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February 20, 1895.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT:
culated to endanger the peace of the kingdom, dispensed with? The bêtises, to use our for the lesson of two years ago was too painful contemporary's term, of which the unofficial a one for them to willingly risk a repeti- members may at times have been guilty tion of it, but some over-zealous mandarin weigh but as a feather against the good they may have led them into a difficulty for which have done in giving the Government the the Government will be held responsible, benefit of their local knowledge and com- and in that case France would not be sat-mercial experience. We have not been able isfic with the mere punishment of the to agree with the unofficial members on every particular official conc-rued in the affair. occasion on which they have opposed the The telegram leaves us in considerable doubt, Government, but in discussing the advantage however, as to what has really taken place, of their presence in Council as a matter of and it is possible that the whole report may principle it is impossible to arrive at any but be found to be baseless. The trouble is one conclusion. Neither the home nor the said to have taken place at Kammaun, on local Government would like to accept the the left bank of the Mekong. By the Treaty responsibility of carrying on the administra- and Convention signed at Bangkok on the tion without the assistance of unofficial ad- 3rd October, 1893, Siam renounced "all visers, aud it would be a bad day for the pretension to the whole of the ter- colony if circumstances should ever arise to "ritories
on the left bank of the render such a course necessary. Mekong and to the islands in the river" and agreed that the Siamese military posts on the left bank and on the islands should be evacuated within a month from the date of signature. The evacuation was under stood to have duly taken place and it is not easy to see how any conflict coull now have taken place in the district mentionel in the telegram, seeing that there are, or ought to be, no Siamese troops there. The name Kammaun is apparently a different form of trausliterating the name of the pro- vince or place referred to in the Convention as Cammon and in the PHBA Yor trial as Khammoun: It will be remembered that it was while the Siamese troops under PARA Yor were being escorted across the frontier of that province by a small French force under Inspector GROSGURIN in May, 1893, that GROSGUBIN was killed in a conflict that arosa, It was provided in the Convention that the authors of that affair should be punished, and PHRA YOT was afterwards placed on his trial and sentenced to twenty years hard labour. The province was entirely occupied by the French after the departure of the Siamese troops and the statement that another conflict has recently occ irré l there is therefore aute- cedently improbable. We may be mistaken in the identification of the particular place referred to in the telegram, but as it is stated to be on the left bank of the river, and the Siamese are supposed to have evacuated the whole of the territory on that bank, the antecedent improbability of the alleged con- flict remains the same.
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Perhaps our Northern contemporary may say we are giving a strained interpretation to its contention. The greater part of the article is, it is true, devoted to showing the unsuitability of popular representation to a community such as that of Hong- kong, but there is no mistake as to the sweeping nature of the concluding sentences, which read-"The Legislative "Council is a mistake in principle, and until we see reason to the contrary we must continue to believe that the affairs of Hongkong would be better administered | "under a strong Governor with Downing "Street behind him as a court of appeal." We hope we have shown in the preceding paragraph the required "reason to the contrary "and that our contemporary will now turn from the error of his ways and cease to revile the unofficial members of the Hongkong Legislative Council. Against his remarks on the unsuitability of popular re- presentative government to a colony like Hongkong there is less to be said, but popular representative government is very different thing from the selection, either by election or noniination, of a few leading inen to act as counsellors and advisors. In the petition of the Hongkong rat payers to the House of Commons with reference to the constitution of the colony it was fully recognised that in a colony so peculiarly situated on the borders of a great Oriental Empire, and with a population largely composed of aliens whose traditional and family interests and racial sympathies largely remain in that neighbouring Empire, special legislation and guardianship are re quired. Having regard to the Imperial posi- tion of a colony which is at once a frontier fortress and a naval depot, tho head-quarters of Her Majesty's fleet, and the base for The unofficial element in the Hongkong naval and military operations in these Far Legislative Council has in some unaccount Eastern waters, it was not expected that able way incurred the disapproval of the N. unrestricted power should be given to any C. Daily News, which con lemns it root and local legislature, or that the Queen's Govern- branch. The Legislative Council, our con- ment could ever give up the paramount con- temporary tells us, is a mistake in principle.trol