202
admittedly difficult task, and give to the West the real essenco of a notable philosophy.
11
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
no cities bave done is meaningless, sines in other place in China do similar conditions exist to those i this Settlement.
¡
:
THE EXTRADITION CASE.
WILS
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robbery, they would not have rid them elves
of the rebel by cutting the head off the robber - We are not certain that the
British indulgence toward political offenders is always wise, but, as the Bench is fond of saving, while it remains the law it .ust ho aloyed. It might have hen desirable to hand over Iu Kai-ching to his offendel government, but it seTER more than ever evident that to have done • would have So much wa gather from the been illegal admissions made by one who evidently has no go«l opinion of the man's class and
chaineter.
CHINESE TURKESTAN,
(Daily Prow, March 28th) Until within the last twenty or thirty be sail to have known may
years
WO
| March 30, 1908. political offenders, and that was really the The Swntow main contention at this end. writer Mys, "What they [the ChinesO Nothing, we feel impelled to add, officials wanted was Ch'où the rebel, and the diction of the younger WELLER, could not Ch'ou the robber. And did the Hong. SHANGHAI AND THE
be fairer than that, yet the anti-pium kong Government suppose that even if the OPIUM TRADE.
agitators, or some of them, were not satis- i proceedings had been entirely regular, and fied, and wished the Council to still further the Chinese authorities had engaged not to (Daily Press, March 26th.) The agitation which has forced the Shang. commit itself and its successors, without
try Ch'ou on any other charge than that of hai Municipal Council to go further than it. reference to quite possible future develop
However, the majority of the rate. originally intended, in the direction of monts, abolishing its licens opium houses, has payers présent derided that the proposal of considerable interest for Hongkong. The thin Council was all that could reasonably Hongkong Government has already been { be expected for the present. reminded by an ecclesiastical petition of its responsibility in similar circumstances, but it is in a stronger position than a mere municipal council, and it is wisely waiting
(Daily Press, 27th March) to look before it leaps. It is clear enough The Chinaman who was arrested in that "
abolishing licensed opium houses '
Hongkong at the repiest of the Chinese merely means relaxing official supervision Government, under the name of lu Kai, and control of the consumption, which, shing, and who-during the legal fight experience has shown, in Australia and for his extradition—was described by the elsewhere, cannot be stopped, though it be papers as "the Swatow reformer," is the made illegal, and costly, and difficult. Mr. subject of an uncomplimentary biographi- D. LANDALE, Chairman of the Municipal cal note by the Swatow correspondent of Council, explained that the hesitation of a Shanghai contemporary. Unlus that himself and his colleagues was not influenced writer is mistaken, his correct name
From an by considerations of revenue.
Chi-ching, commonly nicknamed administrative and police point of view they Ch'ou" (Woo is rue, ('h'ou) “because of practically nothing of the hugs tract, had no doubt that while opium was freely the cry of anguish which he extorted from generally known in Europe as Eastern, In fact, or Chinese Turkestan, but called by the brought into the Settlement, the lower class any who came under his hand."
Chinese the Sin Kiang, or New Confine, Chinese would find places in which to assom- according to his Swatow biographer, he is
nothing more or less than a common. further than what was told ble and smoke it. Coolie hongs and lodging
us by the ́houses would become unlicensed opium dens, bully," an ex-Boxer, and a robber. Those Buddhist pilgrim Yuen Chwang, or going five centuries later the great traveller of the and probably dogenerate into rendezvous who remember our defence of him while on
The first in for criminals. The police would be kept his trial will not be surprised to find that . Middle Ages, Marco Polo, busy harassing lodging-house keepers, and this is to us disconcerting reading. The ¦ modern times to lift the veil of obscurity, possibly disorganize all coolie life and petition in his favour by a number of, and from personal experience throw now labour in the Settlement. Such results undoubtedly respectable Singapure uner light on the country was Robert Shaw, tho at Ladak, who in could be better obviated by going to work chants certainly lout colour to the theory; British Commissoner cautiously and gradually. So far as the that the
a bona-fide political, 1848.9 made an adventurous journey to
then Now, Kashgar,
the Chinese Government's attitude was con-offender, and not a common Fandit.
