198
JAPAN.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
TOKYO, Feb. 11.
THE CONSTITUTION.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
To-day Japan celebrates the twentieth an- niverary of the promulgation of the constitution. The day is also a national holiday, being the Kigensetsu or anniversary of the coronation of the mythical emperor Jimmu, a personage of whose existence there is no doubt in the national mind. There is double reason there- fore for making the day a happy one, and great doings will take place in the capital before nightfall. The compound of the Imperial Diet will be the scene of the principal official cere- mony; there will be great popular rejoicing at Hibiya park, under the auspices of the muni. cipality, and celebrations and lectures constitutional subjects will be given at Waseda University and other centres of learning. Each ku or ward is arranging its own festivities to be crowned at night with a lantern procession. The whole of the day's programme will be repeated in many cities and districts through. ou country.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND WRONGS.
од
The Japanese are a procession-loving people. To judge by the fuss being made to-day a stranger would infer that they are the most constitutional of constitutional peoples, but the fact is that they are governed much in the same way to-day as they were before February 11, 1889, much in the same way as they were go- verned three hundred years ago. The work of twenty years has not done much to change the characteristics that have been formed by a patriarchal tyranny evolved in В thousand years, although the light is penetrating in some quarters, for rec ntly one energetic newspaper questioned whether the elder statesmen were a
constitutional institution! The mass of the people, however, are supremely indifferent to their privileges and duties as shareholders in the State, consider it a presumption to question the doings of those in authority, and are ever ready to follow the official lead and instruction. This blind faith leads to a violent reaction when the people find out that they have been deceived, as they occasionally do, but the fact that they are now responsible and no longer a subject race is not commonly understood. With the very beginn- ing of constitutional government political parties were formed, but to this day they remain limited to a select circle. In speaking of the Sengukai party, or the Shim-po-to one does not mean the Conservatives or Liberals as in England, hage camps of voters holding certain political beliefs, but a few members of the Diet, having no principles and having been sent to parliament with no mandate from the people. The Govern. ment, aloof from all parties, moulds them to its purposes.
TRIFLES IN POLITICS.
In the House the questions which occupy most attention are not great affairs of State involving principles, but petty matters that ought to be settled in committee. An affair of Imperial importance to Japan is its policy in Korea and Manchuria. In these countries Japan is introducing methods naturally obnoxious to Western peoples, and the subject is worthy of a party's attention because it involves the future of the Japanese empire. Nothing at all is heard of this in the Diet as a matter of im- perial policy. The subjects that are upper- most in the minds of politicians are the ques- tion of telephone charges, the Arisan affair, the abolition of the pari-mutuel. Perhaps the Government is wise in keeping attention fixed upon these small. matters, for in the present condition of the Diet it is not competent to deal with greater questions. The one man in Japan fitted to lead a party according to English ideals, and to keep before it great questions of principle and policy, has now retired from active politics, unable to hold his fragments together. The Shimpoto had in it all the elements of a real opposition party, but since Count Okuma's withdrawal it has lost what unity it possessed and is now of little service to the country as an example of an opposition party.
. FORESTS OF MOUNT ARI.
I referred to the Arisan affair as one of the questions troubling the Diet. The Govern-
ment is severely criticised for a proposal, the cost of which is placed in the Budget, to take over the working of the forests on the slopes for this Mount Ari in Formosa, It originally granted privileges for this purpose to the Fujita firm of Osaka, but the latter being unable to make the working pay is to dispose of the property for two million yen, and the Government is to carry on the work. Now the argument of the papers is that if an expert business man cannot make a profit out of such an undertaking there is still less chance of amateur officials being able to do so. Beyond the purchase payment of yen 2,000,000 to the Fujita firm the Government has placed 4,000,000 yen in the Budget as working expenses. Both parties and papers seem to be set against the whole scheme. As for the property in question it is a forest of magnificent timber over a hundred square miles in extent at an altitude of from 2,500 to 9,000 feet above sea level. Every variety of valuable hardwood is found in abundance, and it is passing strange that the working of such a property cannot be made to pay. The suspicion of corrupt practice between the Government and this private firm is what has aroused public opinion to opposition. Corruption is the blight that so commonly afflicts com- mercial transactions, and in the Arisen affair the people feel they are being exploited.
O. S. K. PACIFIC SERVICE.
The Tacoma, a liner destined for the now service of the Osaka Shosen Kaisha to Pacific Coast ports, has just been launched at Kobe. Since the war the O. S. K. has felt to the full the bad effects of poor trade and competition. This competition especially in the China trade has been more severe than in the case of the N. Y. K., and judging by the outlook generally it is a bold move to start a new service across the Pacific at the present time. The question of navigation subsidies is one of the more important matters before the Diet, especially the grants-in-aid that are to be given to the Toyo Kisen Kaisha's new South American service. Japan pays more money in subsidies than any other maritime nation, and there are now before the Diet amendments to the subsidy laws which will deal a heavy blow to its shipping, if carried. The chief to suffer would be the N.Y.K., whose English and Australian services would be impracticable without the aid of subsidies, so it is said. The Government's apparent object in its new proposals is the with- drawal of support in one direction for use in another, namely, the subsidy of the South American line as a medium for emigration to a new and unlimited field and the withdrawal of support from the old established N.Y.K It is not at all certain yet what alterations will be made in the existing subsidy laws, as the Govern- ment proposals will have to contend with the opposition of powerful commercial interests.
