September 24, 1896.]
of the Peking authorities to retain it as law, while they winked at its systematic evasion. They would not give official coun- tenance to emigration because that might, and would, have involved any civilised nation in the daty of providing for the proper protection of its subjects in foreign countries. Official methods are otherwise in China; no responsibility is accepted if by any means it can be avoided. The emigrants may go and seek their fortune in any land that will receive them, but the number of such countries is an ever decreasing one, as the Celestial visitors are not as a rule altogether a desirable class, and while they bring little with them they often take a great deal away to China. So consider- -able have been the sums carried back by
some returned emigrants that even the. most dull witted of the Chinese officials have latterly perceived the importance of permitting the traffic to go on. Every emigrant becomes a customer for Chinese produce, and most of them remit money to relatives in the Flowery Land, whlei num- bers return with substantial savings, occa- sionally amounting to a handsome com- petence. The benefits derived from emigra- tion were at first unappreciated by the mandarins, but of late years, since the restriction of their influx into the United States and the Australian Colonies, the advantages derived lave become better knowir by their loss.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPÓRT.
297
Chinese labourers, the Government will as to convey the meaning that there was a feel bound to impose it. The decision European eye-witness to every individual rests with the electors, and if the Cana: act of violence would be a straining of words, diau working man fears the Chinaman | but Europeans certainly saw enough to afford as a competitor in the labour market strong presumptive evidence of the truth of he will do his utmost to exclude him. the tales afterwards told them by the Chinese. The British Government has absolutely no- It was of course understood from the outset thing to do with the matter, and the Chinese that what took place was without the will simply have to submit. Canada, like sanction of the Japanese Government the United States, has gained largely from and the higher officials and that when the supply of Chinese cheap labour brought the matter came to their knowledge they gratuitously to her Pacific shores, but it is would severely deprecate such proceedings, pretty certain that with the flow of emigra- but that did not alter the facts then actually tion westward the need for Chinese labour transpiring. Now that it is admitted that will soon cease, and the same antagonisn there was provocation for the rebellion and that sprang up against the Mongolian in that the Japanese soldiery failed to discri- California will arise in Canada. This is to minate between the peaceful and the hostile, be expected, and though the exclusion of it hardly seems worth while to argue as to the Chinese from Canada would prove a loss whether there may or may not have been to the country generally and to the city of some exaggeration in the reports received. Vancouver in particular for some time to Substantially the charge has been proved. come it is only what has been expected. The advent of Asiatics in countries possessing a temperate climate is seldom desired and rarely tolerated long.
C
K
st
THE JAPANESE IN FORMOSA. The truth about the conduct of the Japa- nese in Forniosa is now beginning to clarify somewhat. By the apologists for the Japa- nese it is contended that the reports of their cruelty have been greatly exaggerated, but at the same time it is at length admitted that One of the first to recognise the advant-provocation for the rebellion of the Chinese ages accruing to China from emigration was was given. Moreover, in the Kobe Chronicle His Excellency LI HUNG-CHANG. They of the 15th September we read :-" A Tokyo were soon forced upon his attention and "telegram published in the Osaka and Kobe have been present in his mind ever since papers asserts that the principal Japanese the negotiation with him by the United "official at Unrin in the heart of the dis- States Commissioners in 1880 of a Treaty "turbed district of Formosa has been to restrict the immigration of Chinese into "cashiered for indiscriminate severity to that Republic. The action of the Uuited peaceful as to hostile Formosans, causing States Legislature and of the Australian "those who would be well disposed to be- Colonies in practically closing those coun- come disaffected and to join the rebels. tries to the Chinese emigrant was very “This official, MATSUMURA YUNOSHIN, is distasteful to the Peking Government, who "described as 'Director of the Unrin branch were at one time disposed to show some of the Taichu Prefectural Government.'” resentment. But this was probably either If this assertion be correct we must too much trouble, or it was deemed im take it that the allegations of our politic, and though secretly nursing the correspondents have been supported, as anti-Chinese legislation in the United States to their substance, by Japanese official as a grievance no attempt was made to re- evidence. Professor BURTON, in the in- taliate. As a matter of fact the door of teresting letter from his pen published in