CO129-411 - Governor Sir May - 1914 [5-7] — Page 479

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No.3061/1914.

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27977 RECY

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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.