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April 30, 1906.]
risen in revolt, and that two of the more important tribal rulers have refused to assist in bringing the recalcitrants under subjection is significant. It shows that the various tribes are in sympathy with those who, have raised the standard of rebellion, and therein lies the danger. Dread of the power of Britain may be overcome by a few initial and trifling successes, and sympathy may be exchanged for active and vigorous co-operation, resulting in a movement which will call for greater repressive measures than are at present anticipated. In our exclusive telegram of Saturday it was announced that it was thought probable that at least seven thousand troops would be required to quell the outbreak, but those who have a knowledge of the actual state of affairs declare that a much greater force will be required to subdue the natives.
When we come to study the situation we
find that the uprising is not merely the outcome of aversion to the hut tax, always regarded as a vexatious impost. Its causes are more deeply seated. Some are political.
some are economic, and some are what we
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
are bound to be, even with the aid of modern weapons. It may take some time to convince them of their mistake, especially as they are not lacking in courage, but with a strong body of local volunteers aided perhaps by Imperial troops, for which purpose Indian soldiers could usefully he employed, peace should be restored in Natal and the Colonies in South Africa may, after economic differences are settled, resume | once more the path of progress.
THE RECEPTION OF THE MER- CHANT SHIPPIN, BILL.
We
a
The
ironically styled Free Trade' will be forced to accept the logic of their own con- victions by embracing Tariff Reform." It seems a pity that such an important measure cannot be taken solely on its
"we are not a very logical people, or wa see the lengths of absurdity to which a to impose British municipal law on quenting Britishi shores leads. If it is just and wise to be so careful of the lives of foreign adopting the Plimsoll mark, carrying life be men that we intend to insist on foreign var and boats to the number required Merchant Shipping Acts, and loading grain we think it ought to be loaded, then it also just and wise to insist that the foreign sailor shall be paid the same wages as are paid: in British ships, and shall enjoy the minimum scale of diet which the Bill to make compulsory on British ownars,
proposes
own condition, se to
**
Labour members look at it from the one point of view that "blacklege", or cheap mercantile marine as far as possible. Ben- foreign sailors, are to be excluded from the
tives, believe the first essentials to be men themselves, through their represents-
comfort, dietary, and wages. The owners improving their again, knowing that a tramp steamer can be worked just as well with a “ Dago nation wants British ships to be manned crew as with a British, argue that if the only by British subjects, the country ought If all these different points of view weigh to compensate them for the additional cost. equally with the framer of Bill, that Bill and unlikely to give satisfaction to any seems bound to be of an undecided kind, . section. Yet it is equally difficult for an impartial critic, desiring a fair conclusion, to of supply and demand cannot be ignored; come at one likely to be useful. The law and even if things were so arranged that each nation could reserve to its own subjects its mercantile marine, establishing at the same time minimum and maximum rates of Pay, standard accommodation and food, the problem would not be solved, but merely altered. It is fairly certain that the British mercantile marine under present conditions offers a very unattractive career to the rank and file; and if, as was argued, the improve- ment of these conditions is not “a matter
(Daily Press, 24th April.) It is almost impossible to gather from the published comments any fair conception of the new Bill to Amend the Merchant Ship- ping Acts, now before Parliament, have found space in this issue to reproduce the introductory speech of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE, ns giving the most authoritative explanation of its scope and purport; but the comments of our British contemporaries are too varied by party predilections to be might call military. Politically, certain useful to us here, where party views lose events have occurred, notably the Boer War, their force, and where we try to take as a result of which the ruling race has lost broader, more imperial view of such things. prestige. Economically, the introduction The Standard, for instance, denounces the of Chinese coolies affected the labour market humanitarian plea for the Bill as bumbug, so that the Kaffirs were not in a position and says the proposed regulations constitute to pay their usual contributions to their a very just and very necessary measure of chiefs, and not unnaturally the falling off protection for British shipping, which has was not to the liking of those who suffered long suffered under monstrously unfair by it. Added to that, is the animus shown competition; but that they are woefully in by the blacks against the yellow men. complete. The Telegraph approves, but From the military point of view there makes the apparently unnecessary