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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
INTERNATIONAL ROWDYISM IN | pean (and, we must add also, American)
NORTH CHINA.
(Daily Press, 5th June.) Another disgraceful incident has marked the story of the occupation of North China by the allied troops. No details as to how the disturbance arose are yet to hand, and all that we know is that on Sunday last there was a row in which two men were killed and six wounded, the former being Germans, and five of the latter French and one British. The scene was the Taku Road, which runs, roughly speaking, along the original limits of the French, British, and German Concessions at Tientsin. We may perhaps surmise that some of the partici- pants in the row were the worse for liquor, for in all the previous international street disturbances during the past year those who | have started the brawls have been more or less intoxicated. The usual course of events has been that some soldier or sailor, while in this state, has commenced to use insulting language toward one of the allied nations, with provocative intent. The representatives of the other nation have never been slow to take up the challenge. Blows then follow, and bystanders espouse the cause of their compatriots. Sometimes the police are in volved. In any case there is all the material for a sanguinary affair. In the recent brawl at Nagasaki, one party, the British sailors, were unarmed; the Japanese police did not interfere; and in consequence H.M.S. Bar- fleur lost two of her men, the perpetrators of the e murders getting away scot-free on the French transport Nive. Since that date both at Peking and at Tientsin there, have been numerous unpleasant incidents, the most serious of which was the shooting of a Russian officer by a German sentry, who, however, seems to have been exonerated from blame, the Russian being drunk and violeut. The latest addition to the list of brawls is even graver, to judge merely from the number of casualties involved. On this occasion there is only one Briton injured, but whether this is from the fact that few of our nationals were concerned in the affair or because on this occasion they were armed, it is impossible to say.
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soldiers and sailors is responsible for these disgraceful street-raws, The officers show little concern whether their men be have like beasts or not. On several occasions, after a slight trouble has occurred and bad feeling is known to exist, the men have been allowed exactly the same freedom on the following day, with the result that a far greater disturbance has come to pass. With such neglect of duty on the part of the officers and with the men as irresponsible as they are wont to be, it is little to be wondered that the credit of Western civilisation has received enormous damage. Even excellent troops can lapse into a state little better than savagery under certain conditions, including insufficient discipline. In North China now there are some excellent troops; but there is a large riff-raff from all the world. Let the former get under the influence of national dislikes and strong liquor combined, and let the latter follow their bent, and we see what we have seen so many instances of recently in China. If the Powers seriously intend to maintain international garrisons in the North for any length of time, they have before them the plain duty of concerting measures whereby their meu may live in discipline and in harmony with their allies.
THE LEKIN QUESTION.
[June 8, 1901. the mercantile community will be defeated "beforehand
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It is perhaps hardly necessary to quote. instances in support of the assertion that lekin is inmical to the
expansion of trade. Residents in South China are well enough acquainted with the facts of the case to dispense with the piling up of instauces. With the conclusions of our contemporary whom we have quoted above, none will, wo imagine, be disposed to disagree; nor yet with the remarks which follow. “Unless a "well-paid and vigilant foreign official," continues own contemporary, is stationed "at each of the thirteen hundred magis- "tracies in China, it will be impossible for "the Customs or any similar board to pro- "tect the native trader from extortion, as long as lekin is allowed to exist in any "shape. If it were arranged that the “Customs should collect the lekin at the treaty port on other imports, as is done with opium, an exemption certificate being granted, as long as lekin exists in the interior there would be officials to "examine these exemption certificates as the cargo passed their stations, and they "would necessarily get their pay by " extortion. The well-being of trade "in China depends on her exports being stimulated, and we know that to increase the exports of the country, it is imperativo "to abolish lekin and all inland and t. nnsit "dues of whatever nature, whatever sup- (Daily Press, 4th June.)
