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State of the Country.
Reports received from His Majesty's Consuls at Swatow and Wuchow give gloomy accounts of the lawless conditions prevailing in those two districts. Practically the whole country round Swatow is in a chronic state of brigandage, housebreaking and highway robbery being alarmingly common, while the authorities have been compelled to dispatch troops to various places on the Fukien border where large assemblies of bad characters are causing considerable uneasiness. The recent seizure of no less than 23 tons of saltpetre that had been smuggled on board a British steamer by her crew has confirmed the belief that extensive smuggling of this article of contraband is being carried on, and gives colour to the persistent rumours of intended outbreaks. regards Wuchow, His Majesty's Consul reports that the state of law and order is deplorable, cases being not unknown where market towns have been captured and pillaged by robbers, while one night in the middle of December the Wuchow Prefect had to set out, with all his available soldiers, in order to rescue the Kuciping Magistrate, who was being besieged by brigands. Little reliance is to be placed in the soldiers, whose frequent mutinies are as great a public danger as the attacks of the outlaws.
As
Considerable apprehension was felt in Anhui lest the revolutionary party should take advantage of the festivities at the time of the Chinese New Year (22nd January) to attempt a rising. These fears were fortunately not realized, but great anxiety still exists owing to the possibility of the able Governor sharing the fate of his patron, Yuan Shih-k'ai,
Commercial Situation in Tien-tsin.
One of the most serious features in the commercial depression prevailing in Tien-tsin is the unwillingness of native firms to acknowledge their liabilities and make honest proposals towards settling their accounts with foreign business houses. The latter are but too prone to conduct their transactions with the Chinese on the basis of unlimited credit, with the result that, as at present calculated, some thirty native dealers of Tien-tsin are indebted to foreign firms to the tune of no less than 14,000,000 taels. The Germun and Japanese commercial interests are the most deeply involved; the British merchants appear to have followed a more cautious policy, and though Chinese firms are indebted to them to the amount of some 500,000 taels, they do not, it would seem, stand to loose more than 400,000 taels, allowing for goods sold but remaining in their hands. The difficulty, if not impossibility, of obtaining satisfactory settlements through the Shen Pan Ting compelled the Consular Body to consider the practicability of concerted action. The German Consul's scheme for the establishment by the Chinese authorities of a so-called "Government Relief Bank " to take over liabilities and issue negotiable bonds was strongly opposed by the British merchants, and eventually the Consular Body confined its action to an interview with the Viceroy on the 29th December, to whom was presented a Resolution couched in general terms. These representations merely elicited the renewal of a suggestion, emanating from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, that the principal of the debts, with no interest, should be repaid, on the Chamber's guarantee, in ten annual instalments. This offer was not unnaturally rejected, and the British merchants would certainly appear to be justified in their conviction that continuous pressure in the case of each individual claim is the course most likely to produce any practical result.
Apart from the heavy financial loss involved, the situation is worthy of note as tending to dispel, at any rate as far as Tien-tsin is concerned, the legend of Chinese commercial integrity, and the feeling is universal among foreign merchants that the partners in many of the native houses are deliberately seeking to evade their obligations and conceal their share in insolvent concerns.
Yünnan.
Rumours have lately been rife foretelling an extensive revolutionary movement in this province, but have fortunately not materialized, with the solitary exception of the shortlived outbreak at Chennan early in January, which was reported in Sir J. Jordan's telegrams at the time. The fears were based on the activity of the secret Societies and on the undoubted discontent caused by the attempts to suppress opium cultivation as well as by the increased taxation for railway purposes. Whether or no the people are as opposed to railways as the Chinese officials endeavour to represent them, they certainly do not welcome the incidence of heavier taxation at a time when they are
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faced with the possible loss of their most profitable crop. While relying on the rice crop for their food, the Yunnanese have hitherto depended largely on opium for bringing money into the province, and there would seem to be some grounds for the alarmists' statements that serious opposition may meet the Governor-General's persistence in that direction.
In the Shan States, too, the Chinese officials have reason for anxiety. The various Sawbwas have been much perturbed at the prospect of being deposed and of the administration being placed in the hands of Chinese. This change of Government has only been effected in one particular state, that of Chen K'ang, where the Chinese authorities bave assumed direct administration in order to put a stop to the constant feuds between contending factions, a step to which the clansmen are offering what opposition they can. The Chinese officials are doing their best to avoid any forcible action such as would be likely to inflame the other Shan States, and it is to be hoped, in the interests of peace on the Burmah frontier, that they will be successful. In this connection Sir J. Jordan has lately renewed the instructions to His Majesty's Consul at Tengyueh to avoid all appearance of intervention in the continuous disputes between the Shans and the Chinese, except in cases where it would be necessary to impress upou the latter their responsibility for any upheavals that may occur on the border.
Thibet.
It is rumoured in the native press that Chao Erb-feng, the new Minister-Resident in Thibet, is to be recalled. This is probably connected with his reported impeachment for alleged severities during his former campaign against the Lamaserais. As already reported (see monthly summary inclosed in Sir J. Jordan's despatch No. 406 of the 8th September last), Chao asked at the very outset to be relieved of his commission, and should the reports be correct that he is to be offered some Viceroyalty he will probably not be sorry to give up his onerous position in Thibet.
Chinese Press on Yuan Shih-k'ai.
The native press greeted the announcement of Yuan Shih-k'ai's dismissal with equanimity, when not with actual satisfaction, From the point of view of foreign affairs, the newspapers unite in stigmatizing as absurd the reports sent to Europe and America by various correspondents of foreign papers to the effect that Yuan's fall is the prelude to a policy of reaction and of an anti-foreign tendeney. The high estimation in which the fallen Minister was held by foreigners is declared not to be warranted by facts: in 1900, for instance, though his force was sufficient to have nipped the Boxer outbreak in the bud, he is accused of having deliberately encouraged the rebels to invade Chih-li in order to gain credit for keeping peace within his own borders at the expense of his rivals. From a Chinese standpoint he is declared to have been seeking his own advantage rather than that of the State, and laborious efforts are made to attribute to him alone responsibility for the war with Japan in 1894, the unfortunate d'Etat of 1898, and the partition of Manchuria as the result of the Russo-Japanese In fact, were the various charges brought against him as sound as they are plausible, one would be compelled to agree with the Hankow "Eastern Times," which regrets that Yuan did not receive his conge much earlier in his career,
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war.
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