248
THE CHINA CRITIC
March 13, 1930
March 13, 1930
THE CHINA CRITIC
83
249
serted in the rectangular or square or oblique spaces left over by the advertisements. As we probably have not yet finished with International Cables, we can go right on with them. If the page happens to begin again in the middle of a sentence with no repeated head, the reader can go back to page eight of Sheet No. Two and pick up his cueue. After half a column or so of this unfinished international matter, comes the "Important News" section, the definition of which is, contrary to the general simplicity of the editorial scheme, somewhat hard to find. Classified under these "Important News," I find, for example, the resolutions of the Third Plenary Session (although the man with the new-fangled idea might regard this as front-page stuff), but one's sense of confusion begins gradually to incrcase, when one finds the following items regarded as important, viz., the increase of customs duties in Amoy, the burning of a railway station along the Nanshin Railway, the official Inauguration speech of a Hupeh provincial committee member, etc., etc.
If we proceed, in this cautious and guarded manner, we shall soon come to the murders, suicides, elopements, rape, seductions, abductions, hold- ups, snatching of hand-bags, capture of bandits, divorces, fires, and shipwrecks. Here the "Dog-gone- it" editorial policy is seen to the greatest advantage, for, though the case of some shop apprentice running away with the master's daughter may be written up large, the various items are generally left to stand in their pell-mell order. The editor has thus resisted, from a matter of habit and sheer inertia, the temptation to play up crime and disasters, which is the common weakness of western journalists..
By this time, my frayed nerves were already feeling the strain, and I became possessed with a crushing sense
of the futility of my hunt for educational, inspirational,, and information-al reading matter. Perhaps it is not fair to expect the "things of truth and of beauty" in a modern newspaper, no matter in what language, but one is not exactly prepared for the "PLEASE GIVE ME CASH" of Tang To, or for the cry of "Those Who Believe In Me Come Quick-Quick!" of Yao Tso-tun, not to mention the numerous insertions about massage by "young Parisian Girls," "young European girls," "young western girls" which appear everyday in the Want Ad. Columns.
Generally speaking, this way of editing a newspaper must be conceded to be by far the most pleasurable way yet found in any country. One feels no obligation to say anything important or offensive in the leaders. The political news is generally. a wholesale, indiscriminate and unedited reproduction of the official communiques of the government organs. There need be no classifica- tion of news bearing on the same topic or movement, no worrying about writing leading paragraphs, no selection and co-ordination of news material, and above
all no sub-heads, which implies that the editor has no obligation to go through the copy at all. There is more desire on the part of the different editors to accommodate each other with unused space, and the general fellow- feeling and moral tone in the editorial staff is greatly heightened. The demands for consideration of the average newspaper reader have not inconvenienced the editors to any appreciable extent, and the editors, on their part, promise also not to interfere with the reader's business, so that peace and amiability may prevail and everybody may go his own way. So long live the Shanghai Big Press and long live the Land of the Free!
Railway Problems Of 1930
By Thomas Ming-heng Chao ()
In a lengthy memorandum submitted to the Third Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang which opened in Nanking on March 1, the Ministry of Railways made four important proposals.
1. The National Government be ordered to issue stringent orders which would forbid the interfering with railway administration by military officials. Those who did not obey such orders would be immediately punished as counter-revolutionists.
2. The practice of local military officials' taking part of the railway revenues for the payment of their military expenses, and all irregular transportation dues collected by the various local military authorities be
abolished.
3. The National Government be ordered to pro- mulgate in the immediate future laws governing the re- organization of China's debts and the rehabilitation of public credit, so that the railway debts can be reorganiz- ed and refunded accordingly.
4. The Ministry of Finance be ordered to hand over to the Ministry of Railways two-thirds of the Sino- Russian and Sino-Italian Boxer Indemnity Funds for the completion of part of the Ministry's railway construction program.
agement of the various railways, the power of appoint- In order to have effective control and efficient man-
ment as well as dismissal of the personnel of the rail- way administrations must be in the hands of the Ministry. It is an open secret that the various local authorities are constantly interfering with the railway administration. Tao-Tsing Railway, (HK) in Honan Province, Mr. Shih Yi Hsuan () managing-director of the
left Honan for Nanking in October, 1929, on an official mission. During his absence, however, General Han Fu-chu, (E) Chairman of Honan Provincial Gov- ernment, appointed Mr. Li Wu-chen () to become the railway director. When Mr. Shih returned to Ho- nan, Mr. Li refused to hand over the railway to him.
