January 27, 1900.]
THE DEV¿LOPMENT OF CH NA.
(Daily Press; 23rd January.)
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Customis.
THE PLAGUE,
(Daily Press, 20th January.)
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incentive.
51.
BRITISH RAILWAY UNDERTAK- INGS IN ASIA.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. Government that if they desire British | min. Though a monetary inducement hàe assistance and support in their attempts been offered the Chinese and-traps supplied to raise the wind they must first put their on loan to householders, only one rat within- house in order, and give not empty pro- several days was presented at the office of At a recent dinner given by the Article mises, but tangible evidences of reform. the Sanitary Board. This would tend to Club in London in honour of the Chinese Let them, if they want increased revenue, show that the reward is not sufficient, though Minister, now on a tur of commercial ex- reorganize the administration of the salt undoubtedly a good many of the vermin ploration among the larger industrial centres
tax; levy a duty on native opium; throw | have been exterminated by the use of the of England, au incident accurred which is the carriage of tribute rive open to com- traps supplied without the reward being deserving of more than pissing notice. We petition; engage foreign engineers to control claimed. Though the result is apparently read in the London and China Express that the vagaries of the Yellow River once and disappointing yet it behoves the Sanitary after remarks by Lord CHARLES BERES frall: put the Chinese Telegraph system Board to persevere, and promote energetic- FORD, Lord MORRIS, Mr. Justice KEKEWICH unde the control of the Imperial Post, and ally any means for the prevention of the and other more or less well-known authori-before and above all, sweep away the horde disease that the Medical and Sanitary Off- ties on the Far Eastern question, a short of officials and underlings who fatten on cers approve. Above all the last meeting speech by Mr. BYRON BRENAN" was coldly the likin revenue and place the collection of the Board revealed te fact that the received. The cheers that punctuated the of this tax--if it cannot be dispense with co-operation of the public in sanitary reform' periods of the preceding speaker, Mr. in the hands of the Inspector General of is not always easy to obtain. That is fre George JamieSON, were wanting, and no
quently an impediment but it may be over. applause greeted his fforts. He was Then when an earne t attempt has been come by a vigorous board, and such the new warned that his time was up." Now Mr.made to suppress piracy in the South and body has already developed symtoms of be BYRON BRENAN is a man who is known to
put down rebellion in the North, and when coming. The dr ad of the effects of a future most people in China for his wide knowledge the murder of a British missionary calls possible visitation of the plague or dny of Chinese affairs, and more especially for forth much more than an Imperial ex- epidemic that an eastern population is 80 his mature experience of the somewhat tor pression of astonishment and regret, then, liable to-should have the effect of de- tuous methods of Chinese officialdom in its and then ouly, should we agree to an in- manding the energetic cooperation of the dealings with trade, in particular British creased tax on foreign trade. Then the community even if public spirit be uo trade. Why then were the remarks of a development of China, so eloquently de- expert, we may almost call him, on the sub picted to the members of the Article Club, ject under debate, The Development of will really have begun. British trade with China," coldly received? A glance through Mr. JAMIESON's speech may perhaps supply the reason. Mr JAMIE- SON spoke eloquently of the thousands of
(Daily Press, 25th January,) miles of railway we were allowed to build; In spite of the most carefil labour on the What used to be said of the sen, that it of the concession we had obtained to work part of the Japanese doctors for the preven bound the lands together, is now more es "one of the largest coal au d iron fields in the tion of the introduction of plague into pecially true of railways. Such indeed has world," of the develop sent of commercial Japan; their systematic visitation of ships been the effect of railways within an ordin- relations likely to acerne from the appoints and per qual inspection of passengers, 80 ary lifetime that they may be said to have ment of Li HuxG-CHANG as Minister of long continued with effect, ret having got completely metamorphosised the politicalį Commerce. The audience received the a foothold the plague in Japan is increasing social and commercial life of the world, and portions of his speech above quoted "with The Japanese medical men are bravely and the position of the country may now be said applause." And how did Mr. BRENAN come self-sacrificingly grappling with the dread to be estimated above all things else by the to strike the culy di cordant note in this disease, and already two have lost their lives length and condition of its railways. First harmonious chorus of selt ongratulation? in endeavouring to save its victims. When commenced ns short liuks connecting neigh He took exception in the first place to the the mail left Japan there had been reported bouring centres of population, as Stockton title of the debate," the Development of fifty-nine cases of plague of which only aud Darlington, the pioneer of railway en- British Trade in China.' That required eleven had survived. Thirty-nine of these terprise, the detached fragments got gradu- no developmeal. It only needed non- belonged to Osaka. The authorities of this ally linked up, till at last they came to interference; it only required to be given a town had taken the matter energetically in connect kingdoms and finally continents. fair chance. "If the Chinese Government hand and had decided to employ three America led in the latter contest.
