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THE NEW TREATY PORTS.
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[September 19, 1904.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Consul or Ministers, by whom these regula-liberal and enlightened policy; and, by tions will have to be considered.
degrees, the principle has become establish- They need revision badly in order to ed that the Home Government will not make them intelligible. What for instance interfere with measures adopted in Colonies. is meant by the regulation that all land having representative institutions, so long purchases and other business will be con as such measures do not conflict with Im- ducted by the President of the Municipal perial interests. It has been found better in Council without reign interference? In all other cases to leave people alone and permit No. 10 appears the statement that the lease them to manage their own affairs. This at is for sixty years from date of opening, least is the principle recognised in official The MACKAY Treaty does not shy that any quarters; and, if at times it has been de- territory shall be leased. In another parted from, it is fair to admit that it has, regulation appears the absurd stipulatioua a rule, been conscientiously acted up to. that "no one will be allowed to occupy Of late, however, a counter tendency has more than 250 feet of land on the river become observable in an unexpected quarter. front "otherwise the demands of all While the Colonial Office itself has become cannot be met." The regulations seem to less inclined to interfere in purely local have been framed under the delusion that Colonial affairs, there has been an increasing as soon as the port is opened there will be desire on the part of Parliament to force that a great influx of foreigners ready to buy up Office, in given cases, to recur to a policy of the entire city unless some restrictions are interference which the latter has long very placed on their acquisitiveness. When the wisely discarded. Questions by individual | Hankow-Caoton railway is completed members put to the Government not only Changsha will doubtless become an imupon Colonial but even upon the more delicate portant market for foreign goods, but while subject of Foreign Affairs, have always the jealousy and hostility towards the been recognised as a salutary "fillip" to foreigner endures which is so ill-concealed sluggish officials, and have often produced
The member who, like in these regulations, the city is not likely useful results. to include among its inhabitants a colony DiCKENS' clerk, at the Circumlocution Office of foreign traders. Viceroy Wet has solici "wants to know, you know," is a useful ted an expression of the views of the Foreign factor, and no reasonable person can object Consuls concerning these regulations, to him, provided his questions are put bona which it has been suggested are to fide and on their true merits. But it is a stand as a guide for all ports to be very different thing when for party pur- opened hereafter. If so, and in any event, poses an attempt is made, as has of late it is the duty of the British authorities to been too frequently the case, to embarrass point out to the Government of Peking that the Government by forcing it to interfere these regulations are tantamount to with-in some Colonial question which it would to be dealt with by drawing with one hand what they have given otherwise leave with the other.
those upon the spot who fully understaud its bearings, and who are directly interested in its settlement.
COLONIES IN LEADING STRINGS,
(Daily Press, 10th September.) The growth of opinion among the Chinese during the last twelve months or so in favour of opening cities to foreign trade has been very noticeable. Commercial men have been the prime movers in the matter, but it is interesting to note the political aspect of the matter which has evidently appealed to Chinese statesmen. Section 12 of the MACKAY Treaty provides that five places shall be opened to foreign trade on the same footing as the places opened to foreign trade by the Treaties of Nanking and Tient- sin"; but in the same section it is stipulated that "foreigners residing in these Open Ports are to observe the Municipal and Police regulations on the same footing as Chinese residents, and they are not to be entitled to establish municipalities and police of their own within the limits of these Treaty Ports except with the consent of the Chinese authorities." The draft regulations recently framed by Viceroy WEI for the opening of Changsha to foreign trade clearly reveal what China means by thus differentiating between the old Treaty Ports and the new. In the old settlements where foreign Muni- cipal Councils and police administrations exist they have been organised by virtue of local regulations which were framed jointly by the foreign and Chinese authorities. There is nothing in either the Nanking or Tien- tsin Treaties expressly sanctioning or for bidding the establishment of a foreign Municipal Council or a foreign police force in a Treaty port, and it was, to say the least, extremely unwise on the part of the British authorities to have allowed such an inhibi- tion to appear in the MACKAY Treaty. Where there is any considerable congrega- tion of foreigners in a Chinese city these extra-territorial privileges are exceedingly desirable, and indeed absolutely essential to their