"
"
288
"goods to their ultimate consumer with no "enhancement of cost derived from taxation, save that represented by the import and "transit duties, is a view which cannot be "entertained by Her Majesty's Government. There is nothing in the terms of the Treaty which appears to my Lords to justify such a sweeping demand, and in "view of the internal taxation to which "native goods are subject in China "it would be in their opinion both "unjust and inexpedient to enforce "such a demand, even if it were war "ranted by the terms of the Treaty stipulations. All that Her Majesty's "Government can claim in this respect ap- pears to my Lords to be that in the Treaty ports the importer shall have the right to "sell his goods in the market, after pay "ment of the Customs duties stipulated, and "that he shall have the right to send goods to any internal market which he may 'select, free from any other charge than "the Customs duty on importation and the stipulated transit duty; but that, both at "the port and at the internal market, when "once the goods have passed out of his hands they must take their chance in common "with native goods and bear whatever impositious the rapacity or the necessities "of Chinese administration may înflict."
C
看看
#
The Board of Trade views on this and other questions were adopted by the the Go- vernment, and Sir RUTHERFORD ALCOCK was so notified. In view of this authorita- tive declaration that British goods must bear whatever impositions the rapacity of the Chinese administration may inflict, a declaration made in response to the repre- sentations of the Chambers of Commerce, seems rather ironical to now reproach the Chambers with not having complained suth- ciently. As complaints are now invited, however, no doubt the Chambers will see
that they are supplied without stint. There is abundant room for them, and, fortunately, they appear likely to meet with a better re- ception than in the days when Sir BROOKE ROBERTSON was Consul at Canton,
PROGRESS IN HUNAN,
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND very large proportion of the best soldiers the Empire possesses. She is able, there- fore, to plead with effect at the capital, and her sons have succeeded in keeping her soil inviolate from all save the ubiquitous missionary. Few foreigners have ever penetrated Hunan, and we owe most of the particulars gleaned concerning the province to missionary explorers. The people of this province are not really either so prejudiced or so ignorant as those of many other provinces, but the officials-active and retired-whose name is legion and whose influence is unbounded, are able to raise a demonstration against foreigners at any moment.
When the telegraph was first introduced into Hunan the most stringeut measures were taken to prevent its destruction, but it was some time before popular feeling against the innovation could be allayed. That opposition has since been successfully over- come, and the innovation is allowed to remain unmolested. What is more sur-
prising is that an appreciation of Western knowledge has been suffered to develop in the province. Stranger still, the officials appear to be prime movers in propagating foreign education. It is stated that the Literary Chancellor and the President of the Yolu School, Mr. WAN, are assiduously endeavouring to spread the rudiments at least of Western learning among the natives, and at the recent examinations the students, who had been led to expect in the papers set them some Western subjects, were greatly disappointed to find that these had been omitted by their examiners. They are said to have expressed their dissatisfaction in unmistakeable terms. It is evident, there- fore, that whatever may be the state of feel ing towards foreigners among the Hunanese, there is no dislike or contempt among them for the learning of the West. Mr. WAN has, it seems, lately secured permission from His Excellency CHIEN, the provincial Go- vernor, to establish a new college, wherein Western science will be taught in addition to the hoary classics of the Chinese sages. The provincial gentry are giving hearty sup port to the project, and it is pretty certain No province in China has so long and so that the school will soon become a focus of persistently refused admission to foreigners progress in the midst of a population_re- as Hunan, and few have been equally suc-nowned for their intelligence as well as their cessful in excluding them. There are now vanity. It is much to be regretted that this treaty ports in twelve provinces of China fine province has not been opened to trade, proper, one in Manchuria, and one in the but there is hope for it in the not far distant island of Hainan. The provinces of the future. The Grand Trunk Railway of China, North-west, Shansi, Shensi, and Kansuh, are the first real section of which, from near of course far from the sen, and being with Peking to Hankow, is shortly to be com- out any great navigable river or system of menced, will pass through Hunan. Leaving roads are not easily accessible. Kweichow Wuchang the capital of Hupeh, on the is poor, thinly populated, and very remote southern bank of the Yangtsze, opposite to from the great centres of trade. Honan is | Hankow, it will run through Hanan in a also destitute of any great inland waterway | southerly_direction, touching at Yochow, except the Yellow River, which runs, how.
