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LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN CHINA
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
turned. Knowing this we might have expected the advisers of the Government to have been discreet; the way to turn a foolish hot-headed youth from the errors of his way is by gentle treatment rather than by vindictive punishment. This is a lesson hard to be learned by a government so deeply ruled by tradition as that of China. Forgetful of the folly from which it has only escaped by the skin of its teeth, it is all the more anxious to crush out what it conceives to be the fault of its servants and pauses not to remember that it itself has been forgiven the immeasureably greater crime against humanity at large of which but yesterday it stood convicted before the whole world."
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(Daily Press, 20th July.) One of the most difficult lessons for a government to learn is the advantage to itself of encouraging the liberty of the Press. The Chinese Government, it may almost be said, owes its very existence to the modified liberty which during its mad frolic of 1900, by accident of cir- cumstances, came to be accorded to the vernacular Press; when amid the wreck of the administration, the common sense of the people, backed up by the native papers, came to the front, and pointed out the inevitable end towards which the truculent leaders who had taken possession This is the spirit in which recently the of the reins of power in Peking were Chinese Government, as represented by guiding the Empire. It may be remem- the Empress Dowager and her advisers, has bered that in the spring and early summer been seeking to extinguish the liberty of of 1900, when the existence of China was the Press, and to pay off its individual trembling in the balance and the Yangtsze members for the part they took in pre Viceroys, Liu and CHANG were still doubt serving the Empire. Lately another ful of the course that patriotism dictated, meeting was held at CHANG Suc-Ho's a series of meetings entirely promoted by Garden, wherein certain resolutions were natives on their own initiative was held proposed hearing on the supposel applica at CHANG SHU-HO's Gardens in Shanghai, tion of the Governor of Kwangsi to the and resolutions adopted which were duly French for military assistance towards put telegraphed to the Viceroy with a request ting down rebellion in his province. It is to have them sent on to Peking. The two quite true that certain things were said at Viceroys, who to their honour had kept that meeting which verged on the seditions. aloof from the follies of the capital, finding They were apparently the silly fumings of that the people were disposed to back them some of the returned students from Japan. up in more vigorous measures, gladly and in themselves were certainly best left accepted the proposed course, and assisted unnoticed-the more so as the more in- by the unanimous voice of the native Press. Auential and respectable of the Chinese were able to bring so much influence, moral community refused to have anything. as well as physical, to bear, that the to say to the meeting. Not so thought Dowager Empress's wild schemnes were the advisers of the Empress Dowager, brought to naught, and the Court induced, who have been seeking by every meaus, to return to Peking During the whole legal or the reverse, to get possession of the of this trying period the attitude of the unfortunate youths, not to try them, but native Press was marked not only by au simply to have them tortured and beheaded. unexpected patriotism but by a loyalty Fortunately after a good deal of friction, equally unlooked for. The attitude of the and as a matter of necessity where so many people showed itself well represented in interests are concerned, the mode of pro- the Press at large, and all attempts at cedure in the case of arrest by the Chinese revolutionary schemes were studiously authorities in the Foreign Settlements at avoided, and the assistance rendered to Shanghai was some months ago settled in them in their attempts to stem the terms tỏo plain to permit of any misunder- reactionary proceedings at Peking was standing; the warrant for the arrest needing gratefully acknowledged by the two to be countersigned by the Senior Consul, Viceroys. It was of course not to be and the arrest Affected with the assistance expected that the action of the native of the Settlement police. After vainly papers should be so gratefully regarded trying by other means to get the six young by the reactionary party and accordingly, men accused into their clutch s, the local since the return of the Court we have from time to time been made unpleasantly conscious of attempts to muzzle the native Press, and convert it into a weapon for reintroducing the old reactionary spirit, which to the great advantage of the nation at large have hitherto been frustrated. Of late a new element of danger has arisen; following a widely expressed wish that the Chinese Government should send some of its more-promising students abroad to learn the reasous which have made the other nations so much more powerful and so be, able to teach their own people better systems of administration, certain students were sent over to Japan; and some of these, dazzled by the fallacies of young Japan, have been exhibiting tendencies more or less revolutionary in their character, and this has aroused the fears of a section of the Chinese Government, probably well meaning men themselves, but who under n un founded panic have been i duced to lend their aid to the schemes of the reactionary party. Such things are of course inevitable; the new atmosphere into which these youths were introduced was so unlike the dreary surroundings to which they had been accustomed that older and wiser heads than those of the students might well have been
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[July 27, 1903.
