[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[23855]
No. 1.
[July 4.]
SECTION 1.
Mr. Max Müller to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received July 4.)
(No. 194.) Sir,
Peking, June 10, 1910. WITH reference to my despatch No. 53 of the 18th February last, I have the honour to transmit herewith the accompanying summary, drawn up by Mr. Ramsay, Third Secretary to His Majesty's legation, of the Intelligence reports for the first quarter of the current year which I have received since that date from His Majesty's consular officers în China.
I have, &c.
W. G. MAX MÜLLER,
Enclosure in No. 1.
Summary of Intelligence Reports for first Quarter of 1910.
Unrest and Price of Food-stuffs.
THE reports received for the first quarter of the year from His Majesty's consular officers in the northern and central provinces show that considerable distress existed among the poorer classes owing to the high price of rice and other food-stuffs. It has frequently been pointed out that such distress, whether the result of crop-failures or artificial speculation or both, is intimately connected with disorders in the provinces, and opens a fertile field to seditious disseminations of political agitators. The greater the area affected at one time, the greater is the danger of local riots gaining the impetus of revolution, should a leader appear to gather scattered and ignorant out- breaks into one channel with a definite object în view. How narrow must be the margin between perpetual poverty and chronic starvation will, perhaps, be better understood from the statistics given in a recent lecture by the professor of history and political economy in Tien-tsin as the result of enquiries on the subject of wages in China. The figures claim to be averages for the whole eighteen provinces, excluding Manchuria, and they were obtained during the period from May to September last year. The professor gives the average earnings per annum of an unskilled labourer at 59 dol. 68 e. (about 47. 19s. 6d.). The cost of food for himself would be 29 dol. 23 c. (about 21. 8s. 9d.), and for his wife and children, say, 35 dol. (21. 18s. 4d.). Assuming that his wages covered the cost of food, the labour of his wife and children would have to provide for clothes and rent. This large class is, therefore, on the border line of starvation. In the Manchurian provinces trade has been slack and food-stuffs unusually dear, His Majesty's consul at Newchwang, however, reports that every effort was made by the local charitable organisations to deal with the prevailing distress, with the result that, although the authorities were at one time uneasy, no open mani- festation of discontent occurred. Over the whole of the Lower Yang-tsze the spring crops of wheat, beans, rape, &c., were considerably damaged by continuous rains in February and March. The scarcity of food-stuffs and consequent rise in the price of rice led to rioting in various places in Anhui, Kiangsu, and Hupei. Boats laden with rice were held up and looted at Feng Huang Ching, some 30 miles west of Wuhu, and at the entrance of Lake Chao, His Majesty's consul at Wuhu reports that during the past two years the stocks of rice in hand must have been seriously reduced, and that, unless there was a full crop of wheat this spring, the authorities might find themselves face It is at the same time notorious that to face with a serious shortage of food-stuffs.
the Anhui gentry and landowners are in the habit of hoarding rice with a view to cornering the market. Several rice shops were looted in Nanking at the end of March, and it was anticipated that the large influx of visitors to the exhibition in the next
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