CHAPTER II.

BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION.

No matter how powerful and reckless of consequences a smuggler may be, there is, nevertheless, a lurking respect in his bosom for the myrmidons of the Law. It is to his interest to have the authorities on his side, and, as he cannot have them on other terms, he must pay them handsomely. An excise or police officer, especially if he be of the lower ranks, can make it uncommonly uncomfortable for a smuggler; and it may be taken for granted that a smuggler is not completely satisfied until he has a large proportion of the preventive staff in his pay. To some, however, he will pay nothing because he has nothing to fear from incapables; some who occasionally come in his way he will tip with the economy of the uncle who tips his nephew; but to the able ones, the ones that can make it very warm for him, he will pay handsome monthly salaries, and he will look upon the outlay as money well invested. It is in this way that the smuggler keeps his traffic going; it is thus that he makes it possible to smuggle with profit.

Now, the preventive can only prevent by seizing contraband articles; so that it stands to reason that its efficiency, and the ability of the individuals who compose it, must be judged largely by results; by the number of arrests made, and the quantity of contraband seized. An able officer who makes no hauls may be not unjustly put down as a bribe-taker, and a chief who knows that there is lots of contraband to be seized for the trying, will come down heavily on such a subordinate.

What does the smuggler do when the well-paid watchdog of the Law comes to him and tells him that he will be obliged to seize some, if not all, of the smuggler’s next consignment of opium, because the game is, to all intents and purposes, up? Does he wring his hands and roundly curse his ill luck? No; he merely smiles and advises the watchdog to stand at the corner of such-and-such a street, near so-and-so’s shop between certain hours next morning, and search the man who passes him with a spotted bandanna round his neck, and a bundle under his right arm. The watchdog acts on the advice, searches the man with the spotted bandanna, finds two cakes of opium, and walks the culprit off to the police station. For this he is commended and paid a reward; the smuggler gets off with the loss of two cakes of opium instead of the hundred he stood to lose; and the man with the spotted bandanna who is ultimately sent to prison for six months, merely fulfils the duty for which he is paid a regular monthly salary.

The foregoing is an example of the methods of smugglers, and of the cupidity of some of the staff employed by Government to guard its revenues. But it is only one. It would weary the reader to be told of the scores of other means employed. The smuggler, knowing that a certain officer is financially embarrassed, will approach him with the offer of a loan, and accept a note of hand for the accommodation. That note of hand releases the smuggler from all further obligation to pay the officer in question. He is well aware that certain dismissal of the latter must result if he shows the scrap of paper in the proper quarter. He has the unfortunate man completely in his hands. But it is obvious that there can be little to fear from a man who provides such damning evidence against himself.

People might well ask how it is that so much corruption can go on and yet no one be caught and punished. Now, it is a well-known principle of evidence that one man’s word is as good as another’s, and in law, no matter how convincing the truth of a man’s story might be, it must usually be corroborated before a magistrate will convict. The giving and receiving of bribes are, by their very nature, secret transactions—transactions to which there are no independent witnesses, so that it is very rarely that the charge can be brought home; and it is usually only those cases in which a confirmed bribe-taker has been lured into a trap, skilfully laid with the aid of marked notes or coins, which have a satisfactory conclusion. It must, moreover, be borne in mind that the giver or offerer of a bribe is just as much liable in law as the receiver or solicitor of it; so that it is seldom that a complaint to a magistrate is made.

The two anecdotes I give here will afford the reader food for thought:

X was a responsible officer. He had the control of a district, and was widely respected. One afternoon, when at office, he had occasion to leave his room, and on his return to it, found ten one-hundred rupee notes under a paperweight on his table. He well knew who had placed them there. He took three of these notes to his superior officer, and with much apparent indignation, handed them to him, and asked that the sum be credited to Government. The guileless superior, ever after thought highly of X’s honesty, and reported on him in flattering terms. X became a richer man by seven hundred rupees!

Now for the second story:

Y was one night visited by a smuggler who produced a bag containing five hundred rupees, and offered the money as a bribe. Y stormed at him, and calling in his men, had the smuggler arrested, and sent up for trial on a charge of offering a bribe. The money was produced and counted in court. “How many rupees are there there?” enquired the smuggler. “Five hundred rupees,” replied the magistrate. “Oh!” said the rascal, “The bag had a thousand rupees in it when I gave it to the sahib!” And Y was generally regarded as a taker of bribes for the rest of his official life. So does fate sometimes serve the virtuous!

I have given the seamy side of things here. There are, however, many excellent and deserving men in preventive departments—men who would rather stay poor than sell their honour.