CO882-6 — Page 224

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

6

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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the villages and graveyards, there are no trees, the roots of grass, weeds, and stalks of cercals being raked up and dried for firewood.

There is, therefore, nothing in the way of forest land to preserve. Further, it would be practically impossible, except at a great cost, to re-afforest any part of the mainland. In the first place, the Government has no State land to plant, and in the second place, so valuable and so necessary is firewood during the cold season and all the year round for cooking, that the natives could not be kept from continually cutting down and stealing young shoots and trees in plantations. If coal or some other substitute for wood could be provided for general use among the Chinese, it would be possible to attempt some afforestation on the mainland in a few places, but as matters how are it would be difficult to protect the young trees, except at a prohibitive cost. The Chinese villagers only protect and preserve the trees planted in their homesteads and cemeteries by the exercise of the greatest vigilance, and by fining any family in the village which cuts or steals them. It would be possible, however, to reafforest the island of Liu-Kung, where the young trees could be sufficiently protected, and in 1901 Major-General Dorward made a beginning in this direction by trying to raise Japanese pines there. This experiment, however, has not been a very successful one, and it is doubtful whether anything except local native trees will grow in the barren soil of this i-land.

Meteorological, &c.

A meteorological summary for the year 1900-1901 is attached (vide Appendix 4). 67. The climate of the Settlement is, perhaps, the best in China. The air is very dry and bracing for eight months out of the twelve, and the heat is never very great, and the nights are cool even in the hottest weather. The maximum tempera- ture in the shade is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the minimum about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The rainfall is very slight. There are light and short rains in the spring and autumn, and heavy rains for five or six weeks in the summer. The winds are strong, and in the winter, when the north-east wind blows, the cold is intense. The coast is often covered with dense fogs in the spring and summer.

The soil is not malarious, and the country is free from epidemic disease. The fine physique of the robust peasantry speaks volumes for the virtues of the climate of the Settlement as a health resort. Nature and salubrious circumstances have marked out Wei-hai-wei as a watering place, and it is on these lines that the place should be developed.

There is, however, no municipal corporation or public to raise funds and develope the Settlement, and Government must remember that unless it advances capital for these

purposes, very little can be done. The Russian Government at Port Dalny and the German Government at Kiau Chau have spent, and are spending, very large suas of public money on public works and on laying out the land. It is Government and not private enterprise that must take the lead in developing castern stations. If, therefore, there should be any Government funds available hereafter, the money could not be better spent than in improving the European part of the Settlement at Mahto and the island by making public gardens and promenade piers, planting trees by the roads on the shores, providing bathing pavilions, bathing machines, chairs, and kiosques along the sea esplanade, erecting a public reading room and boating and yacht club, engaging a season band, opening up the sulphur spring streams and making hydropathic establishments on Japanese lines, providing halting bungalows for visitors travelling in the district, laying out public golf links, a racecourse, cricket pitch, fives, tennis and racquet courts, and a gymnasium for wet weather, in providing a small steamer to run between the island and mainland and take visitors round the bay, and in doing everything to advertise the town and make it popular with visitors. A good guide book is needed.

As a beginning to these ends the Government might convert many of the Chinese cottages and houses, formerly owned by the Admiralty and War Office on the island and mainland, and now transferred to the Colonial Government, into small European bungalows, roughly furnished, to be let out during the summer months at modernte rates to foreign visitors from Shanghai. Wei-hai-wei has many natural advantages, but the withdrawal of the troops and reduction of the naval garrison will make society duller here than before in the season time, and it is a question, therefore, whether the Colonial Government ought not seriously to take up the development of the Settlement as a watering place in earnest, and expend Government funds in pushing

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it and making it fashionable and popular on the lines natural circumstances indicate it is best for it to travel. Although Wei-hai-wei is not to be fortified and has no commerce, it can always trade on its reputation as a position of political importance in international affairs in the East, and as a watchtower on Peking and Russia in the north. It will always, too, be popular with the public as one of the historic scenes of the great war between China and Japan in 1895, where the crumbling forts and the dismounted batteries, the shattered torpedo stations and ruined piers and camps still remain in evidence as a monument of the last struggle of the Chinese fleet at Wei-hai-wei, and of the heroic defence and death of the Chinese Admiral Ting.

The walled city of Wei-hai-wei and its connection with Chinese crime in the territory. 68. As far as the Civil Administration is concerned, experience shows no really very serious consequences have resulted from the retention of Chinese jurisdiction within the walled town of Wei-hai-wei.

The two chief objections are that it is a rendezvous for bad characters from the surrounding district, and that suits and criminal cases between the Chinese living in the city and those living outside it and within the leased area give both the Chinese City Sub-Magistrate and the District Officer considerable trouble. The proximity of such a place may also possibly have a bad effect on the discipline of the 1st Chinese Regiment, but it is open to Government to place the city outside military bounds if this bad effect is found to be really serious. There is no serious crime in the city and gambling and opium smoking are the two worst offences. The Sub-Magistrate in charge of the city and his superior, the Wen-Teng Magistrate, have, during the last two years, done everything that they have been asked to do by the Commissioner, and have tendered assistance to the District Officer in many important law suits. As long as friendly relations between the Chinese Authorities in the city and the British Com- missioner continue, no difficulty arises that cannot be overcome by mutual forbearance and concession, and though it would be better if the imperium in imperio in the form of a walled city under Chinese jurisdiction did not exist at all, yet it is impossible to deny that there is nothing intolerable about the present state of affairs.

Organization of a new Civil Police Force and a Military Guard.

69. The decision of the Home Government to remove all military forces from Wei-hai-wei within a fixed number of months raises two important questions for the consideration of the Colonial Office and the Civil Authorities locally.

In the first place, the gradual total disbandment of the 1st Chinese Regiment during the next twelve months will (unless steps be taken to prevent it) inevitably lead to the rise of grave disorders in the present peaceful district on the mainland. There are approximately 1,300 Chinese soldiers in the regiment, and of this number practically only a little over a quarter are recruited locally. Even of this quarter, not more than 100 odd are recruited in British territory, and the remaining 250 or more from the districts surrounding Wei-hai-wei. The other half or three-quarters are Chinese from distant parts of the province of Shantung, and from the provinces of Chili and Kiang Su (chiefly recruited from the towns of Shanghai, Chefoo and Tientsin).

The local recruits give little trouble, but the men recruited from a distance are admittedly men of very indifferent character and are well behaved only as long as they are under European supervision and restrained by strict military discipline. The great majority of them have no family ties and no means of livelihood, and if disbanded within the leased territory are certain to practice robbery and extortion amongst the villagers here and in the surrounding districts when any funds or compensation they may get are exhausted. It is, therefore, very necessary that the Military Authorities should take steps to prevent trouble arising from this source. In the second place, if the 1st Chinese Regiment is entirely disbanded, it will be necessary for the Colonial Office to consider what steps should be taken for the protection of the territories in future.

As regards simply policing the district on the mainland, it may be said at once that (provided the Military Authorities leave no legacy of lawless disbanded soldiers to disturb the peace of the district), very little more policing than what already exists will be required to deal with the little crime here. As is well known, the whole system of village administration in China is one of self-government. This is agair based on the patriarchal principle of mutual responsibility. In the Chinese villages,

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