September 27, 1909.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
REFLECTIONS.
RANDOM
If you haven't a virtue now is the time to assume one. Everybody is going on the water waggon,
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At home the people are being budgetted into sobriety. We, of course, could not be more sober than we have been, but all the same we have done, for the simple reason that we can't are determined to drink less liquor than we afford it.
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The importance of reaching the North Pole 'seems to sink into significance in comparison with the dispute as to who got there first. What the rival explorers think of each other has not been printed, but we can imagine what it is. The one fortunate feature of the affair is that both men are Americans. Had they been of different nationality goodness only knows what ententes might have been disturbed.
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greatest prominence in the week's telegraphic Next to the wrangling of polar travellers the
service has been given to the feats of aviators. Records are being broken every other day, and when we read that the cheapest machine yet built has achieved a wonderful performance, and that a man can learn to fly in four days, we may anticipate a new sensation when we go Home for our next holiday.
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Perseverance has been rewarded in the harbour swim, the man who was second two years in succession now having carried off the honour' for which he struggled so hard. Congratula- tions to Mr. Cooke,
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Apparently the people at Home had become so despondent as to enjoying any summer this year that when they did have a spell of sunshine they went into ecstacies over it. Here is what the Mail says: "The blood-tingling, joyous sunshine came impartially. The London parks became entrancing beauty spots; the seashore was a dream of delight; the countryside had a fascination it had never seemed to possess before. There were, truly, new beauties every- where. England, under the sun, became a great enchanted garden. The spell of the sun
paper which indirectly recalls the other Em- pire builder we have mentioned. It was said of the late Mr. CECIL RHODES that he was a man whose mind moved on larger construc tive lines for the good of his fellow-men and country than any other Englishman. Whatever mistakes he may have committed and the adage comes to mind that the man who never makes mistakes never makes anything—his ruling idea was to devote his life to strengthening the British Empire and to making it a more potent instrument for raising civilisation and enobling the life
Typhoons may come and go, but for genuine of the world. He gave expression to this excitement there is nothing to eclipse the aspiration when he was quite a young establishment of liquor duties and the creation man, and this faith animated every of a Customs establishment, especially when it act of his life, finding final expres-happens almost as suddenly as a typhoon. Wo sion in the will which stirred the imagina- usually have a fair warning of the approach of tion of the civilised world after his death. any disturbance in the atmospherical conditions, The provision he made for two hundred
but it is questionable if the same can be said of the Customs which has been created before we scholarships for students from the British
knew where we were. I had intended to order Colonies and the United States, and it is
a few cases of whisky at the old price, but these claimed for these scholarships that they are fellows at the Council didn't give me a look-in. already acting as a mighty binding force They passed the law right away. Good boys, not only of the British Empire but of the these unofficial members. They don't embarrass whole Anglo-Saxon race. The iden is the Government in the slightest. Now, had having an interesting development; in a
there been a Irishman in the number he would scheme which Mr. P. A. VAILE, himself a
probably have objected to the third reading Colonial, has been advocating in the Press being taken on Friday, and so upset the carefully
laid plans of the Government. for the past three or four years. This scheme is practically the converse of the late Mr.
Now wo've to get accustomed to the sight and CECIL RHODES' scheme. His proposals, into the attentions of the revenue officer. He brief, embrace a scheme of scholarships to may not wear a brass hat, as the hon. Mr Mur be conferred not necessarily on university ray Stewart suggests-probably he is confusing under-graduates or graduates, not necessarily him with the fire brigade man--but he may wear a swagger uniform with brass buttons, by the usually academic competitive exami-
and as you leave the steamer on returning from nations, but on men chosen for their useful. Magag full of bitter thoughts and empty of vess as missioners of Empire, "on men who pocket your feelings are not likely to be soothed have eyes to see, tongues to speak and pens when somebody stops you and wants to know if to write." These men are to go for a year you have any dutiable liquor concealed about or more to some selected country or your person. You probably say that you have Dominion, to spread a knowledge of and when he asks for it to be produced you England and England's ways, and they politely inform him that it is beyond his reach are to bring back a real knowledge of That is the only chance of getting even with the land to which they are accredited as ambassadors of knowledge. Their experience and their capacity to pass I understand there were one or two amusing on its fruits is to leaven the lump of incidents which marked the passage of the abysmal ignorance of one another which Liquor Ordinance. On Thurday afternoon when separates -say-the Englishman from the the light was failing a Chinese clerk entered the New Zealander:" The scheme appears to Legislative Assembly with two lighted candles have about it something of calculable Im- and solemnly marched up between the long perial value. Mr. VAILE has already tables to where the Governor was seated and enlisted the approbation of Lord MILNER ceremoniously placed them in front of His and other distinguished statesmen; he has They expected some sort of joss pidgin to be Excellency. Everybody held their breath.
