January 9, 1905.]
JAPANESE COTI ON.
(Daily Press, 3rd January.) The subject of cotton, when mooted now in Hongkong, is not so likely to evoke frowns as was not long ago the case. The recent telegrams promising good crops and cheaper rates helped to appreciate the value of local slrares, and to make more benign the countenances of local stockholders. Hong- kong is, moreover, offering some promise of one lay becoming less dependant upon foreign cotton. In addition to the areas cultivated by the Chinese, our New Territory is receiving special attention in this direction, the Colonial Government 'taking up the work so important to the Cotton Growing Association, and ad- vancing money for the purchase of seed. The Botanical Department will, of course, retain part of the advance for its own experiments; but it is understood that native farmers are to be encouraged by advances from the fund thus set apart. Whether it will pay any of them to cease planting rice in order to grow cotton is, however, a question for the future to answer; and the majority will doubtless prefer to wait until the result of the ex- periments to be carried out in the hitherto uncultivated areas has been made apparent. There is a reasonable prospect of successful cultivation, according to some experts, even in our humid climate.
These are hopeful symptoms, but we are not out of the wood yet. The immediate outlook for the trade, from the dealers' point of view, was stated in our trade review on Saturday to be causative of great anxiety; and there is no denying that, apart altogether from the question of cost, the increasing opposition offered by Japan is threatening to close the Chinese market to the former suppliers. At present their mills are sending the coarser fabrics; but they are steadily aiming at the capture of the entire market. In yarns, they have already put the British spinner's nose out of joint in China, and Indian spinners are said to be beginning to feel the pinch. There have even been shipments to China of "Turkey reds,” made and dyed in Japan, and consignments of finer materials are expected to arrive in a rush whenever the pressure of the war comes to be relaxed. Silly as the talk of "yellow peril" has hitherto been, there is one firm believer in it, and that is the man interested in the cotton trade. The peril is real enough: the pity is that the Britisher should be so seriously handicapped when he ought to be combatting it.
REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA.
(Daily Press, 4th January.) "The people," said SULLY, who has been called the greatest of French statesmen, "never revolt from fickleness, or the mere desire of change. It is the impatience of suffering which alone has this effect." Some two centuries after his death the truth of the aphorism was well exemplified in the great French Revolution. In this the Russian Revolution already begun but bears out the same great truth. Up to the time of NICOLAS I. as in France to the middle of the reign of Louis XV., the people of Russia were devoted to their here- ditary rulers, and the "Little Father," they loved to call their TSAB, stood in much the same relation to the body of his subjects as did the "Bien Aime to the commonalty of France. Amiable as were the two im- mediate successors of NICOLAS they lacked ability to extricate the nation from the evil legacy; and it was left to the present occu-
as
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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pant of the throne to fill up the cup pre- pared by his ungenial great grandfather. My father," said King REHOBOAM on his succession to the great Kingdom of SOLO- MON, "chastised you with whips, but will chastise you with_scorpipas.' And so in this modern time NICOLAS II., on being remonstrated with on the sufferings of the people, for a solace appointed M. POBYE DONOSTSEFF to take charge of their morals and consciences.
