March 18, 1896.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
ment of its own affairs. The bitter hostility of the present administration to anything in the nature of free institutions almost raises a doubt as to whether after all a Military Governor with a Municipal Council would not constitute the best machinery for the well-ruling and governing of the colony. When this ica was last broached, in Sir WILLIAM DES Vœux's time, it was strongly opposed in this column, because had
we
enforcement of sanitary by-laws involving a great deal of expense and trouble and to the general uncertainty as to what will be required next. Had it not been for the recent sanitary legislation a rise of from twenty to thirty per cent. in the value of Chinese property might reasonably have been expected during the past twelve months. The enforced ex- penditure imposed upon landlords has also a tendency to enhance rents, which are
not then given up all hope of already so high as seriously to affect trade, obtaining a Municipal Council with a Civil for high rents are one of the greatest draw- Governor, nor are we yet prepared to for- backs the colony suffers from. The action mally recant the opinions expressed at taken by the Sanitary Board likewise inter- that time, for the subject is a serious feres, or may interfere, with the growth of the one and calls for mature considera- population. At the present time there is tion. It may be better to bear the ills an appreciable exodus going on, due, not to we have than fly to others we know not fear of the plague, but to fear of the Sani- of, but the idea suggests itself that the tary Board. In that way, the labour supply dreaded yoke of a Military Governor could of the colony may be affected. We have no hardly be more galling than our present complaint to make of the action which has yoke, and if by the change a Municipal been taken. On the contrary we freely Council could be secured for the colony the acknowledge that the measures that have advantages would seem to be in its favour. been a lopted have been necessary to nicel
A Givil Governor with a Municipal Council is a great emergency and that all the what we should like to see, but, if that can- officials who have been engaged on the work not be obtained, a Military Governor with of extirpating the plague and rendering its a Municipal Council might be accepted with recurrence in epidemic form an impossibility gratitude. The colony got on very well merit the thanks of the colony. If we had under Generad CAMERON and General had a Sanitary Board composed exclusively BARKER when those officers aduinistered of landlords they could hardly, in their own the Government, and if the General Com interests, have done otherwise than adoptmanding were permanently placed at the similar measures. The plague has done, head of the civil administration a very and is doing, what the cholera did för Eng- | considerabl · écomomy would be olleetal. land, namely, opening the eyes of the public For the present, however the fight must to the paramount importance of sanitation, be waged on the Sanitary! Board Bill, the But the conditions which have justified the larger questions being left over until recent action will change, the emergency the colony has won its point in refercuce will pass, and we will still, if the proposals to that measure. As we remarked on a of the Government are carried out, he left previous occasion, the Bill which the Gov- with a Sanitary Board composed of officials ernment is now seeking to pass is fraught and endowed with enormous powers. To with grave peril to the interests of property suppose that such a system will not be de- and the tra le of the colony. trimental to the interests of trade and pro- perty is as absurd as it would be to suppose that if you place yourself within reach" of a
devil fish it will not close its tentacles around
|
Ir.
At the meeting of the Sanitary Board on Thursday Dr. CLARK, the Medicht Officer
of Health, in the course of a statement as to
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DR. RENNIE'S REPORT ON THE PLAGUE.
A careful perusal of Dr. RENNIE's valu- able and highly interesting report on the plague at Canton should serve to reassure the timid among foreigners on the score of infectiousness. The disease, like cholera, is not a highly contagious one, and has only in a few isolated and special instances been communicated to people of Occidental origin. Dr. RENNIE notes this fact in a special manner.
When in 1894 the Cantonese were
dying by tens of thousands the foreigners" resident in that port remained practically untouched. Dr. RENNIE says:“The im- munity enjoyed by residents on the foreign "settlement of Shameen is remarkable, seeing that it is separated only by a creek some twenty yards wide from houses where Not cases of the plague were common. only did foreigners living on the Settle- ment enjoy excellent health, but no case of plague occurred among their servants living on the premises." In this colony there were only a few cases of foreigners contracting the disease, and each one of these was susceptible of explanation in the sense of the victim either being in a bad state of health at the time or rashly ex- posing himself. Europeans who visited the hospitals, or came into contact with the plague cases in the streets, suffered o ill effects, and Dr. RENNIE tells s explicitly that "casual visitors, especially if there is free ventilation, are not liable to contract the disease." These facts can- not be too widely known, so as to counteract, if possible, some of the foolish panic which
too often created by the mere tion of the confessedly evil-sounding and plague," intensified terror-inspiring word when, as is usually the case, the English and American papers add the ominous prefix of
Black."
