CO129-473 - Individuals - 1921 — Page 222

t

220

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therefore on thir

1 beneficial.

administration made him Lowerful enough to be considered dangerous, and he was assassinated by order of the Peking

Government a year or so lator. He introduced a number

of enlightened reforms, many of them far in advance of

the times; and he was strong enough to impose his will

on the people while he lived in every thing but the questin

of mui tsai. In that matter, at the height of his power, he forbade "sales, decreed a system of registration

set up an expensive system of homes, and gave inquisi-

torial authority to his men:- and nothing happened,

except that he was almost openly laughed at. And the tendency in many matters since the Revolution, to settle

back again into the old Chinese groove, makes any such movement now even less likely to succeed.

That the system has and must have its abuses

cannot be denied. That the number of c ses in which it

is abused is very large is also true : but there are no data for making a proportionate estimate beyond such

generalities as that the custom is practical ly Universal

and the system accepted: The abuses, however, are A actively recognised as abuses y all the better Chinese;

and with them it is only a question of the extent to

which they can be checked: and granted that the system itself must be allowed as yet to continue, this problem of checking the abuses becomes the immediate matter in

hand.

In a

question

matter of this nature, it is not possible

to dissociate Hong Kong from China. There is a very large daily passenger traffic with the Colony by River

steamer