Pilfering of Cargo.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 March 1922, Page 4

Pilfering of Cargo.

Remarkable facts concerning pilferage and theft of goods at tlie ports of the world are given in a report of the Pilferage Committee of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom. The committee remarks on the fact that twelve months after the armistice pilferage claims were paid by .shipowners at a scale commonly twenty times as large as that which obtained before the war, and iti many cases considerably greater. A group of owners ip a particular trade invoked the assistance of the committee to deal with a system amounting to “nothing less than armed robhr.v” which prevailed in a Mediterranean port; and “it is notorious,” the committee states, “as regards souk 1 countries,

that no assistance could he obtained from the police in pilferage matters, and even when men are caught . redhanded it is practically impossible to secure conviction.’’ In Brazil, for instance, “the officials of customs benefit so largely from a share in lines inflicted that it is impossible to disassociate from that fact the very large and outrageous claims for pilferage which occur.” In a further schedule on’ the practices of various ports, the

mittee statics that “conditions at ! Alexandria are unsatisfactory, and ample opportunities are afforded for pilferage.” At Calcutta the port commissioners’ system of tallying is “not only unsatisfactory, hut also untrustworthy,” and a system prevailed which is “discreditable to the port.” The conditions at Brazil and River Plate are “indescribably bad. It seems hopeless to expect ally improvement until the Governments concerned insist upon the port and customs authorities giving an honest tally.” With regard to Australia, the committee states that “without the full and whole-hearted co-operation of the unions concerned in dealing with cargoes on the ships and wharves, thieving of cargo there will remain for erer as a standing disgrace to the good name of the nation. Even the children of the waterside workers must know that it is carried on ; and what kind of an education is it for them ?”