THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND Con dant, and the enthusiasm with which for the sale of shares shall be void unless he has entered on the duties of the office the shares sold are identified by their num- ought to prove infectious and not only tend to bera in the register of the Company, or, well the ranks of the Corps by bringing in where there is no register, by the names recruits, but also to encourage the members in which the shares stand, the intention to aim at the highest standard of efficiency. being to prevent sales for forward delivery by THE_news from Bombay is melancholy persons who at the time of the making of the reading. Half the population is reported contracts do not possess the shares purporting to have fled, mills are standing idle, and a to be sold: It has been found possible, with general panic prevails. What all this means in certain limits, to circumvent the Act, those who passed through the plague year of fulfilling its letter but violating its spirit, by 1894 in Hongkong will be able to realise. borrowing numbers, and a considerable time When the disease was first discovered at business has consequently sprung up within Bombay the outbreak appeared to be of a the last year or two; but this business, very mild character and so continued for though considerable in itself, is as nothing some time, and we cannot but think that compared to what it would have been had the authorities are to a large extent respon- no legal restrictions whatever existed, for it sible, by hesitating to take effective measures is not everyone that can make arrangements to deal with it while it was in a manageable for borrowing numbers and selling identified stage, for its having attained the head it has. shares of which he is not the owner, The case of Bombay ought to prove a warning nor can the traffickers whose names command to all other places where the disease may make the greatest confidence borrow numbers to its appearance, and ought to induce them to an unlimited extent. The Act, therefore, deal with it in a drastic manner from the notwithstanding the loopholes in it, ex- very beginning. As recently as the 12th De-ercises a potent influence in preventing the cember we find the Times of India writing as manipulation of the market in the interests follows:-"To assert the necessity for an of speculators and it is to it that the colony "immediate recourse to segregation—at all is indebted for the fact that it is at present
events as a preliminary measure--would | sailing in untroubled financial waters. seem very much like preaching to the con- "verted.
The Municipal Executive are in principle with us, for weeks ago they formally notified their intention to at once "have recourse to measures for the segrega- tion of sufferers from plague. When they " withdrew the notification, or so far modified "it that it ceased to have any practical "efficacy, they did so, not through any "doubt, we must suppose, of the value of "that method, but because of the clamour of an ignorant though highly sensitive caste opinion." The results of this criminal weakness are now unfortunately apparent.
CC
"
THE SHARE MARKET AND KESWICK'S ACT.
THE PAHANG MINING REGULA
to suffer
TIONS.
At the recent meeting of the Punjom Mining Company the Chairman referred to the mining regulations of Pahang ás impos- ing a number of onerous and arbitrary conditions which are not calculated to encourage European mining enterprise, and he expressed a fear that in consequence of these regulations the Company was likely a large curtailment of the original Punjom concession. This fear we hope niny prove unfounded or at least exaggerated. It is important to the State of Pahang that its mineral wealth should be judiciously Some anxiety seems to have existed in developed, and there can be no wish on the financial circles with regard to the De- part of the Government to discourage bona cember settlement in the local share market. fide European enterprise in that direction. Happily the anxiety has not been justified When the State came under British pro- by the result, the settlement having passed tection measures were naturally taken to off satisfactorily and a firmer tone now prevent the mineral lands passing into the prevailing in the market. That the "boom" hands of companies that had no fixed inten- which characterised the share market during tion of working them but simply wished to portion of the past year did not culminate obtain concessions as a speculation, thinking in a crash may, we think, be ascribed to there might be a possible chance of selling Keswick's Share Act, and the colony has them at a profit! A good deal of land was reason to thank the originator of that law. already in the hands of companies of this The conditions in 1896 were favourable to description, under propecting concessions, the production of a crisis had the market and the terms been entirely at the mercy of speculators. sions expired the Government has declined In the earlier part of the year to renew them, and rightly so, when not a money was plentiful and cheap, business penny had been spent on development. But WBS brisk, and almost all sound the Government, we take it, will assume a stocks showed a substantial rise in different attitude to those Companies, like value. Entire confidence prevailed and it Punjom and Raub, that have honestly and was considered safe to buy almost anything. intelligently opened up mines on their con- Under these circumstances there would cessions and sunk a substantial amount of inevitably have been a large amount of capital in the work. Companies of this kind gambling on time had there been no restric- ought to be dealt with in a very liberal tions on that form of speculation, and with spirit by the Government when their pro- the stringency in the money market that specting concessions fall in. It is, of course, made itself felt in the latter part of the year not to be expected that they should be speculators without means who had been allowed to retain indefinitely large tracts of buying for the rise would have found then country without working it and it is only selves unable to complete their bargains, with a very small portion of its concession that the result that shares would have been the Punjom Company has as yet been able thrown on the market in large numbers, to deal with-but it would be only fair that, values would have been depressed, and bona having made good use of part of their con- fide investors would have suffered a serious cessions, they should be allowed an exten- tion of their property. Keswick's sion of time with respect to the remainder Share
has now been in operation for over should they so desire. A liberal read and there has been time to testing of the mining regulations should be
The Act provides that contracts adopted in cases of that kind.
five
its value:
39
of these
conces-
JANUARY
PROPOSED TAED COINAGE,
A statement recently appe N. C. Daily News to the
SUAN HUAT Director Gen Western Railway
the
NG
Great
pertal nk to
ere
authorisation for his New Imperi coin one-tael pieces. The news be regretted. The dollar is the coin of the Far East and it wo advantage to China if she adopted standard. Hitherto the tael has simply a certain weight of silver have been no coins of that denomin value. Both the Canton and Wuchang mints have adopted a dollar coinage, dollars and subsidiary coins representing fractional parts of dollars, and it naturally assumed that gradual currency would make its the empire. The introduction dollars," as they are called, would that uniformity and introduce... confusion which it might tax statesmen severely to set right. If t tael is preferred to the dollar then the coinage of the latter and of its fractional tokens at the existing mints should be dis- continued and the tael be adopted as the standard, so that all the mints might work on a common basis; but seeing the greater convenience of the dollar it is to be hoped that SHENG may be advised to abandon his proposed tael coinage and adopt the more familiar coin.
THE CAREW CASE.
ARREST OF MISS JACOBS.
[SPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE “DAILY PRESS.")
Shanghai, 12th January, 8.47 a.m. Mr. Lowder has charged Miss Jacobs with the murder of Mr. Carew and with writing the Annie Luke letters.
of the accused.
Mr. Scidmore is watching the case on behalf
The arrest aroused sympathy.
Miss Jacobs was remanded until to-day. The trial of Mrs. Carew has been adjourned until to-morrow.
[Miss Jacobs was a nurse in the service of Mr. and Mrs. Carew.]
DEATH
OF
THE EMPRESS-DOW- AGER OF JAPAN:
We much regret to announce the death of the Empress-Dowager. of Japan. The sad in telligence was conveyed in the following tele- gram from the Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Japanese Consul:-
"I greatly regret to announce the death of Her Majesty the Empress-Dowager, took place at 6 pm, on the 11th inst., from inflammation of the lungs.”.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE COURT OFFICIALS.
AN INTERESTING CEREMONY. On the 4th January Sir John Worrell Orrington, the Chief Justice, was wai by Mr. Kyshe, Registrar, the Deputy gistrars, clerks, the Supreme Court upon the honour recent by Her Majesty the took place in his
and
rdshi
Court, and Mr. Kysho acte the deputation.
In addressing My Lord, on behalf of myself. to congratulate knighthood just
honour very muol
hich few rec fact that it an early
you upon, the
nferred up
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