December 6, 1909.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
a slow one.
a
r
475
little to Chinese initiative, but we may confidently anticipate in the coming years Press in China as a natural consequence of great development of the newspaper the remarkable educational movement now in evidence throughout the length and breadth of the land, and the direct incentive given to journalism by the inauguration of constitutional government. newspaper Press in necessary to China's A powerful development, and it is a significant sign of the times that the authorities are prepared to freely welcome the widest publication of the proceedings of the Provincial Councils, which are displaying a reforming zeal that is as gratifying as it is surprising. But that is another story, on which we shall have something to say in another article.
superior, as Hawaii has come here in search THE CHINA NEWSPAPER PRESS. | presses in those days, and the process was of labourers and reports that those few whom they have obtained are equal to their
The ancient Chinese printer (Daily Press, December 1st.)
worked with two brushes, one to ink Japanese, Korean and other labourers." The great part the Newspaper Press has the engraved blocks, the other to take Porto Rico has 1,000,000 people, or one-played in all enlightened countries in the the impression by passing it over the eighth the population of the Philippine education of the people and in keeping paper when it had been laid on the Islands, and in 1907 its exports were governments themselves in due subjection block. Down to fifty years ago the Peking $27,000,000. Porto Rico produces only to their duties seems to be duly appreciated Gazette was known to the majority of one-sixth as much per capita for export by the Constitutional Reform Commission its readers as a daily manuscript only, as Hawaii does, and still Porto Rico of China, and it is interesting to notice that for the few printed copies that were exports six times as much per capita the Commission has just issued instructions produced were copied by scribes attached as do the people of the Philippine to the newly-established Provincial to the viceregal yamens in the provinces. Islands. Were these islands to produce Assemblies that newspaper representatives As a matter of historical fact, the honour of for sale to other countries as much per shall be admitted to the meetings for the producing the first Chinese newspaper for capita as Porto Rico the total exports purpose of reporting the proceedings for the the expression of public sentiment or opinion would be $216,000,000. Were they information of the general public. Great and for recording events of general public to produce as much per capita as Hawaii advantage would doubtless accrue from the interest, other than Court intelligence, the total exports would be $1,179,000,000 a general discussion of the projects which belongs, we believe, to the Hongkong Daily year. The explanation of this, Mr. FORBES come before these Deliberative Assemblies, Press Office, from which the Chung Ngoi went on to say, lies in the fact that Hawaii but it may astonish many of our readers to San Po was first issued in 1857 and has an abundance of capital, employs learn that very few of the provinces of has continued to issue ever since. The modern methods of cultivation, manufac-China, even yet, are able to boast of a news majority of the Chinese newspapers ture and freight handling devices, and paper. Ten years ago there were not a which have since come into existence owe suitable and adequate steamship and rail-score of daily newspapers in the whole Empire road facilities. In other words, in Hawaii of China, and though we have seen in the the work of the labourer counts, in the Home papers from time to time references Philippine islands it does not. "It is to the growth of the newspaper Press in not labour that is wanted here," the China, the total number of daily and weekly Governor-General repeated, "it is capital." Chinese newspapers still falls far short of a Remarking that many Filipinos had a hundred, even when we include the fourteen tendency to oppose the introduction of capi- published in Hongkong, whose circulation tal into the islands, either from the United spreads beyond the confines of the Colony. States or from Foreign Countries, the The lack of a great and influential newspaper Governor-General laboured to convince them Press will militate against a rapid develop of the short-sightedness of the policy and ment of the reform movement in China, but expressed the opinion that so far from the we hope and believe that the inaugura- inflow of foreign capital militating against [tion of constitutional reform and the the realization of their aspirations it would spread of education will speedily lead have just the opposite effect. We cannot do to the extension of the newspaper Press more than briefly touch upon the main in China as it did in Japan. Jour- points of this most interesting and inform-nalism in Japan may be said to date from ative address, but we may note that while 1861, when a fortnightly sheet, printed in Mr. FORBES in one part of the speech said the Japanese language, first appeared. It he did not propose to occupy his time was not until 1870 that the first daily news- and attention in the unprofitable con- paper made its appearance in Tokyo, and sideration and discussion of the future not until the 'Eighties-whence dates the rise status of the islands, yet when addressing of the democratic movement in Japan- himself particularly to the Filipinos, towards that any considerable impetus was given the close of his address, he submitted that if to newspaper enterprise. To-day nearly it were the desire of the United States to two thousand newspapers and periodicals prevent the Filipinos from becoming a are published in Japan, and there is not progressive, happy and united people, strong a town of any size in the Empire that cannot boast of one or more. China in this respect is thirty or forty
years behind Japan.. Take, for example, our neighbouring province of Kwangtung. The whole province of thirty-two million souls depends for its journalism entirely Canton, where ten newspapers are published, and on the newspapers of Hong- kong. Kiangsi, which has an estimated population of eight millions, possesses one solitary and very small newspaper. Many other provinces of China still have none whatever.