"posed safeguards may be adopted in their During the long and tedious negotiations collection. Merchants could afford to pay which have been progressing during the "on a scale of fifteen per cent, ad valorem greater part of the current year with regard "on imports and exports if all inland to the means by which China is to meet the texation were honestly suppressed; and claims made on her by the various foreign as it must be remembered that it would Powers, the question of lekin dues has been "cost the Imperial Maritime Customs no largely discussed. The Chinese offer early more to collect fifteen per cent. than five last mouth to find 450,000,000 taels for
per cent., any gross increase in the amount payment of the Powers' demands included "they collect will be equivalent to a net a sum of no less than 2,000,000 taels from “increase in inland taxation." There is, lekin taxation. Were the indemnity question of course, a large number of officials now less complicated than it is, the Powers, employed in connection with the lekin or at least such of them whose interests in collection, while the provinces themselves China are commercial, not political, would derive large revenues from the money thus no doubt press for an immediate abolition accruing to them. A large proportion of of this system of taxation. In connection the increase in the Imperial Maritime with this matter, certain remarks which Customs tariff would have, therefore, to go appeared in our Shanghai morning contem- to the provincial authorities, while it can be The importance of such occurrences lies porary, the North-China Daily News, may held certain that the expansion of trade not in the number of men killed or wounded, well be quoted. It has been laid down resulting to China from the establishment but in the deduction which must be made some time ago," says the Shanghai journal, of a new regime would enable the displaced as to the feasibility of maintaining an by foreign merchants engaged in the China officials to find employment in more honour- international garrison in Peking and Tient-
"trade that they would make no objection able situations. The inconvenience and sin, and on the lines of communication. The " to a reasonable, even a considerable, injustice of the old system has been a European Governments can look forward "increase in the Customs tariff, if lekin commonplace for very many years. We with no confidence to the proposed “inter-
'were abolished altogether. To this our hope that among the improvements 'intro- national fortress at Peking. They must 'Government should strictly adhere. It duced by the settlement of Chinese affairs, ask themselves with trepidation the question "should set its face like a flint against any it is not yet too late to look for a final Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ? The Lega-
manipulation of lekin such as confining it condemnation of the lekin system. tion quarter promises, under the suggested "to native goods, or collecting it in certain conditions, to be anything but a desimble * places through the Foreign Customs. Lekin place for the representatives of the as a form of taxation is so essentially Powers, their staffs and families. It has been recommended în a home paper that if the fortress in question is actually to
be B
gfact the Allies shall take it in turns to Benmunication between Peking and the
it, and that the posts on the lines
shall be divided in such a way as to prevent the various nations from coming into contact. This recommendation is politic, but what a sight will be presented to the Chinese, whose bad behaviour we have been for a year engaged in punishing! Even the Foxers have been less dangerous to some of the international troops than their own “ allies." We cannot avoid the conviction that much of the blame in the various brawls lies in the absolute lack of discipline allowed to the various contingents when they are off duty. The unrestrained drunkenness on the part of so many Euro-
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bad that no manipulation of it can make "it tolerable; the only admissible course is "to do away with it altogether. Like our own income tax, lekin is a modern tax, "introduced some fifty years ago for a tem- porary purpose, to provide funds for the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion; and again like our own income tax, it has been kept on long after its original pupose was "satisfied. Its currency is associated with half a century of decay and retrogression everywhere in China except at the treaty ports, and it is as unprofitable to the cen- tral government of China as it i♦ vexa- “tious to the native trader. We strongly "deprecate any manipulation of it in con- "nection with the indemnity, because the "result would inevitably be to make it a "permanent curse to the country, and so "entrench it that future attacks on it by
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THE TREATENED CHINESE EXODUS.
(Daily Press, 5th June.) We have spoken already of the scare caused among the Chinese in this Colony by the present epidemic of plague, and of the difficulties now encountered by many employers, who find that their workmen are leaving them after receiving their wages on pay-day and making their escape into
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'hinese territory. From many sources we have received confirmation of our statement, and some prominent natives have not. hesitated to speak of the possibility of wide-spread strike if the plague continues
o increase and the
regulations We learn too of an are strictly enforced application to a
shipping firm in Hongkong by one of the principal Chinese charitable medical institutions to allow Chinese to proceed to Canton by the firm's
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