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RUSSIA A BAD COLONISER.
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[August 13, 1904.
as of particular interest to ourselves. It has proved otherwise. The shipping busi- ness between Hongkong and Canton has recently been entirely disorganised in con- sequence of a special tax on boatmen levied by the Kwangsi Governor to provide funds for the suppression of the rebels in that province. The syndicate's way of recouping themselves the large amount advanced bas raised a fresh crop of rebels, whose ranks, in a metaphorical sense, some Hongkong business men must cow be about ready to augment. The official instructions to the tax-farmer were to collect something lik
occurred to the collectors (who, by the way, twenty cents per English cubic foot; but it seem to have been sub-contractors of the original tax-farmer) that there was a chance understanding as to measuring the boats: to make a bigger profit by a little inis-
The boatmen were not long in discovering that the cubic cnpacity of their boats was bigger than they could afford to pay taxes
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
sory, and though paid for, has been perform ed under circumstances calculated to provoke a lasting hatred of the oppressor. It is (Daily Press, 6th August.)
stated by a Chinese paper that the Russians That the Russians bave acted with a great have very nearly completed a fine military want of foresight in their programme of road running northwards parallel to the converting Manchuria into a Russian pro- railway and commencing at the North Gite vince has been generally admitted even by of the city of Mul.den. This road is to many of their Continental critics who wor. provide for an additional means of transport ship at the shrine of brute force. That they in the event of the trains not being found have also been singularly and unaccount- adequate to convey all the Russian troops ably careless of the goodwill or good who may by-and-by want to get through opinion of the Asiatic races latterly is also to Harbin in accordance with General well known. In former years, attempts KUROPATKIN'S prearranged plan of H were always made by Muscovite agents to strategic movement to the rear. placate and favourably influence the natives three thousand of the natives of Mukden Some it was eventually designed to absorb or des- have for five weeks or more been compul- troy. Thus in Central Asin several mea- sorily engaged in constructing this road, sures intended to win over native opinion working day and night in constant terror and provide a way for the naturalisation of of the horsewhips of the Cossacks who the Bokharians and others whose lands it superintended the task. The Chinese nar- was intended to annex to the already hugerator of this tyrannical act asks if it is dominions of the GREAT WHITE ISAR were surprising that the natives of Manchuria carefully designed. It was at that time
prav day and night, with lighted josson, thought worth while to try and coax the "sticks in their hands, for the speedy natives to become subjects of the TSAR
appearance of the Japanese ! yet the In Europe, too, the Finns were promised Russians are, or affect to be, surprised that practical self-government, the continued the Chinese do not love them after all the profession of their religion, and certain benefits conferred and money spent by them privileges which the TSAR as Grand on Manchuria, and are loud in their con- Duke would respect and preserve to demnation of the Peking Government for them. But Finns, and Poles, and not repressing the Hunghutzes, who harry Georgians. and the natives
of the the Russian outposts whenever they have Khanates, have found all these pledges a chance. It seems to us that from first to violated one after another, their liberties last the Russians have been acting in a circumscribed, their religion condemned, manner that can hardly fail to provoke and their national institutions suppressed retaliation the moment the oppressed races as they are being gradually ground into get a chance of making it. They have Muscovites by the Russian millstone. In shown absolutely no consideration for the Holy Russia there is no room for more Chinese while overrunning their country than one faith, no use for more than one
and practically converting it to their own language, and the existence of any privilege use. These high-handed measures агэ except that of paying taxes is esteemed at always apt to recoil on the heads of those once a reproach and an offence against the
who adopt them, and if Port Arthur shoud TSAR,
presently he captured and the Russians have to fill back upon Harbin, it is quite possible they will find the retreat almost as disastrous as that of NAPOLEON from Mos-
COW.
