Cargo Pilferage and the Police
| Author | |
| Published date | 01 January 1929 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X2900200111 |
| Date | 01 January 1929 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Cargo Pilferage and the Police
By THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PILFERAGE COMMITTEE OF THE
CHAMBER OF
SHIPPING
OF THE
UNITED
KINGDOM.
THE conjunction in the above title of police with pilferage is
by no means sinister,
but
right and appropriate.
It
repre-
sents opposing forces, as in the children's game of oranges and
lemons, or asin the weather gauge, in which when the old lady
comes out the old gentleman goes in.
If
this objection to the
collocation be overcome, there may still be another on the score
of the
word'
pilferage,' which some say is not an English word.
It
has been in common use in the shipping trade for many
years past, and has become well known wherever the English
language is used, since the pilferage agitation was started by
British shipowners in the year
1922.
Our
Australian friends
are perhaps, in this, more pedantic, and have stuck to the word
, pillage
';
but they have their different uses of words ' down
under,' and to an English mind, ' pillage' denotes an associa-
tion with war, incendiarism, riots, and other wild actions of a
multitude, conducted on a grand scale.
To
pilfer goods is a
mean, petty, secretive act, on whatever scale
it
is done.
It
is
doubtless true that
if
pilferage is not checked, something very
much like pillage is likely to develop, but the man who pilfers
is not likely to be the bold rascal who pillages.
It
should be mentioned here that the writer has no
experience, either theoretical or "practical, in police matters.
He has had considerable experience in dealing with pilferage,
but, so far as the police are concerned, only up to the point at
which such cases are put into their hands.
The
private history of pilferage probably goes back to the
very earliest days of the carriage
of
goods by
sea;
but
in those
days when the owner of the goods travelled in the ship, and the
quantities of cargo were small, it was a comparatively simple
J32
CARGO PILFERAGE
133
matter to check any thieving propensities.
In
later years, the
duties of the supercargo were mainly concerned with the
buying and selling of the cargo, but also must have included
the prevention of claims. With the disappearance of the
supercargo, the prevalence of the owner-master maintained
throughout the transit of goods a personal interest in preventing
claims, which not only reflected against his capacity as master,
but also injured his pocket as owner. During the lifetime of
most of those at present in charge of the shipping trade, the
owner-master has practically disappeared, and even the next
generation of masters is quickly passing away, men who made
their ships their homes and regarded them with devotion.
Modem developments of shipowning now involve much more
frequent changes of masters and officers, and the loss thereby
is by no means only sentimental. As has been found in the
evolution of all other trades, the diminution of sentimental ties
always involves some practical disadvantages, as a set-off
against the undoubted improvements achieved by progress.
To
take a simple instance affecting the question in hand.
In
the days when a master and his officers spent long years in
the same ship, they knew every nook and cranny in her, and
if some mysterious theft arose, they knew exactly what char-
acteristics of the ship would lend themselves to the
circumstances of the theft in question.
They
would know the
exact relation and dimensions of the upper and lower venti-
lators, and to what extent it would be possible for human
beings to get down them. They would know the details not
only of the main hatches, but of every other little opening and
escape hole to which a would-be robber might turn as a means
of access. They would know precisely where there were
wooden bulkheads that might be penetrated, and steel bulk-
heads which could not.
They
would know whether these
wooden bulkheads were safely away from all possible access,
or whether they could be approached, say, from a store-room,
or a peak, or elsewhere. To-day, a ship is such a large and
complex structure, and subject to so many variations in these
details, that a master and his officers are frequently unac-
quainted with many of them, and even if they may become
wise after the event, they have not that foreknowledge which
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