40
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
"East, but from the cheap labour products of the works begun during his firs
of the latter with which the West will soon term happily accomplished. On arri- be inundated; and nothing under existing val in Haiphong he inaugurated the circumstances can prevent this except & new swing bridge; at Hanoi he saw the re-establishment of an international ratio | splendid hospital which bears his name com- 4 of 151 to 1 between silver and gold.”. pleted and opened; in company with
Here we join issue with Mr. WETMORE. Madame DE LANESSAN he visited the Chinese A sudden reversion to the ratio of 151 to 1 frontier at Laokay, inaugurating the era of would cause a commercial convulsionsteam navigation up the rapids of the Red scarcely less disastrous than that which River; and only a day or two before his followed the rupture of the bimetallic tie.recall he presided at the banquet held at the What trade wants is stability of exchange, inauguration of the Phu-lang-thuong-Lang- but the ratio of 15 to 1 having become son Railway at Langson. What will become impossible we will have to be content with of his new railway projects now Probably some lower ratio, if indeed it be found they will be consigned to the limbo of good possible to establish any ratio at all. The intentions by his successor, to be modified trend of politics in America shows that or placed to the credit of some future there is little hope for silver in that country, Governor-General. and Great Britain is not at all likely to depose the gold sovereign from the position it holds, and while Great Britain holds aloof other countries will do nothing, or will only try to establish themselves more fully on a gold basis. We believe firmly in the theory of bimetallism and regret its. subversion, but having once been so com- pletely abandoned as it has been we do not think it will be found possible to re- establish it. The attitude of the bimetallist towards silver should now therefore be some: thing like that of a doctor towards an injured limb: so long as there is a hope of saving it he tries his best to do so, but when he sees that his efforts are fruitless and that the patient's life is in danger he resorts to am- putation. If it is impossible to restore silver to its former position the next best thing is
to let it find its natural level under the new conditions and stay there. Then we would have something approaching stability and trade would adapt itself to whatever the ratio might happen to be. The question of whether the dollar is worth four shillings or two shillings is a very momentous one for in- dividuals, but the transition stage once safely passed trade can be as well conducted on the one basis as the other. Mr. WETMORE seems to fall into the error of regarding money as wealth instead of as merely repre- sentative of wealth. Sovereigns and dollars are simply counters in the game of commerce, and the products of one country will con tinue to be exchanged for those of another no matter what the relative value of the counters to each other may happen to be. There is no saving virtue in a ratio of 154 to 1 any more than in any other ratio;
all that is required is that the ratio, whatever it may be, should be a stable one; and it appears now as if stability were more likely to be attained by refraining from legislative interference than by the con- trary course. The general opinion seems to be that silver has now reached its natural level and with the renewal of the confidence which that belief engenders a revival of trade seems to have already set in.
papers
[January 17, 1895.
a want of discrimination unimaginable to our insular ideas. While wishing M. Rous- BEAU, the newly appointed Governor-General, every success in the difficult task he has be fore him on his arrival in a new country, we must again express our sympathies with the colonists of Indo-China and with M. DE LANESSAN.
ASIATIC COMPETITION WITH
EUROPEAN, INDUSTRIES.
