June 8, 1901.)
no notion of paying the price that the Chinese owners asked for these lads, and the owners found so little chance of holding ont on appeal, that they took what they could get and many of them have gone away and transferred their money with them. On the mainland to which they have removed, they are not giving the Japanese a reputation for fair dealing.
THE CAM! HOE QUESTION.
The foreign houses that controlled the camphor output in other years established distilling-plants at convenient points, which represented to them a charge on capital account amounting to about £50,000. While not tanding to have a redressable grievance, n the government took over the camphor stry, which would entitle them to anything the loss of the goodwill which had been a The valuable asset to them in that business, the phants felt that they had vested rights in planta which were tangible and obvious and ht not to be ignored. Recognition has yet come, altough the government is King 150 per cent. profit on camphor which foreign houses formerly enjoyed.
A SMART TRICK.
In view of the government's good fortune, some adverse coment is heard on the way it operated its contract. All the camphor is nledged to a London banking house at a price Tch insures the government a profit of 54 more than £5, per picul on an annual ut of 40,000 piouls. The Londoner might Fe supposed he had a monopoly of the camphor rket, since s ren-eighths of the world's duction com from Formosa, had he not since learned that beneath his ground-floor there is a basem t for a by-product known as aphor oil, not pecified in the contract, from ich a Japane o company headed by Baron 87shi is said to extract from 6,000,000 to
00,000 picul f camphor every year.
(PUM AND TEA.
|
Opium was farmed out under the old govern- nt, so that conditions are not sentially ferent from wi at they were. Its importation restricted to northern ports, as are the sports of cam, hor, and an effort is made control its use by license. About 140,000 rsons have paid fees to the government for the privilege of smoking it, being 5.29 per cent. of the population. Tea exports, nearly all to the United States, amount in value close to £600,000 per year. There is no other article of export of nearly that value, camphor coming next, with an export value quite 69 per cent. less. Tea promises to continue to hold the lead, in spite of large possibilities in sugar, hemp, coal and rice. The movement of trade by way of Japan instead of through Amoy, indi- exter a tendency which may grow into something much stronger whenever Japan may decide that it is hopeless to look for a foothold in Fukien Province, and that therefore the shipments of Formosan tea heretofore prepared at Amoy may better be made from a port in Japan. An export duty has already been imposed of 60 sen per piaul, equivalent to less than one-quarter cent gold per pound, on all shipments except in Japanese bottoms, which may carry tea duty free. Since home subsidies have driven off the only steamship line not Japanese which handled Formosan cargoes, the duty so far is merely nominal. The ingenuity that has worked for the Japanese alone will doubtless be equal to any demands that the future may make upon it in furtherance of the same policy. There will be no room for foreignors in Formosa when that policy shall have time to accomplish its logical purposes. It already includes, in addition to the large operations mentioned, or it is about to comprise, small local enterprises in which foreigners were interested, such as an ice-house, srice-mill and a tug-boat company. Formosa threatens to be for the Japanese, with all the abcessories pertaining there to, if only native colonists enough can be induced to come in.
▲ POLÍTIC GOVÉRNOB,
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT, possibilities before him in the field of medicine which he originally entered, he is missing no tricks in the game of politics. An instance of his versatility was furnished at the opening of the new dockyard at Foochow. That day he had Chinese listeners. He devoted himself to them as if their interests had always appealed to him, on grounds both of personal sympathy and of national relationship. His speech as reported classed the Chinese and Japanese as natural allies, who should join their enerzies to preserve the Orient from the contamination of the white-skinned races. He alluded to the common origin of the two peoples, to similarities, in their modes of life, in their religions and in their aspirations, and he declared that the great contest of the future would be for supremacy between the white and the yellow races. It was alike the duty and interest of China and Japan, he argued, as nations of the same blood, to unite against the white peril now approaching both lands, and to subdue and drive it back. If he had been pleading with China to join Japan in' making war upon Europe, his language could | hardly have been stronger or have sounded more impassioned, according to those who heard it. With every allowance for the occasion which induced the speech, his presumption on the ignorance of the audience he was addressing regarding the Chinese exodus from Formosa and his instrumentality in forcing it, struck the Chinese as not lacking in audacity, whatever they may have thought of the other qualities of the speech. It seems incredible that anyone can delude himself respecting the Chinese aversion to things Japanese here, which are hated not less than they are feared. The exodus repre- sents the general sentiment. Those who remain either cannot afford to go away or they are putting off departure merely until they can dispose of their property interests. In speech among themselves they refer to the Japanese as hoana, meaning barbarians, or chihuan, raw barbarians, or less disrespectfully as cojin, little men cr dwarfs. In addressing one they say taijin, great man. One is impressed with the refinement of the humour of the Chinese coolie when he hears him hailing a Japanese coolis by the term.
The man to whom has been entrusted the administration of the colony, Dr. Goto Shumpei, seems well-fitted for his task, both by temperamennt and ambition. Without previous official experience, he is certainly carrying forward what he conceives to be the imperial will with an assiduity betokening a possible willingness to shine at Tokyo after he shall have achieved acknowledged greatness at - Tamsui. - Whatever may have been the
THE ABORIGINES.