found the money for the first scholarship, performed, but it transpired that the Chinaman and in London recently so far imbued Sir was not inspired by any religious motive, but JOSEPH WARD with his own enthusiam that the utilitarian desire to shed more light. the Prime Minister of New Zealand prom-joke? Did he mean to insinuate that more A hem! It just occurred to me. Was it a ised to take up the question warmly and practically on his return home. What light was needed. You know there is much al Harber and the Officers of the U. S. Squad-
Mr. VAILE suggests is that all the Overseas States combine with the Home Government
to put the scheme on a permanent basis by each contributing the sum of £25,000 to capitalise the experiment. In view of the sympathy and support already enlisted for the scheme, the money will in course of time doubtless be raised, for the scheme, as one of its sympathisers remarks, is "apt to these days of Imperial gestation," and money might certainly be more unprofitably spent by Colonial Governments and wealthy Empire-builders than in giving a chance to such a scheme as this to prove its value in promoting the unity of the Empire.
A new weekly paper has appeared in Shang-
hai.
serve
The Torch is its title, and its purpose is to as "a weekly beacon for Far Eastern finance, commerce, insurance, shipping, law, etc.,
etc. Its articles on Chinese affairs are
thoughtful and well written, and we imagine the new publication will appeal to the Shanghai public especially on account of its refreshing criticism of the municipal affairs of the Settlement.
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in other words, that it has been consumed,
these men.
humour concealed about a Chinaman.
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such splendid, unstinted, reanimating sun- shine-flooded the air. It made merry people bubble over with happiness. It changed melan- choly folk into hopeful ones. It set the children skipping out of sheer joy.”
RODERICK RANDOM.
HONGKONG.
Only one case of communicable disease was
reported during last week, namely, enteric fever.
The Hon. Mr. W. Rees Davies. K.C., Attorney-General, returned to the Colony on Sept. 22 by the German mail from England.
It is notified in the Gazette that Hongkong trade marks are now accorded protection in Iceland under a Danish Royal Decree dated June 3rd, 1909.
Two Chinese shopkeepers were brought before Mr. Hazeland at the Magistracy for One was fined $30 and the using unjust scales, other $5.
Major-General Broadwood, C.B., commanding H.B.M.'s Troops in South China, returned from his trip Home on Sept. 22. The General went from Japan to Manila in the Siberia and crossed over in the Zafiro.
H. E. the Governor entertained Rear-Admir-
ron at dinner on Saturday evening at Moun- tain Lodge. The Squadron proceeds to Manila on Monday.
His Excellency made an amusing remark when he said that "intoxicating liquor could not be used for military purposes." What
We understand that of the five men captured by the police in the New Territory on suspicion about the old strategists who filled the enemy with wine and then went in and took posses-police a month ago, three will be placed in the of complicity in the murder of the two Indian sion?
dock on the capital charge. The others, it is expected, will come forward as witnesses.
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In the olden days when Britain was in diffi- culties with her continental neighbours and money was needed to carry on her wars taxes than drank themselves out of debt. What are on liquors were imposed. Patriotic Britons our patriots going to do now? Going on the water waggon when the Colony is in need of money? Shame.
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I suppose everybody knows the difference between sparkling wines and still wines between, say, champagne and claret but what constitutes the difference is not so generally understood. In the process of fermentation the sparkling wines retain the carbonic acid pro duced and the still wines let it go. So that when we celebrate with a glass of champagne we may or may not care to remember that the. cheerful influence felt is due to carbonic acid
gas.
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A man who was arrested on board one of the
Canton steamers with a box of clothing in his possession which he had stolen from his master in Hongkong was dealt with at the Magistracy on Sept. 22, when he was committed to prison for three months.
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Five men were arrested in the New Territory on Saturday for being concerned in the murder of the two Indian policemen about a month ago. Sergt. Moore of Autau effected the capture. Descriptions have been obtained of three others suspected of having been in the party.
The office staff of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson
and Company on Sept. 20 took possession of the new building which has just been erected on the site of the old offices. The new premises are large and commodious and well adapted for office purposes, besides being centrally and conveniently located, and are a striking addition to the architectural features of the city.