454
Coast Trade Duty Opium Duty
Tonnage Dues
Transit Dues
Opium Likin
...**
Total...3,843,200 3,935,704
BORNEO NOTES.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
constructed
| June 4, 1808.
THE SHANGHAI-NANKING KAILWAY.
·
129,945 131,289 | jurisdiction became exceedingly polite to and | lead to the establishment of order and, what is 512,939 497,651 intimate with the aggrieved German Minister. believed to be their intention, the working of 1 4217 102,054 When the Kiaochao seizure occurred and the minerals on a large scale.-N. G. Daily 160,478 188,216 further German demands for exclusive railway News. 945,212 933,237 | privileges were peremptorily put forward by the Baron on behalf of his Goverement, the Viceroy, with the idea presumably of defeating the Germans becoming all powerful in any one province, and to divide their power as it were,
Mr. G. James Morrison is to make the pre- wired frequently to Baron von Heyking urg. liminary survey of the Shanghai-Soochow ing him not to press too much the railway Chinkiang and Nanking Railway, on behalf of Sandakan, 25th May.
question in Shantung, promising in return the Concessionaries, Messrs. Jardine, Matheson” Notwithstanding Mat Salleh's professed loy- for whatever he would have to forego in & Co. and the Hongkong and Shanghai, Bank. alty to the B. N. B. Government it is reported that province, to give Germany a share in
We understand that the work will commence that he has threatenedto repudiate his recent
any railways that might be
at once. Mr. Morrison came out to China agreement unless he is permitted to govern the in the Yangtsze Valley. Of course, Chang had originally for railway work and it is a good les- districts of Sugut and Lubuck. Öra of the
no power to assign away any contingent rail- son in the virtue of patience that he should at. conditions of his pardon was that he was not to
way contracts in the whole Yangtze Valley, last be the one to make the survey in connec reside anywhere near the two places mentioned.
and at most he could only deal with his own tion with the first large practicable scheme that It is said that he has now collected a large two provinces of Hunan and Hupeh, but people has been evolved in Central China. Mr. Morri number of followers in the vicinity of the in difficulties are inclined to promise things a son was the engineer of the first railway in Inanam River. Although he has not yet given long way in excess of their power of per. China, the old Woosung-line, which the Chinese any sign of renewed hostility to the Govern-formance, not realising that a day may come tore up. We understand that the railway will mént his defection would not be a surprise to
when they will be called to make good their be constructed and worked under a board of many persons after the pusillanimous conduct
words. So it has turned out with Chang Chih. Directors, consisting of three foreigners and of the Government all through the Mat Salleh tung. Times and the situation in China bare two Chinese, one of the latter being Sheng
changed vastly since last November, and China Taotai.-China Gazette. has made certain promises to Great Britain about the Yangtsze Valley which would under | REPORTED GERMAN CONCESSIO N all circumstances destroy whatever slight valne there might have been in Chang Chib-tung's promises to the German Minister. But in diplomacy any weapon is often good enough, and it was with this poor promise of Chang Chih-tung's that the Germans thought to wage war upon the British railway contract which has just been signed. They could never surely have seriously thought that such an argument would hold water, except that the Chinese have lately been shown to have so little "grit" or sense left that any paper bogie or tinpot terror from the West is enough to scare them out of their wits. It may be good enough for them, but it won't suffice for the very quiet and deter mined people who have got the contract, and Von Høyking will undoubtedly have to end by putting his bogie back in the box.
business.
Mr. Cowie, Managing Director of the B. N B. Co., who was sent out by the Board with a great flourish of trumpets to put matters straight has suddenly returned to Europe. What has caused him to take this step at this inopportune time has not transpired. His relations with the officilas has not been of the most cordial nature.
Two officers of position and experi- ence have had to resigne the service owing, it is said, to their having expressed in very strong terms their opinion touching the peace-at-any- price policy which Mr. Cowie desires to pursue in regard to Mat Salleh, a renegade who has defied the Government, raided towns, and caused great loss of life, and who even went so far ae to issue all sorts of threats against the Governor.
The Queen's birthday was observed with all Que honours fitting the occasion. The Constabu lary force, aobut 60 men, paraded and fired a royal salute under the able command of Captain Reddie, the Commandant. In the evening there was an enjoyable dance given at Govern- ment house, most of the residents in Sandakan
having been invited to celebrate Her Majesty's
79th year.
Early this morning H.E. the Governor pro- ceeded to Labuan in the Government steam launch Petrel, important business having called
him in that direction.
WOOSUNG.
