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April 23, 1896.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT FOR HONGKONG.
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331
tion to sell their children to obtain the
in a thoroughly satisfactory condition. It means to purchase food. Kwangsi is a great
is the universal experience that sanitary but thinly peopled province, its area being
progress attains its highest develop- little inferior to that of Kwangtung, but We invite attention to the thoughtful letter ment only under a system of popular having less than one third of the popula- signed "Progress "which will be found in representation, and it seems to us a simple tion. This arises in part of course from the another colunin of this issue. As "Progress" absurdity to coutend that Hongkong productive portion being smaller, but this is points out, in the territories under the Gay must necessarily be an exception to the not the only cause for its lack of prosperity. ernment of India all problems relating to rule. We have the authority of holy There is no scarcity of good land; it is the the art of properly governing Oriental writ for saying that in the multitude of distance from a good market that checks its communities and also mixed communities counsellors there is wisdom, and we maintain growth. There is thus no inducement to of Europeans and Orientals have been that all classes and all interests ought to be producers, and the agriculturists only raise and
are being worked out 011 a represented on the Sanitary Board in order sufficient produce for the supply of local wants. scale infinitely greater than can be the that the best means may be devised of If a good market were available there would case elsewhere in the East. In Indian keeping the colony free of all epidemic soon be a largely increased production. towns there has been no difficulty in obtain disease and that in carrying out the Similarly, if facilities of carriage were pro- ing adequate representation on the Muni-measures decided upon particular interests vided, there would be much increased de- cipal Councils by energetic and public should not be adversely affected to a mand for imports of all kinds, whether spirited members of the European non-offi- greater extent than may be absolutely necessities or luxuries, that for the latter cial community. Coming nearer home we necessary for the public welfare. The growing pari passu with the prosperity of the see what is done, at Shanghai. Can we officials who are engaged in combatting the natives. Then, again, in the event of cheap suppose that the English community of plague are individually working earnestly and easy means of carriage being provided, Hongkong is the only one of English com- and well, but they need the assistance of a such as light draft steamers up to Nanning-munities all over the world unfitted to take thoroughly representative body to arrive at fu and Po-se, it would, in the event of a any part in public affairs? The policy of satisfactory conclusions as to what ought to famine like the present, be possible to get the Government, liowever, is not only not to be done and how to do it. The matter grain up to the suffering districts with a endow the colony with a municipality but affects every one alike, for if the plague is to rapidity and certainty that would effectually even to reduce the small element of be of annual recurrence commercial firms may dissipate all fear of actual starvation. popular representation which it previously find it to their interest to close their Hong- It is to be feared, however, that this con- possessed on the Sanitary Board to akong branches and with a diminution in its sideration, any more than the development nullity. And this, too, at a time when the business prosperity the colony would no of the resources of the interior provinces, colony is threatened with what may prove longer be able to support the official will not greatly influence the Chinese Gov-to be the greatest crisis in its history, establishments on their present scale. ernment in their decision. The fact will Government by officials has had a trial of According to the law officials whose none the less be a satisfaction to those fifty-five years and amongst the results may services ha! to be dispensed with would be foreigners who have so long and steadily be set down the insanitary state of the entitled to no compensation, and even if advocated the throwing open of the great colony which allowed the plague of 1894 to they were they would not be able to extract inland waterways of South China to steamer work such havoc. The case for the Govern- it out of an empty treasury. The official navigation, because, though the primaryment is that the insanitation which existed community therefore is as much interested motive governing this agitation has been a was the fault of the Sanitary Board, but the as the unofficial community in keeping the selfish one, it has not been the sole one. contention that the inst named body, bound colony going and in the prescut emergency The condition of the great plains of Kwang- hand and foot and with no effective power it would be well for then to sacrifice any si, strewn at intervals with the ruins of once of action, could be expected in a few years feelings of false pride they may entertain prosperous towns, has convinced thoughtful to remove