{
September 24, 1898.]
CHINA ÖVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
IN KWANGTUNG,
255
diplomatic success. If this success was so great, if the way to Canton and beyond was so widely
driven here during the month, making total | FRENCH AND BRITISH INFLUENCE | opening of this river constituted an enormons length on the course of the lode 84 feet. There is a more promising kind of ground making in the face at present and I shall continue to extend this further south as it is all virgin ground between this and Tankong and will go back under the ground formerly worked by the Chinese and surface shafts and from which payable gold was won.
A KNOCK-OUT BLOW FOR GREAT BRITAIN opened, why uselessly tease France by asking for
North off West.-We have continued this stope south but the gold was not continuous.
Winze 200 feet Level-This is now down 104 feet 6 inches, 19 feet 6 inches having been sunk during the month.
The lode is the same as last reported, but I have stopped the sinking of this for the present and put the men to drive south to see if the gold is making in that direction.
1
1
Surface Shaft. We have sunk this near the course of the east and west lode and about 100 feet west of where the lode is broken. I want to prove if the west lode is continuous. Near this and from where we are taking the headings there are large boulders of quartz, some show. ing gold in the stone; they are too large to have been carried there.
New Find No. 2 Level.-This measures 130 feet; 20 feet 6 inches having been driven during the month. The change of ground referred to in my last report proved to be a leader, so we brought the men back and opened up on a leader previously passed though by this drive, and this has now opened out to a large body, proving it to be the same lode that No. 1/level cut through, but we should still have to con- tinue No. 2 to intersect the lode in No. 3/level,
No. 3 Level.-We continued the cross cut through the lode a further distance of 5 feet, making total length 16 feet. We have not reached the hanging wall yet, but we have suspended work for the present and put the men on to get the necessary timbers for the sinking of the shaft.
Tankong.-Daring the month 200 feet of levels have been added to this section. The North Drive on the hanging wall of the main body measures 33 feet 6 inches and the stone won from this gives, as per assay report, gold 10 dwts. 14 grs., silver 15 dwts. 21 grains per ton. The drive south on the foot wall of the lode measures 69 feet and the stone from this gives by assay gold 16 dwts. 14 grains, silver 10 dwts. 14 grains per ton. A drive was put out east connecting the north and south drives showing at this point 20 feet of lode. The men are now taking out ground preparatory for sinking of shaft 8 feet by 4/feet in the clear. We have not milled any stone from this sec- tion during the month owing to the scarcity of water, as we could not spare the extra firewood it would have taken to run the tailings pump.
Outside prospecting. We have found what appears to be a separate out crop from that of the Tankong Lode. It is the same hill, however, but to the west of the Tankong Mine. It is nice looking stone carrying mineral. We have not done much work on it as yet.
Milling was carried on equal to 24 days with the fall battery, crushing 1,900 tons of headings for a yield of 167 oances 5 dwts of smelted gold.
Berdan Pans treated 26 tons of old tailings and concentrates for a yield of 13 dunces of gold.
Cyanide Works. Owing to the dry weather these only worked 6 days, from the 15th to 18th inclusive, and 30th and 31st. I had hoped that after the weather broke on the 13th and 14th that we should have had sufficient water. This is now going full time.
Water Supply.We have been very short of this, in fact we were only able to run the bat- tery for six days during the month without the assistance of the engines. We have an ample supply now for all our requirements and I think it will be continuous.
Clean up was finished by 4 p.m. on the 1st, when milling was resumed with the full battery, and I hope to run the full month 30 days, when we hope to have an increased yield.
General. We have given our usual attention to this by extending our roads for firewood and other timbers We have a fairly good stock of firewood on hand.
Health of Camp-This is much better than when last reported.
Rainfall. We have registered on the mine 9 in.; 5 in of this fell from the 29th to 31st.
AND THE DAILY PRESS,'
In the Daily Press of the 13th August ap- peared a leading article on the alleged French protest against the granting of a concession to Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co. for the con- struction of a railway from Canton to Kowloon. In the course of the article the term "The effrontery of the alleged protest" was employed. The Avenir du Tonkin in its issue of the 17th September, has an article in reply headed Effrontés, et pourquoi ?" which is solemnly Dedié au Redactour du Hongkong Daily Press," We translate the article as follows:-
You say, sir, that France has committed an affront in regard to England. That is a big word to address, as you address it, to a friendly nation. The affair, then, must be of major importance to induce you to depart from propriety of language. Let us look at it closely then. It concerns the railway from Canton to Kowloon. You wish to get the line for the ad- vantage of England. Our Ambassador at Peking opposes it. Hence we are, according to you,
And why? efrontés. Effrontés say you?
