CO129-498-1 Indepartmental conference on Piracy- report 12-1-1926 - 20-4-1926 — Page 64

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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 em-

ployed 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

A-ct, 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 regula-

tions 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 be

to a great extent solved.

The same effect would be produced

if the Ships Officers' Guilds could be

induced to tackle the question of refusing to

admit