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the Toyo Kisen Kaisha now in course of construction will not exceed 12,000 tons, or 560 feet in length by 63 feet beam, for which the Admiralty Dock furnishes ample margin. It is true ibat it is desirable to be thoroughly up to date, but if this can only be accomplished at such an enormous addition to the capital of the Company as to render the provision of such facilities a luxury that can never be made to pay ng an investment, the wisdom of incurring Euch responsibility may well be doubted.
At the moment, the Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company, Limited, oc- cupies, relatively to any competitor, a practically impregnable position. Its facilities are so great in proportion to its capital that it can afford to accept work at prices
es that would be starvation to a com- peting company which was working on a capital equal to the possession of the plant and properties this Company enjoys. Should the local Company, however, be so ill advised as to decide upon a fighting policy and to endeavour, by the provision of further decking accommodation, to starve out the opposition, it will assmedly cmbark | upon a ruinous course. The opposition bus already commenced operations, and is pro- viding Loth decks and slips which will more especially in view of the new dock in the Royal Naval Dockyard in course of construction provide for all the increase in docking business in this Colony likely to take place for the next two decades at least, Let the Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company he prepared to work in armony with the new establishurent at Quarry Pay and there will probably be employinent enough for loth, as a large proportion of the Blue Tunnel feet will doubtless be docked here instead of at Liver col and Shangbai. But it is useless to expect a continual ce of the monopoly hitlerio enjoyed. That will con le a thing of the past, and rates will no doubt have to come down to some extent. Indeed, there have latterly been signs that the maximum profits had already been reached and that ship. ownos noe disinclined to pay the high rates den aided. The Loranza days of the and
Dock Company are in fact already over, it will have to rely, in the future, en executing more work at smaller profits and to exercise, cably, a keener economy both in labour and material. There has
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
OPIUM TAXATION.
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In 1885 what is known
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matter. If China is to differentiate in the way described above against the foreign, that is the British-grown, drug, let us have the terms set out in black and white. A tacit violation of a treaty without protest from the losing party can only have a bad effect on the Chinese official mind.
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(Daily Press, 21st August.)
(Daily Press, 19th August.) The question of the morality of the opium- traffic is ore which is likely to exercise many good people for a long time to come, and in Hongkong we get frequent reminders from home of the efforts being made there to stop the trade, in the shape of pamphlets from the anti-opium party. Since, how- | A PLAGUE EXPERIMENT IN THE ever, the finding of the last opium commission
PUNJAB. appointed by the British Government was such that it could but little phase those who would totally abolish the manufacture Any measures which other cities or govern- and export of the drug from British ments are adopting to combat the ravages possessions, and since it is impossible for of bubonic plague must of necessity be of the sensible man to condemn utterly the the greatest interest to Hongkong. More production of opium while neglecting a particularly must the methods which have subject which touches England itself more recommended themselves to the sanitary nearly, the importation of far more harmful | authorities in the different parts of India preparations of alcohol into savage or semi-call for our notice, since many of the con- civilised countries, we may plead justifica-ditions which environ life here and in India tion for considering the opium trade as a are similar. In the past few years much fet and not in the light of a subject for attention has been paid to the way in which moral consideration. A point has arisen Bombay has attempted to get rid of its in connection with the opium-trade in regularly recurring epidemics of plague, China which cannot. Le neglected by these Now it is the Punjab which comes forward interested in British commerce here. It with a scheme, on the success or failure of mert le remolered that the trade in which great issues may very likely hang. opium is cutirely a Pritish trade, and that This scheme is nothing less than the inocu- the Indian Government is very largely lation of six and a half millions people. interested in it. !
between the months of September and for short as the Opium Convention was January next, at the cost of eight and a signed at Londen between Britain and half lakhs of rupees. The inoculation is to China, Icing really additional articles to the be entirely voluntary, and therefore it will Chefeo Convention of 1876, which was only not be offered in the districts of the Punjab firally satified in 1886. These articles took
where plague in the past has been only particular notice of the opium trade and light, for the people would hardly be likely laid down certain regulations with regard to accept the prophylactic. In the city dis- to the import and lekin duties of opiumtricts, where the population is about a million, brought into China. The matter is it is hoped to inoculate half a million in brought up by the raising from this mouth the five months commencing with September. onward of the import and lekin dues by 100 The rural population affected by plague per cent., $400 Teing now charged when numbers ten millions, of whom two-thirds formerly the imposts amounted to $200 must be inoculated in the same period if per chest.
