a
He wished to emphasise point wh. was of great importance
be lost sight of,
4 wh. must not
vizi- that the piracies
by
att ans
Avere
from outside
by rising from within
Lad
&
not
but
Le
continuously expressed the view (against wh. he had never
real argument heard any
idvanced) that against such internal risings.
patrols
་
external
not must necessarily
useless.
therefore, that if naval forces are
to patrol these waters it lay with the
provided
Imperial Government and not with the Govern-
ment of a Colony to pay for them.
In his view, however, men too
much had been made of the necessity for and
efficacy of patrol vessels. Most of the
ships that had been pirated were coastal
vessels actually in international waters. He could only recollect two cases of piracy properly so called on river steamers in the
river itself. The situation on the river
was that the banks were under the control of
In
a series of Chinese Generals all of whom
levied toll on vessels as they passed.
the existing chaos in South China this state
of affairs is inevitable, but must not be confused with piracy proper.
The shipowners,
of course, wanted protection against this form of exaction as well as against piracy.
They had, however, always con-
fused the two things. He thought that no
system of patrol launches could possibly be
effective against impositions of this sort.
Moreover as it is mainly native craft which
are subjected to these exactions, it would
probably be good policy not to interfere.
The more they are annoyed in this way, per-
haps the sooner will the Chinese take steps
themselves to put an end to the existing
chaos.
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