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Sir E. Stubbs felt, however, that any discussion of
piracy at the present moment is purely academic, There is no
piracy because there is no trade. When "normal" conditions are
restored the Chinese themselves will have become so thoroughly
tired of disturbances that things will settle down; and in his
opinion it was reasonable to hope that piracy, at any rate on a
big scale, would not recur. He was not convinced, therefore, that it would be necessary to increase or even to reinstitute
the patrol launches, and even if it were so necessary Hong Kong
would not be in a position to pay for them, If it were a question of paying for or going without launches the Colony would certainly prefer to go without them.
The chief reason why piracy flourished about a year ago in spite of the existence of the Piracy Regulations was that a large number of the ships officers employed on these Chinese ships are of a very poor type and are completely unreliable. They are in fact employed by the Chinese shipowners purely and simply to comply with the requirements of the Merchant Shipping Act, without which compliance they could not obtain British registration for their ships. In many cases these officers have been definitely engaged by the owners on the understanding that they are to take no part in the navigation of the ship which it
is understood is to be left to the Chinese Quartermaster.
Pirates knew perfectly well which ships carried officers of this type, and it was only such ships that ran any real danger from piracy. Attacks which had been made on ships which complied with the regulations and whose officers were determined to defend
their ship had failed.
Sir E. Stubbs thought that if the Merchant Shipping Regulations could be tightened up so as to eliminate this undesir- able class of officer, the problem would bo to a great extent
solved.
The
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