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worse.
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story opened; change, if there was any, was probably only for the But if this scant survey of the West River operations conveys the idea of persistency of effort and perhaps, on occasion, a little more besides, the tale, such as it is, has been worth the telling. The value of our gunboats must be measured, not by the piracy which has for centuries been a curse and affliction to the people of China, but by the trade which, almost unaided, they have protected in the face of continuous and often disheartening difficulties. That they have also constituted a real blessing to the inarticulate mass of toiling peasants who struggle for life in the regions of the Canton Delta is perhaps merely an unavoidable incident in the work of these armed instruments of British Imperialism."
PIRACY OF OCEAN AND COASTING STEAMERS. The methods adopted in the case of piracy of ocean and coasting steamers have already been briefly referred to. The pirates came on board as passengers at any Eastern port; their arms were usually smuggled on board as cargo or baggage by a colleague among the crew; attack might be delivered at any time of the day or night when clear of land or shipping; care would be taken to put the W/T out of action.* Once control of the ship was gained the rest was simple, provided the pirates kept disciplined watch over the ship's officers. What could never have been easy was the provision of an organisation which could put gangs on board selected ships at places as far apart as Tientsin and Singapore and synchronise their arrival at Bias Bay (or other suitable place where they could dispose of loot) with the movements of their confederates ashore. It was evident that for this, control by men of real ability was essential.
Ships' Officers and Indian Guards. The anti-piracy regulations as regards ships leaving Hong Kong have already been explained. The execution of these regulations was, to some extent, in the hands of the ships' officers, and as piracy increased this naturally raised the question of the type of British Officer employed in the China Seas. Although many men of the best typet were serving in the regular lines, it is doubtful whether those employed in Chinese-owned vessels made much effort to render their ships secure. The Indian guards were also, at the outset, far from efficient and their organisation was not satisfactory until an officer from the Indian Army had been detailed to supervise their training and discipline. These points are mentioned as they account, to some extent, for the almost unvaried success which attended the internal attacks of the pirate gangs, and the absence of resistance either at the time of attack or while on passage to the pirate base.
* Suggestions for protecting the wireless office have been made from time to time without result.
+ See the account of the "Sunning" piracy in Blackwood, December, 1927.
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Duties of the Navy. As has already been stated, the Navy could do little to prevent this type of piracy. The question of patrol of the approaches to Bias Bay, which was the place used by the pirates, was one on which opinion differed. Although ships were taken to the bay and the pirates undoubtedly resided in that locality, their organisation was believed to be centred in Hong Kong, and the bay was in no sense a base from which they conducted operations. It will be seen later that naval activity off Bias Bay did in one case lead to the use of another dumping ground for the pirates' loot. On the other hand, other convenient places where ships could be taken were not very easy to find, particularly places where the pirates could settle themselves in the comfort and security afforded by their well-established relations with the inhabitants of the Bias Bay area.
The value of the destruction of pirate villages in the area was also questioned on the same grounds, but the argument in this case seems less well founded, since the measure was clearly of a punitive as well as of a preventive nature.
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Events, 1922 to 1927.-The first record of an ocean" piracy in South Chinese Waters after the War is that of the Sui An which was seized in December, 1922, while on passage from Macao to Hong Kong and taken by her captors to Bias Bay. There was no further case until December 1923, when the British coasting steamer Hydrangea (a converted sloop) on her regular run from Hong Kong to Swatow was the victim of a gang which had entered the ship at Hong Kong. Much concern was felt at the time when it was realised that in this case the passengers had all been searched" by the police on embarkation. A month later the Chinese-owned Hong Hwa, flying the British flag, was taken while on passage from Singapore to Hong Kong. She carried wireless, which was at once put out of action, but had no guards or other protection as she did not come under the Hong Kong Piracy Regulations. This incident, since the gang got on board at Singapore, gave the first idea of the extent of the pirate organisation.
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A few days after this event a joint expedition* was despatched to Bias Bay, or rather a Chinese expedition attended by a British Naval Officer, the Military Officer charged with the organisation of Indian Guards and several members of the Hong Kong police force. The result was the destruction of several houses pointed out as belonging to pirates and the shooting of a few men who were found with loot upon them.
There were no piracies for some time after this operation, but there was a new development in December 1925, when the s.s.' Tungchow (Butterfield and Swire), on passage Shanghai to Tientsin, was pirated 200 miles south of Wei-Hai-Wei and taken to Bias Bay. Among the passengers was a member of
* A full account of the expedition appears in M.I.R., of April, 1925. (C11851)
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