December 16, 1897.]
when they return to China. However that may be, we take it that if it can be shown that the case is really a deserving one protec- tion will be accorded sooner or later, as was done in the Shanghai case. It is well, however, that the risk they run by failure to register should be brought forcibly home to Chinese British subjects in China by not according protection too readily when they have neglected to establish their right to it beforehand.
THE CHINA, ASSOCIATION.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
over-
459
Some remarkable figures showing the pro portion between the national income and expenditure of Japan are given in an articlé in the Kobe Chronicle headed "The Road to
wanting. Nevertheless, in speaking of JAPAN'S NATIONAL EXPENDITURE impending political changes and the AND THE BOUNTY SYSTEM. partition of the Empire we
are per- haps all too much inclined to look the vitality and power inherent in the great Chinese race. The Manchus conquered China but were themselves in turn absorbed by the Chinese, and, if we are now on the eve of a partition which will alter the political map, the Chinese race with its strongly marked characteristic will still remain a factor to be reckoned with.
Turning now to the speech of Mr. JAMIE SON, we find that he also recognises the times At the annual dinner of the China Associn- as critical, and he made rather au ingenious tion, held on the 4th November, the speeches
comparison of China to an old junk, which Great Britain would be glad to dock and re- of the evening were made by the Chair- pair, and even fit with boilers and engines man, Mr. W. KESWICK, who proposed and make a modern ship of her; but some of
Prosperity to the China Association,” and
our Continental rivals, he said, had a dock Mr. GEORGE JAMIESON, the Consul at take the job. He expressed his satisfaction or two as well, and would be very willing to Shanghai, who responded for the guests. that a body like the China Association was Mr. KESWICK took a pessimistic, but not in existence to help in the work to be done, too pessimistic, view of the political situa- and said he did not remember a time when tion in China. He referred to the en
there was such entire harmony, accord, and mutual co-operation among the various sec- croachments of Russia and Frauce, and saidtions of our people in the Far East, or, to put that in China there appeared to be an abso- lute absence of anything like statesmanship. He did not believe there was a single man in the Chinese empire who thoroughly un- derstood that unless there be improvement, unless there be reform and progress in ac- cordance with the views of Western Powers, there must be such a decadence in China as will inevitably lead to the dismember- ment of the Empire. The position, he said, filled one with despair, because
56
there could only be one end to it, and .that was, not an immediate, but ព gradual and certain destruction of the Empire. An understanding between Russia and France meant encroachment at both ends, and China was as helpless as a child in its cradle; he did not believe there was that influence innate in China which would ever rescue her from the doom which seemed to overhang her. This was not always the view held by Mr. KESWICK. In a paper he read before the Royal Colonial Institute seven years ago on
'Hongkong and its "trade connections," although he acknow- ledged at that time that probably no country in the world was more fruitful of disappoint ment than China, he said nevertheless that contrasting the China of that date with the China he knew thirty years previously there had been progress, and a marked forward movement, and in one notable respect, which was apart from material improve- ment, and concerned the sentiments of man, he had observed a marked "and singularly noble change"; he meant that, whereas in former times, and dur- ing the war with us, no feeling of na- tional patriotism could be detected; there was now an unquestionable sentiment in that direction, and during the war with the French on the subject of Tonkin it was markedly demonstrative. Having referred to the signs of decay everywhere visible, for which he blamed the system of administra- tion, he said:"Looking simply at these things one would despair of the Chinese empire and fear that regeneration could only come to the nation through foreign conquest; but, turning from the signs of material decay, and regarding the people, "it is impossible not to feel that in them "there is still a great vitality and a power 'sufficient to accomplish their own re- demption." The patriotism to which Mr. KESWICK referred in 1890 proved to be only a flash in the pan; the leaders to galvanise it into permanent activity were
#
24
"
"
"
*
C
"C