Reviews Mr. STEAD draws a harrowing pic-
In the Christmas number of the Review of ture of how the white man with the vellow money is to go down before the yellow
man with the white moner. Sir THOMAS
SUTHERLAND, in his speech at the recent meeting of the P. & O. Company, struck a similar pote. It was, he said, impossible to shut their eyes to the fact that great changes were operating, and were likely to operate, in the countries in which the Company had its principal intercourse, in consequence of the great cheapness of silver relative to the value of gold. He referred to Bombay's rivalry to Manchester, to the strides being made by Japan in cotton manufacture and in manufactures of other kinds, to the commencement being made in Shanghai in the same line of enterprise, and, ha continued, "there cannot be the slightest
LE
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it
a com-
Many rumours are afloat as to the cause of this sudden recall, the principal being that His Excellency was in some way implicated in the affairs of the blackmailer CANIVET. It appears that on searching CANIVET'S copies of official documents were found concerning. Indo-China which it is claimed ought never to have been com- municated to other
than Government officials. Probably M. DE LANESSAN was subjected to the squeeze process while in France, and if he put valuable information into the hands of this journalist in return for his support, though it may be con- doubt but that this low value of silver, if sidered a weakness, it is scarcely astonishing. "it continues, must tend to check exports the same thing being done every day in the "from Europe to those countries, and must political world. M. DI LANEBIAN, like stimulate industrial and manufacturing activity in the Far East. It is impossible many other politicians, bad got into the hands of an unscrupulous Press, his policy "to foresee to what this may eventually during the first three years of his administra- │“
tend; but there may possibly be in this tion in Tonkin having been mercilessly pulled
room at the present moment some gentle- to pieces and opposed by the Parisian jour-men young enough (I hardly think that nals, who seem to imagine the best way to "I am one of them) to live to see P. and O. further their country's interest (or their " ships built on the banks of the Yangtse- kiang instead of on the hanks of the Clyde, own?) is by running down their colonies, their administration, and in fact everything or the Tees, or the Tyne." Whether the that does not bring grist to their own mill: P. & O. Company will ever go abroad to have Unfortunately the Paris journals have not its ships built is a problem we will not been wanting in imitators even in Tonkin venture to discuss, but it may be sug- during the last few years, as some of the gested that if ever that day arrives editors there have turned their coats more will be a sign that England as than once; although now, at the last moment mercial and maritime power has entered the bitterest detractors of the late Governor on ber decadence, that she will no longer see the evil done, and cannot help express- continue to be the chief carrier of the ng their regrets at the result. And this, world, and that the services now conducted evil lies, not so much in the lowering of the by magnificent British liners to all parts prestige of a French Colonial Governor " in of the globe will pass under other flags. the eyes of the surrounding nations," as For ourselves, we have sufficient confidence it will have in the Anglo-Saxon race to believe that not- in the unfortunate effect amongst the native population whom he was withstanding its currency errors and other called upon to govern. The proud though mistakes it will continue to hold its place ignorant Court of Hué certainly would not in the trade of the world. But it is not to degrade one of their own mandarins with so be supposed, whatever currency laws may little regard for appearances; and what can prevail, that other countries will not try to they or their viceroy in Tonkin, who has also manufacture what they can for themselves The appreciation a little court around him, think of the next when they learn the way. representative of France who comes amongst of gold has no doubt given India and Japan them but as a puppet who may be ordered great advantages in establishing cotton and out of office at a day's notice by telegram, as other manufactures, and the belief that a summarily as they would discharge one of their great mistake was made, from a European menials? Unfortunately also for the colony point of view, in severing the bimetallic tie The news of the recall of M. DE LANES-it has received a blow from the effects of which is steadily gaining ground. But it is, we SAN, Governor-General of Indo-China, has it may be long in recovering. The pirates will believe, possible to exaggerate the con- thrown a damper on the New Year festivities take heart of grace and recommence their sequences of that mistake. The trade of of our neighbours in Tonkin. As the case depredations, which under the rule of M. the world can adjust itself to any standard stands we cannot but sympathise with them, DE LANESSAN had gradually been disappear and any currency so long as it is a moderately although at first sight it seems rather ridicu-ing, and the removal of a Governor who en- stable one, and sooner or later gold and silver lous that a man of signal ability and known couraged by every means in his power com will find their relative levels. Up to the pre- integrity like M. DE LANESSAN should be sub-mercial enterprise, and who had already in-sent point we doubt whether the Dock and jected by bis Government to the disgrace of spired confidence amongst capitalists in Shipbuilding Companies either in Hongkong being suddenly recalled by a telegram sent
or Shanghai would say that cheap silver through the Agence Havas. It will be fresh
has been any benefit to them; we suspect in the memory of all our readers that the
the verdict would be rather the other way; late Governor-General only returned to
but whether with cheap or dear silver it is Tonkin within the last few months, after a
inevitable that in large shipping centres, short holiday in Europe, endowed with full
wherever situated, the shipbuilding industry power by his Government. Since his arrival
should find a footing. So with cotton and M. DE LANESSAN has not been idle; and h
other manufactures, where an opening has had the satisfaction of seeing some
presents itself and the necessary capital is
THE RECALL OF M. DE LANESSAN
e
France, will it is to be feared, retard the development of the extensive mining and industrial speculations which have al- ready taken root in the country. What ever may have been the faults of Gover- nor DE LANESSAN, his political opponents should have remembered the good services he had already rendered; while the brusque, not to say brutal, manner of his recall shows
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