May 5, 1902]
our mouths, and all the good things the fondest imaginings could devise would drop in -like gifts from fairyland.
I need not repeat how the old leaven workod; but following the old blunder for which we had already so dearly paid we fell back on the alter- native which according to the treaty was merely optional-of paying in all our money to Peking, which on its sid, took very good care that the provincials who had to bear all the burden should see none of the proceeds. This new payment was according to the treaty to bo compnted as half the tariff duty; and this we were assured in the complacent manner habitual with Peking |
would le all right.”
Had we take the ungentlemanly part of making a few enquiries, we might very easily hive learnt that as before we were reckoning without our host; but times were easy, no little clond had as yet arisen on the horizou,
Government 8+, home did and the
not wish to be dis urbed in its day-dreams. Add to this that Government was represented in Peking by an amiable dilettante with a soal above the ignoble dress of commerce and we can easily comprehend what followed. As a fact, no enquiry into the ability of Peking to carry out its-I will not say promises, for it was not even asked to promise-suggestions was ever made; nor was it hinted that any “guarantee" should be needed, or that any questions as to the readiness of the provinces to meet the scheme should be asked. The Inspector-General of Customs, Sir Robert Hart, naturally favoured a scheme which should place in the hands of his department the apparent manipulation of so much more money; it was not for him as ■ servant of the Chinese Government to go ont of his way to throw obstacles in the way, so on the bare word of the Tsungli Yamen that it was all right,” an elaborate Transit Pass system was inangurated on paper. The result may be learned from Blue-books innumerable, as well as from the records of every Chamber of Commerce wherein the position of the China Trade came under discussion.
In 1876, also with the assistance of the Inspector-General of Customs, the then acting British Minister, Sir Thomas Wade, tried his hand at the next game, the Convention of Chefoo. I need scarcely point out with what success the Minister had unwisely pitted himself against at only Sir Robert Hart, but against Li Hung-chang, himself the willest of the Chiu- ese statesmen of the age. Fortunately the home government came to the rescue, and the instrument remained nnatified..
Supervening on this, those who have been most energetic in the defency of Sir James Mackay's scheme tell us has been the one great. victory vouchsafed to British trade, and that is the Opium Convention of 1885. But whos has been the victory-certainly not the British Nominally, merchant, nor yet British trade. it is true, the professed bject of the Conven- tion was by holding ont a bribe high enough to the provincial tax-collectors in China to induce them to charge no more; actually the Conven- tion was made at the dictation of the Anti- Opium League lo render impossible the Indian opium trade. Curiously enough for neither party was it an unqualified success; the Chinese authorities, whose ideas of political economy were on a par with those recently put forth Sir James Mackay, calculated that if a daty of thirty taels per chest would bring them in some two inillions of taels per annum, a charge of a hundred and ten would bring in seven and a third millions, while the anti-opiumists calculated that the surcharge of twenty-five per cent, would extinguish the trade altogether. To the provincial governments it however afforded a means of increasing their annual revenues, which they eagerly seized. A writer who in 1867 had access to all the avail. able sources of information, spoke of it in those days as, "a system of nearly as elaborate a com- pensation as the lunar theory itself; gravitation towards the officials being the active force." Before the system was put in action the provin- cials had found an insurperable difficulty owing to the competition of Indian opium in raising a re- venue from native opium; the convention gave them the opportunity, and the surcharge of eighty taels per chest afforded a wide margin, so that they found very soon a pew mine of wealth ex- ceeding all their previous hopes; plainly than they had no temptation to kill their goose which
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persuaded to shut his eyes, but the representa. tive of the British Government at Peking declined to be drawn into what they pretended to be Captain Lang's own affair; petty insults were passed on the Admiral, each one perhaps insignificant in itself, but the accumulation of which tendered further tenure of the office by a gentleman with any self-res ect impos ible. It was the old story; tickled by the attentions of the Dowager the British representative had listened to the glib-tongued promises of reform told by the Tsungli Yamen. Everything would be right this time," and the fond tale was endorsed as usual by the Inspector General. It is hardly necessary to repeat the result: it is stereotyped as failure.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT, was laying them these golden eggs. Indeed, this was admitted by the native officials, and I may quote the words of Wu Chen, a censor in the Chekiang district, written so long a ̈o as 1871. Speakin of the difficulty of obtaining It will be an statistics, he remarks:- therefore that every class has more or less
in interest
concealment. The official because he has got hold of a profitable milch cow, who, treated without too great rudeness, will continue to supply his treasury; the agriculturist who has nothing to gain by bustling abont and exposing himself to trouble and examination, the trader whose only hope of profitable trade is to make it as clandestine as possible, and finally, the great Opinm Guild and its ramifications, which by private treaties and illegal combinations has been gradually forcing into its own hauds the trade in imported opium." It has thus been the self-evident interest | 1898. of the provincial administrations to maintain said hopefully the British Minister; but had Let the coup d'etat of the 23rd September in as good health as possible their own "profit- | he?
