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May 19, 1900.}
CANTON,
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDEVE.]
Canton, 12th May
A braach of the Commercial Bureau is by order of the Viceroy extended to Swatow, of which the totai: Wongknug is appointed pre- sident, and Sam Sów Lün director to look after
local trade...
As I said in my last latter tho lekin mono- poly is alrealy geantad and will bɔgin to work on the 5th day of the 5th moon the 1st June. Que half of the million taels that was paid is to be applied to the cost of builling the rail- may barnen tutuan and Saigon. It is said that H.E. Li Hang-chang will so his influence with the Tsangli yamen to revise and incrense the customs duties upon goods imported and exported by foreign nations,
1 A monopoly of the Cauton lottery, called "The Chung Wo Lottery Company of Canton," is farmed out to th Wing Fauz Company, the monopolists of th Wishing lottery. for $60,000 per auaun; and a notification haring besu issued by the Board of Reorganisation, the farmers have brought the machinery, pre- paratory to oping the lottary in Canton They are much the san pol as thin mo polists of the Macso lottery,
A staan launch, the Sanchow hid a collision with the gaubat Sikiang at Taipingsha and caused some injury to her. Upon her commun. dant petitioning the Viceroy, the launch was ordered to pay for our of damages. A certain fr. V. Dod-l having imported from Hongkong to Cauton ton cases of tinfoil and sout them under transit pass to Chan Chuin, Fung Sai Lan and others, probably belonging to the tinfoil guld, forcibly robbed and carried away the cargo, and set fire to the godow. Thereupon the British Cousul in a despatol brought this case to the notice of H.D. the Viceroy. H. E. ordered an enquiry. Upon a petition of the Kuu In shap of the guild of tinfoil merchants to the lekin Bureau the autho- rity thereof asked: “ Although this tinfoil was seat under transit pass, why did the merchant breas the rule by evading the payiasat of lekin tax-s? Why did he make a clandestine sale. and cause the wrongial party to be arrastel?" The Magistrate of the Tak district was directed to report further thereon.
Au American missionary lady who went.ou travel to Sai Chin was insulted aud pelted by the mob in the village of Kunshan. So also iu Canton, when a foreigner goes into the city. he is invariably greeted with the term “ Kill the foreign devil. Once when an American gen. tleman and a lady went into the ity to see the temple of the 5 genii they were similarly treated an insuite, and it wis brought to the notice of the late Viceroy Tau, who replied that it was always the eas, and he could not have
any control over the mob
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CHINA OVERLAND TRALE REPORT.
CORRESPONDENCE.
(We do not hold ourselves, responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.}"
OVERCROWDING.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS,
Sir,--This subject embraces the third and last division of the thoughtful and important at least to all those who are interested in the permanent well-being of this Colony-lecture recently delivered by Mr. H. E. Pollock, and is susceptible of a very great amount of remark and suggestion, a little of which I propose to devote this letter to. That the subject is grave, indeed the gravest-for it embraces the plague question to a great extent of those voiced by Mr. Pollock, no one will, I imagine, dispate; and that it calls for imme liate and active atten- tion is as little doubtful. To it, I would venture to assert, is to be in the main attributed the first | and most serious of the outbreaks of plague which have, in recent years, afflicted this Co- lony, and to its solution can unhesitatingly be attributed in advance the cure of tliose troubles which at present afflict the municipal existence of this Colony. In dealing with it merely shortly, as I must do in this letter, I proposo to adhere to the order in which I have already si two words touching it, that is to say, first, "remark," and secondly. "suggestion."
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In the first place, to deal with Mr. Pollock's remarks on the first of the subjects which his address embodied, viz:-the plague question- which is so intrinsically interwoven with the third of his subjects as to render it extremely difficult of clear divisibility from it-thera can, I assume, be but little question in the minds of those possessing a practical acquaintance with the City of Victoria itself, that a condemnation of a not inconsiderable number of the streets
and lanes in it is, in truth, though a drastic, al. most a necessary process in the eradication of the evil of which they constitute the source, and, when the necessity for such condemuation arises, as it is sufficiently well known that it doos, primarily from the congested state of the occupants of the premises pertaining to these streets and lanes, it anquestion- able that the attraction of a very considerable increase to the lower and working class of the population, through the inauguration of new works and new industries, must be a source of grave apprehension to all, even though there may exist a divergence of opinion as to the most satisfactory manner of dealing with it; especially in view of the fact that the bulk of those who are drawn to the Colony in such a manuer, although ostensibly for temporary periods, as a rule remain here perman- ently. That the suggestion of housing such augmentations t the population outside of the limits of the City itself is the most suitable or convenient method of dealing with it, is, bow. ever, oue which I shall venture to controvert for the reasons hereafter shortly stated. That there is in existence at the present time a very marked, and, at least up to the present, increasing enhancement in the recognised value of what may be called real property in the Colony generally is un loubted; though I might question if the word "boom" is, strictly speak ing, correctly applicable to it, implying, as it does, something of the bubble nature; probably
necessary to prevent thi and can and m taken if those who should take them aễ but that assistance that it is the duty of Goy ernment to give them. But to answer his query, I venture to think that Mr Pollock's assumption that the remedy which the Home Government has attempted in ita own case is neither the most natural nor the most private enterprise, apart from the examples of suitable remedy in our case, chiefly because philanthropy impersonated by such as Lord Rowton and Lord Iveagh and their like, in such a line in England is, broadly, without the scope of individualism, nor dog the necessity or desirability exist that it should be otherwise where it must be prima face to its general ia a young and rising Colony such as benefit that individualism should receive that support and encouragement which it merits, especially from the Government itself, rather Trust, or other state competition; and indivi- than be outweighed and crushed by a public dualism is capable of dealing with this matter, if the Government will but assist it in its efforts.
