August 21, 1609.]
slightest protection against fraudulent mal- | apropriations of the loan. The Government bas already had to cashier one director, and seriously caution another, though seemingly afraid to remove him from office. Now this proposed Hankow-Szechuan Railway is a much more serious undertaking than the Tientsin-Pukow line. It is practically with regard to the difficulties of construction on a par with the main Alpine lines in Europe, and requires engineering skill of the highest nature. Yet we have no record of any survey, nor has any consulting engineer of any eminence been called on to report on the feasibility of the line, or the method of the of construction, nor indeed even route to be adopted. We have had another example, even in the case of so easily con- structed a line as that from Shanghai to Hankow, how hundreds of thousands of capital can be spent, nominally in the coo- struction of a railway, but have really been absorbed into private channels. For such lines the guarantee of Peking may be looked upon by reasonable undertakers as sufficient ly satisfactory. The Chinese are certainly at the moment sufficiently skilled to con- struct such lines so that they can carry ordinary traffic. When we come to lines requiring special skill, and enlarged experi- ence, as a line in Szechuan, especially as that line is intended to be one of the main trunk lines of the Empire, the whole face of affairs is changed. We have no guarantee in the first instance that a line commenced by incapable engineers in an unkown country is capable of being completed, however much may be spent upon it; and we have no pos sible check on the cost, even accepting the possibility of construction. Financial agents have generally a propensity for shifting these considerations off their own shoulders, and think little how the funds are expended provided that they can issue a sufficiently euticing prospectus; and the railway financ- ing of China is at the moment in that inchoate condition that there are huge pro- fits in sight for the first undertakers; and perhaps Chinese officials are not alone in their conceptions of the advantage of being first in the field.
However it may turn out, there is a con- siderable amount of responsibility resting on the shoulders of those Governments who are engaged in negotiating these advances, both with regard to their own nationals and China herself; all is not gold that glitters, anu not all the schemes proposed could bear the test of close investigation in the interests of their nationals or of China herself. Chinese finance is not yet past the danger point, yet both home and foreigu influences seem to be combining to drag it back into the slough of despond.
BUREAUCRACY IN HONGKONG.
(Daily Press, August 18th.) No one who has the smallest acquaintance with the local history of this Colony will need to be reminded of the claim to a more effective voice in the management and control of local affairs which the British Community has consistently been urging for the past fifty or sixty years. By public meetings and by petitions to Parliament they have frequently asserted this claim in the strongest possible manner, and we all know how successive Governments have expressed a large amount of sympathy with this desire and have met it to some extent by increas ing the unofficial representation on the Legislative Council, and by yielding to the wish for unofficial representation on the Executive Council. Two Governments of opposing shades of politics have even con- sidered the feasibility of establishing a
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. Municipal Council in Hongkong; but while they came to the conclusion that the proposal was not a practical one in Hong- kong they nevertheless strongly sympathis- ed with the aspiration of the community to participate in the management and control of local affairs in every practical way. We regret to notice a very pronounced tendency in recent Colonial legislation to check and to counteract such developments. Unofficial representation on the Sanitary Board has become practically valueless, and at next Friday's meeting of the Council one of the most reactionary Bills that have been laid before the Legislative Council for some time comes up for its second reading. It is a short Bill to amend the Liquor Licences Ordinance of 1908, and a memorandum appended to the Bill bluntly states that the primary object of this measure is to transfer from the Justices of the Peace to the Government the control of publicans' and adjunct licences. It further explains that "The existing system, whereby these licences are issued by the Justices, has been proved in practice to reason of the lengthy be cumbrous hy procedure attendant under the Principal Ordinance upon the issue of a licence and to be more a matter of form than of utility by reason of the fact that the meetings are attended for the most part only by the presiding Magistrate, the Captain Super- intendent of Police and one other official Justice called in to make a quorum." The ATTORNEY-GENERAL is certainly qorrect in his reference to the attendance at these meetings called for the purpose of issuing or transferring licences, but this fact does not strike us as a sufficient reason for con- centrating the sole authority in the Captain Superintendent of Police. It is astonishing that such a proposal should be brought forward nowadays when