Ruin." The rapid rise of Japan to a high position amongst the Powers of the world, the expansion of her naval and military strength, her industrial development, and the growth of her shipping trade under the influence of the bounty system have dazzled foreign observers and led, perhaps, to an exaggerated idea of the extent of the im- mediately available resources of the country. It would seem, however, that the pace has been rather too rapid, and already some of her politicans are calling for a halt in the carrying out of the army and navy expan Japanese people for 1894, the latest year sion schemes. The total income of the for which complete figures are avail- able, did not exceed, we are told, seven hundred and fifty million yen. That income, it will be found by an ex- amination brought down to date, has ex- panded but little during the last three years, while the expenditure of the country has more than trebled. The Budget for 1894-95 was 78,128,643 yen; in 1895-96 it advanced to 85,241,433; in 1896-97 it in- creased to 193,425,717 yen; and-in 1897-98 it reached the enormous
total of yen 240,504,925. Thus while in 1894-95 "the administrative or governmental expenditure of the country was about 10 per cent. of the total income from all sources, for the figan- cial year of 1897-98 it is about 33 per cent. Assuming that upon the completion of the expansion of the army and navy the expenditure is reduced to one hundred and fifty millions annually-which our contem- porary fears is very improbable-it would still mean that the taxation necessary to be raised would form a charge of twenty per cent. upon the country's annual income from all sources. were
This refers to Imperial taxation only and takes no account of the local taxes. The taxation of Great Britain and Ireland is only ten per cent. of the national income, and in France, which is reputed to be the most heavily taxed country in Europe, it is only fifteen per cent. It is pointed out, also, that the percentage of her total revenue which Japan is now devoting to military and naval purposes exceeds that of any other nation in the world. The United States spends on her army and navy 17 per cent, of her revenue from taxation, Russia spends 21 per cent., France 27 per cent., Great Britain 39 per cent., Germany 43 per cent.; while Japan is now spending 55 per cent.
"There
no
it plainly, between the mercantile and official elements, as at present. Time was, he said, "and not so long ago, when there used to be a
sort of perpetual and chronic antagonism | between the Legation and the mercantile classes. Minister came and Minister went, and still this unhappy friction went on, until one came to regard it as something "in the nature of things that must be so. Indeed, he hardly remembered a time "when it was not the usual thing for one or "other of the local prints, and sometimes them all, to serve up some slashing article "in which the British Minister was taken to task" This sort of thing Mr. JAMIESON deprecated as doing no good and a great deal of harm; criticisn abuse Mr. JAMIE- SON called it was all right enough in party politics, but in China they knew party and the opposition there not of their own household. Indis- criminate undervaluing and belittling of their own Minister, he said, was playing into the hands of the opposition, for they could easily understand that when some delicate negotiation was pending and the Yamen was hesitating between Great Britain and some one of their Continental rivals, some such inopportune article might just give the opportunity and enable their kind friends to say, "See what his own countrymen say of the British Minister; you need not mind him Indiscriminate under- valuing and belit ing are certainly to be deprecated, but re venture to think- without setting up any vainglorious claim for the influence of the it would be an unfortunate day for British trade and influenes in China if legitimate criticism of the Legation and its policy were forbidden. The last thirty years in China have been, so far as Great Britain is concerned, thirty years of diplomatic failure and want of support to commercial enterprise. Had the mercantile community remained consist- ently silent under heir grievances the record might have gone on for another thirty years, but the Press afforded a ready means for making complaints heard and at length the necessity of adopting a more vigorous policy, and of going out of the beaten track to find a suitable man to carry out that policy, made itself recognised. Articles in the Press may or asionally do harm in the direction indicated by Mr. JAMIESON, but it is better to take that risk than to set up the enervating theo of the infallibility of officialdom.
"
Press-that
"
can be but one result of such a policy if "persisted in," concludes the Chronicle, and that is national bankruptcy. Even Japanese politicians are at last beginning "to recognise facts which should have been patent from the first, aud members of the Diet are clamouring for a contraction of the very programme which they passed with a light heart and almost without de- bate when it was first laid before them. "How Japan will find her way out of the quagmire into which the forward party has "led her it is impossible to predict."
1 E
In the present position of affairs, with the possibility of being shortly · en- gaged in A life and death struggle with her powerful neighbour Russia, it can hardly be supposed that Japan will hesitate to make great sacrifices to rende her army and navy effective: In a country suddenly emerging from comparative obscurity to a high position as a naval and
CM
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.