118
Capt. TILLETT seconded. Carried.
On the motion of Mr. J. R. Michael, seconded by Hon. J. J. Bell Irving, the re- tiring Directors (Hon. E. R. Bolilios and Mr. F. A. Gomes) were re-elected.
The auditors, Messrs. A. O'D. Gourdin and F. Henderson, were re-elected on the motion of Mr. Cox, seconded by Hon. J. J. Bell Irving.
The CHAIRMAN-that is all the business, gentlemen. I thank you for your attendance. Dividend warrants will be issued on Tuesday, THE QUEEN AND EUREKA MINES.
We have received from Messrs. John D. Humphreys and Son, the General Managers, the following reports :-
NEW BALMORAL GOLD MINING CO., LIMITED.
Mount Macdonald
6th July, 1897. Queen Mine-The contractors are still mak- ing good progress with the sinking, having now completed 60 feet of their contract for 100 feet. The shaft is now down 277 feet from the surface. There is no change in the country since last report.
The engine and boiler shed has now been completed and a good piece of work has been made of it. The tributors at the Balmoral
lease are working very well and are hoping for
favourable results.
p. pro. JOHN D. HUMPHREYS AND SON
C. J. WILLMOTT.
OLIVERS FREEHOLD MINES, LIMITED.
Mount Macdonald 6th July, 1897. Eureka Mine.Since reporting on 25th June, there is no change in the development of the reef, there being no sign of it decreasing in size or quality. The drives and stopes are being pushed ahead at both levels so as to largely in crease the output as soon as the battery is ready for it. The sinking and timbering of the main shaft below the 200 ft. level is progressing most satisfactorily with the two shifts of men as previously mentioned; and good progress is being made also with the air and mullock shaft mentioned in last report. During the fortnight ending 26th June, the battery was not running full time owing to repairs being necessary to it, which consequently lessened the quantity of stone put through and the yield of gold; but it is now running better and being worked to its full capacity.
New battery-Machinery is being made and as soon as received it will be erected as speedily as possible,
Battery dam.-Is very low as the rain still keeps away; and were it not for the supply re- ceived from the Eureka shaft. the stampers would have had to cease work before now. We
have started two men to sink a shaft on G. L.
35 for prospecting. All work is going on satis factorily and the engine is in good working
order.
p. pro, JOHN D. HUMPHREYS & SON,
C. J. WILLMOTT.
CORRESPONDENCE
[We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents]
BANK DIVIDEND.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “DAILY PRESS.
SIR,-Can you explain why the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation pays share holders on the London Register £1.5.0 while it pays those on the Hongkong Register only 1.4.0 at to-day's rate, while it may be £1.3.0 or less by the time it is paid? When a ¿ividend of 258. is declared that sum should be paid either at the rate of the day on which it is payable or on which the warrants are presented fer payment. If the difficulty of keeping the accounts is alleged I can only say that that is all fudge. If I hold a hundred shares I pay $52.60 to shareholders on the London Register. Yet although I expect before long to reside in London the Bank refuses to transfer my
shares. Yours faithfully,
AN IRATE TRADER. Hongkong, 29th July, 1897,
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
MAT SALLEH'S ATTACK ON GAYA.
MR, NEUBRONNER RESCUED.
FLIGHT OF MAT SALLEN.
lowing special telegram
The Singapore Free Press publishes the fol-
Labuan, 20th July, Messrs. Hewett and Wheatley have returned where Mat Salleh had fortified himself. to Labuan from their expedition to Inanam
The result of their operations is that they have rescued Mr. Neubronner, the Treasurer of
Gaya, who had been carried off as a prisoner.
Mat Salleh himself has taken to fight and escaped into the jungle. writes on 16th July as follows:-
The Labuan correspondent of the same paper
No news has arrived from Mr. Hewett since
he left here on the morning of the 11th, and it has been impossible and will be for some time to estimate accurately the amount of plunder carried away by the rebels, but it is known that they took $7,300 from the Opinm Farmer and not less than $8,000 from the Treasury. It is probable that the loss in dollars only did not fall far short of $30,000. He is a cool hand this Mat Salleh. He made the Chinese themselves disgorge their pro- perty and load it into his boats: this finished he set fire to their houses.
The fact that nothing has been heard from Messrs. Hewett and Wheatley would point to their having found their foe gone on reaching Gaya, and that they are pursuing them up some one or more of the Rivers in the neighbour, hood. If this is the case they have no easy task before them; a stern chase is always & long one, but there is this consolation the expedition could not be in better hands.
The Directors of the Chartered Co. have. I understand, cabled out that no effort is to be spared to suppress the rebellion once and for all,
By his capture of Gaya it is probable Mat Salleh would be able to increase the number of his followers carrying firearms by about a dozen: he may also have secured about 1,000 rounds of ammunition. I believe this, however, is a doubtful advantage to him, as a rifle in the hands of an undrilled native is more dangerous to himself than any one else. Even the Dyak Police when excited cannot hold straight.
a rifle
CHINA'S PROPOSAL TO REVISE HER TARIFF.
