*
May 11, 1908.J
Fl
coat or a blouse is of no matter to it." What is true of the coat is true of the trousers. A oleir conscience and placide temperament are greater necessities than are trousers pressed into the shape approved by the perverted taste of the cross-legged tradesmen whose obiter dicta so many foolish ones 'tremblingly obey."
最佳
"
Though the
SHIPPING ON THE CHINA COAST.
The "Customs Gazette" for October to
the following figures of the number and Desember 1907 gives the quarterly returns of trade at the various Chinese ports. We take
Maritime Cas toms during the quarter. tounage of vessels entered and cleared at the
During the last quarter of 19 7 the number of vessels entered at the port of Tie stain were 235, of 272,323 tonnage as against 269 of 370,000 tounage for the corresponding quarter of 1906. Of these 171 were under foreign flags and 64 Chinese flags. The number cleared in the same decrease when compared with the corresponding period was 238 of 274,856 tonnage, also a quarter of last year,
entered as compared with 856 of 634,270 At Chefoo 761 vessels of 546,821 tonnage
tonuage. Of these 654 flow foreign flags and 107 the Chinese flag. The number cleared was 751 vessels as against 846 in the corresponding quarter of 19 16,
At Shanghai the number of vessels entered and 3.252 the was 5,252 of which 1993 carried foreign flags represented bai ng 2204,603. This is a decrease Chinese flag, the tonnage when compared with the same quarter of 1906. The vessels clea red numbered 7227, a decrease
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. not here quote. the other way, and merchants encountered which taxing stations are numerous, but is The flow of silver was all general follow the ordinary trade routes, on the "imperative commercial decessity" of carried by armed bands over unfrequented substituting a commodity that the Chinese mountain roads, on which the taxing sta- would accept. the Chinese would consent to buy, and buy yield readily to superior force, and accept a 'Opium was the one thing tions are few and so poorly equipped as to it they did," in spite of the edicts. These composition for taxes much lower than the were never enforced; for forty years there official rate." No foreign opium has ever was no pretence of enforcement of their been imparted into Szechwan, yet the people spirit, and the restrictions of their letter of that province heavily and generally merely covered the traffic with a decent smoke. Giving statistics of the morphia veil. Officials high and low eagerly profited | trade Mr. MORSE says, "for one vice, both by it. This went on regularly till 1838, for its introduction and its maintenance, when the import had grown to 20,619 chests. foreigners must be held responsible." That Then came the treaty of Nanking, which is the vice by injection. " left the Chinese Government free to adopt its own measures for the regulation of the opium traffic." The English Government forbade the establishment of an opium depôt at the outset in Hongkong, and it afforded no naval protection to smugglers. LIN's act in 1839, "the demand remained, After
new supplies came forward, trade went on." Among the opium then and the
destroyed, were 1500 chests belonging to an American firm, and. " chests of Turkey opium in the p 19825- some fifty sion of au American firm were not surrendered as Smuggling now greatly increased, still with not being from India." official connivance, and there was none of the regulation hitherto in force. The result was that the import jumped to about 50,000 fchests in 1850, and to 85,000 chests in 1860 "and as opium smoking had debauched the Chinese, the opium traffic debauched the foreign traders and dragged them down from their high estate:" principal importers were English, there is nothing to show that traders of any nationa- lity, who could lay hands on the drug, refused to deal in it." The author, be it remembered, is an American and a Harvard man, and he evidently has in mind sundry Paarisaic indiscretions uttered by reformers of his own nationality.
"For the pande- monium of the period 1840 to 1860 the Chinese must be held primarily responsible. The Emperor and his Commissioner LIN attempted the impossible in applying to foreign nations aline the restrictions which they could not enforce on their own subjects, 80 removing all regulation from a trade which they would not consent to legalise," while officials everywhere continued to act as if the trade were legal. It is to be hoped that those or similar words will not have to be written of the present agitation. The later so-called “ under review. In 1858, opium was included opium wars then pass in the tariff with the full knowledge and consent of the Chinese; of this doubt," The wisdom of legalisation cum there is no regulation was fully explained to the 646 of 703,048 tonnage. Of the ships 3720 flew Chinese, and the first suggestion that this foreign flags and 2734 were under the Chinese should be considered came from the Ameri-g. This is a reduction of almost 500 on the
with a strong bias against the opium trade, can Minister REED, who had come to China
but who became an advocate of its legalisa tiou. Mr. REED wrote to Lord ELGIN that he was not sanguine of effective prohibition, in view of the inveterate appetite of the Chinese. China to forbid Americans from participa- In 1880 America agreed with ting in the trade, but "wheu, in 1884-5, temporarily and for reasons over which the American Government had little or control, the American flag reappeared en the coast and engaged in the carrying trade,
tion." no attempt was made to enforce the restric- In 1879 the recorded import, 82,927 piculs, reached its maximum. Since then native opium has become an increasingly successful competitor. It is impossible to get trustworthy statistics,
since a com. modity having so high a value in small committed a similar fraud on Sennet Frèrse, bulk, and so heavily taxed, does not in He will be brought before the Magistrate.
