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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
as our readers are aware, there have been extraordinary special taxes imposed in Japan, at which, by the way, the foreigners within her gates hayo bulked. The revenue and expenditure of this extraordinary budget both amount to three hundred and eighty million yen; and the war expenditures and expenses connected with "the present affair with Russia" aggregate to about 576,000,000 you. All this and not a single little Japanlander" in the whole of Nippon? It must be, as has been said, that the Japanese | religion is patriotism, and its patriotism a religious conviction.
Mr. LOWELL, but the Shintoism that has naturally evolved from its remoter origins. Recollection of Professor CHAMBERLAIX's translation of the Records of Ancient Things recalls a suggestion somewhere in the intro- duction that Shintoism may have begun as an offshoot of that most universal form of faith expressed in sun-worship, the sun being recognised as the male principle in all phallic religion. At all events, it is not hard to trace a connection between that and the hero-worship which followed with the Aryan invasion; and thence to the present development of a lively belief in the divine right of kings, which is, crudely put, the essence of Japan's modern faith. What Buddhism there is in Japan is a bastard. misunderstood, adaptation of the cult of GAUTAMA, and these very misunderstand- ings have conspired to strengthen the unwavering, almost unreasoning loyalty to the authorities and ruling house, a loyalty that has forced itself upon our notice in very striking ways during the present trouble with Russi Another illustration of the popular view of Japan before all," or "the uation before party politics." may be found in the Fourth Financial and Economic Annual of Japan 1904, a copy of which has reached us, by courtesy of Mr. Noma, the Consul here, from Mr. Y. SAKATANI, the Vice Minister of Finances. This most clever and interesting compilation will bear more exhaustive consideration than can be given in the space of one article. For the present, the notes on the budget for 1904-5 claim attention. The Japanese House of Peers, it may be remarked, is a more lordly institu- tion then our House of Lords, being likened with justice to the Prussinn Herrenhaus. These notes on the budget for Japan's thirty-seventh fiscal year refer in a very matter-of-fact manner to the event we speak of in the opening of this article, and which caused such a world-wide sensation last December. It says:
the House of Re- presentatives was dissolved, so that there was no opportunity of presenting the Bul- get to the Diet." Without troubling the Diet at all, and in accordance with a clause of the Constitution that seems to have fitted the case, a modified copy of the preceding year's Budget was carried out. The repentant Diet, after a mouth's dismissal, went back meekly to their seats and passed a War Bid- get, of which more anon. With regard to the general decrease noted in both revenue and expenditure, the Finance Minister points out that the first is not inconsistent with general progress, but is due to the restora tion of the land-tax to its former basis, and to a decrease in the sake tax and sugar excise. The decrease in expenditure, of course, was obtained at the cost of post- poning many public works. No new works will be begun at all this current fiscal year; and the development of the railway system will be confined to the sections already commenced. That, and education, and colonisation, inter alia, has had to be hung up in view of the war, for which up to the end of March the spending of one hundred and fifty-six million yen had been sanctioned by Imperial Ordinance. In addition to the domestic loan of a hundred millions, which elicited subscriptions amounting to four and a half times that sum, leaving even then, as this report complacently remarks, an "ample margin still retained by the nation in addition there were diverted twenty-five millions kept under special accounts. The Finance Minister's reason
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for believing that the financial resources of Japan are still barely touched is that the most of that huge issue of Exchequer Bonds was allotted among the lower classes. That was the emergency war budget. Since then,
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HONGKONG STREET
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[August 8, 1904. annoy or incommode the passengers there- "on.' Now, the layman (ourselves for example), noting that the whole argument was concerned with the interpretation of that phrase, instantly notes that there is no comma immediately following the word
thing." Seeing that the contention of the Puisne Judge and the Magistrate depends upon the bracketing of "or other thing' with the preceding substantives, to make the schedule of forbidden things indicate barrels, casks, butts, or other kindred things, the layman, not cognisant of the ( legal abhorrence of punctuation marks, whence has arisen the saying that "
you can drive a horse and cart through an Act of Parliament," naturally expects some separn- tive sign between the words "thing" and "cnlculated." Without that, he thinks the most obvious and reasonable interpretation is the reading adopted by the Chief Justice, who tenders the sense as
