July 28, 1902.1
cut off, and then disembowelled. Besides the seven murdered outright, three of the members were badly wounded, but escaped with the rest in the darkness of the night. The mission gave a home to eighty-nine persons, who have been dispersed and are now in a penniless condition. A large body of soldiers was despatched from Chengtu, and after some delay succeeded in surround. ing the Boxers in their fortified retreat. About a score of the Boxers were killed and a few captured; the rest escaped into the hills, whence they will issue as soon as the affair has blown over to plot other outrages, the general opinion being that the officials covertly show them sympathy. Had the Viceroy shown a sterner front before, it is improbable that this outbreak would have occurred. The moral of this latest development of Boxerism, which shows at once that it is a lawless and fana- tical force, only goes to show that the embers of a dangerous agitation, capable of being fanned into a furious flame at any time, still exist in China and require careful watching, more especially in view of the more than benevolent neutrality with which the officials are disposed to regard the The interior of China is now, as it was prior to the attack on the Peking Legations, not safe for unprotected foreigners and especially for missionaries.
movement.
CHINESE LABOUR PROBLEM.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
evade it. It is natural that the class to which be belongs should think it quite proper if they can possibly evade any regula- tion or law foreign to their conception and judgment. The result is, instead of having two honest parties to a contract, one, the native who is protected, usually acts dis- honestly and catirees loss to the other, who is unprotected by the law. It matters not to the unscrupulous workman whether his leaving suddenly without explana- tion or notice, with his fellows, will ruin n contract and increase expenses; if he is a little considerate he may first demand a large increase of pay, and promptly quit if unsuccessful. This is a frequent source of intimidation. It is a very serious mat- ter affecting every employer of labour, large or small, in this Colony, and we do not hesitate to admit that we write from person al experience. Under the existing law employers have no apparent redress and no satisfactory means of securing compensation. It is almost absurd to expect employers of labour to sue absconding workmen in the Civil Court, so the majority prefer to silently suffer instead of spending valuable time in taking such proceedings. In our own case the evil had become so serious and unbearable that we were compelled to test every means afforded for redress, with the object of making an example. At the Police Court we were referred to the Civil Court, and in January last we paid for summonses against absconders actually working in other offices, Since then we have waited for the cases to be called on, but without result. We only quote our personal experience to prove that under existing law an employer is at the mercy of an unscrupulous native workman, who, as a skilled labourer, and by means of his guild, may increase wages as he so desires, or may abscond at his own sweet will, causing sericus loss, without fear of pain or penalty or stroke of conscience, because he transgresses no local Ordinance. We submit that such is an intolerable state of affairs which should be immediately remedied.
(Daily Press, 26th July.) The Committee of the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce at their last meeting discussed a very important Bubject, namely, the ques- tion of the facility with which under the existing local law a Chinese employee can leave his employer without giving notice or compensation and without fear of a penalty for so doing. When it is considered that in the numerous large industrial and commercial undertakings in this Colony some thousands of natives are employed, it is readily realised that the con- tinuarée and increasing popularity of this practice is productive of much loss and serious inconvenience to employers of labour, Previous to the introduction of the present Pioles Ordinance, which in certain respects is one of the most vexatious gifts we have received from a considerate Council, the same law practically applied to the native employee as to the domestic servant. For some reasons, this law was altered, no doubt with the good intention of freeing the artisan from certain restraints. The idea presumably was to place the native work man here on the same footing as the artisan in England, on the assumption that his moral conception of the relations between capital and labour was equal. If those responsible for the Ordinance had elected to consult the leading employers of native labour, a course perhaps questionable but often advisable in Hongkong, they would bave hesitated before affording the present facilities to the native employee to evade his responsibilities and to inflict loss on his employer. Such is unknown in Chinese law, for in the Mixed Court at Shanghai severe penalties and floggings are inflicted for such breaches of contract, where loss has been proved. In England the employer has the opportunity to recover in the County Court, and it is assumed that such is the only remedy left here to an employer, but there are numer- ous obstacles against redress in this way, the principal being the identity and the location of the offender.