Uncle Sam's domain has never been quite yesterday's issue, in criticising the corres- shut in the face of John Chinaman. The pondents who have represented the conduct latter is too cunning to be easily denied of the Japanese as blameworthy takes admission, and though few Chinese special exception to the statement of one of now go to the States direct they manage the correspondents that there were Euro- to secure 8 passage indirectly. No peau eye-witnesses. Professor BURTON says, doubt both through Canada and Mexico The things witnessed are supposed to be access has been obtained into the United "the atrocities that your correspondent States by considerable numbers, though of" describes.” The passage in the letter re- course very limited compared with the flow of emigration prior to the last Bill passed at Washington, which claimed to be iron-bound. The exclusion of the Chinese from the El Dorado they had found in the United States caused an appreciable diminution in trade between that country and China, and the loss was felt chiefly by the latter. LI HUNG CHANG now fears that another avenue through which Chinese enterprise finds em- ployment is about to be cut off: that the poll tax in Canada is shortly to be raised from fifty to five hundred dollars. This would close another great country to Chinese ex- ploiters and would also be the means of ren- dering the United States] inaccessible save through Mexico. Whether the Canadian Government will be impressed with Lr's objections to the virtual exclusion of Chinese from the Dominion which would result from the levy of so large a sum as $500 per head as poll tax is doubtful. If the constituencies demand further restriction on the influx of
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THE INCREASE IN TELEGRAPH
CHARGES. ·
*
The
The Hongkong General Chamber of Com merce was very much in earnest in its protest against the increased telegraph charges at the meeting held on Saturday. That the increase. is wholly unjustified every one agrees. The question to be considered there- fore is, what action can be taken to secure an abatement. The idea of the Chamber is to promote competition by promising sup- port to a Pacific cable if one be laid. Would that promise be fulfilled? mercantile community of the Far East have had the opportunity of supporting an opposition once before, and they failed to avail themselves of it. The Chinese lines. broke down the previously existing monopoly and so long as they were willing to take telegrams at cheaper rates than the Eastern Extension and Great Northern they got a fair share of the business. As soon, however, as the Joint Cable Companies reduced their rates to the same level the merchants gave a practical demon- stration of the fact that blood is thicker than water and deserted the Chinese lines for the undertakings in which men of their own race were interested. Why support the Chinese lines when the European lines would do the work for the same money, was the light in which the question presented itself to them. The Chinese lines conse- quently lost the business at all competing points and the Chinese Government ceased to have any great interest in resisting the diplomatic pressure brought to bear upon it to induce it to join in the recent Conven- tion. The mercantile community were a simple trusting folk and their patriotic and kindly intentions have been turned into a rod for their own backs. Had the Chinese · Telegraph Administration received any appreciable support from Hongkong and Shanghai they would have made a stronger fight than they did against the Convention that has been forced upon them and instead of allowing it to be carried through in secret might have invoked the support of the foreign Chambers of Commerce.
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ferred to does not bear that construction; it reads:" I may say there is not a single "resident here, of whatever calling, having
any chance of finding out the truth, who be "lieves the Japanese were proyoked. If it were mere rumour it would be a different thing, but it is not. There are European "eye-witnesses as well as Chinese, and as, for "once, accounts from beginning to end con- "firm each other, who can help believing "all that is said of the Japanese?" We If a Pacific cable is laid it will, so far as take this to mean that there were European the section between Honolulu aud Japan eye-witnesses of the fact that the conduct is concerned, probably be a Japanese line. of the Chinese was not such as to provoke | Would foreigners in China support a Japa- the Japanese, a fact which now appears nese line in opposition to the English and to have been officially established, Russo-Danish lines any more than they and that the unprovoked violence of supported the Chinese lines? If the pro- the Japanese and their making war upon posed new line became an accomplished fact the unoffending natives gave good ground to-morrow and was willing to undercut the for crediting the reports of their subsequent existing Companies no doubt it would com- conduct. That, we must confess, seems to mand the bulk of the business as long as us a reasonable position to assume. To the difference in rates continued, but construe the passage quoted in such a way I not be laid for a good many years to come