or any other thing that is calculated," et cetera. To vivify for the lay mind the phraseology that was sup- posed to need interpretation, may we para- phrase the clause into a pious sort of invoca- tion? It will be found, on examination, to be absolutely "on all fours," as the forensic folk have it; and it seems to clarify the position. Say: May Heaven guide every judge, magistrate, lawyer, or other person calculated to annoy laymen by com- mitting errors of judgment." That is a sentiment which no man will refuse to echo
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(Daily Press, 5th August.) If there is one thing more than another that is prone to put the bitterness of dis- appointment into the hearts of men, it is that item of procedure which we know as the casting vote." This week, at Hong- kong, we hail a decision that will tend to make the public rise up and call it-the casting vote-blessed. Nowhere, more than in such cities as these eastern places, teeming with Chinese coolies, is the pathway of the pedestrian strewn with such dangers and annoyances. Perhaps the European is a more uureasonable aud more easily annoyed creature than the Oriental. Certainly the risk of a blow on the head is faced with greater equanimity with some sincerity. Admirers of our meu by the latter, and when received, do.s not of law may now argue: Yes. It means seem always to create so much distress, or well, like the Ordinance of 1845, but it helps other feeling, as it undoubtedly does in' the only our magistrates or judges, who are case of the gentler nurtured "foreign devil." too wise to be regarded as ejusdem generis The Puisne Judge (Mr. SERCOMBE SMITH) with the lay persons calculated to annoy
Yet in uttering and the Magistrate (Mr. GOMPERTZ) re by making mistakes. cognised that on the Hongkong trottoir we or echoing that prayer, there is not one went in danger of casks and barrels. They petitioner who would therefore expect the admitted that, however unreasonable some Divine guidance to be granted to the of our grumblings might be, we hal a legal judge and the magistrates mentioned specie right to complain if our progress were obfically, and not to the unofficial persons- calculated to annoy in that manner, say structed by barrel, cask, butt, or other thing of the same genus being rolled or carried. | chemists. In the same way, from the They would probably, on meeting the pro- annoyances and dangers to which we are blem face to face, admit the existence of subject, we looked to that Ordinance of 1815. danger where a coolie, carrying a bamboo to protect us, fully, and without any petty pole on his shoulder, does a half turn to reservations. The learned gentlemen who hail a perspiring comrade; for the foot held the contrary view to that of the Chief passenger coming along behind enjoys an
Justice are not to be supposed to have experience ejusdem generis with that of the maintained such opposition from any yachtsman's guest who fails to duck when bigotted preference for the strict letter of the booru swings, But because the letter the law. They have told us, and we can. of the law was capable, in their opinion, of quite see that their view is a fair one, that a narrow construction-a construction that the wider reading of that Ordinance makes prohibited only such articles as could be, possible a number of frivolous, vexatious as the merchants siy, "rolled and/or prosecutious, based on the complaints of carried"-they maintained that our inagis- unreasonable passengers or policemen. trates were not obliged, were dis-allowel in Fortunately, this point has been sufficiently fact, to punish and prevent the trespass of covered by Sir W. M. GOODMAN in the such things, although all men know they following words, which are wise enough to are much more “calculated to annoy than bear repetition : If people are, hereafter, the articles enumerated in the Ordinance. improperly harassed by prosecutions for The particulars of the case have alrendy carrying, on the public footway, things not been so fully recited in our columns, and reasonably calculated to annoy or incom- the general interest taken in the subject mode reaso. mble people, having regard to has been so pronounced, that we may safely "the conditions of modern life and to all assume our readers are now familiar with the circumstances of the case, T take it the debatable issue. His Lrship the Chief "the Magistrate would very properly refuse Justice (Sir W. M. GOODMAN), in giving the
to convict and, if he thought it necessary, ruling and the casting vore which we are "would ceusure the course adopted by the convinced will be everywhere applauded, police or prosecutor. He would regard did so "with some diffidence"; but we suis- the spirit as well as the letter of the Ordinance." To which we add, with pect that this phrase was more expressive of “
bardship to His Lordship's courtesy than of any serious confidence, that more serious “ doubt that he entertained. Certainly the lay law-abiding citizens was likely to ensue men will have much less diffidence, claiming under the other reading of the law than as they will that it is as much a question of will be the case under the reading now the King's English as a point of law. The happily established as authoritative, crucial phrase in sub-section eleven of the relevant Ordinance runs: "Upon any "public footway, rolls or carries any barrel, cask, butt, or other thing calculated to
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Mail steamers are now crossing the bar into Durban Harbour. The Armadale Castle was the first to start the fashion.
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