The Japanese have not yet seen fit to dis regard what they are pleased to call the interests and rights of the aborigines. These are the people who occupy the uplands and mount ins, of which they have had sole possession for cen- turies. The earliest settlers found them there and their tenure has never been disturbed. Their territory, indeed, has not even been fully explored. No one can tell how many tribes of them there may be or their numbers. It is known that they prize the heads of Chinese as trophies. Japanese experience with them in- dicates their disposition to treat intrusion from that quarter in the same way. They are said to regard the whites as friends. A few mis. sionaries have ventured among some of them, and while they have come back safe, they have not recommended their friends to go among them anticipating a pleasurable visit. They seem to be of Malayan rather than of Chinese origin. although they have occupied the land so long as to have developed characteristics distinc- tively their own. Among some of the tribes in the lower hills it is probable that the Dutch had relations in the brief sovereignty of that people over a portion of the coast more than 25 years ago. Traces yet appear occasionally of that strain of blood and cast of feature. Tho occupants of the mountains, whose peaks gleam with snow at all seasons, have never mingled with foreign settlers.
THE JAPANESE ATTITUDE TOWARD THEM.
453
Jurisdiction entirely separate is maintained in the territory thus divided. Within 25 miles of this settlement a fine new road ends in a field because there the boundary Has of a native tribu passes. No armed Japanese is permitted to cross that line, and the tribesmen may put any stranger from their land, whether he is armed or not. In sections not covered by agreement, troops must always be on watch for raids, which often result in the pillage of a settlement and somG- times in the destruction of property, as well as in slaughter and robbery. It is said that 350 house houses have been burned in that way in the last year, and 35 settlers shot. Troops often encounter or overtake the raiders. There have been 12 soldiers killed in the resulting engage- ment, one of them an officer. The estimated number of bandits killed is 300.
A TEMPORARY PACT. Where colonial affairs shall pass beyond the stage of experiment, the Japanese may be unwilling to submit to a denial of access to any part of the territory that they consider their own. But in gathering to their own profit the established resources of the island, in "building railroads, highways and harbours, in remodelling Chinese settlements to suit a tidier taste, and în bringing about an orderly and well regulated administration of affairs they have so large an immediate contract that they are content to stand in with the tribes that will agree not to inter- fere with them and to respect certain property rights, rather than to attempt to use at this time authority which they believe to be right- fully theirs, but the assertion of which pre- maturely might throw the entire island into disorder.
CANTON.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
Canton, 29th May.
NEW TAX FOR CANTON,
As a treaty of peace is about to be finally concluded, by which the Chinese government has agreed to pay a heavý indemnity, and as a lot of reforms are promised, such as the establish- ment of English and Chinese schools, the remodelling of the army and navy, the opening of mine, and the construction of railways, &c., the problem is where is the money to come from to carry out all these things. The government is in straitened circumstances, and in urgent need of money. So about a fortnight ago there was a large and representative meet. ing of officials and gentry in the Kwong Nga College to discuss the best modes of raising money; some officials suggested that the lekin and salt revenue might be augmented, others suggested that a poll-tax might be imposed up to cents each annually, others that the taxes on fields might be increased, and others again that a tax on houses and shops might be a feasible plan. The latter proposal was adopted, and on the 23rd inst. the Board of Reorganisation issued a notification to the effect that an office will be established in the city to look after the house-tax, that the prefect, the magistrates and gentry will meet there to consider and frame some rules for collecting the tax, and that the officials of all the districts shall be called upon to furnish the necessary information, to enable them to form an exact estimate.
THE CONSUMPTION OF WATER. About a week ago some oficials, by order of the Viceroy no doubt, sent their subordinates round into the city to find out from every house and shop what quantity of fresh and river water the inhabitants used daily, and also its cost. The result is that the total expenditure for fresh and river water is put at over $700 daily. I think this cannot be correct, as most of the people in Canton have wells in their houses, from which they draw the water, and if water be laid to their houses the amount wand, would come to more than the figures above quoted, and it would be quite a profitable concern to the water syndicate.
Lowland tribes come into more or less con- tact with the authorities because their territory must be entered or crossed to reach the camphor forests. They also do a little trading. Bri- gandage, however, is more to their liking, and they are credited also with the usual border vices. The Japanese have found it expedient to make a treaty with them, or an agreement amounting to the same thing, by which in return for a promise by them to commit no On the 18th inst, the districts of Chingyain outlawry on the civilised side of the border, and its surroundings were alarmingly fooded the authorities will not attempt to interfere by the recent rains, and the water rose from 40 with what they may wish to do on the other to 50 feet above the ground, a large number of side. Along portions of the border which houses collapsing, paddy fields being destroyed, such agreement covers, the natives observe their and several hundreds of people drowned. Some obligations, and disturbance rately cocars. natives said that it was the water dragon turn-
DANGEROUS DRAGONS,
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