December 30, 1899.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
SHANGHAI VOLUNTEERS FOR THE has been well chosen. The ground of the
TRANSVAAL.
new Settlement is elevated and airy, while the surroundings are pleasing. The water off the The N. C. Daily News of the 21st December frontage is deep, and deep draught steamers can says:-Lists are being sent round the settle- reach it all the year round, while the river boats ment for volunteers for active service at the bound to and from Ichang can take it on en route Cape. Over a hundred signatures have already without going out of their way. On the other been given. The conditions are that the men hand, it is a place of absolutely no trade, and be either of the looal volunteer brigade or have where any is to come from is hard so see. To served in the home volunteer corps. A cable call it a port in Hunan is little better than a will be sent to the Home Authorities on Friday a fiction. Commercially, no place on the wrong informing them of spoh. Another interesting side of Tungting Lake will bear that descrip- item is that the Sikh police in the Settlement tion. It might just as well have been at King have petitioned, to a man, their Deputy Super-ho'kon, which is already a calling-place for intendent, Capt. Mackenzie, to take them to steamers, and is in Hupeh on the other side of the Cape.
the river, exactly opposite.
In a subsequent issue of the same paper the following letter appeared :-
Sir,-With reference to the lists which are being sent round the settlement for volunteers for active service at the Cape, it struck me, judging from the one I saw, that they were either a hoax, in which case exceedingly bad taste had been exhibited, or that they had been too hastily drawn up and did not bear the stamp of any very responsible person or persons. And a wire to the British authorities in England would not get any attention paid to it.
If anything is to be done at all to raise Volunteers, it should be done through the proper mediam, viz., the British Consul-General, who if properly approached on the subject, would without doubt call a meeting of British residents and shape some feasible scheme which would inclade Britishers in the outports who are equally patriotic.
This may not please those who issued the above lists. No doubt they belive in "striking while the iron is hot," but in so grave an under taking it is not the iron which is manageable when hot only that is most required. Those who go will not find laurel-strewn paths to medals and honours, but monotonous "sentry go," in garrison or hard drudgery in camp, perhaps without ever firing a shot. Then the signatories have in many cases entered there names on the spur of the moment without giv- ing a thonght to their engagements to employers or the thousand and one pro's and con's con- nected with so serious a step in their careers. I suppose the thoughts of field equipment, horses, and medical fitness have not troubled them for one moment. I feel assured support- ing such lists will only bring discredit on a lot of most worthy and patriotic young fellows.
The Regular is unquestionably the man to send. And how are we to send him? Why, by relieving a portion of the Hongkong and Singa- pore regulars of their garrison duties, by putting volunteers into their places until they return. Let Hongkong have 600 volunteers to release say 500 regulars, and Singapore the same-the former to be raised in Hongkong, China and Japan, and the latter (Singapore) in the Straits, Java and the Philippines. I am certain Shang- hai and its outports would soon raise 200 men, and a relay of 100 could be raised in three months' time to relieve those who have to return for the Hankow and Northern Ports' season. Those who do not volunteer would do the ab. sentees' work for them. And men of means whose age and responsibilities preoluded their joining might pay for substitutes. Trusting my scheine is not too chimerical—I um, etc.,
YOCHOU.
A. PABIOT.
6th December.
For upwards of thirty years an urgent de- mand has been made on the Chinese authorities to open the splendid province of Hunan to foreign commerce. It has been considered simply scandalous that such an immense region, so easily accessible, inhabited by twenty-four millions of an industrous and vigorous popul- ation, and with immense natural resources of every kind, should be shut, to foreign enterprise. At last the voice of reason has prevailed. The mandarins have given way and set apart Chenglinki as a place of foreign residence, so that Hunan may be opened. The place in question is a little town on the right bank of the river, five miles below the city of Yochon, and opposite the point where the waters from the Tangling Lake join the Yangtze. In some respects the location
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However, for the past six months, several of- floors of the I. M. Customs have been busy at Chenglinki planning and laying out a foreign Settlement; and, as duly advertised in the news- papers, the lots were put up for public anction at the Land Office, Yoohou, (alias Chenylinki) in the presence of the Taotai and Mr. Morse, Commissioner of Customs, and Monday last. The crowd of purchasers was not large. At the appointed hour on Monday last, there put in an appearance two Japanese and one Russian gentlemen, an English Missionary-who, how ever, did not bid-and several natives connected with the steamer companies. The land to be disposed of was extensive, and might easily have been twice as larg without incommoding anybody. But all the same the lots were microscopic. The Chinese in their wisdom had out the ground up into several hundred pieces, most of them the size of one quarter of a mow or say 40 feet by 45 feet. From ancient times the celestial plan has been to pig together, the closer the better, why a foreigner should require so much room the Chinese have never been able to understand. and they were to have no such nonsense at Chonglioki! If the lots were small the prices were big.