the consequences of many years and consent to take counsel with the com- travellers that the causes for this decay are of official neglect, is really too absurd! for munity through its duly elected representa- ! remediable, and there can be little doubt serious consideration. However, when the tives as to what is best to be done to meet that the system of taxation, which checks epidemic of 1894 came to an end it was the common danger. movement, and the want of facilities for hoped we had seen the last of the reaching a good market are probably chiefly disease and that the efforts then put responsible for this decay. COLQUHOUN is forth to establish a “cordon of cleanliness,” of opinion that one great cause for the decay which is said to be an effective barrier to of the towns on the West River was the plague, would render another visitation of diversion of the carrying trade between the like kind impossible. Yet here we are Yunnan and Cantou to the river Yangtsze, in 1896 once more called upon to face the but this could only partially account for it, enemy. We have plague amongst us; some
we think, though at one time no doubt authorities think that as the season pro- the trade with Yunnan-before the gresses the disease will become more viru suppression of the Mahommedan rebellion Tent, as it did in 1894, when its existence made it a wilderness-must have been vastly was not officially recognised until the middle greater than is now the case. But whatever of May; a couple of cases have been con- the causes of this decline, it cannot be veyed to Japan and the English papers doubted that the country drained by the there are crying out for quarantine; and West and North rivers and their affluents quarantine is already imposed at Singapore would benefit most materially by being and Manila. Where is it all to end? Are we brought within reach of foreign markets. to have the same thing repeated year after We trust that the Foreign Office have not year? If so what will become of the trade of made the mistake of confining the demand the colony? What will be the value of to the mere opening of Wuchow as a Treaty property? Plague made its appearance Port, which of itself would be of compara- in Yunnan some fifty years ago and tively little value; we are encouraged to
has since reappeared annually with un- hope for a more comprehensive demand by failing regularity, though it is more the reference made by Sir CLAUDE MAC virulent some years than others. What has DONALD, in his reply to the Chamber of happened in Yunnan may for all that is Commerce, to the West River and its known to the contrary be repented 'at Can ton, and if so there would be a constant danger of the importation of the disease into this colony. At Canton we learn that this year it exists only in sporadic form in the East Gate district and in some of the heigh bouring villages, and it is permissible to hope that it will disappear without again assuming the firulence of an epidemic. But while hoping for the best it behoves the colony to be prepared for the worst, and the Government, instead of resenting, pught to invite the assistance and co-operation of the community in placing the sanitation
affluents.
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The N. C. Daily News of the 14th April says:-Much regret was felt among his numerous old friends in Shanghai at the news received yesterday by wire of the death in Siam on Saturday last of heat apoplexy of Mr. J. F. Cheetham. Mr. Cheetham was for many years in the firm of Turner & Co. and afterwards ni Purdon & Co., leaving Shanghai to take up an appointment in Siam in 1893. He was a most valued member of the Fire Brigade and his good humour and geniality secured him a large number of friends in Shanghai.
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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SANITARY BOARD,
The question of the reconstruction of the Sanitary Board appears at last to be entering upon the road to a rational solution. The Government has solicited an expression of opinion from the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, which indicates a willingness to be more or less guided thereby. The natural course will be for the Committee to. call a general meeting of the members of the Chamber to consider the matter, and in that way something like an authoritative expres- sion from a body which may be considered to a certain extent representative of the com- munity will be arrived at. It would be still more satisfactory, however, to have a plebiscitum of the whole of the English speaking ratepayers of the colony. That would place at once and for ever beyond doubt the views and wishes of the commu- nity. A Chamber of Commerce is not the kind of body that a Government would or- dinarily consult upon a sanitary question, but having regard to the constitution of our mixed community in Hongkong the views of the Chamber will be entitled to con- siderable weight, if the Government should be unprepared to go any further in its efforts to arrive at the opinion of the public at large. So far the Chamber has given no mandate to its representative in Council either to support or oppose the Sanitary Board and we agree with the Hon. T. H. WHITEHEAD in his contention that members of the Council ought not to be regarded as mandataires. The official mem- bers of Council are bound to vote as they