November 8, 1909.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
RANDOM
401
REFLECTIONS.
testant cemetery? When it is in Hongkong. When is a Protestant cemetery hot a Pro- That is a grave joke.
Parade Ground. I wonder if he had a license? The Hon. Mr. F. H May acted as auctioneer on Saturday at the fancy fête on the Volunteer.
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One man here was so anxious to secure a good Chinese in Hongkong are very keen litigants. defence that he engaged two solicitors to protect his interest. is yet to be proved.
How the experiment will work
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experiences of newly-married couples when they Many are the tales told in Hongkong of the set up housekeeping, and a good one has just come my way. The cook demanded more lard one day and when the inexperienced mistress asked what had been done with the lot purchased the previous day she was gravely informed that
promptly ordered another cook. it had been used for soup! This was too much even for the inexperienced housekeeper and she
is "excellent of its kind.” With character- | evidence of istic thoroughness, the President of the Local of
the satisfactory character the measures Government Board has been with his officers of State says have been taken by the Chi- which the Secretary into the refrigerating stores and into the nese authorities in Canton. But the decline retail shops, even to the New Cut, Lambeth may be due to other causes, for there have ---one of the poorest districts in London-been times when the discount has temporarily "to see whether the opinion of those better dropped as much as five per cent., in Canton. qualified than myself could be confirmed by There is nothing either in the last annual laymen," and Mr. BURNS even confessed that report of the British Consul-General at he had himself tasted Chinese pork. He Canton, or in that of the Commissioner of did not unfortunately give to the world his the Imperial Maritime Customs, on the personal opinion of its flavour, and so subject, and though the subsidiary coinage missed the opportunity of going down to question has quite recently been discussed history with CHARLES LAMB as an authority in the Legislative Council, not a word has on the roast pork of China. Probably if been said about the measures taken by the importers of this Chinese pork into the Chinese authorities being "satisfactory
What marvellous escapes some of our houses England had been more careful at the outset We recollect that in 1907 when the Hong- but of certain Sanitary Board byelaws which have had. I am not thinking of the typhoon to state what the porkers had been fed on, kong Government began the expedient of gave the department power to insist on a house much of the prejudice against it would not withdrawing from circulation all its sub- being pulled down in order to dig out the have arisen. Most people who have travelled sidiary coinage received as revenue, it was mosquito larvae which might be suspected to in China know of no other pig than the reported to the Secretary of State that the be lurking around the foundations. scrawny scavenger of the streets, disputing Colonial Government had succeeded in induc-ately these wide powers have been curtailed. with dogs for the choicer morsels, probably ing the authorities at Canton to temporarily one of the most loathsome of animals," and suspend the coining of small coins at the the sight of the tartan and the kilt.
* Scottish hearts should be gladdened soon by they have not been induced to believe that Mint. How long the mint suspended opera- Cameron Highlanders will spend a day or two the pigs from Hankow stand in a different tions we do not know, but we know that it here on their way from Tientsin, and there category by the unblusliing announcements was subsequently shown in the report of the should be gay times down the Happy Valley. made by some of the retailers that they Customs Commissioner at Canton that there The local football association have given the are. rice-fed." A writer in the Journal of had been actually an increase in the number teams here permission to play the Camerons, Tropical Medicine and Hygiene makes of 20-cent pieces coined that year. It will and the Buffs will have to be at tip top form to the following pertinent comment on this also be remembered that as a result of the maintain their unbeaten record against the representation: How a Chinaman can Inquiry in 1907 by a Committee into sturdy players from the kilted regiment. afford to feed his pigs on rice and compete the causes of the depreciation of the sub- in the British or any other market with pigs sidiary coinage of the Colony," the Govern- from other countries is a question beyond ment addressed strong representations our power to understand and, we may at through the proper channels to the Chinese once say, to believe. We would as soon authorities both at Peking and Canton, believe a man in this country should he state urging the suspension of the coinage of that he fed his pigs on bread, for rice is to small coins at the Canton Mint until the the Chinaman what bread is to Europeans, coins had again reached par.' Rice is, moreover, not so plentiful in China recollection of the replies to those representat We have no as those unacquainted with that country tions being made public, but the fact that in would seem to believe. China cannot grow the year 1908 the Canton Miut turned out enough rice to satisfy the demands of the 15,668,000 20-cent pieces is conclusive people, for rice has to be largely imported evidence that, whatever may have