greatly desired to increase the revenue of hundred doctors and enforce strict preventi- discovery of gold in California may be said “trade, there was a simple way to do it.tive measures. The form the pest has taken to have been the actuating cause which led in Japan is not that which attacks people to the construction of a line uniting the through abrasion of the skin, being thus Atlantic and Pacific across the newer con- comparitively slow in its development, but tinent, and as a sequence we now again find that which attacks the respiratory organs, the nations bent on connecting the two against which the Yersin serum has been great oceans, but this time through the without effect, though it may possess preven- oldest continent of all. Russia has indeed titive properties. The two doctors who suc- all but solved the problem in her gigantic cumbed attended a patient suffering, un- Siberian Railway, but the example has kuwn to them, from this form of plague produced emulation, and we NOW find and they were consequently entirely un- Germany and England her competitors in protected and simply inhaled the disease. the field. In the early forties, when rml- One plan the Japanese doctors have ways were still in their early childhood, the recommended in dealing with the plague is idea presented itself to an English engineer that the infected houses should be promptly of reopening with a line of railway the destroyed, and it is pointed out that it this ancient route of traffic from Antioch to the had been done in Kobe when the first case Persian Gulf through the then wealthy became known the disease would not have valley of the Euphrates. It was a time assumed its present dangerous proportions. when England was consolidating her grent Foreign medical men in Japan predict that if Indian Empire, and Lord PALMERSTON, one the plague in Osaka, one of the most densely of her great prime ministers, was in power populated cities in Japan, is no stamped and cordially supported the scheme. It
it cult, may spread among the "in- was before its time and never assumer a habitants of that" Empire, who as
Times more practical form than surveys. are su liable to contract it, and it will become | changed, and, as we showed the other as great a scourge as it is in India-to-day, day, Germany entered into England's Although all are thankful that the plague plan and finally obtained the concession has apparently run its course in Hongkong, of the
The coutre of British yet the colony is not entirely free from it, influence had in fact shifted from Cou and no effort should be withheld by the stantinople to Cairo, and in the administra authorities that tends to prevent its renp- tiou of Egypt, England had given another pearance. A recent leading medical authority pledge to the world. It was, perhaps, inevit- stated that the rat was the chief propagator able that the fact should have excited jeal of the disease, and our Sanitary Board have ousies ut Constantinople, aud it is quite rightly started a crusade against these ver- possible that the Sultan might have fancied
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"That was to leave trade to work out its own "salvation, and to have an honest judiciary to whom in case of need merchants ould 'appeal with confidence.' These words Sare just and to the point; they have the crowning merit of being true Give us a fair chauce is, we take it, the cry of the British merchant in China to-day; give us equal We opportunity_nud open competition. can look after the rest. It is perhaps more than a coincidence that the ap- pointment of LI HUNG-CHANG as Com- mercial Minister, avowedly with the express object of negotiating an increase in the Tariff, should be simultaneous with the Chinese Minister in London's departure on his commercial tour. Is the latter preparing the way for the former? Can it be that his eloquent pleadings for sympathy with the sincere efforts his Government is now making to “develop commercial relations," to "open up the country," will lend up to a demand for a 10 per cent. duty ad valorem ? Are the Chinese once more to stave off the inevitable by blin ling the eyes of the British public with the golden dust of promise, and lulling them to torgetfulness with the sireu song of earnest endeavour? It looks like it; but we have confidence in our representative at Peking, who has already prove himself on m. re than one critical occasion a wide-awake guardian of British interests in Chin. He will doubtless point out Lu the Chinese
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