public sentiment is 80 far from favouring secrecy in such matters that it leans to local option. What we bave to bear in mind is the fact that under the system which at present obtains in Hongkong, and has obtained, we believe, throughout the life of the Colony, the Justices of the Peace, and through the advertisements in the local Press, the com- munity generally, are kept informed of all applications which are being made; and though, in nine cases out of ten, not more than three of the hundred and sixty Justices of the Peace attend the meetings, it is no argument that the general body of Justices have not paid any attention whatever to the application. We can agree with the ATTORNEY-GENERAL that the person most competent to judge of the merits of a candidate for a licence is the Captain Superintendent of Police, upon whom de- volves the duty of ensuring that the business of the licencee is carried on in a proper aud orderly manner, but it seems to us rather too much to claim that this official is also the most competent to judge of the suitability of a locality in which to open licensed pre- mises. There are surely many unofficial Justices who are equally competent to judge such a question. Have there not, indeed, been occasions when the Justices of the Peace have disagreed with the recommendations of the Cap ain Superintendent of the Police on that point? Be that as it may, the question of the suitability of a locality is eminently one on which the community generally should have a voice, and in view of the increased interest which must attach to this subject by reason of the proposed further taxation of the liquor trade, it seems to us more thau ever desirable and necessary that the powers which confer upon the existing Ordinances Justices of the Peace should not be inter. fered with. What have the Justices them
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155
Of the 160 on Why do not Peace convene
selves to say on the subject? the roll only 40 are officials. the unofficial Justices of the a meeting and express their views on the subject by a resolution?
THE ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
QUESTION.
(Daily Press, August 19th.) ยท Nothing, in a general way, could appear to be more of an unqualified benefit to the world at large than improvements in the means of inter-communication. Upon every abstract consideration advances in this direction would seem to be one of the few things which can do nothing but good. Ar time, however, has gone on since the bene fits of rapid inter-communication have come into play, we have begun to discover that, like all things mundane, they are not with- out some counterbalancing disadvantages. It is one thing for Europeans to have the means of getting to and from the East with facility, but quite another for the Chinese to be able to get to the West with equal At this latter point, some doubts have ea-c. naturally sprung up as to whether the improvements in steam navigation are so much a subject of congratulation as has generally been assumed, and there is room for further doubt as to the bearing of the It was always wished change in the future. that China should come not only into the comity of nations politically considered, but should be more intimately connected with foreigners in trade and in the ordinary pursuits of life. This process has been very inuch hastened by the improved means of inter-communication of modern timea, and while we are still advocating the policy of bringing the Chinese and Europeans into more intimate relations, the Chinese them- selves are carrying it out-not precisely in the way in which we would desire to see it done by turning up in any foreign country where it may appear to their advantage to This, of course, does not appear to do so. be in the proper order of things, and is being not unnaturally resented in the United States and in many of the British Colonies, where the attempt is made to check this rather too rapid advance of the Celestial by the imposition of poll taxes and at times by other and more severe action. In this course they are fairly justified, and no amount of argument will convince either the United States or the British Colonies to the contrary. They look upon such measures as merely a means of reasonable self-defence against undue competition in labour; and, under the circumstances that exist, few people can say they are not fairly justified in their view of the matter, how- ever much it may militate against abstract theories as to free trade and free competi- tion, in which, even in the present day, people have not entirely lost their faith. So far as the question affects China, it is manifest that no injustice is done by restricting the immigration of Chinese into foreign countries, seeing that the residence of foreign subjects is restricted in China, A country which has always adopted an exclusive policy towards foreigners can scarcely complain, as of late it has shown itself inclined to do, that a like policy is adopted with regard to her subjects, though in a different form. If America and the British Colonies keep out Chinamen by taxing them on arrival, China keeps out foreigners by Treaty, or rather, to speak more accurately, only admitted them into the country at all by Treaty-and considered it a very great concession even to do as much With respect to Japan, her attitude towards Europeans is no doubt much more
as that.