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Indeed, it transpired when the auction came on, that no money could buy them out and out. They were only to be leased for a period of 30 years at an annual ground rent of $100 per mow for the best, 80 per mow for the second best, and $50 per mow for the poorer positions. The auction was simply to settle how much in addition to these sums the public would be willing to pay for a choice of sites. There was by no means a cut-throat competition. Each purchaser got what he wanted at about the upset price, and allowed his neighbour to do the same. Still it was dear land. One gentleman wanted a piece of about four mow, and in order to get it had to buy no less than seventeen separate lots, although the whole piece hardly amounted to the area of an ordinary Concession lot in the older Settlements. For this ground he pays the sum of $12,000 in thirty annual instal- ments, at the end of which time he is to have the privilege of doing it all over again for an- other thirty years if he likes. or clear out. Further. if he fails in his payments any single year, the land immediately reverts to the Chin- ese Government with all that is thereon. It need hardly be said the lots were not all sold. There are plenty left, and anyone may bave them-native or foreigner-by paying double ground rent for the first year. In addition to the $100 a mow of rent, there is t e further sum of $3 a year to be paid for taxes to the Commissioner of Customs who, along with the Taotal, is to run the Settlement. The Chinese make the roads and undertake policing and lighting. Residents are not to be bothered with Municipal Conne is or public affairs of any kind
A benevolent and paternal Customs will see that everything necessary to be done | for the above mentioned sum of $3, and no öne can call it dear. Still it seems a pity they put it on as it spoils a fine specimen of the beauty of the single tax theory.
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fereigners in the place in honour of the occa- sion and treated them in the kindest fashion
What the future of the port will be is hard to predict. The Customs hope to bring a little trade to the place by requiring passing steamers to stop at it, a step they have as yet shown no anxiety to take. They are also to put a stop to the passenger launches which run now almost daily between Hankow and ports beyond the Tungting. These in future are to be compelled to make Chenglinki their starting point. Whe ther it will pay them to do so remains to be seen, but meanwhile the poor passengers won't bless the business. They are nearly all from Hankow, and instead of frequent through com- munication they will have to fall back on the river boats which run at most uncertain inter- vals-generally two or three in a bunch and no more for a week-for passage to Chengliuki, and there wait the departare of an equally uncertain launch. Under these circumstances the native boats will likely regain the passenger trade.
The whole business is very pussling. It is hard to make out what lies in this opening of Hinnan. Do we have a magnificent practical joke on the part of the mandarins; or is it that what they have done is due to their childlike simplicity and that they mean well? However, two things seem clear enough: first, that if a port is really opened in Hunan beyond he Tangting, Chengliuki will soon sink back into its orignal insignificance; and second, that no such port will be opened if the provincial high authorities can prevent it. They have no wish to see their revennes diverted into the coffers of Sir Robert Hart's Institution, for the benefit of Peking, the foreign bondholders, or anyone else-ard who can blame them P-N. C. Daily News correspondent.
SANDAKAN NOIES,
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
Sandakan, 18th December. The US. gunboat Albyn has arrived here to-day, 18th. from Zamboanga. It is expected that the U.8. authorities will follow up the opening of Zamboanga to`general trade by the opening of the port of Cota Batu very shortly.
Mr. De Nije, a rubber planter on the Labuk River, has discovered a rubber tree which he believes has been entirely unknown to botauists hitherto, and which is, moreover, indigenous to this country. Its colour is whitish, but the rubber darkens on exposure to the atmosphere, ultimately going perfectly slack. Its quality is very good, and the Chinese here are willing to pay $100 per pical for as much of it as they can get. Samples have been sent to Singapore. and Colombo Botanical Gardens for classifica- tion, and it is hoped the discovery will prove a valuable one.
No further news is to hand regarding the Mat Salleh outbreak, but it is understood H.M.S. Rattler will remain in this vicinity until the matter is settled. peacefully or otherwise.
Our new Governor, Mr. Hugh Clifford, is due here in about three weeks' time.
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[FROM ANOTHER CORRESPONDENT.]
Sandakan, 19th December. Mat Salleh is on the warpath again with a large number of followers armed with Sniders. A force of armed police has been sent against him, and it is determined this time that there is to be no "peace at any price" business. The rising has taken place somewhere near Gantian, but very little information leaks out about what is transpiring at the "seat of war."
HONGKONG.
The appointment Dr. Hartigan and Mr. J. Mokie to be members of the Sanitary Board is gasetted.
The appointment of Mr. H. E. Wilmer to be That the Chinese authorities mean to spare an Inspector of Nuisances is gasotted. no expense in putting the place in order, they There were 1,736 visitors to the City Hall have already shown by building a substantial | Museum last week, of whom 199 were Euro- wall and gateway-of the usual city-wall pat-peans. tern-between the foreign Settlement that is to be, and the native town. Its defensive side, of course, is towards the town for fear the rude barbarians might some day get mad and come and say nasty things about the ancestors of the poor natives. This new wail and the 300 yards of native town were beautifully illuminated for three nights at the expense of the Taotai, who further gave a 1a aguificent banquet to all the
The first of the season's daures la conqection with the Institution of Engineers and Ship- builders of Hongkong took place in the City Hall on 22nd inst. and was a great success, The Band of the Hongkong Regiment played "for dancing.
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