£1
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478
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
THE SZECHUEN RIOTS.
Quos Deus vult perdere dementat prius. It would really seem, from a study of recent events, that the Chinese Government had fairly lost their heads and were blindly rushing on to certain doom. The empire is at the present moment drifting, its rulers having become politically paralysed and at the same time at issue among themselves, The Emperor KwANG Su, a nerveless and feeble young man, reared in the sickly atmosphere of the harem, cowers beneath the weight of a responsibility his Ministers are no longer ready to assume. The Empress Dowager is probably not inclined to favour a new policy, and perhaps is powerless to propose one. LI HUNG-CHANG, the ex- perienced and astute official who has so often been depended upon to bell the cat, or, in other words, to bamboozle or bluff the Foreign Ministers, is discredited and de- clining, his prestige a thing of the past, and his vigour fast fading; while his enemies in Peking a fast increasing host are ready to hound him down as the chief author of the disasters suffered by his country. Prince KUNG is not only growing old and decrepit, but he represents the ancient order which the mandarins have no idea of changing. The few officials who bave any real appreciation of the situation are either powerless to avert coming evils or are too absorbed in their own projects or fads to take any active steps to stay the flood of So far from concert- China's misfortunes. ing any measures for the future weal of the empire, they appear bent upon involving her in fresh meshes of trouble. If all reports are to be trusted, the Viceroy of the Liang Kiang has been doing his best to incite the Chinese officials and troops in Formosa to declare the independence of the island, while he has been sending, and promising to send, supplies of munitions of war and pledging the Government to furnish both men and matériel wherewith to carry on a guerilla war with the Japanese.
|June 26, 1895.
the French Government had taken ad- vantage of China's helplessness to extort the concession from her and that the officials should disregard it. Whether, if true, this letter had not a good deal to do in provok- ing the missionary outrages in Szechuen is At Peking cases matter for speculation. of stone-throwing at foreigners are reported, and the province of Hunan is said to be in a very disturbed condition, unsafe for any foreigner to travel in. The same officials who were responsible for the corruption and mismanagement which brought about the collapse of China's defence are still in power, and there appears to be little pros- pect of their taking the sharp lesson taught them by Japan to heart for future guidance.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANÜFAC- 1URING INDUSTRY IN CHINA. The Commissioner of Customs at Shang- hai takes a sanguine view of the growth of manufacturing industry in China. It is anticipated, says Mr. A. E. HIPPISLEY in his annual report, that, peace restored, "China, profiting by Japan's experience, "will develop her national resources by encouraging the general use of steam "machinery. The number of factories "springing up here proves that official en- couragement is unnecessary and to be deprecated. Merchants see the profit gained by Japan from yarn spun from Chinese cotton; they know that filatures "produce silk realising Tls. 200 a picul
The plain and obvious truth is that the more than will that
spun from
the
ruling class in China bave learned nothing same cocoons by the old primi-
from their recent humiliation, and are even "tive method, and that steam curing
seeking how best to turn their very disasters As an in- "would raise the general average of
to their own pecuniary account. "tea to the level of the choicest crops.
dication of this it is worth notice that in "They are anxious to erect factories, and
the streets of Nanking highly coloured knowing they can run them more cheaply
pictures representing the Japanese in a "than officials can, they are willing even to
suppliant attitude at the feet of LI HUNG- "risk competition. If, then, the Govern
CHANG are being hawked for sale. It is "ment leave merchants a free band, factories
an old dodge in China to represent a "will come of themselves, and the profits
defeat as victory, and if the people "will enrich the mercantile classes by
really believe the lie the purpose of the “millions of tuels annually." This is an
mandarins is efficiently served. It is worse encouraging view to take, and the forecast
than useless to expect any desire for im- is, we think, justified by the circumstances.
provement or reform from such hopelessly Not that we have any faith in the Chinese Go.
fatuous persons. The Treaty Powers will vernment 'as initiating or encouraging pro-
be compelled to resort to force if they hope to obtain any satisfaction from Peking for gress. Any forward movement has to be forced on China from without, and that is precisely
the wrongs done to the missionaries, the in- what is about to take place in the present
sults offered to peaceful residents, the never instance. Japan has by treaty secured for
ending obstructions placed in the way of foreigners the right to import machinery
legitimate trade. The old methods, namely, and engage in manufacturing enterprise in
meeting argument by argument, and repeat- China. What is conceded to foreigners
ing ad nauseam the statement of grievance cannot well by denied to Chinese subjects.