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have ventured to make on Mr. Pollock's ad- In concluding these few remarks which I dress, I cannot pass by his observations on the subject of landlords, which I conceive to be in
words. It is, as no way inimical to that class, without a few we all know, a common and oft-repeated practice to look upon, and speak of, the landlord as if he were a composi- tion of modern Gorgon and Shylock, or to picture him in the guise of the caricatures of the - great American trusts which from time to time
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see in such papers as Puck or Judge. I am sure, though, that those who have an unbiassed acquaintance with him, the Direct r of Public Work, say, for example, woul ( give a very different view of him. Can it be supposed that if house property were the gold mine se permitted to remain so, or that the very over. many seein to consider it that it would long be crowding which we all so freely recognise growth of a supply more nearly capable of would not be speedily remedied by the up- meeting the demand? How often, in retort to such like remarks anent them as were cou tained in one of your eveuing contemporary's leading article of a week ago, do we hear the landlord's complaints upon the enormous in- Crown land, the cost of actual building and crease put upon the upset price and routs of labour, and the trouble and difficulty in dealing with the contractor and his men and in keeping
the former to his due dates ?
To proceed to my second heading. I come to the few suggestions that I would put forward in connection with the subject of this letter. Iù order to distinguish and separate these the graphs as follows:- more clearly I will deal with them in para-
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(a.) The Sanitary Board should be given powers by Government with the approval of the Director of Public Works,in that capacity, as distinguished from, what I may term, his fortuitous capacity as a member of the Board-to condemn and order the demolition and removal of such streets, lanes and blocks of houses, or other premises, which may be consi- difficulty or impossibility, either on account dered necessary or desirable, either from the of position, description or otherwise, facta well being of those, more especially,
existence is a me ace to the
that their
it is more correct to say that landed pr party their neighbourhood, and that the
For sue time past nothing has been heard of the brigand chi-fs, Fachan Hoi, and Ao Sun. of the district of Saichin, although a heavy reward was promised and strict orders given for their apprehension. Wuse they are and what they have been doing no one knew, until at last they turned up ag an iu the district of Kuk Kong. somewhere in the north of Kwang-tung, where associated with another rebal chief, by name Cheong Heong-wa, they enlisted under their banner a great number of local banditti and disbanded troops of the late Viceroy Tan.
is genuinely and intrinsically rising in value They have their insiguia aud flags and are
at the present time, not accidentally, but apace armed with rapid-firing guns of modern-make.
with the increased prosperity of our trade and Sometime last month they had a fight with the
the colony generally, assisted, no doubt, by the black fl ig soldiers, who were outnumbered and origin of the very subject that I am now writ obliged to beat a retreat, Another accounting of, and by the fact that such property can- says that the rebel chie's have fled to Kwangsi to gather more troops with a view to marching right into Kwangtung.
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A coolie who was busily engaged in cooking rice in the cook-house attached to a mat-shed in Kennedy road, near the Union Church, had & surprise on Wednesday. The cook-house is not far from the edge of a nullah. The recent heavy rains had apparently loosened the earth in the viciuty, for the earth slipped and part of the cook-house was thrown into the anlah, the coolie and his rice and fire going with it. He was bruised and burned, but not seriously.
room
occupied by them is unquestionably sorely needed by the genuine and more orderly portion of our population; and this latter argument is keenly applicable to the continued endurance of any of the disorderly houses, whether covertly so or otherwise, in the central and nearly central not now, with the very rapidly increased flow portions of the city. Apart from the somewhat of money through the Colony, be allowed to yield unpractical views of extrame Puritanism, it the return derived from it in former years. Those of us who have most experience of this honses must exist in some shape or form in this cannot but be generally recognised that theso
of very recent years that it has been touching then were did not equally recoguise it, when class of property appreciate well that it is only colony-mory is the pity that the powers that its real and true value and that, prior to this, it endured a very serious depression, in conjunc-well-being was committed by the doing away tion with our trade and the Colony, generally, with the Government inspaotion and supervi
one of the greatest blanders in our social
but perhaps of a greater duration. I believe sion of such houses, in the face of the opposition the only ground of fear that this existing iu- of such men as the late Dr. Ayres, who wâs un- grease in value might give rise to be that due doubtedly one of the most competent and ex- to doubts as to whether gambling may not perienced judges of the desirability and necessity supervene upon investment; to paraphrase Mr of it but what is more satisfactory than that Pollock by adopting these words, steps are the Government should thorsngly complete the
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