in the accumulations of wealth and knowledge and capable of nationality, the Government would not be devoting its entire energies toward the accomplishment of those measures which make such a nationality possible. He complained that in some in- stances the Filipinos themselves had been the ones to impede and delay the fruition of these efforts, as for example in discouraging the universal adoption of a common language, by endeavouring to avert the opening of the markets of the United States to Philippine products and by discouraging the coming of capital, "thus impeding and delaying the arrival of that time when a national existence will be possible." In conclusion Mr. FORBES said the United States is strong, determined, fixed in her policy and not to be dissuaded or coerced. The development of the Philippine Islands will proceed along the lines originally set forth, strictly adhered to by each successive administration and by gradual processes in line of declared policy, and not by spasms or jerks. Such an assur- ance will be most gladly welcomed by the Filipino people if they realise how much the Islands have already benefitted by American effort, energy and capital.
The Formosan Government it is reported has decided to establish a wireless telegraph station
on Fuki Promontory for the benefit of steamers plying in the neighbouring waters.
The con- struction will be started before the close of this
year.
i+
on
now
of the
In view of these facts, it provokes a smile to read, as we do in one latest London papers, that the Chinese Ambassador, who presided at the annual dinner in aid of the Newsvendors' charity, could have devoted himself in his speech, had he liked, not to recommending the excellent charity over whose dinner he was presiding, but to dealing at large with the profession from which it takes it rise." We are told that the Chinese started a paper in days when our only form of publication consisted in pinning the skin of a felon to a church door for the edification of the parish.' That, of course, is gross exaggera- tion. The Peking Gazette, which is often alluded to as the oldest newspaper in the world, and was doubtless in the mind of the writer of the foregoing paragraph, avery limited newspaper in a
"
was 2
sense.
44
It was, in fact, merely a Court circular, of which very few copies were actually printed, as there were no printing
THE DISMISSAL OF
TUAN FANG.
(Daily Press December 2nd)
utterly disorganised condition of Govern- It any evidence were needed as to the
As
ment in China since the decease of the late Emperor, it may be found in what we cannot refrain from calling the criminal dismissal of TUAN FANG from the Vice-royalty of the senior province. It is not, of course, that TUAN FANG so overtops all other statesmen in the land that his dismissal taken by itself would be an act deserving of reprobation; however much we might under ordinary circumstances regret his dismissal as an able and faithful official, the act could not be makes the dismissal of the Viceroy a matter described as one of wrong-doing. What
danger to the State, is its object, and the out of the common course, and one importing
manner in which it was brought about. a fact the air of Peking is charged with} intrigue of the most dangerous kind; more so, indeed, than during the worst period of the late Empress Regent's control. While the Dowager TSI HI was alive her com- manding force of character spread so much awe through official ranks, and the danger of being detected was always so imminent, that a very present feeling of personal fear kept within bounds the practice of intrigue, itself one of the very worst features of Chinese political life. The withdrawal of the strong hand has been followed by a recrudescence of the old evil, only in the aggravated form that temporary suppression is apt to en- gender. Great hopes were entertained on the accession to power of the new Regent that some alleviation would be noticed of the worse evils with which the Empire is permeated: if any of the higher officers of the Court held this opinion, those hopes of hard facts. have long ere this yielded to the evidence Personally everyone must
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