sugges was the arming of natives during the Buertiou that they are anti-Cobdenite. War. Undoubtedly the aboriginals rendered Express seizes this point with malicious useful service as scouts, but the conseglee, and irrelevantly remarks, "The time quences of the step dictated by military will come when he and others who are policy during the period of warfare referred pledged to the anti-national system which to has been more far reaching than was anticipated at the time. Of course they ought to have been disarmed at the cessation of hostilites, but though asked to give up their arms they refused, and the impolicy of not adopting strong measures then is to merits, as an honest attempt to cope with some extent responsible for the present out problems long familiar in the shipping break. These people, dissatisfied with the world. Certainly we cannot altogether hut tax, aggrieved because they have been approve of the parliamentary method of the supplanted in the labour market, and PRESIDENT of the Board of Trade. His inflamed with an overweening conceit of flippant way of referring to Lascars as their own power based on the possession of hereditary sailors who perhaps manned rifles and a knowledge of their skill with Noan's ark may le in keeping with the such modern weapons, have at last apparent modern idea of the best procedure in the ly decided them that the time has come to House; but it must jar on old-fashioned drive the white men out of Natal; and the ears, the owners whereof have learned to affair which was inaugurated by an insolent expect a more business-like tone und display of contempt for magisterial author. seriousness from Ministers. The Globe, ity is likely to develop into quite a
which also draws the same anti-Free-Trade respectable war. Of course the natives will moral as the Express, but highly commends find out their mistakes by and by. They the measure, perpetrates an amusing will learn that the hut tax or poll tax is a "howler" when it says, "The unscrupulous harmless and by no means unjust equivalent foreign shipowner, who now buys unseaworthy of rent for ground occupied or used. They ships at dirt cheap prices, and employs these will learn that the labour market is regu- derelicts to carry on trade with England, lated by the law of supply and demand and will find himself shut out from the not by their predilections. They will learn, villainous, but very lucrative, business, too, that their vaunted bravery and deter while his English" rival, relieved from
(Daily Press, 25th April.) mination avail them little against the "red unfair competition, should be ", &o., There is good reason for the popular belief necks," who will come again and again with &c. This appears at first glance & that earthquakes are closely connected with guns that lite. And the lessons will be sweeping confirmation of the suggestion by volcanic agency. Both probably hava á lik wholesome, but they will cost something to Mr. MORLEY KOBERTS and other seafaring cause, connected with the subterranean, firms; inculcate. Yet the Natal outbreak is not writers that there is a common type of black and a violent eruption of any well known without its agreeable aspect. The fact that sheep amongst British shipping firms; but volcano is, it has been noticed, usually the Boers are making common cause with we need hardly mention that the context accompanied, either immediately before pr the British will be re-assuring to those who shows that the Globe did not mean it. Not | after, by seismic disturbances, "The area or have the welfare of South Africa at heart, one of the papers whose comments we have zone allotted to such phenomena by and if it achieved nothing else this demon: read appears able to look at the question #stration of unity among the two peoples from more than one side; and no one will help to restore that prestige which they appears to have considered it important to #lost during the late war, and prove to the decide for whose itimate benefit such natives how groundless were their hopes of legislation is intended. Otherwise, the driving the white men out of Natal and how Standard might not have advanced the * utterly futile all their efforts in that direction | criticism that
of dividends", it is a matter of freights. If the shipowner bas to pay, the shipper has probably pay for the pleasure of sosing to recoup him. It is the shipper who will British shipping "protected" and foreign the British sailor man wil be any better competition discouraged; and we doubt if off. An important point is to remember that for him, the conditions of service have always been as bad as they could be, and cheap competition has not made them improved, really; and if they now com worse than they used to be. They are
worse to the man before the maat,, it im because he himself has evolved higher standards of comfort, and gone elsewhere to seek it. It looks as if reformers had educated the manses, only to be shocked at their refusal to be content with the conditions to which it formerly pleased “ Providence"
to call them.
A PROPOS SAN FRANC1800;
n
geologists in measured on a truly generous scale. San Francisco has suffered sympathy, so to speak, with the vill round Vesuvius. A popular idea is abros that since the destruction of St, PV Martinique, four years ago, earthquakes and eruptions have been commoner than they
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