With us effrontés are those who arrogate to themselves rights they do not possess and who refuse recognition to the rights of others. How do you make out that we are not right in this matter of Kwangtung ? How do you make out that have any rights ?
you
A recent treaty, if I am not mistaken, places Yunnan, Kwangsi, and Kwangtung in the French sphere of action. What does that mean if not that Franco has acquired in those provinces, and especially in the province of Kwangtung, an exclusive and privileged posi- tion? This province of Kwangtung, with the island of Hainan and the other two pro- vinces, is placed for the future in the domain of France and for the present under her control. I had almost said under her pro- China may still carry on the ad. tection. ministration and collect taxes there, but she can no longer act alone in matters that might hin. der the economical development, as France un- derstands it, of the territory which must shortly We have asked China to respect become ours. the treaty she has signed with us. And we have affronted you! But why?
were
have
This treaty was known to you, to you English, If you for we have published it far and wide
not disposed to accept it you should said so at the time and taken the chance if necessary of a war with us for the maintenance of the equilibrium that we had disturbed to your prejudice in the Far East. You remained silent, without fitting out a single vessel, drawing your sword, or even sending a diplomatic note.
we
a railway which would have to meet the com petition of an already existing maritime and. river route? Teasing and effrontery: are these the bottom of your national character ?
Meanwhile you treat us as efrontés, and the term is for us full of charm, for what you. call effrontery in English is in this case translated into French as firmness in assuring respect for our rights. Now, this firmness, or this effrontery, whichever you like, we have had in the past and will continue to have in the future. Effrontés we are, efrontés we remain. Will not this reduce to nothing your teasings and impropriety?
CORRESPONDENCE.
[We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.]
THE IMPUTED DESIGNS OF THE
SPANISH PRIESTS IN THE
PHILIPPINES.
着着
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS.
SIR,-My attention has been called to an article which appeared in your issue of yesterday on the Philippines. It contains assertions, un der the conveniently-styled guise of "rumours,' that are calculated to seriously prejudice the priests alluded to.
There has been of late a tendency in evidence to give ready publicity to all sorts of injurious reports with the concealed object of damaging the character of the various missionary bodies until recently exercising their mission in the Philippines. One noteworthy feature of these " reports
is that the writers who so boldly make the damaging assertions do not appear to be quite so eager or scrupulous in their endeav our to verify actual facts-when the means of verification are easily accessible-before rushing into public print. Without citing any parti cular article, I have no hesitation in saying that the reading public have lately been served with wholly unfounded reports, to put up with which the utmost limit of endurance has been reached.
"
·
It would not have been my intention to trouble myself to make any refutation of the particular paragraph of your article of Saturday under notice had it not been for the fact that at the present stage of affairs the so-called rumours to which your journal has so un- hesitatingly been made the medium for giving publicity may very prejudicially affect the proper conduct of any negotiations that are to be shortly carried on in Paris with the object of the restoration of peace to the gen eral good of all interests represented in the Then came the occupation of Kwanchanwan; Philippines. For no other construction can which we occupied, with or without effrontery, be placed upon that portion of the article in in execution of the treaty. England remained question as affecting the priests than that, silent and once more by her silence ratified the wholly regardless of facts as it really is, it may treaty that we had published. We were not produce the effect of adding "fnel to fire" at effrontés, then, for executing the treaty in part. a most inopportune moment, when the early Why have we suddenly become effrontés for establishment of enduring peace will be hailed as an inestimable blessing to a not in consider- desiring to execute the other part, which gives us a privileged position at Canton ? Iable portion of mankind as represented by the know that in this latter circumstance inhabitants of the Philippines. have crossed in a more direct manner your These introductory remarks serve to explain views and wishes; but why have you placed the purport of this letter. I will now proceed yourselves in a position to be crossed? Why to disarow most emphatically any evil “de- did you ask for a concession that might be dis-sigus" on the part of the priests who have so agreeable to us and on territory that must incautiously been made the subject of attack in ̧ ́
There was offrontery there, your journal. It is alleged by the writer of become French ?
the article that the action of "some priests in if you like, but it was not on our side.
over from Manila is Hongkong who came looked upon with suspicion," presumably because "many of them have begun to wear Kowloon a good slice of territory civilian dress and to let their hair grow." This cutting into this fatare French province. fact alone appears to have been the ground on We might have opposed it under the which the paragraphist has founded his suspi- rights conferred upon us by the treaty. You, cion. The inference he has drawn is so puerile. seeing this first affront pass unpunished, and so far-fetched that no community of intël. have committed a second by asking for a con-ligent readers can be imposed upon to be aroused into a state of excitement which the writer has, cession for a railway connecting Canton and
no doubt, intended to create. The imputation of Hongkong. This time. we kick, and then you treat as as effrontés, thus attributing your own positive evil to a body of gentlemen based upon evidence of so slender a nature-if evidence it qualities to others.
can be called at all-is, to say the least, un- worthy of a gentleman at the present juncture. To what extent is the suspicion entertained in
And this was not the first effrontery on your part. Already, in order to aggrandise, so to speak, your port of Hongkong, you had taken
with
And besides, why this request for a concession for a railway when you can go by the West River? You have boasted urbi et orbi that the