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1
iner:-
It is true enough, no doubt, that the fliscase is practically identical with, if not as s viruleut as, the Plague which desolated you. In what direction the detriment might the work being done in connection with the London in the time of the Merrie Monarch, be applied is shown by what is taking place plagne, stated that in the cleansing of houses but there is equally little doubt that that at the present time in the depreciation of the furniture was not thrown out of the butbreak was rendered exceptionally fatal Chinese property and the partial exodus of window as a rule. Whereat the Sanitary owing to the foul and insanitary conditions the Chinese population. We know what Board laughed. The allusion was ap- prevailing in the metropolis at that date. officialdom is in all its departments; the parently to some remarks which appeared Medical science was then in its infancy- men may be good, but the system is bad. in this column with reference to the danger at any rate its professors possessed that To take one or two recent instances.
A of allowing the Sanitary Board to become little knowledge which, in this case, was proposal to regulate British slipping out of an entirely official body. The throwing of eminently a dangerous thing, and probably the Chinese emigration trade is advanced furniture out of the windows of houses sub-by their blundering slew far more than they in a light and airy fashion as if it werejected to official visits was an incident that healed. The virtue of cleanliness, either really a matter of no particular consequence, occurred during the epidemic of 1894, and personal or in the house, was neither practised but when the community wants a flagstaff having occurred once it may occur again, nor appreciated, and real disinfectants of any put up at Kowloon to signal approaching but to avoid any misapprehension we hasten kind were unknown, though quackeries vessels it takes years of agitation and a to state that we had no intention of suggesting ||abounded and were only too firmly believed special commission to overcome official ob that it was actually being repeated at thein, just as much as amulets of sweet smelling struction. So again in financial matters, if present time in connection with the cleansing wooden beads are now regarded by many of it is a question of increasing official salaries operations now in progress. The point we
the Chinese as a sovereign specific against or granting exchange compensation there is wished to make was that the administration infection. never much difficulty in finding the money, of the sanitary laws of the colony might be in fact it must be found, but if it is a case of conducted in such a way as to inflict great constructing a public road urgently re- hardship on the population and that it was quired for the public convenience, then desirable the Board should be composed of we are told there are no funds avail- unofficials as a protection. In a great able. It is characteristic of officialdom to emergency the infliction of hardship may be do those things which it ought not inevitable and in that case must not be to do and to leave undone those flinched from, but where such large powers things which it ought to do, and the are conferred as in the case of the Sanitary administration on that principle of the Board the control of their administration enormous powers that have of late been should be vested in representatives of the conferred on the Sanitary Board cannot-fail public. In the meantime it is tisfactory to prove more or less disastroús.
to know that our remarks have had the happy effect of enabling Dr. CLARK to beguile the Sanitary Board into the wonted indulgence of a laugh.
Whether the Londoners of that
date would have proved as obstructive in the work of disinfection and isolation as the Chinese of Hongkong are to-day can only remain a matter of speculation. Probably, being equally ignorant, they would not have been much more tractable, but they would have had fewer prejudices to overcome. The difficulties in the path of the sanitary reformer in this colony are of a truth neither far nor small. The Chinaman hates and resents any intrusion whatever on his privacy and no less dislikes any attempt to set his house in order. He is content to live in a state of admired disorder wherein comfort is im- un-possible and cleanliness an unknown quantity. His floors are never swept nor garnished; the walls remain innocent of whitewash from The Hangyang Ironworks have commenced the day he takes possession to the end of his tenancy, be it five or be it twenty years the
Hongkong, being so favourably situated as it is, must make some progress, notwithstand- ing official obstruction, but if it is to progress at its highest possible rate the community will have to take the bull by the horns and insist upon having some voice in the manage" l-operations, smalting iron ore,
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