ruled by Yakub, cerned, he held it impossible not to be
Atalık Günz e," who at the time seemed we read that 'people who know laugh at sceptical. Many officials were sincere, no his claim to be regarded as a di-interested ¦ likely to revolutionise the entire of this doubt, but there was no general programme | patriot." Well, after all, we never made I district up to the frontiers of Caius, and of reform apparent. They had to face the such a claim on his behalf.
well establish in the place of the ill-organised possibility of China establishing in four or insisted on
1. that according the rule of China, a really powerful and well five years a lucrative monopoly, and of a
hona file political conducted realia, quité capablo of resisting terms of the Or- jaggresstatt Pou without. The interest row of dens rising in the outskirts secure
thereby e eat in the country led to his from the supervision of the foreign police. Lotteries were being run on their borders,
example being foll swol by many other regardless of their protests, and opium dens
explorers, British, French, Russian, and would be, if they immediately closed all
last, but not by any means least, the groat within the Settlement. When China res
Swedish traveller Sveo Holin. stricted the cultivation and importation, when less of the drug entered Shanghai, they could easily meet the How ditious by reducing the facilities for consumption accordingly. The British Government had, however, requested them to do more than keep pace with native reform. They were advised to be ahead of it, to encourage it by their example. They therefore proposed to close one fourth of the opium houses in the Settlement, and in another year, if the Chinese seemed then still in earnest, they could go further, umil finally (in two more years, they hoped) all would be closed. To Shanghai, the loss of revenue did not matter. Mr. LANDALE said: The total abolition of opium smoking, which for the mpire of India, aud for the Colony | those. of Hongkong would mean a grave financial difficulty, so far as this Settlement is conce ned. is little else, I would remind you, than an administrative conundrum, a difficult one I think all will admit, but the policy which we mended for your approval to-day is in no sens^ the outcome of financial considerations. The receipts from opium houses amount to less than Tls. 70,000, no important factor in a total income of two and a half millions, There is of course the consideration of vested interests which must suffer under the changing conditions; the process should, however, be gradual. In con- clusion I venture to impress upon you the fact that our position here is a unique one, that the challenge to do as other concessions or Chiness
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Was evidence ha offender within the dinance, and this we are glad to geð ein- firmed even by his unfriendly lographer, at Swalow, He did join the rebels, we are told, and it was not until he did so that, the Chinese officials took any interest in his cargor. The authorities," says the Swatow writer, "have forfeited their right to call him to trial by their inaction during the last ten years, during most of which time he has lived openly in and about Wongkong," It might be argued that on that admission his character einnot have been very bad; and when we come to examine this informal indictment, we find that the counts are the Common repute and a nickname mide hun
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The result
of these various explorations is that at the moment the physical features of the lan‹l, its river system, botany, productions, and to a lesser extent its ethnology, aro fairly well koowa, There wis still, however, room for others to go over the ground and study ita archæology, as well as its modern economic aspert; the former has been nobly taken up by Dr Aurol Stein, acting for the Indian Colonel ovorument; while Laoutenant “bully." ↑ Political agitators have often Bruce, form rly in command of the Chiuese been bullies, by the way. even in ather Regiment at Weihai, and now administering lands. Then, “in the Boxer your he wild the extremely important and responsible wanted because of the attentions he paid to post of Captain Superintendent of Police to the Municipal Council of Shanghai, desirous Christinus and their churches." It is no unnatural to suppose that
on his way out to the East to vary the route, ʼn genuine re. former might object to the prosence of has produced a book, setting forth from and Further, there were “escapades ¦ personal observation the military similar to that which was preferrol in the economic condition of the country passoİ From Keriwa to Suchoo, the charge made as the ground for the applies through
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tion for his extradition." That «eme rather | Suchir of Yale's great work, the route was a frivolous way of referring to robberies -identical with that fakon by Marco Polo in with violene. In such a serious accusation, the years 1273.4, and in view of this fact, the writer should have been more explicit as the nom especially interesting portion We should be more satisfied with an of the journey lay between these points, assurance that the writer is not a missionary | Colonel Bruce has well named his work whose raucour has been aroused by the "In the Footstepɛ of Marco Polo." It waN Swatow reformer's very probable unti. not necessary for €1. Christian manifestations. However, and any great length on the truth and trust- finally, whatever the wan has been in the worthy nature of Polo's work : that has been past, it is admitted that he was enti·lel to done already, and Polo's narrative needed no the protection the British law extends to embellishment from others. The lapse of up-
Bruce to teval at