Page
June 6, 1895.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
The first section of this line is to be laid | THE RATE OF WAGES IN JAPAN. not at either end but in the centre, from Yangchow on the Yangtsze river to Tsing- kiangpu on the Grand Canal, and it is stated that a commencement of the undertaking will be essayed at the latter end of this. or early in the spring of next year. CHANG- CHIH-TUNG deserves the credit of meaning to be patriotic, and, unlike LI HUNG-CHANG and his gang of corrupt miscreants, he has no designs on the national purse. Unfor- tunately, however, he is unpractical and somewhat at the mercy of underlings less scrapulous and more cunning than himself, and it is to be feared therefore the progress
of the grand trunk railway made under his
auspices will be as tedious as it is certain to
pro-
be costly. Between the unpractical in the person of CHANG CHIH-TUNG and the corrupt in those of the Li clan, it is only too bable that the work of opening up China. will be as hopeless and as tardy as the re- generation of the unspeakable Turk. It is rumoured, with what truth we know not, that even the project devised by Sir ROBERT
HART for the centralised
control of the
of
more
increased
A Japanese native paper the other day predicted a great struggle between capital It will be singular if such a struggle does not and labour in the Land of the Rising Sun.
take place; it can, indeed, only be avoided by capitalists showing a much more conciliatory Spirit towards their work people than has been displayed in any other country. The adoption of railways, steamships, and the use of machinery in connection with manu- factures has vastly increased the productive power of the country and added to its pre- sent and prospective wealth. Are all the advantages to be absorbed by the capitalist while the workman remains on the plain he occupied in pre-Restoration days? That would be contrary to the experience of every other country and opposed to all probabi- The Japanese working classes are intelligent and receptive of new ideas, they appreciate no less than other people a com- fortable standard of living, and it is incon- ceivable that they should consent to be left without any share in the distribution of the empire's finances is likely to be wrecked by Mr. BRASSEY, the great contractor, said he increased wealth of their country. The late the mandarins interfering, as they evidently believe that the honest collection of the bad found wages pretty much the same all revenue would imperil their illegal gains.
over the world, that is, that a given quantity The very first step in the road to official of work cost about the same whether it was reform has still to be thought of, and is not labour is available or in a country like executed in a country where so-called cheap likely ever to be seriously taken unless England where wages are high. In other iresistible pressure from without be applied. words, high wages as a rule command Similarly no real progress is possible in efficiency and efficiency commands high China under the present form of ad-
wages. Labour may for the purposes of ministration. The sooner these facts are
the argument be considered a commodity; grasped by foreigu Governments the
like other commodities, it tends to find its better it will be for the future China's foreign trade and relations. While transport and communication, the
level; and the greater the facilities for the present system continues friction with foreign Powers must be ceaseless and the efficiency of labour is
readily is the level found. And where causes of complaint against Chinese officials
by the use endless. Even now, when, if ever, it is able and indeed inevitable that labour should
of machinery it is reason China's interest to be friendly with the claim and obtain a share in the benefit, "outer barbarians," outrages on missions This was one of the points raised in the recent still proceed, and the account for the mas
boot strike in England. sacres and outrages in the Yangstsze Valley had been introduced superseding to a great New machinery goes on accumulating. The Chinese Go-extent hand labour. The operatives did not vernment evidently have no intention of doing anything to conciliate foreign Powers or to win foreign support. LI HUNG-CHANG and his faction are a waning force, and although they were always strongly anti-foreigu at heart they at least had a certain appreciation of the power of Western countries and understood the importance of maintaining commercial intercourse with them. The mandarins now coming to the front are as strongly anti-foreign as the LI's, but vastly more ignorant and less amenable to reason. On the other hand some of them, like CHANG CHIH-TUNG, are more honest and therefore less likely to play falsely with foreigners. The outlook for the opening up of the resources and trade of China is, on the whole, little improved: The Government of Peking will not be a whit more inclined to encourage foreign trade or residence in China than they were before the war, and may even prove more obstructive in the case of the smaller Powers. But there is at least one point gained: the real, innate weakness of China has been proved, and never again will a
first-class Power, count the couse- quences of a threat, as was done after the Franco-Chinese hostilities and before the war just concluded. The Japanese bave as effectively disposed of the bogey of Chinese military power as represented by her millions as they disposed of the Chinese navy, future no Foreign Minister at Peking deed fear to threaten lest the power to carry it into effect be lacking. China is now vulner- able at every part, and if she waxes truculent and seeks to add insult to injury she can at least be punished.
