346
CHINESE BANK ORDERS.
(Daily Press, 13th November.) The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce had an unusually interesting meeting on the 181 instant. Its agenda included such subjects as the Huang-pu Conservancy; Municipal Jetties on which a special committee is to report; Quarantine Restrictions,-Hong- kong released; Coinage of Copper Cash,- the Chamber had already "done all in their power ";-and
a case arising out of the stoppage of Native Bank Orders.
This matter figured most prominently in the correspondence, and was perhaps as im- portant as any of the other matters. It appears that in July last, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, on behalf of all the foreign banks, reported to the Chamber that Messrs. DOWDALL, HANSON, and MCNEILL had been unable to collect payment of certain native bank orders held by them. The face value was six thousand taels, and the orders had been issued by the Toong Kew and Doon Foh banks. A dispute in connection with the purchase of some land was heard at the Mixed Court, and the orders (held by the vendor) were "stopped" by order of that Court, pending a settlement of the dispute. It seems there was no question of the orders being finally honoured; it was intended to be only a temporary stoppage; but the foreign banks claimed that as bank orders are negotiable documents, they should be regarded as cash. This view was shared by the Chamber of Commerce, which approached the TAOTAI through the SENIOR
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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CHINA AND RUSSIA IN
TRANSITION.
On
So
(Daily Press, 14th November.) China is in revolution; so is Russia. much is true of both countries; yet the methods are very different. In China from time immemorial the sovereign has been taught that Heaven sees as the people see, and hears only as they hear, and the consequence has been that in the very worst time the sovereign has been made to learn that the Empire is a great trust devolved on him as the representative of heaven on earth, for such in reality is the meaning of the terui Tientse, ignorantly translated as if it meant the Son of Hea-
ven.
:
[November 18, 1905. French, English, and German merchants." the people. Peking, it is true, desired to It would, therefore, never do for the in-get rid of this popular means of expressing ventors to allow discredit of their system; the national desires, and did make a few and so far as We can see in the recent examples, but the Chinese people, though instance, they were of opinion that it was handling a new and, to them, untried weapon, an exceptional case, and that a short delay for the most part used it with discretion would not matter. Such exceptions, how. and judgment. Beyond checking it where ever, are too dangerous to be encouraged; ¦ disposed to run into license the local officials and the current promise to pay have usually hesitated to interfere with the demand" is not an undertaking to be lightly expression of public feeling, and have not set aside while a Mixed Court magistrate seldom found themselves indebted to it for makes up his mind about some more or less useful hints, so that in many cases they knotty question of ownership. Whatever have been able to avoid what above all is dispute may arise among the bank's clients most distasteful to an official-the finding who handle the orders, the bank that issues himself running contrary to public opinion. them, so long as it has the means to do so, On the other haud the writers connected must redeem them. As the lawyers ex- with the press have seldom been revolu- pressed it, the arbitrary order of the tionary; naturally the Chinese as a people magistrate in this case was illegal, and are aveise from such measures, and tho displayed an entire disregard for the pro- managers of the press have been restrained vision of Banking law and custom upon by motives of self interest from advocating the certainty and the maintenance of the revolutionary methods. There has thus integrity of which commerce, to a large been as yet little or no necessity for press extent, is based."
