CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 89
making their first venture abroad in those years were joining relatives or friends, and had been able to borrow enough on future earnings to ensure a comfortable passage. There were always a few unfortunates, however, who, in their anxiety to escape from the poverty and misery of their native village, had borrowed their passage money from money lenders or their tongs at ruinous rates of interest.
Conditions for most of this century were certainly vastly changed from the middle decades of the 19th century. Prospective passengers lived in boarding houses in Amoy or Swatow when waiting for a ship, and the ship's compradore often had a financial interest in these boarding houses or worked in close co-operation with their owners. As there was keen competition in the 20th century emigrant trades, not only between different shipping companies, but under the compradore system — between different ships in the same company, the prospective passengers were well treated in the boarding houses, which bore little resemblance to the barracoons of the 'bad old days'.
Beside the China coasters, overseas ships on the Far Eastern run also took part in the emigrant trade, especially to the Straits and Bangkok, as this could be fitted into their wayport schedule; and even the large and luxurious Canadian Pacific liners were not above carrying a few hundred deck passengers from time to time. Ben Line steamers, too, sometimes called at Amoy and Swatow and took up to two hundred deck passengers to the Straits or Bangkok or vice versa, but on many overseas ships the passengers had to supply and cook their own food, and sleep on wooden planks laid over steel decks. The overseas ships were not normally so well suited for deck passengers as the regular coast ships, and by the First World War the latter had captured the cream of the trade.
In the South-east Asian trades south-bound traffic normally exceeded north-bound, but not to a disproportionate extent. Many overseas Chinese returned home, either for a holiday or to retire, and north-bound ships were especially busy just before Chinese New Year, and south-bound just after this important festival. These north-bound ships, where many passengers were carrying the savings of a few years or even of a lifetime, were the most tempting for pirates, and were specially equipped to deal
CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 89
making their first venture abroad in those years were joining relatives or friends, and had been able to borrow enough on future earnings to ensure a comfortable passage. There were always a few unfortunates, however, who, in their anxiety to escape from the poverty and misery of their native village, had borrowed their passage money from money lenders or their tongs at ruinous rates of interest.
Conditions for most of this century were certainly vastly changed from the middle decades of the 19th century. Prospective passengers lived in boarding houses in Amoy or Swatow when waiting for a ship, and the ship's compradore often had a financial interest in these boarding houses or worked in close co-operation with their owners. As there was keen competition in the 20th century emigrant trades, not only between different shipping companies, but under the compradore system- between dif- ferent ships in the same company, the prospective passengers were well treated in the boarding houses, which bore little resemblance to the barracoons of the 'bad old days”.
Beside the China coasters, overseas ships on the Far Eastern run also took part in the emigrant trade, especially to the Straits and Bangkok, as this could be fitted into their wayport schedule; and even the large and luxurious Canadian Pacific liners were not above carrying a few hundred deck passengers from time to time. Ben Line steamers, too, sometimes called at Amoy and Swatow and took up to two hundred deck passengers to the Straits or Bangkok or vice versa, but on many overseas ships the passengers had to supply and cook their own food, and sleep on wooden planks laid over steel decks. The overseas ships were not normally so well suited for deck passengers as the regular coast ships, and by the First World War the latter had captured the cream of the trade.
In the South-east Asian trades south-bound traffic normally exceeded north-bound, but not to a disproportionate extent. Many overseas Chinese returned home, either for a holiday or to retire, and north-bound ships were especially busy just before Chinese New Year, and south-bound just after this important festival. These north-bound ships, where many passengers were carrying the savings of a few years or even of a lifetime, were the most tempting for pirates, and were specially equipped to deal
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