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1418-
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Hongkong.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND difficulties, we venture-to-thick-that-if-the↑ To the Chairman, Chamber of Commerce, Treaty Powers show their desire to render to` China their sympathetic assistance, she may be encouraged to take the initiative in endeavour. ing to extricate the country from the financial confusion into which it has drifted and to avert the rain which further inaction seems to threaten
Under Clause II, of the Treaty recently con- cluded with Great Britain, China agrees to take the necessary steps to provide for an uniform national coinage, and it is in the fulfilment of this clause of the treaty (which to be effective must include the absorption of the provincial minta) that we recognise the preliminary step to the much-needed reforms.
B.B.M. Consulate-General, Tientsin.
13th October, 1903. 818,-With reference to your letter of the 10th September inclosing a communica ion from the Chamber of Commerce of Shanghai, Hongkong, and Tientsio, for transmission to the Doyen of the Diplomatic Body at Peking, which document i duly forwarded to its destination on the 11th September, I beg now to inclose a copy of the mply received yesterday from Baron Czikann the present Doyen, to your letter. May I ask you to communicate the same to the Shanghai and Hongkong Chambers in due course?
I am, Sir, Your Obedient servant, (Sd.) L. C. HOPKINS.
Consul-General.
General Chamber, of Commerce,
It is hardly, necessary to point out how essential' it is to the Powers carrying on trade with China and no less to Chias herself— that this question of su uniform coinage, as preliminary step to the establishment of a J. M. Dickinson, Esq. Chairman, Tientsin currency on a gold basis, he taken in hand at once, nor, on the other hand, to demonstrate the dangers attendant on delay. It is only too well known by traders that the constant fluctuation of silver, converting as it may a profitable contract into an ultimate loss, engenders a feeling of insecurity in all commercial transac tions which cannot fail to hinder the expansion of trade,
Austrian-Hungarian Legation in China.
[December 5, 1903
THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE IN JAPAN. The conquests made by the Russian languag› in Japan and China will perhaps be more per- manout. The Far Eastern crisis seems certain- ly to have given a great impétus to the study of the Russian language in this part of the world. § The number of Japanese who have taken up✨ that language in the School of Foreign Lan.* guages at Tokyo is, I'am told, so great that no mere pupils can be received, and the trade done by booksellers in Russian grammars and diótion- aries, i tended for English students, is so brisk a3 to astonish publishers in England. A Ras- sian grammar with the explanations in Japanese which has ben published by the Chaplain of the Russian Legation at T kyo js-selling very well, while many Japanese teachers of the Muscovite tongue are rushing into print d lan Jayonaise with phrase-books Toxicobs, "granicen mars, etc, some of them not quite up to thəsi: mark.
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If Russia advances at her present rate in North China, the day must come when a kuoW4- ledge of Russian will become as necessary in the Peking, 8th October, 1903. Legations at Peking as a knowledge of English - SIR.--I have been honoured by you with a is necessary in Calcutta. The same remark ap...... petition of the Chambers of Commerce of Tisat-plies to the business men and consuls all over sin, Shanghai, and Hongkong, by which these North China, though I do not believe that
either of these two classes is making any particu bodies have expressed their desire to see a
cular haste in this matter. uniform coinage adopted in China.
Moyed these considerations and feeling The Diplomatic Body is highly interested confident that whatever measures may with a question of this nature and greatly ap subsequently be found to be desirable or feasi-preciate the efforts and zeal of the Chambers of ble the first step is the establishment of a Commerce. national coinage, as provided for by treaty, we respectfully beg that the representatives of the Treaty Powers in Peking lose no opportun- ity of urging upon the Chinese Government the imperative necessity of taking this matter in hand without delay.
We have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servants, (8d.) B. INGLIS, Chairman Shanghai General
Chamber of Commerce. EDBERT A. HEWETT, Chairman Hongkong
General Chamber of Commerce, J. M. DICKINSON, Chairman Tientsin G neral
Chamber of Commerce.
Names of Ministers, &c., in Peking to whom copies
of the Currency Memorial were sent:- M. d'Almeida, Chargé d'Affaires for Portugal. H.E. P. Lessar, H.I.R.M. Envoy Extraordinary |
and Minister Plenipotentiary, HE. Uchida Yasuya, H.I.J.M. Envoy Extra- ordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. HE Count C. Callina, H.LJ.M. Envoy Ex-
traordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. H.E, Sir Ernest Satow, G.C.M.G., H.B.M.
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni- potentiary
H.E. Dr. Von Sohwarzenstein, H.I.G.M. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni- potentiary..
H.EC Dabail, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary for France.
I shall feel obliged if you will communicate this reply to the Chairmen of the said three Chambers.
I have, sto. (Sd.) M. CZIKANN.
The Senior Consul, Tientsin.,
Tientsin General Chamber of Commerce.
Tientsin, 14th October, 1933. SIR,-I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter under yesterday's date enclosing a copy of a communication addressed to yourself as Doyen of the Consular Corps at Tientsin by Baron Czikann, the present Doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, and having reference to a letter under date of the luth ultimo, addressed to that body by the Chambers of Commerce at Hofgkong, Shanghai and Tientsin.
