from Japan a quantity in the vicinity of 400,000 tons is yearly landed and stored on the premises of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company. It is brought in in entire cargoes; from these the coal merchant or owner orders the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company to deliver to various consuming steamers that call upon him for their bunker requirements.

17. It is chiefly in this kind of coal (Japanese) that the irregularities that I propose to give illustrations of are practised by those Chinese employés of the Company who are engaged in working that department..

18. Illustration.-A firm that for form's sake shall be styled Messrs. Smith & Co.," merchants of Singapore, send to Japan, and buy there a cargo of coal. It is shipped from Japan in a steamer that we shall call (also for form's sake) the Atlas." The cargo, as laden in Japan, is reckoned to be and is shipped as. let us say, 4,500 tons, and for that quantity the sellers or shippers in Japan send a bill of lading to " Smith & Co.," of Singapore.

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19. The rate of freight payable to the "Atlas" for carrying the coal has been arranged in Japan, but it is payable at destination, at a rate per ton on the quantity of coal delivered in Singapore.

20.-

pany,

and

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"Smith & Co." send their bill of lading to the Tanjong Pagar Dock Con

say to that Company--

"A cargo of coal belonging to us is due to arrive from Japan by the

S.S. "Atlas."

Please arrange to give her a berth alongside your wharf, discharge the coal, and store it on your premises for our account." 21. The "Atlas" arrives. Her master is not over scrupulous. He has learned from other steamer captains in the same trade that the Chinese clerks, weighers, and "tally-men" of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company who (except for casual super- vision by one or two of the European staff) attend to the all practical part of receiv- ing and delivering coals, are quite open to bribery, if, indeed, they do not even suggest it to him.

22. The master wants as much freight as he can get on his cargo, so he makes

a secret bargain with the chief coal clerk (Chinese) by which he (the master) will give the coal clerk a present of, let us say, $125, if he can manage to show that the cargo of the "Atlas" weighs out a respectable “surplus." (My figures are all imaginary for the purpose. of illustration.)

23. The Chinese coal clerk brings in, as participators in the conspiracy, all the weighing and tally clerks concerned in supervising the landing of the cargo of the "Atlas," as well as the labour contractor's clerk, who pays the lies for the baskets of coal handled. The bargain having been arranged between the ship-master and the Chinese employés of the Dock Company, it only remains for the latter to manipulate the weights in the process of landing the coal, and this they have little difficulty in doing by several methods.

A

24. We will assume it has at the outset been agreed as between the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company and the steamer that the weight of the vessel's cargo shall be ascertained by weighing only one basket out of every "run" of ten baskets landed, and from these weighed baskets the weight of the whole cargo is to be determined by calculation of average. (This principle of "one in every ten " is that on which the weight of most coal handled by the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company is ascertained.)

25. Then, all those Chinese clerks and weighing-men concerned with the landing of the " Atlas cargo, being participators in, and parties to, a pre-arranged compact, the "tally" books are from day to day "fudged" and added to, so as to make it appear that every basket entered in the weighing-book represents ten baskets of coal in a "run," whereas in reality only nine baskets have been passed. (I am merely giving the principle on which the swindle is in one way worked; the figures and the time of day when it is most favourable to operate, will vary.) Another method is to arrange that the basket that is to be scaled is a more heavily laden one than the average.

26. The discharge of the cargo is completed, and the "tally" and weighing- books show that although the steamer left Japan with a cargo declared as weighing, when loaded, 4,500 tons of coal, it has, when discharged at Tanjong Pagar been "proved" to actually weigh out, let us say, 4,625 tons.

27. The Tanjong Pagar Dock Company has therefore to grant a receipt for and hold themselves responsible to re-deliver to "Smith & Co.," not 4,500 tons of coal as shipped in Japan, but 4,625 tons as weighed out in Singapore.

28. And, if "Smith & Co." pay in Japan for what the shippers there claim

to have shipped, viz., 4,500 tons, while the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company must, and do, account to Smith & Co." for 4,625 tons when the cargo is re-delivered to con- suming vessels, then it follows that "Smith & Co." are given in Singapore 125 tons more coal than they received in Japan.

29. If "Smith & Co." import 20 cargoes of coal in the year, and if these are made on the average to weigh out at Tanjong Pagar a so-called "surplus" of, say, 50 tons per cargo, then Smith & Co. would get in Singapore in one year 1,000 tons

of coal more than their suppliers in Japan profess to have shipped to them!

30. For "Smith & Co. " this would appear to be very profitable business; so profitable, indeed, that possibly they may not over-worry themselves to consider- - nuch less to investigate how these "surpluses "-which certainly must be of advantage to somebody-come to happen.

31. It is hardly possible to conceive that these so-called "surplus" out-turns of coal exist in fact. Not only are sellers of coal in Japan-who are keen among the keenest in trade-not likely to be addicted to “giving away" coal, but it is an undoubted fact that coal must lose more or less of its weight in transport and by handling; dust alone must represent some certain loss between the weight shipped