Our law-givers, we are afraid, overlooked the fact that the native artisan in nearly every case knows the local law only to
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certainly the American Press of the archi- pelago did not err on the side of generosity when considering the possible culpability of all on board the steamer, from captain to cabin-boy. As a matter of fact the presence of the stowaways on board was discovered by the master and officers before Cebu was reached. On arrival there, the harbour authorities were notified and the Kaifong was put under a bond of $70,000 (gold) to return the undesirables to Hongkong. This was done and the bond discharged. The result of subsequent proceedings at the Magistracy and of careful private enquiry made by the agents, Messrs. BUTTERFIELD & SWIRE, went to show that the whole thing was a carefully arranged conspiracy in which all or nearly all of the native crew must have been in confederacy to secrete the stowaways without the knowledge of the Europeau officers-not a difficult feat when it is considered that sixty were thus working against six and that the stowing of the cargo was directly in the hands of a Chinese stevedore and compradore. As the agents of the Kaifong point out, nothing is easier for these people to
the stowage of the arrange
cargo such a way, when the officers' backs are turned, as to leave vacant spaces for the accommodation of stowaways who come on beard at night and are secreted away with the knowledge of the quartermaster on deck while the officers are asleep. That is wha was done in this case. The suspicions of the captain and officers being aroused and a search instituted, it was found that properly constructed rooms had been formed among the cargo and that these were full of stowaways. When they were brought back to Hongkong, the men were prosecuted and fined, but the police were unable to lay Lands in the real culprits, the people responsible for the presence of these stow- ways on board the ship. It was as a result of that ense that the Chamber of Commerce approached the Government with a view to having an amendment of the law made in the direction of greater stringency and heavier penalties with regard to stowaways. In their reply to this communication the Government indicated their belief that the abuse complained of was largely due to the (Daily Press, 26th July.)
neglect of the ships' officers and to the fact The correspondence which we published that no penalty had been inflicted upon yesterday as having passed between the them. In face of the responses which that Chamber of Commerce, the Government, statement has now evoked from the China and three leading shipping houses throws Navigation Co!, Ld., the China and Manila much light on the vexed question of the Steamship Co, Ld., and the Indo-China entrance into the Philippine Islands of Steamship Navigation Co., Ld., we do not Chinese stowaways from Hongkong. Since sce how the Government can any longer the annexation of these islands by the maintain the position which they had taken United States, there has been an increasing - up on the question. These responses con- demand for labour with a consequent aug- stitute a thorough vindication of the mentation of wages; and it is little wonder respective shipping Companies concerned; that the Chinese coolie, looking upon the they also strengthen the hands of the Philippines with longing eyes, risks the Chember in its respectful demand for renalties of the stowaway and runs the an amendment of the Ordinance. blockade of the perilous Exclusion Law in suggested that the penalty to which a stow. order to reach his golden El Dorado. Nor | away is liable should be no longer a fine is it surprising under these conditions that but a term of hard, labour imprisonment secret agencies have sprung into existence without the option. On the Government here for the purpose of smuggling coolies will fall the responsibility of saying what into the Philippines. That such agencies that term shall be, if they decide to meet have been long in operation was already the wishes of the Chamber in the matter; well known, and the seriousness of the evil and there certainly appears to be no other and the urgent need for its suppression solution of the difficulty than to provide a were recently brought home in a very vigorous deterrent in the shape of hard forcible manner to the minds of all parties | labour upon the actual stowaways, 80 long concerned by the case of the s.s. Kaifong, at least as the police authorities are unable on which no less than one hundred and to lay the more culpable aiders-and abettors thirty-four stowaways were found secreted, by the heels. while on a voyage from Hongkong to Cebu, Perhaps it was only natural that one should have doubts, at the first glance, as to whether such a great number of men could Le stowed away without connivance, and
STOWAWAYS TO THE PHILIP- PINES.
It is
Mr. C. G. Roberts, a nephew of Dr. J. E Case, a medical missionary at Weihaiwei, has been drowned just prior to his contemplated departure for England,
RE
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