October 28, 1907.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
267
out bracing will only support a small frac❘ the country, and especially in the north. | interest accruing on the somewhat arbit- tion of the same weight, owing to its greater there exists a condition of uneasiness and liability to warp. This was the important unrest, a condition offering little prospect of factor that was left quite out of the count that definite responsibility and abolition of by the engineers for the bridge. It is corruption which the Throne so earnestly difficult to believe that the manufacturers desired. So marked is this feeling of could have taken the precaution to have uneasiness, so apparently aimless the policy had an actual model of the work carefully of the central Government in matters of made to scale, or the inadequacy of the administration, that a Censor has advocated bracing would have at once struck the eye postponement of reform in the provinces on of any skilled designer. We have attempt the ground that, to judge by the results at ed to exhibit the insufficiency of the staying Peking they could not safely bear the by references to figures, an actual model burden it entails. " Early next month would have emphasised the de'ects. The it will be a
vear since we quoted the fall of the Tay bridge many years ago drew unequivocal Edicts promising constitutional the attention of English engineers to the reform, Edicts that were so cunningly ecessityn of taking thought of these out of worded as to deceive many people into be the ordinary strains to which large struc-lief and faith, but we were ungallant enough tures are at all times liable; and one of the to doubt their sincerity and to disbelieve results of the lesson is seen in the great in their fruition. Of course there is plenty Forth bridge. It may be that that struc- of time yet-twelve months of Cathay is no ture has been made in excess of the actual more than twelve minutes of Europe-and requirements of the case. The margin of 1 if the Reform Party were stronger, and the to 5 may not always be required, and the EMPEROR back on his throne, some achieve larger the structure, the less proportionate ment might follow the recent promises. allowance may reasonably be made for em-
At present, however, as our observant ergencies; but on the other hand no engineer authority notes, "the collapse of the Viceroy is entitled to consider that be will be justi-Yuan Shih-kai's policy before the intrigues fiel in ignoring emergencies. Thir, how of the Hu-nan party, and the renewed ever, there is too much reason to believe activity of the conservative literati bave is the ordinary practice of the American apparently reassured the Empress-Dowager, engineer. However successfully it may have so that, for the moment, the execution of the been concealed, the truth will in the long Reform Edicts is as remote as that of the run out, and the Quebec disaster is probably Mackay Treaty or any other of the tem- not the last of which we shall bear, all porary expedients which strew the tortuous proceeding from the same evil habit. It is path of Chinese diplomacy." As to the more difficult to account for the defective probability of a pure administration, the designs having been passed by the consult pessimists are more confirmed than ever they ing engineer to the syndicate at whose
were. The impeachment of Prince CHING expense the bridge was being put up; but affords a telling illustration. We reported it in this respect too, American practice differs at the time, with the succeeding statement much for the worse from English. In that His Highness had been exonerated and England the engineer is always held respons- vindicated, and the censor who denounced ible for errors of judgment, if he have not him cashiered. Censor CHAO memorialized in the first instance have had actually to the EMPRESS-DOWAGER, 80me say after design the work. In America the practice Viceroy SHUM had inspired him, that Prince is too much to ignore the consulting en-
CHING had accepted a large bribe, and that gineer and go in the first instance to the his son TSAI-CHEN, President of the Nung- contractor. The contractor bas every in-kungshangpu, had received a handsome ducement to reduce the expense of the work singing-girl, from the recently-promoted to the uttermost, and the temptation is governor TUAN. Just then the EMPRESS. strong to cut things below the margin of DowAGER's card
administrative in- safety: in the present case the templation tegrity, and after a decent interval, and was more than doubled by the desire to with Prince CHING's assent and collusion, outcap the Britisher. It was the biggest the inquisition was opened, with the result thing that had ever been done, and the already stated. The morality of Peking desire was strong to go beyond the Britisher
was firmly established. The Times corres- in his own particular line. To build the pondent now plumply informs us that during biggest span in the world, and do it with the few days between the publication of the an economy of steel such as the slow-going impeachment and the acquittal of the Englishman would never think of, was to impeached, be the triumph of the Phoenix Company; but one thing was forgotten, and that was safety. True safety in America is a matter of little consequence, but even it may be
strained, and the loss of half a million dollars at least is a poor compensation for an unwi-e ambition.
