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Chekiang Disturbances. We have already reported that the question of the railway loan has given rise to serious unrest and disturbances in Chekiang. We now hear that General Chiang has been directed to proceed to that province with twelve battalions ("ying") to restore order, and will start in three or four days. It is not yet known where he will be stationed.
The following extracts from Chinese newspapers published at Peking on the subject of the anti-railway agitation are interesting:
January 18, 1908.--The twelve divisions under General Chiang will leave in three parties, on the 20th, 23rd, and 26th instant. Some will go by rail to Hankow and the others by sea from Chinwangtao. Special trains and steamships have been requisitioned for their accommodation.
The Chinese Government have received the first intimation of the disturbances and of the destruction of chapels, &c., from the French Minister. The Wai-wu Pu have reprimanded the Governor of Chekiang for failing to notify them at once of the occurrences.
A telegraphic Decree has been sent to Chekiang ordering the severe punishment of the civil and military officials whose remissness has brought about the present state of disorder in the province.
On the 9th instant a crowd of several hundred men went to the Yamên of the Tung Hsiang District Magistrate and asked that three-tenths of the winter grain tax should be remitted on account of the scarcity of rice caused by the floods and the high price of the grain. The Magistrate refused their request, and this gave rise to much discontent. Certain bad characters took advantage of this opportunity to break into the Yamên and completely plundered it. The Magistrate fled, and it is not known where he has taken refuge.
Ichang.
His Majesty's Consul, in his Intelligence Report for the half-year ended the 31st December, gives an interesting description of a threatening boycott of British steamers.
"Nearly all the cargo taken by British steamers from this port is shipped through two native shipping hongs who act as forwarding agents for the Szechuan merchants. Recently the firm shipping through Jardine, Matheson, and Co. had a dispute with a native from whom they rented their business premises as to payment for some repairs done by them. Jardine's agent here applied to me for assistance, and I recommended arbitration, not being able to do anything officially, as the case was a purely native one. The shippers rejected this proposal, and told the plaintiff he had better sue them, which, to their surprise, he did, and they were summoned to the Yamên. They then complained through the agent, because they had not been summoned through me, and sought my assistance, which they had previously refused, and in effect threatened to boycott Jardine's steamers if I declined to help them, as they did for several weeks a couple of years ago, because the Consul had of his motion interfered in a native case in which they were concerned. Thus they now threatened a boycott, because the Consul would not take certain action, whilst on a previous occasion they actually established a boycott because he did not take that action. After much trouble I succeeded in getting all parties to agree to an Arbitrator, and the matter has now been disposed of."
Wuhu.
Rice for Japan. In spite of the formal permission for the export of 200,000 piculs of rice to Japan from the Province of Anhui, no shipments have yet left the port, and the negotiations are for the present at a standstill.
The Taotai insists that all the rice shall be shipped within three months, and the Japanese Consul, doubtless owing to the present high price of rice, is contending for an extension of the time allowed to six months, and the Chinese merchants want the Japanese to take delivery of the rice in Shanghae, to which port it is to be shipped in river steamers.
In the meantime, no small quantity of rice is being shipped from Wuhu to Chefoo, whence it is suspected some of it finds its way to Japan by junk via Port Arthur.
Anhui Railway. The Company is at present without a President. The Wuhu people elected the Admiral of the Yang-tsze to that office, while at a meeting at Anching chose another official. Both names were submitted to the Throne for confirmation; but a telegram from Sun Chia Nai to the Railway Company, published in the "Shen Pao" of the 24th December, declares both these gentlemen to be ineligible for the post.
The finances of the Company do not appear to be in a very flourishing condition. A meeting at the capital recently proposed to increase the price of salt by 4 cash a catty, to raise the rate of interest charged by pawn-shops in the northern half of the province from 2 to 2.5 per cent, per month, and to impose a forced contribution of 6 mace per yin (some 20 piculs) of tea from the merchants in the north of the province, the proceeds to be devoted to railway construction. These proposals have not yet, however, been sanctioned by the authorities.
The gentry are considering the abandonment of the present line and the construction of one instead on the north side of the river. This course is advocated by the Yang-tsze Admiral, who, in a letter to the Railway Company, which was published in the "Shen Pao" of the 1st December, advises the construction of a line from Pukow to Chou Chia K'ou, which would connect the main Lu-Han line with a branch line of the Shanghae-Nanking Railway. His Excellency estimates the cost of this line, which would be about 1,000 li in length, at 10,000,000 taels.
It is, he says, an easy line to build, and could be completed in four or five years, when it would yield a return of over 100 per cent. per annum.
In the meantime, work is proceeding spasmodically on the section from Wuhu to Wan-ch'ih. One hundred and twenty iron trucks and 3 miles of Decauville track have been purchased from Messrs. Orenstein and Koppel of Berlin, and 700 tons of bridging material from America have arrived in Shanghae, and are due here in a few days.
His Majesty's Commercial Attaché telegraphed to His Majesty's Consul at Wuhu recently from Shanghae that a British firm had offers for the supply of railway material for the line, but His Majesty's Consul advised caution in accepting contracts on any extensive scale.
Tung Kuang Shan Mines. According to the latest reports received from the mines, Mr. Maguire has eighty-one men at work, almost all of whom are engaged in blasting at the mine itself, and there are no signs of hostility on the part of the officials or country people.
During the past three months, meetings have been held at Anching and Wuhu to denounce the Lister Kaye Contract, and resolutions have been passed calling on the Government to cancel it; but the agitation, which is apparently confined to students and a few gentry, need not, His Majesty's Consul thinks, be taken seriously, and Mr. Maguire states that the gentry and merchants in the neighbourhood are anxious to see the mines opened.
In the "North China Daily News" of the 23rd December appeared a translation of a very anti-foreign poster on the subject of these mines, which was alleged to have been widely circulated in this province.
Chungking.
Upper Yang-tsze Steam Navigation. (See my despatch No. 32 of the 21st January). His Majesty's Vice-Consul has shown to Captain Plant the letter to Messrs. Yarrow and after some discussion has obtained his written assurance that he would do everything in his power to help to carry the scheme through. So far, Captain Plant has only been dealing with Chow Taotai, and has had no transactions whatever with any Company. No definite terms have been offered him by Chow, but Captain Plant writes that no doubt some satisfactory arrangement will be forthcoming before Messrs. Yarrow and Co. reply.
Pakhoi.
State of District. His Majesty's Consul reports that it is suggested that arms have been imported into China across the Tonquin border. Early in the quarter ended the 31st December, raids were made within a few miles of Limehow, but now serious fighting in the district seems to have receded towards Kwangsi. On the 1st December, a band of revolutionists seized some of the forts in the Chen Nan Pass, the scene of French difficulties in 1884, and held them for some days.
The immediate neighbourhood of Pakhoi was troubled by an unusual number of robberies in the same quarter year, many being accompanied with wounding and loss of life, but no anti-foreign feeling appears to exist, though according to the French press, a certain amount of anti-foreign literature is circulating in Tonquin. The Hunanese troops are not always on the best of terms with the local levies whom they attempt to control.
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