336
THE
*
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[May 5, 1902.
TIMES" AND THE CHINA | of information than are possessed by Print- | influential trading class in China.
MERCHANT.
(Daily Press, 30th April.)
ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING IN
CHINA.
This
ing House Square, that it was concocted class learns by degrees to regard the between Portland Place and the Inspectorate foreigher first with toleration for the good General The foot may be credited with it derives from business done with him, and knowing best where the shoe pinches, and eventually it comes to look upon him as a if the Times'e sources of information assume source of wealth. This feeling and this ex- to know better than the sufferer himself, perience are not, however, shared either the sooner they are changed the better. In by the officials or by the mass of the people fact we have no hesitation in saying that the living in the interior. Their prejudices, Times had been singularly misled as to the stirred up by the literati and the gentry reasons which have conduced to the un-against the missionaries, and fostered by the favourable reception of Sir JAMES MACKAY'S misstatements printed and scattered broad- proposals.
cast by mischievous agitators, like those who some few years ago engineered the anti- foreign riots in the Yangtsze Valley, are always further kept alive by the exactions made on the plea of indemnity to be paid to foreigners for missionary outbreaks. (Daily Press, 26th April.)
The people do not reason out the mat- Perhaps no better instance of the rapacity ter; they simply trace their grievance of the Chinese mandarin and the mischief to
the cause indicated by the wily that ensues from it could be given than that officials; and the result is a far-reaching related in the last issue of the N. C. Herald. hatred of the intrusive foreigner. They It is given by the writer on Notes on do not place the opprobrium where it Native Affairs," and is said to be, the cause is due. It does not occur to them to saddle of the recent riots in the province of IIopan. the officials with the responsibility of the It seems that the Chih-hsien of Piyang was greater portion of the new burden of taxa- entrusted with the task of collecting from tion they are called upon to bear. They the inhabitants of that city the indemnity for only know what mendacious placards and the missionary outrages perpetrated there, lying tea-shop scandal put into circulation. as settled between the provincial authorities The poison is soon distributed; the antidote and the Roman Catholic missionaries: The very seldom follows. Only when a grosser Chih-hsien and his underlings evidently outrage than usual or a sudden Lassacre thought this was an opportunity not to be rouses a Treaty Power to unwonted action is lost, and they improved upon it to such an the truth reluctantly disseminated by official extent that in the end they demanded from placards, the value of which is usually dis- the people ten times the amount asked by counted by some ingenious explanation of the missionaries. Nor did protest or the reason for giving it currency.
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It is no new thing for the "Thunderer " of Printing House Square to prophesy; but sometimes the oracle is apt to be led away by too previous information. The most curious instance that has recently occurred is of course that of Prince OUKTOMSKY and his presumed private telegram as WANG Wo" The Chinese language is, no doubt, particularly unhappy when with its meagre syllabary it tries to get round a foreign name; and it would be difficult from the language merely to prove that WU WANG and Prince OUKTOMSKY were one, and the sanie person. It was of course foolish of the Times to state in so many words that Prince OUKTOMSKY and WANG Wu were one and the same person, as it would be to conclude that JOHN SMITH of Regent Street must of necessity be one and the same with the JOHN SMITH who was detected picking pockets in Regent's Park. The Times had, however, quite sufficient authority before it received Dr. ULAR's information, to know that a private understanding had been arrived at with LI HUNG-CHANG, a fact which was practically acknowledged by Lt himself. On the other hand, while it is of course possible that the Wu WANG men- tioned in Dr. ULAR'S despatch may not have been Prince OUKTOMSKY, it would be equally impossible on the evidence shown to deny it; and the Times, with a good case, evidently injured not only the argument but itself by its haste to disclaim its
remonstrance avail to any degree moderate Thus are foreigners maligned in China, informant. It is not, however, of the mis-their demands. Three of the local gentry and hostility against them begotten. The take fallen into with regard to LI HUNG-
mandarins fear their craft is endangered by CHANG's traitorous dealings that we are
foreign influence, and they oppose its ex- momentarily concerned, but with a later
tension with all the dead weight of their exhibition of the same mixture of over.
silent resistance. They have before them caution and credulity by its recent utterances
an object lesson of the ways of the Wester- with regard to the reception accorded in
nor in the administration of the Imperial China to Sir JAMES MACKAY's proposals
Maritime Customs, and they love it not. for reforming the inland taxes of China.
