How Carso is Pillaged

Hokitika Guardian, 14 July 1921, Page 3

How Carso is Pillaged

THE CUTE YANKEE AT IT. SYDNEY, July 4. The losses from pilfering ships’ cargoes are serious, indeed. The estimates of Customs officials in the Commonwoalth givo the total value last year in Sydney alone at £68,587, ’while the Melbourne Steamship Company had a total of claims in respect to pillage and short-landed- cargo amounting to £12,903 and of these claims 80 per cent, were actually paid. The Common wealth Line of steamers were also sutferers, having to pay claims over £6OOO. But, while it is perfectly true that the watersiders at Australian ports do some amount of pilfering, the blame does not wholly rest on them. Since the Pillaging Commission sat at Sydney a case has come to light whie 1 the Victorian police regard as a new aspect of pilfering, more American m character than Australian.. A consignment of cased Peer, specially bottled for export, was taken from Abbotsford browerv to the Howard-Smitli steamer Cooma for shipment to Brisbane. Four of the cases were found to be heavier than the others, although they bore no outward evidence of having been tampered with. When opened each was discovered to contain, not four dozen bottles of beer, but bricks and scrap wood It was clear that the work could not have been done on the wharf or on shipboard, and subsequent investigation showed that the lorry from .the brewery had stopped at a house 111 Richmond,'and there the robbery was methodically and carefully carried out. Cases have been found to have been filled for two mgnths following arrival from the United States, and when they were opened they were found to contain brick and old American newspapers. In this instance fho loss amounted to £2500. Evidence given by a Customs official before the Commission in Melbourne showed that five or six cases out of a consignment of thirteen- part of a consignment of patent leather from New York—contained stones and papers. As the newspapers here a date between the date the consignment left the factory and the date of shipment it was clear the robbery took place at that stage. The lass was estimated at -P2700. tiers 'appear TtWrt ol pHtota*, =w=ff?XS2 shipped h hold ol a tramp tm» " ‘ tor , y hundreds of razor. tong sold on the waterfront N A Tho Haims against the U>Line running from New m Zealand and Australian ports the extremely high tota or e • 1920 of £70,350 for pillage, and £27,1*5 for short-landing many claims under the latter head having been for a similar reason to those made under the form-