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who, he states, cannot in the event of a rising be relied on to protect either the officials or the residents.
I have, &c.
(No. 38.) Sir,
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
W. G. MAX MÜLLER.
Consul-General Fraser to Mr. Mar Müller.
Hankow, April 13, 1910.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 14 of the 6th instant, forwarding a memorandum on the political situation in China, drawn up by Mr. E. S. Little, and calling for a report on the political conditions existing in this part of China.
The partition rumours cited by Mr. Little were reported in my despatches No. 22 of the 12th December, 1909, and No. 14 of the 1st February, and on p. 7 of my Intelligence Report for the quarter ended the 31st December, 1909, and p. 2 of my Intelligence Report for last quarter, where is likewise reported the remarkable suddenness of their cessation. The subject is also treated in press extracts Nos. 3 and 4 in my despatch No. 7 of the 15th January.
The Wachang military officer, not student, chopped off his finger at one of the early railway agitation meetings, and the other similar act occurred at Changsha, the deed being due to zeal for the immediate summoning of a national assembly.
The students' demands for arms at Wuchang and Changsha is reported in No. 7 of the press extracts forwarded in my despatch No. 10 of the 21st January, and on p. 14 of the Changsha Intelligence Report for the December quarter of 1909, which also sets forth on pp. 11 to 18 the partition excitement.
The proposal to adopt universal military training appears in No. 1 of the press extracts forwarded in my No. 7 of the 15th January and No. 6 of those of my No. 10 of the 21st January, both articles coming from the Eastern Times," the most influential Shanghai native paper.
The railway agitation has formed the subject of several reports, and the anti- foreign nature of its propaganda was shown in the second enclosure in my No. 77 of the 8th December, 1909, as well as in No. 30 of the press extracts forwarded in my despatch No. 7 of the 15th January.
The native newspapers have certainly fomented the anti-foreign agitations, special instances being the last paragraph of No. 18 and Nos. 26 and 28 of the press extracts my No. 7, Nos. 8, 11, and 12 of those in my No. 15 of the 2nd February, and No. 23 of those of my No. 23 of the 28th February.
in
As regards the attitude of the Chinese authorities, the only attempt here to check agitation was the Viceroy Ch'en's farewell letter, enclosed in my despatch No. 76 of the 7th December, 1909. The growing attitude of opposition to our request for trading facilities, formerly sure to be granted, has been remarked on in many recent reports, though it has not been so flagrant as in Hunan, and the rice and pulse export questions have proved the disinclination to accept treaty provisions.
That the debt redemption movement was based on anti-foreign feeling is shown in Nos. 7, 15, and 16 of the press extracts forwarded in my No. 7 of the 15th January, No. 13 of those in my No. 10, No. 11 of those in my No. 15; but wiser counsels were also given in No. 23 of No. 7, and in Nos. 1 and 2 of my No. 25 of the 8th March.
The want of money has been frequently reported, and also Chang Chih Tung's deficit. The issue of Hupei Government bank notes is noted in my annual mint returns. The agent of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank here told me recently that an ordinary native could not get money for these notes, and that his bank had to give two days' notice of desire to cash them.
Mr. Little's description of the attitude of the provincial assemblies agrees with the reports made from this office and from the Changsha Consulate.
The rumoured reduction in the pay of the Wachang troops, mentioned in the military section of my last Intelligence Report, was denied in No. 11 of the press extracts forwarded in my No. 10 of the 21st January.
The Christian Literature Society's explanation of the comet has been published in all the native papers read at this office, and also scattered broadcast in the form of a leaflet. I have not noticed any attempt to augur coming trouble from its appearance. The main points of Mr. Little's memorandum are thus corroborated by our press
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extracts, which do not by any means include all the articles and paragraphs of the same tendency noticed in the native press during merely the last three months.
At the date of his letter I was inclined to share his sense of imminent danger of anti-foreign disturbance, my apprehension being tempered, however, by recollection of similar threatening appearances in other years passing off without any serious happenings.
At the present moment the tone of the native press has turned much more moderate, but the artificial scarcity of rice and the unrestrained lawlessness of the student class give grave cause for anxiety.
The winter wheat crop is likely to be very poor, owing to want of fine weather, and the price of rice in the depreciated copper currency will rise even higher now that Szechuan and Kiangsi, as well as Hunan, are refusing supplies to Hupei. Building operations and export trade are brisk, but the pay of the coolie class hardly suffices to feed the individual, let alone his family. The native business world is upset by the unusual shipments of sycee westward to buy opium or finance the Thibetan expedition. Land, in which much money has been sunk, is practically unsaleable, and native banks and companies are suspected of having used their deposits in speculating in opium or rubber. The paper money in circulation is undoubtedly vastly in excess of the means of the issuing banks, including the Government Cash Bank. The result of the above circumstances is to raise prices all round; but the main cause of uneasiness is the report that Hunan is about to cut off all supplies. This selfish policy has extended to perfectures and districts, a missionary informing me that on a recent journey, being benighted in a district near the Hunan border, he met strings of rice-laden coolies, who explained that in consequence of the gentry's interference, rice for a town over the district border, but in the same prefecture, had to be smuggled across in the dark! My own belief is that public order would be best secured by a decree absolutely forbidding all grain export prohibitions or other interference with the natural movement of cereals, as well as all levies on grain in transit between provinces, for only thus can the farmers, the bulk of the population, be secured the due reward of their toil and the lower classes' daily wages suffice for their needs, while the speculation that causes the price of the native staff of life to vary greatly from day to day would then be unprofitable to dealers and gentry.
The lawlessness of the student class, which is frequently illustrated by notices in the native press of strikes against teachers and heads in Government schools, has just been shown here. Yang Tu, a Hunanese, with the rank of a director of a metropolitan court, recently presented to the Board of Posts and Communications a memoranduin casting doubt on the ability of the ITunanese to build railways by their own unaided efforts, and so incurred the wrath of the Railway Association delegate, Chang, who, according to the native press, directed students of the Huan Middle School at Wuchang to seize him and bring him for trial and punishment before the Human Guild in that city. Yesterday afternoon some forty of these emissaries tracked Mr. Yang to the office of the Hankow Waterworks, which abuts on our southern road, and insisted that the directors should hand him over. Our police were notified by the directors, and, rescuing Mr. Yang as he was being hustled along the Sin-seng road, took him to the police station, followed by his would-be kidnappers, who were told that he could not be given up except under a warrant backed by me. The mob would not go away until some of the ringleaders had been taken into custody. The concession deputy then called on me to ask that the ringleaders might be handed over to their own authorities and to offer an escort for Mr. Yang, I impressed on Mr. Wu that Mr. Yang was quite at liberty to go where he pleased, and that the students would be delivered on their authorities taking all responsibility. Mr. Wu admitted that Mr. Yang's life would probably have paid forfeit had he been got over to Wuchang.
This morning the taotai sent a note to say he had given the students over to the Director of Education to be dealt with under the board's rules; and I hear that the escort removed Mr. Yang much against his will,
I am protesting to the Viceroy against the taotai's extraordinary proceedings; but the noteworthy fact is that the native papers seem to see nothing irregular in one returned student setting his fellows to seize a man for no legal offence and without any reference to the regular authorities, who likewise show no desire to vindicate their powers.
Similarly, the Railway Association is allowed to disseminate through the interior notices maligning friendly Powers without any attempt on the part of the authorities to check a movement which must breed anti-foreign feeling, apparently because it has
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