ཡ་སའ་བས་ད་
July 28, 1902.]
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respect in the future.
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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THE WEARING OF THE QUEUE
The serious dis- j doubt whether the advantages of a silver it that his standing is made clear and advantage at which British and foreign currency will in the end, even in China, out- indubitably secure beforehand. Only by investors have hitherto been placed vis--ris weigh the disadvantages. Most of China's having a strong, independent position can Chinese purchasers of shares in British joint-imports are from gold-using countries and the holder of the appointment hope to be stock enterprises has long been a just have to be paid for in gold, and the Indem- able to accomplish good. It will doubtless grievance that called urgently for redress.nity she has made herself liable for will have go against the grain of the central authorities The Chinese readily becan.e shareholders to be paid in gold. Her exports might readily to allow even the semblance of a devolution when a concern promised to yield large have been increased long ago had the of power such as is extended to legal profits or the stock appeared like.y to boom, Chinese had the enterprise to improve their advisers of other Governments, but now Lut when difficulties arose and further calls quality or the Government the foresight; to that the principle has been admitted by were made on the shareholders, the Chinese reduce the taxation upon them. The tea them it may be expected that they will disappeared or flatly refused to accept the trade has been killed, in spite of the great make such a compromise as will render liability. The consequences of this policy advantage conferred upon it by the heavy practical and useful the employment of a were made signally apparent in the case of and continuous fall in silver, because the legal expert without any accompanying the Bank of China and Japan, Limited, producers would do nothing to improve feeling that their dignity or prerogative has now in liquidation. The British share the leaf, and the Government would not been impaired. Prince Su is to be com- holders were made to pay the calls, but the forego a cash of the taxation imposed upon, ended for his proposition; we trust that Chinese shareholders declined to meet them, fit. It is equally doubtful whether they such modifications as are necessary towards and this pressed hardly on the former class. will avail themselves of the advantage | carrying it out successfully will be allowed It will henceforth be possible to. enforce which the possession of the raw material without delay. these calls, and the Chinese speculator will gives them to a anufacture their own in future be unable to play the game on the yarns. The Chinese are not wanting o'd principle of "heads I win, tails you lose." in enterprise, but the rapacity of their Last, but certainly not least, of Sir JAMES officials acts as a dead weight upou all
(Daily Press, 23rd July.) MACKAY'S achievements is the general enterprise in the nature of manufactures
Although it is a well known fact that the agreen ent for the establishment of a requiring large outlay. Even where industrial queue was first introduced into China by national currency. This, we take it, means enterprises are started by Chinese there is the Manchu Emperors as a badge of sub that the Provincial Governments have a lack of organisation and a constant
mission to the dynasty, it is not so well agreed to abolish their mints and currencies tendency to allow machinery to fall into known that the imperial Government still in favour of one system of a national disrepair that effectually serve to prevent cling to it as such. It seems, however, currency throughout the Empire. This is any solid progress in is direction. We that this is the fact. The Shuntien Shihpao, a great step in advance, and must serve not should be glad all, the same, to see a dove, i at vernacular, paper published in the capital, only to facilitate trade but also to uphold | 1-pment of China's exports, and much might makes a rather interesting statement in and enhance the Imperial prestige. We can be done towards this end, even though a this connection. According to this author- only hope that it may be possible to arrange gold standard were adopted by foreignersity, flis Excellency WU TING-FANG (better for a gold standard for China. What encouraging the production and the Govern- known in Hongkong as No CHOY), now Japan has accomplished should not be ment taking care that the trade is not Chinese Representative at Washington, in impractical-le in China, which country piematurely strangled by excessive taxation. a recent despatch to the Board of Foreign would equally and as certainly gain by ti e
Affairs at Peking, stated that some of the change. At present China is greatly
Chinese students in the United States had handicapped by being the only great country lift with a silver standard, and the fact has been borne in upon the Peking Government It may Le taken as a hopeful sign of the by the loss in exchange over the payment į tincs that Prince Su, Commandant of the of the Indemnity. Unless something is done to secure a more stable monetary standard, this drawback will be further mphasised by a decline in trade with foreign countries which would be made unpleasantly apparent to the Imperial Government through a seusible falling off in their Customs reverue. Nothing is better calculated to touch the Chinese Imperial Government than a direct appeal to its pocket; no lesson is so likely to be thoroughly learned as one that is emphasised
in this manner.