In accordance with your wishes I will communicate this reply to the Chambers
concerned.
I am, Sir, Your obedient ́servant,
(8d.) J. M. DICKINSON.
Chairman.
L. C. Hopkins, Erg, H.B M. Consul-General
and Senior Consul, Tientsin..
THE NORTHERN CRISIS.
For military men and seamen trading with Siberia and Liaotung the utility of Russian-is already recognised. On the Japanese vessel which brought me here some time ago, the first officer could speak Russian fluently and I think that some of the officers on all the Japa- nese vessels trading with Russian possessions in this part of the world have some acquaintance with the same tongue. For army officers both in England and in Japan a knowledge of Russian is becoming more desirable every day; and I believe that the number of JapanGSE military men and merchants-it is often hard to distinguish between them just now --who are at present scattered all over Manchuria and East Siberia and who speak Russian fluently, is pretty large. The Japanese fishermen of Hokkaido and of the west coast of Japan generally require a knowledge of Russian in order to carry out successfully their fishing (and poaching) enterprises along the coast of Saghalien and Kamschatka, and, of course when any functionary has to be "fixed," as the Americans say, a colloquial knowledge of his language is almost if not absolutely necessary.
With the greater development of the Siberian fisheries and the coast of the Primorsk-and Manchuria, the Russian language will, I think, become more extensively known among Japanese. RUSSIAN CLASSICS `N JAPANESE.
"
An article in a recent issue of the Novi Krai gives some interesting facts regarding the translation of Russian classics into Japanese, "Boon after the successful campaign of 1894-95," says that article, “the inter- ests of Japan and Russia came involun-
HE Baron Csikann de Wahlbor, His Imp. [гROи our port Arthur CORRESPONDENT.] tarily into contact thanks to a great many
and Apostolio Majesty's Envoy Extra- ordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. H.E, M Joostens, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary for Belgium. M. W. J. Oudendyk, Chargé d'Affaires for
the Netherlands. H.E. B. J. de Cologan, Envoy Fxtraordinary
and Minister Plenipotentiary for Spain.
Tientsin General, Chamber of Commerce
Tientsin, 14th October, 1908. SIE, I have the honour to enclose
(a) Copy of a letter from the Senior Consul at Tientsin under date, Tientsin, 18th October.
(b) Copy of a letter from the Doyen of the Diplomatic Corps under date, Peking, 8th
October.
Cars at my reply to the Senior Consul
Tientsin.
despatch of the Doyen at Paking al- adds nothing to our knowledge of is contemplated by the Imperial Government is at any rate, satisfactory as giving expression, to sympathy with the views
held by the Chambers.
I am, Bir.
Your obedient servant, (84) J. M. DroKINSON,
Charman.:
Port Arthur, 16th November,
AN UNEXPECTED EFFECT.
The present crisis in Russo-Japanese relations may have the unlooked-for effect of making Russia and Japan understand more than ever they did before of each other's history and language. Many Russian officers in Lisotunz and Vladivostook have lately taken to the study of Japanese, and some of them have translated from that language books which are now on sale in the book stores. A great deal of attention is bestowed, too, on the vernacular Press; and the history of Dai Nippon seems to exercise quite & fascination over Russian readers, at least I should judge from the So
articles on Japanese historica, numerous subjects that I find in Russian newspapers, I picked up accidentally the other day a copy of an obscure paper called the Kronstadtky Vysstnik, in which I came across a long con- tinned article on the "Origins of Civilisation in Japan" which seems to have been taken from another Russian paper, the Pravit Fyests. It is not very likely, however, that this orase for things Japanese will be permanent owing, among other things, to the fact that English is becoming more and more the language of Japan, and that the cream of the native Press is skimmed off by expert hands in the English newspapers which appear in the county.
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causes, and the Japanese began to take up with a good deal of seal the study of our country. In the beginning thé acquaintance was superficial and did not go further than Vladivostock and Kaantu g, if we do not take into consideration the small number of Japanese who went across the Urals to prosecute their study of the Russian language, that is who went to great towns like Petersburg, Kieff, and Odessa, The Japanese first became interested in Russian literature through translations Trum that literature into French and English: then they began to study translations directly made from Russian into Japanese. Atranslation of Tolstoi's Anna Karenina was received in Japan with great enthusiasm. Then thẻ Tokyo Nichi-Nichi attempted a translation of Gogol, but the translation did not show Gogol's humour and fell far below the origiual. Gogol's Tarass Bulba was next translated (it la difficult to explain, by the way, why the Japanese translation is entitled Primitive Instineta), but strange to say, some great Russian suthors
sre Dostoiently quita - "neglected. like Both Tolstoi and Gorky were carefully translated and well annotated some time back, and the Japanese were great! / taken by s original philosophy of the latter.”
THE RUSSIAN ZANGUAGE-IN CHINA.
The Chinese do not read the Ruinina clase at all but, owing to a series of events that dai.