THE REFINERY SCANDAL.
No new developments have taken place in regard to the Dai Nippon Seito Kaisha. Full investigation has shown its affairs to be as bad as the most pessimistic anticipated and rigorous action on the part of the public prosecutor against defaulting directors and auditors would be welcomed by the public, but nothing has been done in this direction. Efforts are being made to continue the business, but it will be years before the company's debts are paid.
VAIL AT PEKING.
The following is extracted from Chinese Public Opinion:
-
A Foreigner who, as Advisor to a Chinese Board, holds a high Chinese rank, was ordered the other day by Tiehiang to attend in his official capacity a meeting at the Board of War. Arriving there the said foreigner was met by the gatekeeper with a demand for a "pourboire" of Taels Ten, and, as the foreigner refused to pay this “squeeze,” the gate- keeper refused point blank to present the caller's card. A Chinese official who hap- pened to pass and to whom the foreigner Was well known. reported the state of affairs to the inister of War, with the result that the Foreigner was admitted at once. Later on, when the Foreigner left the Board of War, the gatekeeper had the impudence to repeat his demand for cumshaw and on meeting with a refusal, started abusing the Foreigner in ex. tremely bad and insulting language.
[March 6, 1909.
KULANGSU (AMOY) MUNICIPAL COUNCIL.
Room, on the 9th February. Present:-Messrs. A meeting of the Council was held at the Board W. H. Wallace (Chairman), J. S. Fenwick, W. Kruse, W. Wilson, A. H. Wilzer, the Health Officer and the Secretary.
follows:-
The minutes of the meeting are recorded as
place in the community deeply affecting one of Mr. WALLACE-A very sad event has taken
our number, and I therefore beg to move that we BLS a Council desire to record our sincere sympathy with our colleague in the great bereavement he has unanimously.
sustained. Carried
item being $1,652
THE COST OF THE POLICE FORCE. Mr. WILSON desired to know whether the Members of the Finance Committee had had appeared in a Hongkong paper of the 29th their attention drawn to a paragraph which January. Certain figures were quoted, one mittee
Could the Finance Com. say what these figures represent? quoted. It was headed
Mr. WALLACE said he had seen the paragraph Kulangsu Police." answered at the last meeting; therefore there was All points concerning the Police Force he fully
nothing further for him to add under this head. He agreed with the writer of the paragraph not only were they deceiving, but at times that comparisons are often deceiving," and, absurd. amount of $1,652 he found was an expenditure In this particular comparison, the by the subscribers to the old Kujangsu Road Fund, and appears in their accounts for 1902, or some nine months before the Island became an International Settlement, and a Municipal Council was formed, and therefore it was absurd to make such a comparison, as the duties of the two bodies, the old Road Fund Committee and the Municipal Council, their functions and the work they were called upon to perform, wers of an entirely different character in many respects. If a true comparison were needed, here were the figures of the old Road Fund days, from 1893, and the figures since the creation of the Municipal Council :-
|
1893 Income $1,550.00 Expenditure $1,320.38 1994
1,486.48 1895
1,667.60 1896
1,733.83 1897 1898
KULANGSU ROAD FUND.
"
19
27
13
1,534.50 1,659.12
11
22
1,629.68
1,778 65
$3,
1,786.67
"
1899
11
1,729.00 1,801,75
1,811,51
19
1,915.29
23
1
1,713.25
13
1,801.05\
1,716.50 2,230.90
1,559.92
1,652.40
1900
1901
1902
21
11
11
KULANGSU MUNICIPAL COUNCIL.
1903 (Fron 1st May to 31st December.) In
come $15,416.50 Expenditure $13,930.31 1904 Income $20,184.94 Expenditure $22,308.32 1905
1906
1907 1908
21
23,229.79 23,028.83
F1
24,858.80 26,036.20
33
"
21,349.63
22,733.72
20,468.23
27,571.78
It will be seen from these tables that in 1904,
expenditure was $22,308,32 against $27,571.78 in our first full year as a Settlement, the Council's in 1908, or an increase of $5,263.46 in five years, during two of which-1907 and 1908-some $7,605 odd was extraordinary expenditure, being the amount expended on site for and the building of the new gaol, municipal offices &c., over and above the $20,000 raised by issue of Debentures.
THE PAVILION.
In accordance with a resolution passed at the annual meeting of ratepayers, the Secretary Tennis and Cricket Club the ruins of the was directed to offer the Kulangsu Lawn
Pavilion as they at present stand, and to ask
so, when. them if they are prepared to take it over, and if
REPAIRS TO A JETTY.
The Secretary reported that the Seah Loh Tow Jetty was out of repair, and the cost of repairing same will be from 8150 to $300 according to the work decided to be done. The
for their report. matter was referred to the Works Committee
LICENSING CHAIRS.
The Secretary was instructed to arrange a meeting with representatives of the Mixed Court Magistrate, to discuss the question of licensing chairs.
常言