They have no liking for explicit tariffs and When it speaks of the narrow shortsighted-
regulated taxes; they prefer the multiplica- ness of the opposition it has evidently been
tion of barriers, and the imposition of local the victim of a communication as little
duties of varying amounts. If they cannot capable of proof as its former equally
collect all they want, they are open to a confident assertion that the WU WANG
bargain, but they are most frequently a law of the telegram Was the veritable
unto themselves, and collect what they can Prince OUKTOMSKY. „ The merchants of
safely squeeze. It is most probable that China would be only too happy to wel-
Sir JAMES MACKAY's proposal to raise the come, even at 逗 sacrifice, any scheme
duties ou imports to 15 per cent. by impos- that gave them any assurance that it would
ing a surtax of 10 per cent, would have been in any way conduce to a reasonable, settle-
opposed by all the provincial officials from the ment of this long vexed question; but Sir
fear that their squeezes would be endangered. JAMES MACKAY'S scheme is so subversive of
They are not afraid of a sufficient sum being every principle of government that has
assured to the provincial Governments out hitherto prevailed in China, and so sugges
of the taxes, but they are in dread lest their tive of the bungling fingers of those who
fat squeezes should be put a stop to. messed the Transit Pass system proposed
There is a vast crowd of hungry expectant under the Treaty of Tientsin, that before
officials in every province in China, and essaying even to discuss it they have
these harpies look to grow rich out of the challenged its professed author not only as
vices and miseries of their follow subjects. to the feasibility of the scheme itself, but When it is considered that this is not an Quite a little army of these parasites would as to the sources of his information. These exceptiod case, but that it is typical of be let loose on the country if the proposal are things that are certainly more likely to the conduct and procedure of Chinese of the British Trade Commissioner were to be known by those who have felt the pinch officials generally, it is not difficult to find acceptance from the Chinese Govern- themselves than by the Editor of the Times | understand how it comes to pass that ment. Whether they might constitute a sitting in his office in London. It is rather foreigners are hated in the Central King- fresh danger to the state we cannot gay. a begging of the question to assume that dom. We are not egotistic enough to be- Meantime the question involved is a large the merchants of China are refusing to lieve that the Westeru man is loved for his one and should receive most thoughtful support the "wise" initiative of the Foreign own sake in China. His appearance, his consideration. The total abolition of lekin Office. In the first place, what authority dress, his manners, and his ways are all has been consistently advocated for more has the Times for assuming that the initin-essentially strange and therefore more or less than twenty years, because this tax has unacceptable to the conservative Chinese proved one long stumbling block in the way mind, which is very slow to acknowledge of opening up the interior to foreign trade. anything as an improvement on Chinese On the other hand, it would be a great risk methods! But the foreign trader who to agree to a large increase in the import brings with him a demand for Chinese duties without first securing the most ab goods, who opens up a vista of successful solute guarantee for the abolition of lekin and profitable commercial transactions, is and other forms of inland taxation on not unwelcome, at any rate to the large and foreign goods.
tive is wise " We on the spot with direct means of knowledge look upon its main characteristic as folly. In the second place, why should the merchants assume that it is the initiative at all of the Foreign Office? For our part and judging from the character of the handwriting, we are far more disposed to assume, with better sources
who had ventured to oppose the extortion as unreasonable were tyrannically placed in cages by the Chih-hsien and their death caused by strangulation. When the Yamén clerk,--an official who himself had grown opulent by systematic squeezing, shocked at the sufferings of the victims in the cages, interceded on their behalf, he was curtly silenced and fined heavily. Upon the clerk remonstrating against the infliction of this penalty, the Chih-hsien, no doubt chuckling at the chance afforded to him, proceeded to confiscate half of his subordinate's property. This unjust treatment so roused the populace that they made a demonstra- tion, which eventually took the form of an attack on the city and the murder of a number of converts, the popular fury being excited against the missionaries and their couveits, who were, of course, credited with having been the prime authors of the extortion. The wretched Chib-hsien fled for his life, and thousands of refugees from Piyang have removed to Hupeh to escape the plundering violence of the mobs. Such is the condition to which the avarice and greed of one unscrupulous mandarin has reduced a whole district.
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