We are informed on good authority, that Chang Yin-huan, who was charged to continue the negociations which Li Hung-chang opened last year with the various Western Governments with the object of increasing China's Customs Tariff, reports by telegraph to Peking that all his efforts to induce the Powers to consent to the proposal have failed. This is not to be wondered at as long as China sticks to her vile system of internal taxation and robbery at every barrier.-China Gazette.
ANOTHER PROJECTED LUAN.
Shanghai, 26th July. Our Peking correspondent, whose communi- cations are based upon knowledge from the inside, tells us in a letter dated 19th inst., that negociations are in active progress between Li Hung-chang and the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank respecting a fresh lon to the Chinese Government. The amount of the loan is £16,000,000, to be taken at 854 per cent. with 44 per cent. interest. These figures are much more favourable, the Chinese consider, than Dr. Dudgeon's abortive 5 per cent. loan at 94. Our Correspondent adds that the negociations have been protracted owing to the bank's insistence upon certain important conditions with regard to the repayment of the principal and interest. The guarantee offered is said to be the Imperial Maritime Customs re- ceipts and the internal revenue of the Chinese Government. How the latter is to be handled to give it any value as a security for a foreign loan, we are not told. But if the internal re- pared to hear of sweeping changes in the mode of venue is so given and accepted, we may be pre-
its collection and administration, The Chinese consider the terms as more favourable to them
[August 4, 1897.
Į than those in any other recently projected loan, and Li Hùng-chang is very anxious to put it through.
With regard to the Belgian Railway Loans, our correspondent (writing a week ago) said that the Belgians had proposed certain revisions in the terms of the contract in order to give them better security, as the first draft of the Con- vention was much too favourable to Chins.- China Gazette.
A CHINESE PRETENSION.
In his Report on the State of Trade at the Treaty Ports of China, Mr. Brenan mentions that:-
:-"In Foochow the import trade is wholly ing the prosperity of the port, the British mer- in the hands of Chinese, but as a matter affect-
cantile community complains, that although under the treaty of 1842 it is the city of Foo- ohow that is open to foreign trade, the Chinese officials, for purposes of taxation, treat Foo- ohow as ontside at the Custom-house is further taxed on the limits of the port. All merchandise after paying import duties
tion at Foochow should have been settled long its way to the city or suburbs." The ques before this by the Consuls there or the Ministers at Peking; meanwhile it is being used as a pre- cedent by the Chinese in an important question that is now before the Foreign Ministers at Peking.
foreigners shall not be allowed to have business The Chinese are endeavouring to insist that offices in the native cities of Hangehow and Scoohow; they say that they have provided Settle- ments outside the walls of the cities, and foreign- ers must be content with those settlements. Of
course, they would like, if they could, to restore the old Canton days, when foreigners were strictly confined within the four walls of the factories; but as this is now happily impossible, they are throwing, after the manner of Chinese officials, as many obstacles as they can in the way of foreign trade at the new ports. The position taken up by the United States authorities is that when a port is opened by treaty to foreign trade, it is not meant that the foreign conces sion is the only part that is opened; for if there several ports in that condition could it be held were no foreign concession—and there are still that foreigners could not reside at the port so declared open?
This is, of course, a reductio ad absurdum.' Some of the oldest foreign firms in Shanghai took their Chinese names from the Chinese mercantile establishments in the city at which these firms were lodged when Shanghai was first opened. They moved to the concessions subse- quently because of the want of the amenities of civilisation in the native quarters; but there was offices in the city. To take a modern instance, we no suggestion that they were not allowed to have
find that at Chungking, which has been opened for some years, the foreigners live and do busi- ness in the native city. In fact, it is really idle to suggest that where the port and the city are adjacent to each other, the opening of the port does not mean the opening of the city. Where foreigners do not live in the native city at an open port, it is from choice, not from any con- viction that the port is open and the city is not. We may be pretty sure that if the Foreign Ministers tolerate this pretension, the next step will be for the Chinese officials to claim that at open ports missionaries must be confined to the concessions.
There is another very serious point, in up- holding which the Chinese are no doubt using Foochow as a precedent. If China succeeds in persuading the Foreign Ministers to allow her contention, then all foreign goods landed at an open port will have to pay likin dues before they can be passed through the gates of the native cities at the ports. It is quite true that in the Chefoo Convention of 1876 Sir Thomas Wade weakly consented to "move his Government to allow the ground rented by foreigners (the so-called Concessions) at the different ports to be regarded as the area of exemption from likin;" but by the Additional Articles, to the Chefoo Convention signed in London in 1885, it was provided that the arrangements in rela tion to the area within which likin ought not to be collected on foreign goods at the open
ports, and to the Foreign Settlement area, required further consideration; and it was agreed between Lord Salisbury and Marquis