CHINA'S CURRENCY.
LEGAL ADVISER FOR PEKING,
(Daily Press, 22nd July.)
Peking Gendarmerie and Commissioner of Roads in the Capital, is wishful for the services of a legal adviser. A recent despatch to the N.-C. Daily News reported that a Mr. SHEN TIEN-SHOU, Farrister-at- law, a native of Ningpo, who obtained his education and profession in Europe and has a large practice in the Straits Settlements, was in Peking, having been three times invited by telegraph to join His Highness's service as legal adviser at a salary of eight hundred taels per month. It does not alter the case much that Mr. SHEN apparently is not enamoured of the offer, or likely to accept it.
We presume that the will must be accepted for the deed, and it is at any (Daily Press, 221d July.)
rate gratifying to find that the Celestial An esteemed correspondent, writing on the mind can even contemplate the employment subject of China's currency and referring of a legal agent trained in Western methods to the iemarks in our article of yesterday to facilitate the dealings of the authorities advocating a gold currency, urges that this when they come into conflict with Foreign is just the very thing that China should interests. The reasons given for Mr. not adopt. He admits that it would be SHEN's declinature of the post indicate just beneficial to her so far as her imports from where the Imperial proposal fails. In the gold countries are concerned, but he thinks first place, it is notorious that those in high that, commercially speaking, her salvation place in China treat with galling contempt must lie in developing her home industries and as renegades their fellow-countrymen and her exports, and a gold currency would who have been abroad and have assimilated, rob her of the singularly favourable posi- more or less, Western ideas and training. tion she new enjoys in regard to these, Mr. SHEN could hardly be expected to be owing to the fact of her being a silver immune from such persecution. Again it country. He goes on to point out that he is not surprising that a lawyer of his teas and other exports can be laid down standing, "with a practice which brings cheaper than ever in consequence of the him on an average three or four times the drop in exchange vis-à-vis Indian teas and amount offered," should think twice before other Eastern goods, while her home-made consenting to remain in Peking merely as a yarus enjoy a practical bounty as compared legal adviser with no power and without with Japan and Bombay yarus, and these the locus standi that a Government legal rguments apply (qually to all other in-adviser in any other civilised cruntry dustries China may choose to develop for the supply of goods which come froni gold countries. Of course there is something to be said from this point of view, but we strongly
usually enjoys. These objections would unfortunately apply to any native lawyer of European training who might be appointed. It behoves such an one therefore to see to
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gan cutting off their quenes and assum- ing foreign clothes in lieu of the flowing garb of the Celestial Empire, as a matter of convenience while residing in the great Republic. In reply, the Foreign Office at Peking intimated that though Chinese students abroad might, on the ground of expediency, temporarily adopt foreign costumes, the cutting of their queues could not be permitted. The queue was the badge of their nationality, and its abolition is an infringement of the laws of the Manchu dynasty; it must therefore be retained. His Excellency WU TING-FANG was accordingly instructed to give due warning to this effect to the delinquent students. As the result, the students have been ordered to resume the wearing of the queue, on pain of being sent back to China to be punished for refractory behaviour. This is a clear indication that the Manchu Government of China still regard the queue as the badge of their supremacy, and that they do not intend, whatever other reforms may be instituted, to allow this symbol of Chinese subjection to be set aside, even for a temporary cause. Naturally the Chinese papers are indignant at such a peremptory order, as they recognise in it the old spirit of domination which at the accession of the Ta-tsing dynasty to power made them so unpopular. This feeling had of late years gradually diminished, and a feeling of toler ance, if not quite of loyalty, to the Throne, although occupied by a Munchu, had grown up. This arbitrary order to uphold an ancient edict, which practically imposed a yoke on a conquered people, cannot fail to arouse resentment among the Chinese, even if it finds no very decided expression from the mass of the population. Some of the native papers have animadverted upon it as a tyrannical decree, and regard it as a proof that the Imperial Government are really out of sympathy with all reform, and that the recently expressed opinious of the Empress Dowager and some of the Ministers
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