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One of the most extraordinary circum- stances about the whole of this affair is the persistence with which a certain section of the English Press never nauseates in singing the praises of the TSAR; he is the man of peace, who while seeking to lull the Powers into disarmament was actually planning the most contemptible war of modern times; he is the reformer who, while talking of freeing his people from the arbitrary exac tions which have disgraced his reign, was actually tearing up the constitution of the only spot within his dominions where a spark of liberty still remained, and this notwithstanding that a short nine years previously he had sworn his solemn and Imperial, barring the word-oath to respect the rights of his most advanced and most loyal subjects; he is the Apostle of religion and the champion of Christianity, who nevertheless persecutes his Christian Polish subjects, permits his Jewish subjects to be murdered, and all the while, SAUL-like. in his desperation, could find no more fitting counseller to sooth his conscience than a It was well said of Parisian necromancer. the House of BOURBON before its final efface- ment that it could learn nothing, and forget nothing, and the House of ROMANOFF presents in these modern days much the samle phenomenon; indeed, in many respects the position of Russia is not unlike that of France in the latter half of the eighteenth century. In both has the Crown succeeded in getting into its hands the entire executive, and abolishing the last vestiges of provincial assemblies. In both has the Church, for- getting its high estate, become venal and corrupt, and permitted itself to become a mere registrar of the acts of the Court. In both has a privileged nobility, forgotten | that privilege has duties as a set-off against its rights, and has aggravated rather than attempted to smooth the inevitable contrast between wealth and poverty. In both cor- ruption rules rampant, in Court, in the army, and in the administration of what it were mockery to call justice. In both the im- mediate relations of the monarch are noted for profligacy to the entire absence of princely virtues. Also, in both are the finances of the State in the last stage of disorder. Finally in both is the actual ruler feeble of purpose, vacillating in action, and practically a stranger to his people. In the latter respect the ruler of Russia is in even worse plight than Louis XVI. Distrustful of those whom he has misruled, he is practically a prisoner in his palace, and even there is the victim of fear and suspiciou; he knows not but that the most trusted of his pretended friends may at any moment prove his executioner. As there is no man whom he has not wronged, and no man can trust his most solemu promise, 80 he in turn knows not but that his most familiar attendant may be the one to equalise the conditions by becoming the very first to betray him. Many if not most of his predecessors have met with violent deaths; he maintains an army of secret police, who spy into his most secret actions, and never attempts to show himself in public without having every means of approach guarded by thousands, hoping to find individual safety in the mutual jealousies of his entourage.
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Even in his most trying moments Louis XVI. had his faithful friends to whom he had endeared himself; he was, as has been remarked, a king who of all others would a revolution, have been the last to promote though unhappily through his indecision of character also the last to withstand one. He suffered, indeed, not for his own sins, but for those of his predecessors, and the unanimous voice of history has absolved him personally. It is unlikely that the same will be the verdict in the other case. In the case of his grandfather some measure of the old traditional loyalty with which Russia was wont to regard her sovereigns was undoubtedly returning; his assassination is still a mystery, but there are dark sus- picions that it was brought about by those in high confidence at Court, who feared that in the returning love of the Commons wns involved their own doom. If we look to those with whom NICOLAS IL. loves to sur- round himself we see ample cause for the feeling of animosity which has taken the place of the old confidence. The dark and superstitious PoBYEDONOSTSEFF, the trucu- lent PLEHVE, the blood-stained BOBBIKOFF, not to speak of such lesser lights as the· avaricious BRESEBESOFF, whose financial m deeds in Manchuria and Korea brought on the present war, or the bombastic ALEXIEFE Who eut so strange a figure in his part of the Satrap of Eastern Asia. These are some of the men who have made. the ill-omened word Revolution an every- day expression in Russia.
NICOLAS
Nor is our comparison ended. has been as fatal in his attempts at reform as ever was the unfortunate Louis. Equal- ly inconstant in his likings and dislikes, in his confidences and his suspicions, the last speaker has ever his momentary ear, only to be repudiated the next minute. Taking warning by the assassination of PLEAVE, be appoints Prince SVIATOPILK-MIRSKY, an almost open revolutionist, in his place, and for three days Russia is treated to talk of constitutions, and all the ready-made slang of the Socialists. The TSAR actually issues a decrée announcing such useful measures as the abolition of arbitrary arrest, the establishment of independent judicial autho- rity, the reform of financial affairs, &c. The inspired Russian Press sees herein the regeneration of the nation, and even the English Press, as if it had not had enough experience of the worth of Imperial Three promises, commences again its lackeyish
reforming" TSAE. applause of a days after the promise, indefinite as it was, is discarded. The Russian nation loves its chains; it has positively enjoyed them for the last three hundred years, and would not bear of their weight being even reduced a single ounce, and its beloved TSAR out of the affection which he bears his people will kindly continue the old policy. Even here NICOLAS has a precedent in his prototype the unfortunate Louis XVI., for the very first act of the coming revolution included the appointment and subsequent discharge of TURGOT and MALESHERBES, and the promise to France of similar boons. Both sovereigns were perfectly unaware of the great fact that in appointing reforming Ministers, and decreeing amendments, they were acknow- ledging the truth of the national complaint, and the subsequent withdrawal of the amendments only added fuel to the flame which was already burning with dangerous
vehetence.
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Mr. John Graham, a well-known and old- established broker at Shanghai, was found ou Dec. 31st, He is deal in his office supposed to have been accidentally suffocated by the fumes from the gas stovė.