CHINA.
(Daily Press, October 22nd.)
C6
The
was
#4 arrangements were made for the removal from Peking of the singing girl and other pièces de conviction." He asserts this unhesitatingly, as au undoubted truth, and we could accept it on slenderer authority, from previous incidents. No wonder that he thus concludes : "the situation, in fact, under the reformed régime is precisel. what it was under the Wai-wo-pu. Plus ça change plus c'est la
même chose,'
The more it changes, the more it is the
CHINESE CUSTOMS. saine thing, should have been a Chinese, rather than & French, epigram.
(Daily Press, October 23rd.) Amongst the more unexpected accompani- Shanghai correspon lent of the London ments of the great Boxer Uprising of 1900 Times writes recently of China as change has been the decided strengthening of the ing and changeless", and gives his reasons. central control over the entire Empire of He makes it very clear, though without China that has followed in its train. explicitly saying so, that the DowAGER- has been in the main brought about by the EMPRESS is the clog on the wheel of reform. desire on the part of foreign governments, "The ear of the Court app ars to be open not always, nor even generally dictated by always to the last comer-its sympathies as feelings of benevolent consideration for variable as its humours, so that throughout China, to secure the regular payment of the
This
rarily adjudged indemnities found due to the various Powers in accordance with the Protocol of 1900. One of the stipulations of that instrument was that the local Customs within a certain distance of each of the treaty ports should be placed under the control of the adjacent Foreign Customs establishment; and the third series of reports of the administrations, containing this time the greater number of the ports, has lately been published under the title of Quinqennial Reports, and Returas of Native Customs Trade Returns. The result to the Central Government has been a substantial addition to its annual revenue of nearly four million taels, and the amount under improved management, or to be more precise under management of any description, is yearly increasing. Owing to the radical nature of the transfer from local to imperial control the work of the Imperial Customs, except in the case of the Tientsin Customs, where the work had been carried on fully during the military occupation, has had to be carried out cautiously and by degrees; so as to injure as little as possible the large vested interests concerned. Looking at the returns from a merely statistical point of view, we learn little that we did not know previously as to the ordinary course of trade. By far the greater portion of the trade of the ports bas long ago left the slow and uninsurable junk to take refuge on board the steamer, foreign or Chinese; coarse goods such as bamboos, native poles, coarse china ware, and the ordinary crops of the districts forming almost the entire cargoes, left for the junk. Still in 1906 upwards of 500 junks entered at the native Custom House at Tientsin, bringing cargoes of the value of one and a quarter million taels, and the entire collection amounted to 1,195.000 taels. The interest of the tables is, however antiquarian rather than immedi- ate, and the lesson to be learnt is from what a slough of despond the introduction of foreign trade and the Maritime Customs saved the whole Chinese Empire. It has often been asserted by those who had studied most the condition of China, that her Government got practically nothing out of the vast coasting trade of the country, and that even the provincial governments, owing to the absence of any system of collection, fared little better; the greater part of the enormous dues in the aggregate collected being squandered in merely keeping alive the collectors. It was also a subject of common remark that there existed uo regular tariff, and that the individual who got to the right side of the collector could get his goods passed at a merely nomiual rate, while he who had neglected this preliminary had to pay through the nose. Still foreigners and officials who were in the habit of looking to China as a model of order and goo i govern- ment could not be brought to believe these charges; and men otherwise able, like Sir J. DAVIS or Sir HENRY POTTINGER, pro- fessed to poo-pooh all these in their anxiety to prove of what an inferior order of being was the British merchant who came to China for the sole purpose of vilifying its govern- ment, and making illicit profit out of the simple-mindedness of its officials. These returus disclose a still worse condition of affairs than had been ever represented.
At Tientsio, Mr. P. C. HANSSON thus
describes the former condition of affairs:
16
But little is known of the old Native
Customs prior to the Boxer rising. From
what is known, however, it is safe to state
that its administration differed in no material respect from those of other Native Custom Houses in China, i. e. the amounts