March 24, 1906.]
been no hesitation in mortgaging the Colony to secure it. Dr. EITEL says, "The Ty tam waterworks, the plans for which hud daan approved under the previous administration, Sir Jons fought shy of for years, and when at last the Colonial Office sent out peremptory orders that the work should be coinmenced at once, Sir Jonx, for purely financial reasons, took it upon himself to disregard the com- mands be received from Downing Street, and the work was not commenced until 1882, on the eve of his departure." Unfor tunately for the comfort and well-being of the residents, it is even yet unfinished.
Some additional notes on the present state of affairs appear elsewhere in this issue.
ANTI-GAMBLING CRUSADE AT
HONGKONG,
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
course is to discover how far each of these local shopkeepers, who had never heard of MILL, hit upon the obvious remedy of elements enters into the matter. So far as suppressing gambling." They petitioned | the bulk of the people in China are con= Sir HERCULES ROBINSON to that end," and | cerned, it is not unlikely that the triumph of the Japanese may have had a bad effect used the cunning argument that it was
But the Governor and may have led the more ignorant among demoralising servants. seems to have recognised that wholesale them to believe that after all the idea that suppression of gambling was not the proper foreigners could be expelled from Chins Of course suola-a method to take, and his proposal was the might prove correct. registration of servants (1862) a sensible frame of mind amongst the masses would scheme to which the Chinese public objected; ¦ form an excellent ground for working up
had their way and they have
ever local rising and would be availed of by since, in spite of foreign petitions arising unscrupulous officials-and others desirous This from a crying need. Sir R. G. MACDONNELL of causing trouble for special reasons. was the next Governor to tackle the sub-is indeed the great danger which has to be ject, and in discussing his efforts, Dr. EITEL faced at the present time; and we have had says, "This national vice [gambling], like various warnings that it may end in serious opium smoking and prostitution, but more trouble unless strong pressure be brought widespread and powerful than either, is to bear upon local officials by the central rooted in an ineradicable, because congenital, authorities. The question, therefore, is disease of the Chinese social organism." whether the Peking Government will bond We make this quotation, and refrain from fide endeavour to put down the beginnings (Daily Press, 21st March.)
analysing it, because it helps to establish of such disturbances, or whether as they have so often in their temporising manner Remark is frequently made on the ap the point that gambling is too strong a parent inconsistency which permits the feature of human nature to be" suppressed." done before, they will secretly encourage harassing of petty Chinese gamblers—as Sir R. G. MACDONNELL played the part of them as a means of demonstrating the im- in the case where a few coolies were pro- strong man, and his attack upon the gamb-possibility of their adopting anything like a forward policy, and thus continuing their secuted and fined for gambling with matches | ling houses was eminently vigorous and -while racing sweeps and pari-mutuels | practical, if not quite fair. For instance, old exclusive and obstructive tactics. Upon are conducted publicly. It is not easy to he made "bouseholders responsible for the this point, it is difficult for the best informed and most experienced Europeans to pro- say why these prosecutions are undertaken, payment of fines incurred by residents or or rather, why the Ordinance which inspires lodgers,' Street gambling continued in nounce a decided opinion. The matter must them is allowed to stand. Every law must spite of him, he confessed in a report, in depend largely upon what policy China is have an object, but what it is in this case, which he showed that his ambition was to prepared to adopt towards foreign nations condition of affairs is, as DUNDREARY used to say, one of those suppress gambling altogether in the Colony. under the altered things that no fellow can understand. The In 1867, he found that he had failed, and consequent upon the conclusion of the elementary principle established by MILL in decided that prohibition was destructive of recent Japanese and Russian War. The his famous essay on Liberty" was that police morals and ineffective for the purpose only thing, however, that is certain about prove society could not meddle with the freedom sought. It was then that licensed houses Chinese foreign policy is that it will of the individual except for the public were opened, us a “vent for the irrepressible something which nobody would anticipate, and probably something entirely different good: it had no right to constrain or control Chinese passion for gambling," to the sorrow him for his own good. Rapid mental re- of the moralists of that period. With the from what the officials either declare or view of British law suggests that on the particular question involved we have no indicate by their actions. Nobody would whole it is based on this principle, the concern, although, with Dr. EITEL, We bave thought it likely