Mr. Gent. 14 Caster
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"Yorkshire Post.
128
Chinese Pirates
At last there seems to be some hope that Bias Bay, that notorious haunt of Chinese pirates, will be cleaned up and not allowed to revert to its old bad habits. According to statements from Canton, the Chinese authorities there have undertaken to station two gunboats permanently at Blas Bay and to increase the garrison to one full regiment. A census will be taken of the villagers: their good conduct will be guaranteed by the ten leading families of the district, and large rewards will be offered for all pirates captured. These promising measures are the fruits of a conference between the Canton Government, the British Vice-Consul, and British naval representatives from Hong Kong. The pirates were last heard of in February, when they captured a Japanese vessel, the Kamurii Maru, and at that time the conference was reported to be already in session, so that the whole problem of pirate activities in the Bias Bay region would seem to have been given thorough consideration. It is a very old problem, often tackled before, but hitherto none of the various attempts to subdue the pirates has had lasting results. Bias Bay is Chinese territory, but it is close to the border of the British zone attached to Hong Kong, and British shipping and trade have often suffered from pirate raids. More than once the British Navy has taken part in operations against Bias Bay, but these have always required the permission of the Chinese authorities, and one main difficulty has been that the Chinese authorities have never been able or willing to support our own naval efforts with permanent policy of effective police control. The pirates have been driven out and their headquarters burnt, but later they have always
sooner returned.
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Often, no doubt, the Chinese authorities have been handicapped by their own internal troubles, and China is still a long way from achieving a settled and unified Administration, } capable of ensuring peace and order throughout her vast territories. But the Canton Government appear at the moment to be firmly in the saddle and or terms of guarded friendship with Chiang Kai-shek's Central Govern- ment at Nanking. The autonomy of Canton is not officially recognised, but the authorities there are virtually independent, and for some time British policy has been directed towards separate relationships with Nanking in the North and Canton in the South. There seems, therefore, to be no reason why Canton should not be able to carry through its new policy for dealing with the pirates and its proposed measures sound as though
21th May 1935.
Chinese
they were sensibly framed. troops and gunboats sent previously against the pirates have usually been recalled for other duties after a certain period, and the success of the new policy will depend largely on whether the force now going to Bias Bay is allowed to stay there and assured of proper support from Canton. Possibly, however, the proposed supervision of the local inhabitants will be even more important, for in the past they have given the pirates constant aid, and a good many of them have indeed earned a living chiefly from the pick- ings of this profitable alliance. If the local inhabitants can be induced, by a mixture of police control and the promise of rewards, to transfer their allegiance to the Canton Government, the pirates should at least be com- pelled to move their headquarters somewhere else and a site equally attractive will not be easy to find.
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Bias Bay, apart from its local tradition of active sympathy with piracy, has various geographical advantages. The neighbourhood of Hong Kong means that plenty of shipping passes within convenient reach, and it also helps the pirates to get from their spies early information of the sailing of a particularly tempting vessel. At the same time, Bias Bay is not easily accessible, for its inner harbour is a treacherous landing place for craft of any size. Certainly, we cannot expect that the loss of this stronghold would put the pirates of the China Seas entirely out of business: and yesterday's news of the attack by Yangtse raiders on ship in which the aged Mrs. Lawrence, mother of the late T. E. Lawrence, was travelling with one of her other sons down the river to Shanghai, is a reminder that the pacification of any given district in China is only part of a huge task which has defeated successive Chinese Governments for many years. We shall not hear the
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last of piracy until China has
Government-or
Federal system of Governments-able to take swift and unified action against dis order wherever it may appear: but the cleaning up of Bias Bay would be a very useful step in the right direction, and a step particularly welcome to this country in view of the importance of safe sea routes in that area to British interests at Hong Kong.
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