welfare. What, we wonder, «ould the Shameen be like if left for twelve months to the administrative care of the native officials of Canton? Those who know how muni- cipal affairs are regulated in the native city will have no difficulty in recognising that the Shameen would speedily become intolerable as a place of residence for the foreigner. It would appear from Viceroy Wer's draft regulations that a site is to be selected at Changsha for foreign trade and residence, and this is the part of the city apparently which the Chinese Government is willing to adminis- ter "in accordance with the most modern and advanced methods." Viceroy WEI evidently lacks the sense of humour. Hopan, of which Changsha is the capital, has long been notorious for its hatred of the foreigner and all his ways. It is truly Gilbertian to be solemnly told in a Viceregal The day is fortunately long past when it 'document that here in the very heart of was imagined that Possessions in all parts conservatism and hatred of the foreigner, of the world could be adequately governed a Chinese Municipal Council will administer from Home. The lesson from the American the affairs of a settlement for foreign habi- secession was not forgotten. If anything it tation on the most modern and advanced | has been remembered a little too well; and methods. The question of ways and means there has been a tendency to look upon could not very well be overlooked in such | granting representative institutions to any a set of regulations, and so we have it in given Colony as a panaces for every ill, Regulation No. 5 that the Chinese Municipal The step is, of course, a most desirable one; Council will undertake the maintenance of but, though its adoption has been attended roads and public works, and to meet the with the happiest results, it has not by any expense thereof a duty of two per cent, will means had the effect of relieving the Home be levied on all import and export duties Government of all responsibility, and has paid by both foreigners and Chinese. To left much still to be done by the Central fix its income before having an idea of its authorities, whose duties in connection with expenditure may, we suppose, be considered the Colonies ars yearly increasing both in
most modern and advanced ex'ent and in importnace. among the "
of the Chinese Municipal The Colonial Office, though it has not been methods" Council of Changsha, but it is a method free from blunders some of a very serious not likely to commend itself to the Foreign character-bas upon the whole adopted a
(Daily Press, 12th September.) With the spread of the British Empire, a question of much importance is forcing itself into consideration, and must before long come within "measurable distance of practical politics"--the question, namely, of the extent to which the Home Authorities are justified in interfering with the action of Colonial Governments. This question is by no means a new one. In different shapes, it has arisen ever since Great Britain first established Colonies in any form. Its being originally completely misunderstood was the cause of the breaking off of the American Colonies; and its continuing to be at least imperfectly misunderstood may yet bring trouble to the Empire; so that the time is not far distant when it will require the utmost wisdom and tact on the part of our statesmen to prevent conflicts of interest or opinion between the Home and Colonial Governments taking an acute and dangerous form.
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The recent fussy interference with the question of Chinese emigration to the Transvaal forms a good illustration of this new departure. That Colony is perfectly well able to take care of itself; and it was only because of the manifest a centralised Government necessity of for a certain time after the war that repre- sentative government was not granted to it; while Lord MILNER declared that he would, as far as could be, consult the wishes of the people as nearly as possible as if they had representative institutions, and did so with regard to this very subject.
Yet a party question must be made of the matter in England, and a number of British Members of Parliament, who cared as much for the coolies as for the King of the Cannibal Islands, must get up and, in speeches in which (to borrow an inimitable expression)
an extensive ignorance of they displayed the whole subject," declaim about “slavery,' "British honour," and Heaven knows what else, in reference to the gigantic question whether HOP-CHING and FOR-A-LING should earn 50 or 60 cash a day as carrying coolies or sampan-men in China or (thanks to low exchange) half a dollar a day as miners in South Africa, with free passage there and back, and “as much as they want to eat.”,
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Fortunately in this case the members were not to be taken by the proverbial catchwords," however plausible, and the attempted interference was frustrated. But the whole proceedings afford food for re- flection as to the dangers attending political tactics of the kind above indicated. Had the Government been forced to yield to the pressure brought upon it not only would considerable commercial harm have been done, but grave discontent would undoubt. edly have been engendered. It is to be hoped that means will be found to put an end to tactics of this nature, and that the rule. of pot interfering with Colonial measures,