that China would anti-gambling laws being an apparent appreciate and sympathise with Sir R. G. have given in to Russia to the extent she exception. It might be argued that re- MACDONNELL'S position. A draft. Bill after- did for years past and have thus allowed strictions upon gambling are for the common wards submitted, for the repression of her to encroach so far as to became a serious menace not only to the Chinese Empire but good, that gamblers are peculiarly liable to gambling, was rejected on the ground that neglect their duties to the public, eg., the "no person in the Colony would be safe." also to Japan. Yet this policy was de- duty of maintaining their families; but it This might be said of the existing law, if it liberately followed in spite of all protests is evident that there are many men who were generally applied instead of worrying and warning, and it was no thanks to the can gamble and yet perform these duties, only a few coolies. Sir A. E. KENNEDY Chinese that it did not result in Russia In their case, an anti-gambling law meant to appointed a special suppression Commission obtaining such a foothold that she would safeguard duties not endangered are inequit in 1872; but in 1875 the lustorian wrote able and immoral. In Great Britain it is that it was still an
i
unsolved problem, notorious that the auti-gambling laws cannot shirked by all concerned. touch these favoured individuals. But there is no need to go outside the Colony for such examples. As we have already remarked, it is tacitly admitted that in this Colony, where gambling is declared illegal, some men may gamble and others may not. Why was such an Ordinance established? Were some of our bygone legislators of the Puritan school, and is it that subsequent generations are being harassed because of the tender consciences of these past people? It is cob Hous that the peace of the community is less threatened by a couple of poor coolies who transfer from one to the other the miserably insignificant assets they may have,
· by their
inveterate babit," than by the young man with a moderate wage who in- vests in ope pari-mutue! ticket at every race. The first mention of gambling in EITEL'S history of Hongkong affords a possible reason for the Ordinance, It was the belief, probably correct, of Sir JOHN BOWRING that the spot where almost all crime was con- cocted in Hongkong was to be found in the unlicensed gambling houses of Taipingshan. His idea, however, was that the vice could not be suppressed, and he was in favour (1856) of regulating it, by copying the sys- tem at Macao. It was gambling house quarrels in 1861 that again called attention mbral" mania for gambling, and
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THE DANGER TO CHINA.
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have been able to anner Manchuria aud to advance further at any time that might suit her. That Russia's action would be stayed either by foreign influence or by bringing her into conflict with Japan was no doubt calculat d upon by China; but what the result of either of these contin- gencies would be was by no means clear. Yet China was perfectly willing to take her chance and events favoured her beyond what could possibly have been expected. The idea, which would occur to any other nation of making a definite stand never entered the Chinese mind. a great Power and was threatening her borders; and therefore China thought she was the nation to be specially conciliated and temporised with, while she trusted of course to future events and the jealousy of other foreign nations of Russia, and went on temporising in the hope, which was ultimately realised, that Japan would take up the quarrel which China was too weak or too undecided to take up herself.
Russia was
(Daily Press, 22nd March ) Although there is some truth in the idea that the masses in China have been in. duced by the result of the Russo-Japanese War to look with less respect upon foreigners generally, it can hardly be sup. posed that a similar view has been taken by the official classes or that it will greatly affect the relations of China with foreign nations unless some unexpected local dis- turbances should occur. With regard to the anti-foreign feeling which has unfortunately been of late manifested in various directions, it is natural to conclude that it results from the spectacle of a neighbouring Eastern nation having been able successfully to wage war against a foreign Power and more especially against Russia, which
At the present time Japan is the most country was being looked upon as the most formidable menace to China. The possibi-powerful nation in the immediate neigh- lity of this contingency arising is so obvious bourhood of China, and we find the latter that there is a danger of overestimating it, willing to recognise the situation ; and, while and what may really be only special there are ominous rumblings betekening illustrations of the old anti-foreign feeling hostility to foreign nations generally, it is among the ignorant masses may be mis supposed that Japan is to be an exception taken for a general movement instignted to this animosity. The outer barlariana at least to some extent by the high authori- must be kept in check by some means krď ties at the Capital. The difficulty of now that this cannot be done by arousing