and claim, must be at once and for ever If a foreign firm is permitted to erect a
abandoned if Great Britain desires to secure cotton mill, permission to do likewise must
any settlement of the claims of her subjects. necessarily be accorded to any Chinaman
The latest outrages afford to Sir NICHOLAS so desiring. The provincial Viceroys
O'CONOR the very opportunity needed for presenting an ultimatum to the Chinese Go- may wish to preserve the use of foreign machinery as a monopoly for themselves, but On the top of the disorganization which vernment, among the conditions of which, under the new conditions this will be impos- the war has produced other troubles for the as reparation for the wrongs inflicted on sible, so far as the open ports are concerned Peking Government have been prepared by British missions, should be the opening of where foreigners are now entitled to compete greedy and self-seeking mandarins. In the Yochow, at the mouth of the Tungting Lake, with them. Already permission has been great province of Szechuen a plot has been of Changsha, and of Siangtan on the Siang obtained by native capitalists to establish hatched and successfully carried out to efface river as treaty ports, both in order to promote several cotton mills at Canton, and the the Christian Missions there, and the English, an increase of trade and to bring down the official establishments at Shanghai and in French, Canadian, and American mission pride and insolence of the Hunanese. Also the neighbourhood of Hankow will no doubt stations at Chengtu, Kiating Yochow, the opening of Chengtu, in Szecbuen, and * have to meet the competition of private Pingshan, Pauming-fu, and Sinking have of Wuchow and Sbacking on the West River establishments ere long. We are at the been wrecked, while those in Suifu, Luchow, as Treaty ports, with the right for foreign commencement of an industrial revolution and Chungking are or were in jeopardy.steamers to navigate the Siang, Upper Yang- in China, and soon the busy hum of steam Many of the missionaries are missing, but so tsze, and West Rivers, This would be at machinery will be heard in all the great trad- far, though some are reported to have been ill once a benefit to British and Chinese trade ing centres. And the use of steam in manu- used and imprisoned, no lives are known to and would at the same time be a lesson to the facturing enterprises will inevitably break have been sacrificed. The outrages seem to mandarinate to cease the pastime of mis- down in course of time the opposition to the have been planned and carried but by the sionary baiting. If, on the other hand, the so carefully occasion is allowed to slip by as usual with adoption of railways and to the admission officials, and the design was of steam navigation to the great waterways concealed that up to the day on which they wholesale concession to mandarin pride and of the country. The British merchant and were perpetrated the missionaries were obstinacy, allowing the officials to purchase manufacturer, who have for more than half living in unsuspecting confidence, and never immunity from the consequences of their a century been clamouring for the open- dreamed of the conspiracy that was hatching acts by a mere monetary indemnity, they ing up of China, cannot shrink from against them. Those missions not destroyed will be encouraged to persevere in the same the results of the partial opening up were promptly abandoned, and the mission-course until some Government, less indolent of the country that seems to be now aries fled down the Yangtsze to safer quar- than Great Britain, takes in hand the educa- about to take place. Competition with ters. Even at Hankow and Kiukiang, how- tion of China, and as a beginning annexes a British industries there will undoubtedly be ever, a strong anti-foreign feeling prevails, province or two by way of compensation for and in some directions the competition may and at Yuling, near the latter place, a riot the trouble. succeed to the extent of rendering unprofitable occurred recently and no steps] have been the importation of British goods, but what taken to punish the rioters or the instigators ever falling off in the import trade there of the demonstration. The other day, too,
made on
some Roman may be in one direction will be much an attack was
inissionaries at Thichowi in more than made up for by the increase | Catholic
which has not yet been in others, provided those interested adapt Anhwei,
for. It is reported that the themselves to the new conditions, which atoned
concession to French mission British merchants are not usually slow to do. recent We have seen how the foreign trade of Japan aries with regard to the purchase of has grown pari paesu with her industrial de land in the interior has been gullified by a secret letter from the Tsung-1 Yamen to velopment, and the me saresult may con- fidently be anticipated with regard to China. the provincial authorities, declaring that
"
"the
BIMETALLISM AND THE RATIO. According to Secretary CARLISLE, wave of silver sentiment has reached formidable proportions, but has about spent itself and is already on the decline.' Bimetallists, on the other hand, think the wave is still gathering force and will con. tinue to do so until it finally breaks down the wall of gold monopoly and spends itself in a flood of commercial prosperity. But
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