and this is the true explana- fell for itself. But the words of warning given able milch-cow tion of Mr. Bland's solitary instance of what fell on unsympathetic' ears. Lo Feng-ln and he would fain make us believe was good the representative of the Inspectorate-General faith. The results on British trade are that in London came to the front and bade the usual this particular branch has shrunk to some two brazen promises, and the Premier fell into the thirds of its former amount, and is rapidly old slough. I need not repeat the tale of 1900. decreasing; while from being the chief element already stale. Apparently the Inspector-General in ruling our exchanges, it has practically had this time been caught in his own trap, and had to make an ignomini us dant for his shrunk out of observation.
life to the British Legation. But hope dies hard and it was not till Dante had gat to the very gates of Inferno that he realised the truth of the notice which stared him in the face
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
So much for: the success of the opium ex- periment. Into the moral question and the relation of the opium with the other importing trades I do not propose to enter. Suffice it to say in the present connection that the experiment has been a fair success because it was the interest of every one to make it so; and its chicfest success has been its extinction of the spinm import as an important constituent of British trade with China. We may indeed appropriately exclaim with the general who had gained such another Pyrrhic success, One more such victory-and I am undone !"
..
But more extraordinary than the invariable failure of this system of propping the Empire by on the rotten founda. increasing its dependence tion of Peking, is the persistency with which the blunder has been passed on from one generation of dupes to another, and the salvoes with which every additional plunge into the slough of despond has been greeted by the interesteil bystanders. Sir Henry Pottinger, Lord Elein. and now our latest champion, have one and all sunk into the abyss, waving the much be. smirched flag of victory above their heads. It is magnificent, sneeringly remarked a French general at one of the bravost charges of our British cava'ry, but it is not war; and however. we may admire the personal devotion of the se who bare staked the issues of their country on a quixotic plunge, and finding it nusuccessful. have gone down still holding the flag ereof, we cannot concede the same honours to their judg ment as we should gladly yield t› their valonr.
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Need I go through the dreary episode of Li Hung.chang's dismissal in disgrace from the Emperor's Palace on an Autumn morning in Now at last we're finished with him,"
The story is not a pleasant one, yet it must be told, is it necessary to wait till the goal is past and there is no returning to learn once and for ever the lesson? Is it only of the Boar bons that the fatal judgment is true? They learned nothing, and they forgot nothing""
To the practical question of the safest method of initiating a reform I may rein n later.- Yours, etc..
THOS. W. KINGSMILL.
THE WAYS OF THE WASHERMAN,
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESA
1
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Hongkong, 1st May!
SIR, In view of the statement made by Dr. Clark in his report on the health of the Colony, to the effect that respiratory diseases Bre answerable for 1,287, or 19.3 per cent, of the total Chinese deaths, and that 695 or 54 per cent. of the total deaths are due to phthisis alone, is it not time the law stepped in to prevent the in- sanitary and repulsive method in vogue amongst the Chinese washermen of damping articles of clothing preparatory to ironing by spraying from the month? I have been told by those who have lived there that the authorities put I need harily refer to the Burmese Convention, stop to this disgusting practice some years ago when we permitted our subjects in Burma to | in Singapore. In Shanghai every lanndry is send year by year tribute missions to Peking; nor supervised; also the same supervision is employ do more than allude to the ignominious positioned in Japan. Why then should Hongkong be we placed ourselves in by a similar agreement subjected to this benighted and heathenish olą with Poking with regard to our Tibetan rela practice? Why, simply because it is
be pandered to? Imagine tions, where the border station of Yatung still custom,” should the dirty insanitary habits of remaius as a visible token of our ineptitude; the Chinese
one's handkerchiefs and serriettes damped in this mauner
the and arriving from except to point them out as instances of our
with stains of curry, etc., upoż strange incapacity to accept the logic of facts I may, however, recall the incident of Captain wash Lang. In 1891, in response to the urgent them! It is useless to appeal to a Chinese may be remembered that wasberman on this subject even when shown requests of Peking, the British Government gave permission to that folding and rol'ing the clothes tightly when slightly damp, as is the case in all Captain Laug to enter the service of China as Admiral, on the understanding that he was to laundries in England, would be an immense have definite command. At first affairs seemed saving of labour to him, as then they would be on favourably; and the more in a fit state for ironing. I know this to be a likely to go sanguine looked at last for some sign of the fact as I tried it with my own washerman whom I keep on the premises, offering him extra reform, which was always coming but never
wages if he would adopt my plan. The reply came. Captain Lang was less exacting than
was no can, b'long olo eustom: s'poses you no his predecessor Sherrard Osborne, but even so the same elements were at work. The Dowager likee, more better you catchee'nother washer
man chop-chop,” and I had to climb down and Tez'hi was about to celebrate her Birthday." a day pregnant with woe to China; to satisfy allow him to proceed as before, knowing that if her fancy mon-y had to be got, however collect. I dismissed him his successor would do the same thing. It is plainly evident then that force ed did not matter; and as the readiest way to obtain money in China is by stealing, and the must be employed, that the laundries here must easiest place to steal is in the war departments, be licensed and supervised as in other places, and expenses were cut down, though full charges the sooner the botter for all of us. Cannot
made-the misappropriations being Professor Simpson help us in this matter?- HOUSEWIFE. divided between the Dowager and her satellites. Yours, ete., As a British Officer, Admiral Lang could not be
were
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