SOME OPIUM HISTORY. -
(Daily Press, 9th May.) Mr. H. B. MORSE has written, and Messrs. KELLY AND WALSH LTD. have published, an important addition to the bibliography of China. Its title is "The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire." This is not a review of the book, as there has not been time yet to digest it; we wish only to call attention to a timely chapter on opium, Mr. MORSE discusses the thorny subject impartially; not as a partisan of the trade, whose "tendency is strong to leave the ground with which he may be familiar, that of commercial dealings and statistics, and to try to demonstrate the innocuousness of the drug as. smoked by the Chinese-to compare it to the relatively harmless anti- prandial glass of sherry"; not as the auti. opium reformer, who "invariably seems impelled, by an irresistible inclination, to leave the high moral ground on which be is unassailable, and descend into the arena of facts and figures, with which he is not likely to be so familiar, and among which his predisposition will lead him to pass by or to misinterpret those which make against his case;" but as an investigating historian. He has certainly done it "in such a way that either party, by judicious selection of passages, may find arguments with which to confute his opponents." In the first half of the eighth century, when the Arabs had been trading with China for a hundred years, occurs the first literary reference to the opium poppy in China, and soon afterwards repeated references to its culture occur. Its medicinal use was recorded in 973, as 'poppy broth", and as "a drink fit for Buddha." Su CHE, a poet, wrote of it as a pick-me-up. Actual opium and its prepar- ation is mentioned by Governor WANG HI before 1488, as learned from the Arabs. Opium smoking, it is suggested, came in after the Spaniards had introduced tobacco smoking, about 1620, and "the prac. tice of smoking mixed tobacco and opium" probably came from Java by the Dutch via Formosa The practice among the Mandarins is noted in STAUNTON'S account of Lord MACARTNEY'S mission in 1793. The first anti-opium edict was issued in 1729, when only two hundred chests of the foreign drug were being imported per annum. Those chests were brought in by Portuguese from Goa, English traders in it were not heard of till 1773, the East India Company starting in 1781. "The machinery of an Imperial edict cannot have been directed against so insignificant a quantity as 200 chests and that it was not considered by the Canton authorities to be directed against the foreign importation, is shown by the gradual and unconcealed increase at the rate of twenty chests a year.' In 1753 it paid a recognised official tariff of three taals a picul, or six per cent on value, then quoted Tfs. 50. It was not till a new Viceroy at Canton obtained a new edict, in 1796, that all opium was forbidden. From 1800 the trade became contraband, and with official con- nivance, smuggling became an organized business. The alleged drain of silver for opium, says Mr. MORSE, " is not proved by facts," and be gives an interesting sketch of the early methods of barter which we need
CA
}}]
|
13
17
ΠΟ
of almost LOJO.
of 149,721 tonnage. Only 34 flew the Chinese At Funchow the vessels entered numbered 175
ing quarter of 196. Similar progress is pointed flag. This is an increase over the correspond- with regard to the number cleared.
At Amoy 1442 vessels of a total tonnage of 312766 tonnage ent red which was pretty evenly divided between Chinese and foreign bottoms. of the corresponding quarter of 1906. the total being a slight increase over the figures
total of 1443 showing an advance over the 1366 same applies to the number of clearances, the
of the corresponding quarter of 1906.
The
At Swatow the number of vessels entered was 1482 of 370,545 tonnage, of which the bulk was Chinese, due to the large number of steam
The clearances numbered 1485, an increase- launches which inflated the retura. The balk of the tonnage was with the foreign ships, over the figure of the corresponding quarter of 1906.
The number of vessels entered at Canton was
similar reduction under comparison. figures of the corresponding quarter of 1906 and the clearances numbering 6517 show a
Two European firms of jewellers have been violimised by a Chinaman whose dodge was
noted the location of some diamond rings. He to say the least, very ingenious. He visited Messrs Falconer's on May 2nd and apparently returned to the shop on May 4th and asked to examine the rings. He inspected them but did not purchase. After he had left the shop it was discovered that imitation diamond rings had taken the place of the genuine ones. The polica were at once apprised of the occurrence the wharf of the Canton steamers. and the assistant accompanied a detective to By a on board wearing one of the rings, and he was stroke of luck they discovered the man coming promptly arrested and taken to the Police Station where it was discovered that he hda
J