of this important dependency. All That is rather a bold thing to say, for if the doctrine be accepted as regards this colony it must be accepted equally as regards other Crown colonies similarly circumstanced, such as the Straits Settlements and Ceylon, not to speak of Mauritius and the West Indian This common right is enjoyed by the colonies. We are, in fact, asked to believe residents at Shanghai, where there is a that the whole system of British rule amongst Municipal Council described by the N. native races is a mistake and that things C. Daily News as "a local committee with would go much better if a high official con- powers to levy certain taxes on the com- ducted the affairs of each colony according munity and expend them for the com- to his own unaided lights instead of seeking "mon weal," and concerning which our the counsel and advice of the British contemporary says that "upon the whole settlers. The lender writer of the N. C."their modest powers have been used with Daily News, we venture to think, will stand discreet energy which has commanded alone in bolding such au opinion. How can "general admiration." A Municipal Council it be supposed, for instance, that in passing is what we have always maintained is re- laws for this colony in relation, say, to mer- quired for Hongkong, and were such a body chant shipping, the Governor would be better in existence no doubt it would prove itself able to do what is right and proper were the as useful as the Shanghai Council. The advice of the unofficial members of Council promoters of the petition, however, were of
THE UNOFFICIAL ELEMENT IN THE
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
the petitioners claimed was the common right of Englishmen to manage their local affairs and control the expenditure of the colony where Imperial considerations are not involved.
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opinion that the desired control of local affairs would be best secure 1 by a majority of unofficial members in the Legislative Coun- eil. This would be an undoubted advantage, though not so great an advantage, in our view, as a Municipal Council exercising executive control over its own officials. A Legislative Council with a majority of unofficial mem bers would, however, exercise control over the expenditure and would determine the character of the legislation dealing with municipal affairs, which would in itself be a great gain. It is not to be supposed that the entire destiny of the colony would be left to the handful of British residents, but there is no reason why in a British colony the British residents should not be allowed an effective voice in the control of local affairs, The power of the Queen in Council to make laws for the Island, and the fact that. all local laws are subject to disallowance by Her Majesty on the recommendation of Her Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, affords sufficient protection against any misuse an unofficial majority in the Legisla tive Council night at any time make of their power.-
WESTERN INVENTIONS IN CHINA.
*
The
How little hold Western inventions and improvements obtain in China is well illustrated at the present moment. Almost side by side appear in the Shanghai papers announcements that, on the one hand, a railway is to be made from Tientsin to the Yangtsze owing to the facility with which troops and munitions have been transported to Shanhai-kwan by the existing railway. and, on the other hand, a memorial has been presented to the Emperor denouncing the use of modern rifles and praying that orders be given for the manufacture of muzzle- loading rifles and long gingals of the ancient type. At first sight these two movements appear strangely contradictory, and while the first seems to indicate a genuine desire to move with the times, the other shows a wish to hark back to ancient ways.
Yet as a matter of fact neither conclusion is strictly correct.
proposal to construct a railway from Tientsin to the central provinces is only due to the pressure of necessity. China has lost the command of the sea, the Grand Canal furnishes a very slow means of communication, and the manda rins in the north see the possibility of their being soon cut off from all inter- course with the south. They now recognise, when too late, the value of the railway as a reliable means of rapid communication by which battalions of troops and masses of stores and ammunition can be transported. If they could lay a railway to-morrow from Peking right through China to Canton they probably would be cager to do so. Neces- sity is a hard but effective teacher. But while they are prepared to acknowledge, in this present emergency, the value of the neglected and despised Western invention they do not desire it for the good it may do the country, for the benefit it may confer on commerce, or the value it will be to the people. All they think of in connection with it is the use it would be from a military point of view. That fact has, however, long been recognised at Peking, but the Chinese Authorities were disinclined to undertake the construction of lines because the work. involved the importation of the materials from foreign countries, and they recoiled from sending silver out of the country. CHANG CHIH-TUNG was therefore authorised to try his costly experiments for the win- ning of Chinese iron from the hills of Hupeh and the conversion of it into rails for the permanent way of the proposed lines. The years meantime rolled by, and while