BOATMEN'S STRIKE AT CANTON,
(Daily Press, 8th August.) Except for an occasional academic com- ment, the domestic affairs of China do not receive much attention from the foreigner in these stirring days of larger issues. The mal-administration of the internal business of the Middle Kingdom has passed into a proverb, its rulers and governors have, with their scaudalous methods, become a bye- word, and it seems to all but those whom nothing seems to discourage, a waste of breath to talk of reform. In more senses than the territorial, China's integrity is respected. There are times, however, when criticis seems necessary and interference imperative. Just as the liberty of the sub- ject is left intact until in his exercise thereof he begins to encroach upon other liberties,
Yet it may be said that, in some cases at least, the Russian Goverument has had the tact and the wisdom to dissimulate their ultimate intentions. Not all at once have they avowed their purpose of Russianising all new subjects of the TSAR. They are first, as a rule, brought into subjection, and later they are taught that there is but one Church in the TSAR's dominions. True it is that some few Jews and soine Mahomedans exist in parts of Russia; but they are only suffered, and for the privilege of existence they are made to sweat freely. It is rather remarkable that the Russian Government should, however, have thrown off the mask so entirely as they seem to have done in Manchuria. They seem to have imagined that their first successes in bullying China and bluffing the Treaty Powers had placed them in a position, with the Trans-Siberian Railway practically completed, to trample on the Mongolian and flout the Treaty Powers. They therefore have taken no trouble whatever to conceal from the Chinese the fact that they are always fain to hide from Europeans-that if you scratch
the behaviour of Chinese, when it a Russian you reveal the Tartar. They menaces the well-being of foreign neigh have been unitorily rough and often brutal bours and guests, must be inquired into, to the Chinese and Manchus, and it caunot and, if possible, turned into less harmful be supposed for one moment that the
ways. The matter of a tax apon Chinese methods they apply in dealing with the. subjects at Canton, or their objections to people of Manchuria make their presence the manner of its levying, would scarcely in the province welcome or desirable. They have come under our purview it it had not have no doubt spent large sums of money developed in such fashion that it threatened in the country and incidentally afforded a to directly militate against British interests, good deal of employment to the labouring business interests in Hongkong. To sell to classes, but the money earned has proved private speculators a monopoly of tax col bitter to the taste, and the presence of the lecting in certain districts is not a method Muscovite taskmaster hateful to those who of our Government. That it forms a part have accepted his pay. Latterly, since the of Chinese municipal procedure is a fact outbreak of hostilities, the labour has indeed that until recently struck us ceased to be optional; it has been compul- I thing for the Chinese taxpayer, but not
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as a bad
on this basis, and they objected Pressure being applied, they seem to have thought of no mor effective protest than a general strike. This was Killing more birds than the stone was aimed at, but such was ever the way of strikers. The Viceroy, it
had a genuine grievance, and promised appears, heard and understood that they
redress; but the boatmen, having taken the plunge, were now determined to see the new tix altogether abolished before
over here at Hongkong we began to feel returning to their work. In the meantime,
is to pay the freight on the cargoes of the the pinch of this congestion of traffic Who
lighters that went and returned full, un- able to discharge their loads? Who pays demurrage on the steamers detained at Canton? So far as the Viceroy's promises of readjustment go, there appe irs to be some ground for the boatmen's distrust of them Our last letter from our Canton correspon- dent mentions the punishment of those who were supposed to have been advising and assisting the strikers. It says nothing of disgrace awaiting the squeezeful col. lectors, or of the total prohibition of the tax. With China's Solomonlike freedom of dispensing justice, there pught to be plenty of excuse for taking away from the tax farmer the privilege he has paid for. Apart altogether from possible Chinese treatments of the situation, is there no opportunity of applying the provisions of section three of our commercial treaty signed at Shanghai that" junks, boats, or carts shall not be two years ago, one of which is to the effect subjected to taxation beyond a small and reasonable charge, paid periodically at a fixed annual rate"? Or has clause seven of section three of the Chefon Conven- tion of 1876 no relevance? It seems to, for it mentions that the Governor of Hongkong, in consequence of interference with the junk trade of the Colony, establish. ed the principle that the Chinese Government must protect its revenue without prejudicing the interests of the Colony. Here is IL Chinese revenue question which is patently prejudicial to Co- lonial interests, so it may safely be assumed that the attention of our governing authori- ties has been already called to the matter, and that they are considering the matter with the seriousness it demands.
An astonished, almost nervous world, looks on at the use the Japanese are making of the tools they have borrowed from the Western nations. It is something undreamt of, poli. The Neue Freis Press, which made the foregoing observation, tically, and strategically." reminds us of the Tooley Street tailors. Russia not the world. may be astonished and nervous, but Russia is