The area of the new treaty port at Woosung Has been settled-so native official report has it. It is to have a length of four miles along the river bank and a depth of one mile inland, and the site of the present Woosung forts is to be includ- od in the new settlements for foreign occupation. It is further reported from the same sources that an expectant Taotai named Lu has been ap- pointed by Viceroy Liu to act as Commissioner of Public Works, with an Englishman, a civil engineer of experience, as Assistant Commis- sioner. Two more foreigners are to be engaged; one as a surveyor, and the other as superintendent of a proposed disciplined police force. The Naval Headquarters of the Nanyang squadron, situated inside the forts, are to be the temporary quar ters of the new Woosung Bureau of Works.--- NC. Daily News,
THE FRENCH IN SZECHUEN,
French appear to be going ahead in Szechuen. A correspondent from Icbang writes:-The On our way down through the Gorges last week we met a flotilla of large junks flying the tricolour and carrying the Count de Vaulserre and Mr. Borin with an escort of twenty-five Annamite soldiers. We were saluted in passing by a reveillé played by the Annamites, which echoed finely from the mighty cliffs of the Tongking and apparently on the way to claim Great River. Mr. Bovin is the Resident of
of the miserable Chinese Government; the his hinterland amidst the impending break-up Yangtze valley, as far as Britain's sphere of influence is concerned, if admitted at all, not being admitted to extend above Ichang. The Count de Vaulserre is a well-known character
in high Parisian circles as well as a traveller of
some distinction. This invasion of Szechuen will probably be accepted meekly enough by the Viceroy who has no armed force worthy the name, and, so far, has not dared to arrest the well-known leaders or the late riots in Kiang- peh. We were told that the objectif of the expedition is the independent Lolo country, the wild mountainous district that fills the great bond in the Yangtze River, west of Suifu (Sochou in Bretschneider's map)-nous verrons ! So far our Iohang correspondent: a native | correspondent informs ឆន on the
other hand that Youyangchou is the destination of the French expedition, and that their object is to avenge the murder of two priests which took place at a riot there in 1868. Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with, and an unavenged outrage of thirty years back may be a useful handle if, as seems likely, the French desire to follow up the precedent afforded them by the Germans in Shantung.
Youyangehou is a wild mining district situated
THE BRITISH RAILWAY CONCKS SIONS AND GERMAN CLAIMS.
Referring to the reported opposition to the railway concessions acquired by Messrs. Jar- dine, Matheson & Co., the China Gazette says:- Our readers will remember that just prior to that most opportune murder of the two Ger- man' Missionaries in Shantung, Baron von Hey. king, the German Minister to China, paid a visit to the Yangtsze region, devoting special attention to Wachang, where Chang Chibat a spot where the boundaries of the three tung wields viceregal sway. It will also be remembered that some of Baron von Heyking's party were rather rudely treated by the unruly Hupeh people there, which in the end worked to the German Minister's advantage, as the Vice- roy Chang, in view of the unpleasantness in his
provinces, Szechuan, Hunau, and Kueichou meet: its rough population have always been a source of trouble to the weak native officials and the mines have more than once been closed in consequence. It now remains to be seen whether the presence of a French force will
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AT CEFOO.
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It is reported that the friction which has existed between the German Consul at Chefoo, Dr. Lenz, and the general foreign community at that port is now more or less explained by the alleged fact that the Dr. has scored his point by prevailing upon his Government to obtain from the Chinese a separate settlement for the Germans at Chefoo. It is said that this con- sent bas now been obtained and that the new Concession will be more extensive than the pre- sent so-called foreign settlement at that port. It will be remembered that in the recent efforts which the foreign community at that place have been making to obtain an extension of their settlement, have been covertly and indeed rather openly opposed by the Ger. man Consul, though several of the German residents supported the general movement in favour of extension. The raison d'etre for this opposition on his part is now quite comic incident in this connection, owing to a apparent. Recently there has been a rather policeman belonging to the General Purposes Committee arresting a Chinaman employed by a German resident for some trivial offence, which led to the Consul and the master of the delinquent making an attack upon the offending policeman, smiting him in the eye with the mud! The incident has caused a plentiful crop 'mailed fist" by deputy and rolling him in-the-
of badinage and olaff, but despite its comic indicate how the land lies and to explain the side the incident is considered to generally German official attitude towards the general foreign settlement at Chefoo.-China Gazette.
44
THE RIOT AT WENCHOW.
Wenchow, 19th May.
A certain official who recently arrived in this port characterised its population as lazy beyond everything. It has redeemed its character-at his expense. He, poor man, is now reconsider- ing his opinion in a yamen which bears signs all too visible of an activity he desired as little as he thought possible! Within three or four hours to-daylour three principal yamens and the official residence have been wrecked, the Tao- tai's, the prefect's, the hsien's, and the opium Taotai's. Never such a wrecking has Wenchow seen unless we except the riot of 1884.
The cause is threefold :--Scarcity of rice, the new Imperial House tax, and fresh arrangements re sale of opium, as discommoding and vexatious (if that be possible) as the recent regulations of the Customs Parcel Post. Any one of these three causes the average Chinese would bear with stolidity, but all three together are enough to muddle any one's head and make him irre- sponsible for his actions.
The first of these three causes is the chief reason of the rising; last year's crop was a poor one following a poorer of the year before. Rice is now up to forty cash a pint as against 20 to 25 in ordinary years; all food-stuffs are up proportion, and the dollar is down by nearly 15 per cent. The people were already demanding
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