Now the fifth of the ad- the scheme is to hold out any promise of ditional articles to the Chiefoo Agreement success. To accomplish this, the whole reads as follows : The Chinese Govern- available u edical staff of the Punjab is to ment undertakes that when the packages be concentrated on the work, supplemented “shall have been opened at the place of by five members of the Indian Medical "cersumption the opium shall not be Service from other parts of India and subjected to any fax or contribution, thirty-seven medical men from England, direct or indirect, other than or in excess temporarily engaged.
This is a great of such trx or contribution as is or may scheme and shows that its author, Sir hereafter be levied on native ‹ pium.
CHARLES RIVAZ, is prepared to stake his Canton, Swafow and other coast places reputation on the theory that inoculation is are the treaty purts to which the opium the only hopeful measure against plague. which Me are passes, through Hengkeng, but they are The Times of India, ta not of course the places of consumptiou | indebted for the outlines of the Punjab of all the crimson to them. The pack-proposal, says that it is a confession that ages of foreign piom are opered at the in dealing with a disease like plague all shop and piuni-divans at the various palliatives such as these suggested by the inland towns, fe, where the drug is sold Indian Plague Commission, on which lakhs andamcked. The native drug is also sold of rupees have been and are still being and consumed, at these same shops and speut, are of litle use. Evacuation, the therefore by the treaty clause to which we
most effective measure in this category," lave referíid should be equally taxed. To continues our Bombay contemporary, "is change an addition: 1 tax on the foreign
impracticable in the towns and unpopular dog at Canton, Swatow, and other ports is in the rural arcas.
The lesson the contrary to the treaty. But naturally the Chirce Govenment would find it of enormous difficulty to levy the tax at places of consumption ard on the native as well as the foreign drug. Very little money would le likely to reach Peking after deducting the provincial "squcezas
and the extra cost of collection. It is far easier (except in so far as Great Pritain is likely to interfere on treaty grounds) to levy a double tax on the foreign drug, while we do not know that the duties on the native jucduction have actually been raised. cre can be no doubt that a violation of the 1885 Convention has been committed, and now when a new treaty is being negotiated it is time to take note of the fact and come to a definite agreement in the
Leen an all-round inercase in the rates of both skilled and unskilled labour, ard when there is a further competition for this labour it is probable that, unless the dock companies work in conjuretion, there will be considerable difficulties to be faced in this direction. The yearly recrudescurce of the plague and the more ficquent outbreaks of cholera, rendering Lecessary expensive sanitary precautions, constitute other important factor in the future working of this great industrial concern, to provide against which the Board of Dicetors should concentrate all their energies and foresight. The Company les now for years been swimming in smooth water, but there are rocks alead against which it would be folly to collide. The opportunity to build the cesired big new dock las come and gone, and it now only remains to make the best of what is assuredly a fine property with excellent prospects if conducted on the lines of common-euse.
We have received a handsomely illuminated programme of the Coronation Day reception at the Mini'a Club on the 9th inef. A pregiai me of twenty pieces of music was played, eLcluding with the Star-Spangled Banner" and God Save the King!"The committee in charge of the arrangements consisted of twenty-five gentle- men, Mr. W. Newton acting as hon. secretary.
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· Government have been so slow to learn required no demonstration after the de- vastating epidemic which swept the Pun- jab during the last cold weather, and the experiences of Pombay since 1898. It is "also the first official admission that inoru- lation is the one effective weapon against plague in the sanitariars' armoury.' Now, as the Times of India goes on to admit, success or failure in the matter is whole dependent on the attitude of the people whom it is proposed to inoculate. If they are sufficiently convinced by the ast pidemics, they may come forward to be inoculated with the cadiuess which is hoped for, in which case many of the lead- ing Indian authorities are of the opinion, based on previous experience, that the
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