There are numerous similar cases. The Ministry of Railways appointed in April, 1929, Mr. Wang Cheng, (E) former Vice-Minister of Railways, as managing director of the Peiping-Suiyuan Railway. In spite of re- peated negotiations, Mr. Pan Ting-hsien, (H) the former director of the railway and a nomince of General Yen Hsi-shan, continued to run the line. Mr. Liu Wei-tse (a) was appointed in May, 1929, to become the managing director of the Peiping-Hankow Railway. General Yen, Hsi-shan ignored the Ministry's appoint- ment and sent Mr. Hsieh Chung-chow () to take over the railway, and Mr. Hsieh actually took over the line by armed force. In December, 1929, the Ministry of Railways appointed Mr. Ko Kuang-ting (*) as managing-director of the Lunghai Railway, but before. Mr. Ko could assume post, General Tang Seng-chi, (4) who later rebelled against the Central Govern- ment, appointed some one else. As usual, General Tang's nominee stayed. The Ministry sends also from time to time instructions to the railways in Manchuria and asks the latter lines to submit regular reports to the Ministry regarding their business conditions. These communica- tions, however, are completely ignored by these lines. As far as these particular railways are concerned, the Ministry of Railways does not exist.
As a result of constant military disturbances along the railways, most of the rolling-stock are not on their own lines. When the Manchurian forces retreated to- wards the Three Eastern Provinces in 1927, they took away with them rolling-stock from Peiping-Hankow, Tientsin-l'ukow, Lunghai, l'eiping-Suiyuan and other railways. After several months' negotiations between the representatives of the National Government and the Manchurian authorities, part of the detained rolling-stock were returned. Since May, 1929. rolling-stock on the Lunghai Railway have been detained by military authorities controlling the western section of the line. Almost all the engines, coaches and freight cars on most of the railways have been commandeered for military transportation.
It is needless to say that regular passenger and freight transportation services on the various railways are seriously crippled. The Ministry of Railways has submitted reports to the Disbandment Committee and the Ministry of War regarding the number of rolling- stock and places where they are being detained, but the instructions from the two administrations to the various local authorities have produced no result. Trains and locomotives are frequently commandeered by soldiers without paying any attention to the safety of lives and the operation schedule. If the orders of these soldiers are not carried out promptly, the railway officials are often subjected to insult and ill treatment.
The Ministry of Railways has drafted regulations governing military transportation on the various rail- ways. These regulations have been submitted to the Ministry of War for approval. The Ministry of War, however, insists that salt, coal and other similar items must be included under military supplies. It is the opin- ion of the Ministry of Railways that salt and coal are
ordinary commercial products and cannot be, therefore, classified as military supplies and exempted from regular transportation dues. The two ministries cannot reach an agreement regarding this issue and the official pro- mulgation of the military transportation regulations is thus indefinitely held up.
Soldiers refusing to pay their fares and open smug- gling of commercial goods by military authorities on the railways are common occurrences. Take Tao-Tsing Rail- way alone, a railway less than 100 miles long and prin- cipally a coal-carrying line, this railway within a period of six months in 1929 had an item of $107.000 for unpaid military transportation charges. The loss thus suffered by the various railways of the country must be tremendous.
The improvement of labor conditions is one of the proposals supported by the Kuomintang. The labor organizations, morever, are usually workers' weapons against the capitalists. But in recent years the workers on the various Government railways are organizing on the basis as if the Government is the capitalist.
The organization of the workmen's unions on the railways is varied. Frequently these unions are control- led by undesirable elements. Protection is often given
by such unions to workmen who are inefficient and irresponsible, and dismissal or punishment of such workers is opposed by the unions. It is natural that the efficiency of the workmen is greatly decreased. There are alarming evidences that unless prompt and drastic measures are taken by the Government, these unions will soon attempt to interfere with the administration of the Government's railways.
In spite of the decision of the Second Plenary Ses- sion of the Central Executive Committee which was held in Nanking in June, 1929, which forbid the military au- thorities from taking away railway revenues for the pay- ment of their military expenses, the local military au- thorities continue to take whatever there is on the dif- ferent railways. The Third Group Army Corps, under General Yen Hsi-shan, collects each month $350,000 froin the l'eiping-Hankow Railway, and $200,000 from the Peiping-Suiyuan Railway. As a result these lines have no funds left for rehabilitation purposes. The Ministry of Railways presented a strong protest to the Adminis trative Yuan of the National Government and the Dis- bandment Committee. The Ministry of Railways was later instructed, however, to continue to appropriate such funds to the military authorities on the ground that disbandment program had not yet been completed.
Excessive freight rates on the railways will bring about a decrease in the volume of goods transported. This is a very simple problem. The various provincial authorities collect irregular taxes on goods transported on the railways, and these taxes are so numerous and high that the freight rates on the railways are well near prohibitive. So long these irregular taxes are abolished, the development of the country's industries
not