the means taken by the Peking Government and its very evident exhibition of revenge- ful feeling, have male a simple fault at bes punishable with a few weeks, or at most months' imprisonment, into an impor- tant political question. The worst use you cay make of a wrong-doer is to convert him into a martyr, and this is just what the Peking Government is doing its very best to accomplish.
GOVERNMENT AND REFORM IN CHINA.
(Daily Press, 24th July.) The prospects of reform in China at the present moment are, It must be con- fessed, of the slenderest and most unstable character. The labourers in this vineyard, to begin with, are few and not of the stoutest heart. They need strenuous encouragement, and they are likely to withier if it fails them. Unfortunately the encouragement they get from foreign sym- pathisers is of a very negative kind, and merely assumes the form of protection from consequences. In fact, it is seldom that it can take shape; it can only come in the guise of harbourage on reaching foreign soil. Meantime the Chinese so-called Government seems to have passel from the stage of exhibiting angry disfavour towards the friends of progress in China to that of active persecution, and various measures are being adopted-some grotes. que, others tyrannical-to stamp out the aspirations for reform within the Empire. The success of the Chinese Government in procuring the arrest of native journalists in Shanghai has inspired them to pursue a course of repression which they hope may nip the reform movement in the bud. It seems that a prominent native bookshop in Wachang has received a telegram staving that the authorities of Hupeh have been instructed from Peking to prohibit the reading by the public and the sale of the History of the Japanese Reformation, or Restoration of the Mikado, and that this order is but the precursor of others intended to compass the suppression of all literature . bearing on reform. All officials showing an inclination to aid or encourage reform in China are also, meanwhile, regarde 1 by the Chinese Government more or less as conspirators and placed under surveillance or viewel with suspicion. So much is this the case that His Excellency CHANO PAI- HSI, the enlightened and liberal-minded Chancellor of the University of Peking, has felt impelled to send in his resignation to 'the Throne, on the avowed ground that the opposition to his educational schemes has recently become so strong that he has no alternative but to resign his post. It is also announced that Prince Su, who has latterly been regarded as the leader of the Progres- sive party, has become so disgusted by the attacks of the Censors that he has scut in a request for a lengthened leave of absence on the plea of sickness.
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Tuotai at last proceeded in the regular manner, but suggesting to the Consuls that, the affair being Chinese, the accused should be handed over to the city authorities for decision. As it was not concealed that the orders that had come from Peking were for the instant execution of all six accused, the Senior Consul pointed out that in terms of the arrangement entered into it was nccessary that the case should come first before the Mixed Court to discover the bona fides of the charge. There was no desire to interfere with the laws of China, nor the administration of justice; but the present seemed to be print facie a case where The crusade against the native jura- revenge, not justice was concerned, and alists will serve, we fear, to act as a according to the practice of all civilised douche upon the advocates of progress nations it was maile-tly impossible unless in
in the native Press. The plant of freedom some sort of a case were made out to is such IL pure exotic in China that deliver up the parties to what was intended to be a barbarous death. Probably the Tuotai was not altogether displeased at being relieved from what to him must have been a disagreeable and profitless task, so that he has consented to have the case heard before him with the assistance of a court of Consuls. Although, as we have stated, the body of the respectable Chinese have refused to countenance in any way the opinions expressed by the hasty orators,
the merest breath will be sufficient to crush it. All the good work that has been gradually built up during the last quarter of a century in forming a pascent public opinion in China seems likely to be effaced by the ride hand of the Peking Censors, who have probably been 'inspired by the conservative forces within the Palace, as represented by the Empress Dowager. That astute personage would appear to be halting all the while between two opinions; fearing
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