In
419
been hitherto experienced, and for the true. being it must be confessed that the Japanese manufacturers enjoy a great advantage. The progress of the cotton industry in Japan referenc, also the match industry, but 18 too well known to call for special
there are some minor lines in which the
results of cheap labour on prices are still more marked. Even the manufacture of surgical instruments has not escaped the enterprise of the Japanese and wo are told that articles can be bought in Tokyo för eighteenpence which in Europe would cost upwards of half-a-guinea. A portion of this. discrepancy in price is to be accounted for by the fact that patent rights, which greatly enhance the cost in Europe, are not yet re- spected in Japan, but when the new treaty becomes operative that feature of the com.. who was in Canton the other day tells petitiou will disappear. A gentleman us, too, that he saw there a number of plat- form scales of foreign type but Japanese make. No deceit this time,'
he says,
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no foreign name on the scales, but the name of the Japanese maker and place "of manufacture, apparently a really good article of excellent make, equal to English we understand, are now largely used by junks and half the price." These platform scales,
for weighing cargo in and out. The Japan- entered into competition, producing an article ese saw the demand for English scales and which met the market better, inasmuch as the Japanese scales are marked in catties instead of pounds. English manufacturers
often allow themselves to be cut out in con-
sequence of their want of adaptability to the local requirements of particular markets, of which this is a case in point, though they have enough to contend with in the cheap la- bour of the Japanese and the bounty placed ou Eastern manufactures by the appreciation of gold, without further handicapping them-
selves.
A RAILWAY, FROM PAKHOI TO NANNING.
object to the machinery, but they claimed to steam navigation recalls the project of a The suggested opening of the West River that their own position should not be line of railway from Pakhoi to Napping, worsened thereby. Without entering into mooted some years ago. As far as Wuchow the merits of that particular dispute, we there are no obstacles to the navigation of may take it as an illustration of a general the river, but above that town dangerous law. Machinery cannot be worked without rapids are encountered, and the risk of labour, and the labourer will not work it un-goods being lost by shipwreck, combined less he as well as the capitalist shares in the with the exactions of the frequent lekin benefit. When new countries are opened up stations along the river, induces merchants or old countries which have been secluded in to use the Pakhoi route, cargo being carried the past are brought into rapport with the overland from Pakhoi to Nanning, where rest of the time before
world it necessarily takes water carriage is again resorted to. The the conditions of labour rapids, although a real danger, are pro- assimilate to the general standard, but the bably less feared than the lekin stations. tendency is always in that direction. So Mr. C. C. CLARKE, Acting Commissioner of will it be in the case of Japan. It may be Customs at Lungchow, in the Decennial many years before her surplus labour be Report 1882-91, speaking of the resources of comes absorbed and the workman is able to Kwangsi, wrote: Wuchow, with 40,000 command sensibly higher wages, but that is what must come sooner or later.
"to 50,000 inhabitants, is the place of the national aspiration is fulfilled, and
largest population and commercial import- Japan, with her forty millions of inhabitants.
ance; Nanning is second; and Liu-chow, has become a great manufacturing country,
"with its large timber trade, is third. Hsun-chow, Yu-lìn, and Po-se make the the England of the East, the labour of "fourth rank; and the business of Kwei- skilled workmen will no longer be obtain- "hsien possibly is larger than that of able at fourpence or fivepence a day. But the competition of cheap labour is not a
Lungchow. The West River and its feeders are, of course, the natural trade routes of new thing for England. The rates of wages "the province, diminished very much in value in Continental countries have always been lower than in that country, but England has "of summer, and by want of water in winter. by frequent rapids, by the too swift current nevertheless maintained her industrial"The cities are connected by roads; bút supremacy and will continue to do so, especially while she enjoys the advantages of "of merchandise in free trade and other countries labour under the restrictions of the protective system. The extraordinarily cheap labour of the Orient, however, shows a greater disparity ¡n rates of wages than anything that has
When
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most of them are not used for the carriage quantity, except when water fails or Customs stations are numerous. Of these stations there are few "west of Nanning-fu. For the most part, "trade takes to the water when it can. It should always be remembered
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