laws such as have disgraced the administra. tion of many European countries, and of which Russia has been the most flagrant. cise. Not that the Chinese government hesitated to act when called upon, and in such case the remedy was drastic, yet on the whole the Chinese journalist has had little to complain of and generally has been left unmolested so long as he confined him- self to reason and fair argument. But in a government like that of China where there have hitherto been few or no opportunities for the rulers to make themselves acquainted with the desires and feelings of the people at large, even with the best intentions the rulers themselves feel they have often gone wrong through want of knowledge, and the means of arriving at this knowledge have not always been trustworthy. This is the position which the provincial officials have been seeking to impress on Peking. It is not likely that the immediate provincial officials are the best that China has ever had; they are probably of much the same mental calibre as their predecessors in ordinary times, but between the native press and the necessities of foreign intercourse they were able to see that, carried ou as has been, the Imperial Government affairs were going The first step was taken at his own imminent risk by the late Ciu Kwanyi at Nanking when he took overt steps to restrain the suicidal policy at Peking. Doubtless Ciu was a born states. man, but bad it not been for knowledge acquired by his enforced contact with foreign affairs he could not have taken the decisive steps he did; and those steps he at the time saw, and time has since proved correctly, were actually the saving of the Empire. This is really the secret of the present desire at Peking to ascertain how these things are managed in countries where the science of Government is more advanced than in China. The old funda- In many respects the revolution now
mental principles which must underlie all being quietly carried through in China is successful government have been handed unprecedented. It is not a forcible rising down from time immemorial, but the work- of the people, and yet it is essentially their ing of the machine has become out of gear,
In this respect work. The attempt made by force to put and needs renovation. it down, has missed to meet the views of China stands in an infinitely better position the people at large, who did not fail in than Russia, in that improved methods, unmistakeable ways to make their rulers not altered principles, are needed to bring understand; yet the method of bringing the machine into renewed working order. public opinion to bear has been as remark while in the other to bring the state out of able as it was unprecedented. The inter- its difficulties the very foundation of govern mediaries have been the great provincialment must be improved off the face of the officers. Brought into more immediate earth. China proposes to essay constitu. contact with the people at large, they found their power and influence gradually passing out of their hands. Some of the wiser bad from the beginning learnt to appreciate the power of the press, and quietly encouraged it as a means of arriving at the feelings of
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CONSUL. The TAOTAI ordered the Mixed Court MAGISTRATE to withdraw his "stop" order, and to allow the money to be paid at once. This official confirmation of the important principle maintained was so far
True it is that sovereigns have not satisfactory; but, as is usual in China, always taken this constitutional doctrine words were not at once followed by deeds.
to heart, and at such a time equally Several letters and reminders had to be constitutionally the people have assumed sent, and the TAOTAI had to put his order their right to rebel, which in this case is in writing, and couch it in urgent and not, indeed, held to be rebellion, but solely emphatic form, before it was finally obeyed. the indication that Heaven has withdrawn So important did the matter appear in its decree, and the sovereign, no longer commercial circles, that the foreigu Banks Tient se, is but an ordinary mau and, as an decided, pending settlement, to take united ordinary man, subject to punishment. The action of any kind considered necessary. consequence of all this has been that at no It is worth noting and remembering, now period do we hear of the Chinese as that the affair is satisfactorily settled, that nation being an oppressed people. Indi- the Native Bankers' Guild stated in corres-viduals, indeed, have suffered wrong, and
"with reference pondence that
to our regulations, the payment of any native bank order can only stopped when the bank which issued it has become insolvent, or when the holder of the order has re- ported it being st. Beyond these circum- stances, in case the drawer has been cheated by other people and he has paid out his bank order, the payment of such a bank order paid out by the person being cheated cannot be stopped if there traceable and the order itself in existence, and the person being cheated shall be the only person responsible for such loss. This time, although the payment of the Doon Foh and Toong Kew bank orders has been stopped by the Mixed Court, yet we should not in accordance with our regulations comply with such an order of the Court." This authoritative opinion, putting these much used orders on a satisfactory footing vis-a-vis bank notes, was only to
such expected from
a body, for the Chin.se bankers and business men fully realise the convenience of bunk forms of this
are accounts
be
kind. The late Dr. EDKINS tells us in his new book that the Cuinese were the inven- tors of such printed or written equivalents for money; that Venetian merchants learned the use of bank forms from the Chinese and taught the system to the
their compatriots have looked on unable to interfere, but when once the idea has gone abroad that the nation is suffering for the whims of one man, the tie of loyalty to the sovereign has, of itself, ceased to exist. Compare this with the principle underlying the Russian autocracy that the people are the absolute property of the sovereign, and, as such, have no rights as against government, and we can under- stand how very different is the case now being presented in both empires.
from bad to
worse.
tional government, and the very mention of the thing seems on the face of it an absurdity and an anachronism; yet China all through the ages has blindly been work- ing on the constitutional principle that no government not founded on the goodwill of