been the from Indo-China, Siam, and other rice- nature of the replies received by the producing countries. That the farmers in Government, there was, in fact, no com- China can afford rice as the staple food for pliance with the strongly expressed desire pigs is unfathomable. Were such a diet of the Hongkong Government. Evidently commercially possible, moreover, the value the efforts to convince the Chinese authori- of rice-fed pork as a food is questionable." tics of the evils of a depreciated currency have The truth is that it is gross exaggera- met with small success. Had that fifteen tion to claim that these pigs have millions of twenty-cent pieces not been coin- been fed on rice. The Customs Commis-ed last year, the subsidiary coinage of the sioner at Hankow tells us in his annual Kwangtung province and of this Colony report that the pigs in question are might by now have been brought up again show the discount on Chinese 20-cent pieces to par value. As it is, the latest quotations
to be 5.96 per cent, and on Hongkong 20 cent pieces 5.74 per cent; while on ten-cent pieces the rates are 6.48 and 5.96 respectively
a state of things which can scarcely be. regarded as evidence of the satisfactory measures which the Chinese authorities said to be taking. we learn from the telegram, the Secre The request which tary of State has recently made to the Governor for a report on the present position of the question comes at an opport tune moment when the subject is being re discussed in the Legislative Council, and in view of Colonel SEELY's announcement that with a view to rehabilitate the currency, the the Viceroy is taking satisfactory measures public with look forward with added interest to the debate next week on the Hon. Mr. STEWART's motion, in the hope that full information of these satisfactory measures? will be made public.
of a different breed to the "scrawny scaven- gers" with which Europeans living in China are best acquainted. They are kept in farms by the rich in their own houses'- and are well fed on the creepers of red potato, rice chaff, dregs of grain, and leaves of wild shrubs, all chopped up and boiled to- gether." It only needed the publication of this information at the outset in England to have spared the public all the panic that the innovation has created.
THE SUBSIDIARY COINAGE. "QUE. TION,
(Daily Press, November 6th.) It will be seen from a telegram we publish this morning that the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies has been questioned in the House of Commons with regard to Hongkong's subsidiary coinage question. Colonel SEELY, it says, informed the House that the Viceroy of Canton is taking satisfactory measures to deal with the matter ---which means presumably that the Viceroy is restricting the output of the Canton mint. To what extent this is being done we have no information. We can only note the decline in the discount on subsidiary silver coins by two or three per cent. in the course of two years, and assume that this is
arb
H. E. Kao Erh-ch'ien, Commissioner to
delimit the Macao Boundaries, recently tele graphed to the Waiwupu saying that the but that it has been extensively rumoured that boundary question is being amicably negotiated, Portugal has intended to resort to hostilities. The Commissioner requested that no credence should be given to such unfounded rumours..
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wrong with my head because of my failure Last week suggested there was something to appreciate the logic of the argument advanced by the Hon. Mr. Murray Stewart theory that it would be conducive to thrift in contending for the return of the duty paid by the Garrison on liquor. His reminded me of the old woman who having joined dividend idea and at breakfast addressed her a co-operative society became obsessed with the family: "Eat, ye beggars, eat. The more you eat the bigger the dividend." Mr. Stewart has seen fit to point out what he airily calls my erroneous notion" by explaining that the amount each man will get depends upon his
will share equally with others. There is thus rating and not upon the quantity of the liquor he consumes. He adds, "The total abstainer no motive for drinking, and the story of the co-operative society, to d by your correspondent, is seen to have no application."
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logic of the chosen of te Justices of the
It would be audacions to suggest that the Peace is at fault. I have not the temerity a failure to grasp the point on his part of the Colonial Secretary-but it is either or a defect in my thinking apparatus, because it seemed to me that it would be apparent to the simplest intelligence that it was decidedly unfair that the teetotaler, in addition to profit- ing by his abstemiousness, should participate in the profits of other men's purchases. Doesn't
beggars, drink. teetotaler feel inclined to the co-operative story still apply? Won't the say Drink, yo bigger the dividend" (for me).
The more you drink the
The fate of a man who dared be within the City Hall without a ticket on an occasion when admittance was by production of a little piece of card was seriously discussed at the Legisla tive Council on Thursday, and it was decided that as a trespasser he was liable to be chucked out." I suppose the same experience would befal anyone who tried to enter the Cricket Ground which admission is by ticket. It recalls the icono- on occasions when entertainments are held to olast who rode across the Cricket Ground on horseback during the progress of a game several years ago in order to demonstrate the right of