"After Legge returned in 1873 to England, where in 1876 he became the first professor of Chinese at Corpus Christi College Oxford, Wang T'ao turned his whole attention to newspaper work and became publisher as well as editor. He took the lead in organising a group of Chinese and bought the printing equipment of the disbanded Anglo-Chinese College and formed an independent publishing concern which in 1873 began the Tsun Wan Yat Po, issued daily except Sunday at $5 annual subscription. This paper was commonly called in English "The Universal Circulating Herald," but this is incorrectly literal. The Chinese title signifies the slow but sure evolution of natural law, something of the idea that the mills of the gods grind slow but exceeding fine. Wang T'ao's own paper at once took a lead over the Chin-shih Pien-lu and became and remains a pillar of the new Chinese Press.
"With a free hand now, and with the benefit of experience with the Chin-shih Pien-lu, Wang T'ao conducted the new paper with remarkable initiative and enterprise. He made a separate section of the commercial news, printing it on cheaper native paper and using imported newsprint for the principal section. Scholar though he was, he was aware of the news value of the market and shipping news in the seaport community, and the commercial section was generally twice the size of the other section. He experimented with a monthly news summary, priced at $1 a year, but abandoned it after one year during which it gained few subscribers.
"From 1878 to 1882 he published the Tsun Wan Yat Po in afternoons instead of mornings, to fit better with the schedules of steamers of the Macao and Canton services, and so to gain an advantage over rival papers. The principal section of the Tsun Wan Yat Po was in three parts. The first category contained edicts and memorials drawn from the Peking Gazettes.... The second division contained news of Canton and Kwangtung province. The third division contained news from other parts of China and foreign news, largely drawn from the foreign press at Hong Kong. The Tsun Wan Yat Po derived its income and so maintained its independence probably in virtue of the commercial section, which was in steady demand among the large class of traders and merchants who could afford to pay for the paper. The annual subscription was $5".
We have seen how Chinese newspapers came to be published in Hong Kong quite early, one commencing in 1857, another in 1864, a third in 1872 and a fourth in 1873, the last two being still in existence. One of these latter, the Tsun Wan Yat Po, grew in circulation and influence under Wang T'ao, a scholarly man whose articles, in the literary side of the paper, came to set a high standard and were well received among educated Chinese readers. Of him Mr. Britton says:
After the Tsun Wan Yat Po became established, Wang T'ao travelled much, going to Japan and to England where he lectured at Oxford, presumably with Legge for interpreter. He sojourned for considerable periods at Shanghai, and was in close relations with the editors of the Shun Pao. Its affiliate illustrated magazine published some of his travel narratives under the title Man Yu Sui Lu. In a prefatory article, dated 1887, for a second series of these, he remarks that he was better received and treated abroad than in China. But however disgusted with the state of things in China, and however rebellious at the degenerate Manchu rule, Wang T'ao was not of the denationalized type wont to condemn everything native and advocate foreign ways because they were foreign. He had his independent judgment in all things. For example, in regard to foreigners and the foreign press in China he wrote: "The Chinese should establish foreign language newspapers to convert the foreigners. The foreigners have established daily papers at the treaty ports. The capital stock is owned entirely by Westerners. The editors usually have resided long in China, and are conversant with conditions...