on the Tungting Lake, Changsha, the ever, only through a small portion of the capital, Hengehow, and other important north of the province, and is not an un- places, before entering Kwangtung, which mixed blessing to the land. Hunan, on the province it will cross, terminating at Canton. contrary, is splendidly watered and easy of The opening up of this province to the outside access. The Yangtsze bounds its north-world should have some effect on the Chinese eastern corner, and its great arm, the Siang Empire, if anything can put life into the dry river, runs through the Tung-ting Lake into bones of Confucian conservatism. If only the very heart of the province. Changsha, the Hunanese, who represent so much of the capital, seated on the river Siang, is it- the brain of the nation, could be weaned self most favourably situated for a treaty from their belief in the superiority of port, and Siangtan, a busy and opulent town the classics, something might be hoped on the same river, should be a considerable for. Time will show whether the rail- centre of foreign trade. After the massacres ways and other agents of progress are and outrages of 1889-90 it was fully ex-all powerless to lift the sons of Han from the -pected that the Powers would insist upon the opening up of Hunan, but the demand, if ever formally made, was not insisted upon. Hunan has for many years given to China a large number of her ablest officials; she has also furnished a
ruts in which for so many centuries they have been plodding. We are not sanguine, and have no great faith in the future of the race, but there may possibly yet arise a man who is capable of initiating a new departure. If so, he would probably hail from Hunan.
|
[October 13, 1897.
SUPREME COURT.
6th October.
IN APPELLATE JURISDICTION,
BEFORE THE FULL COURT-SIR John Car- RINGTON (CHIEF JUSTICE) AND MR. A. G. WISE (PUISNE JUDGE).
CHEUNG IU TING, APPELLANT, ` v. CHUN
YAM AND MA PAK TO, RESPONDENTS. In this case the repondents (defendants in the Court below) appeared on a rule nisi calling upon them to show cause why an appeal in the nature of a new trial should not be beard.
Mr. M. W. Slade (instructed by Mr. Reece) appeared for the appellant; Mr. J. J. Francis, * QC. (instructed by Mr. Dennys), for Chun Yam; and Mr. E. Robinson (instructed by Mr. Wilkinson) for Ma Pak To.
Mr. Francis, in showing cause for Chan Yam, directed their Lordships' attention to the prin ciple which always guided Courts of Appeal in considering applications of this kind. The rule nisi was made on the sole ground that fresh evidence not available on the hearing had been since discovered. It was laid down in Chitty's Practice that a new trial should not be made on this ground unless there was reasonable proba- bility that if the proposed fresh evidence were brought before a jury a different verdict from that given in the former trial would be given. ment of Mr. Justice Wise and were also The facts were fully set forth in the judg- fully brought out on the application to the Full Court, and therefore counsel would not trouble their Lordships with them again. first bit of fresh evidence was that since the trial au examination had been made of the records in the Stamp Office which went to show, so it was alleged, that on or about the times made by Ma Pak To and guaranteed by Chan certain promissory notes, said to have been
Yam, were made Ma Pak To obtained stamps from the Stamp Office, which would fit in with the fact that he had given the alleged promissory notes on those dates. Counsel submitted that that was ordinary evidence and ought to have been obtained in the
The
Counsel submitted
course of the trial. It was not fresh evidence discovered. The second new additional evidence npon which the appellants relied was to be brought in by the son of the plaintiff, who gave evidence on the original trial. He was now prepared to say that, after the judgment, he searched amongst his father's papers and found a particular letter. that that was a matter which ought to have been looked into before the trial. The third bit of fresh evidence that plaintiff alleged he was in a position to produce was the evidence of a man named Tang Fung Chi, a man well known about the Courts. He could state that in January he was asked to negotiate a loan of about $2,000 for Ma Pak To to be guaranteed by Chun Yam and that he was told, certainly by Ma/Pak To and possibly by both, that the money was required for the purpose of paying it to the plaintiff. That evidence, counsel submitted, was not directly in support of the plaintiff's case; it only inferentially sup- ported his case. Counsel also pointed out how reluctant were the Courts in England to grant a new trial because of the temptation to commit perjury. If that was the case in England how much more so was it in Hongkong where, counsel was sorry to say, perjury was committed in almost every case brought before the Court.
The Chief Justice-This case is a very bad illustration of the truth of what you have said. Mr. Francis-As bad a case as could possibly
be.
Mr. Robinson then addressed their Lordships
on behalf of Ma Pak To.
Mr. Slade, on behalf of the appellants, contended that the fresh evidence, which was
very material, could not have been available at the trial, and therefore the rule asked for should be granted.
Their Lordships considered their decision in private and on returning into court the Chief Justice said it was difficult to say on which side the moral elements of the case were, as per jury had been committed on the one side or the other. It was a recognised principle that fresh evidence must be viewed with the utmost