"(
August 22, 1904.”
:་
of whom this reverend but rash moralist is proud? We do not suggest the right of the passive resisters to rank with these, but if morality can fecognise no call to a duty which disregards the obligations of the bow and its claims upon the individual citizen, then it seems to us the popular estimation of the heroes and heroines of history requires inodification. This, of course, re-opens the everlasting question of the conscientious objector: consideration of whose tender idiosyncrasies leads to anomalies. The law represents the collective conscience, and it ought, in either ethics or politics, to over- rule the individual. As the collective conscience is as liable to error as the in- dividual, howe: r. it is obvious the Yeovil parson has put his foot in it by referring to human law as the message of the Deity. Politics and theology do not go well in double harness.
HONGKONG AFFORESTATION,
4
We
I
!
block
i
127
thau one big one. We hope we may be excused if we put that aside as mere improbably true at best. quibbling. It does not help us, and it is
now
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. encourage rainfall, to absorb the miasmic exhalations of the soil, and to make ozone for our sorely tried lungs. The serions re- sults of reckless timber cutting in Australia, in India, and in Russia, have been long noticed and admitted. France and Ger
CORONERS AND JURIES many have, we believe, special State depart- meuts of afforestation, and colleges in which
AT HONGKONG. the special science is taught.
In these cases, the supply of timber is sought to be main-
(Daily Press, 17th August.) tined, and the work is expected to pay for held an inquisition the day before yesterday, One of our magistrates, acting as coroner, itself out of its own revenue. Dexx has told us, trees are systematically, necessary, but because many metabers of Thus, as Mr.› not because he had personally deemed it cut down and sold. In France the system
the community considered it desirable. is, or was, favoured, whole sectious of forest falling as they mature. In Germany, ing the death in question led us to sympathise What w heard of the circumstances attend- where they have a keen eye to the æsthetic with the anxiety of the public to know that value of trees, the thinning out process is, everything was as it should be. The extra- more affected. Now, be it observed, the or·linary fin-ling of the jury empanelled has use of Hongkong is altogether different. acted rather as a douche upon our aspirations The pioneers in the Colony had to deal with after the truth, the whole truth, and nothing a barren-looking, rocky waste. To make but the truth in such ma ters. Putting Hongkong more habitab'e, hygienically and aside the significant commeut which we esthetically, they were at cost of momey, (Daily Press, 16th August.)
felt obliged to append to our report in time, thought, and paigs to cover the nikel yesterday's issue, with its suggestion that In the maiter of the wholesale tree felling shoulders of the hills with pleasing verdure the result of this clamoured-for inquest was that seemed to have been begun by the and with grateful sinde. The chief expense of the t cut-an-l-dried" sort, there was so Afforestation Department, it is now alleged is over and done with. It is, or should be, much verbal impedimenta about what should that the numerous correspondents who have written off The taxpayers of Hongkong have been a verdict, that we are protested in our e colmans were, with our-are not anxions to ease their financial burden tempted to think the local modifications of selves, under a misapprehension. The at the expense of "the umbragonus assets English law, as embodied in Ordinance arborous slopes of Hongkong are not, that have taken a generation t› arcumulate. No. 17 of 1888, are are assured, to be denuded For this re- We faucy, so far as Mi. Dess's talk of At home, the
no great hardship. lief, much thanks." To the learned but planting four trees for each one felle is inquest over almost every death which has practice is to hold an unfortunately mythical Emperor Huasa Ti; concerned, that their request would be: is attributed the saving that
not been preceded by medical attentions. "when mail Plant more, but fell one.” Especially Over carefulness in this matter is to be puts forth his faculties of destruction, by this block system" of felling, which preferred to the merest suspicion of indiffer- Heaven falls and Earth is overthrown.” the Superintendent recommends as being The great Taoist evidently had a gift of; less expensive, great gaps, evesures to those
ence, for a multiplicity of inquests, with the exaggeration, but we arent one with him in who have hitherto gazed with admiration on and aboveboard must be searchingly en- certainty that anything not absolutely open dreading the exercise of the destructive the particular bit of landscape concerned, quired into, affords an admirable safeguard faculties, and to this dread may be assigned are left, and remain during the tedious against crime. It, at least, makes the plans our freely expressed Hervousness with years that the young trees are growing. la of the would-be crnuinal much inore difficult. regard to the intentions of our Forestry a part of England that shall, for obvious of accomplishment. Even then, with the Superintendent, Mr. S. T. Duss. Now | reasons, be left wunamel, a gentlem in
kingdom mapped out into coronerial dis- that we have registered our protest, and succeeded to an estate whith included a tricts, and inquests as numerous as they thereby elicited expressions of opinion suffi- range of tree-clad hills, bordering a pictu- are, it has been very hard to make coroners' cent to show how any attempt to exploit resque valley which thousands went annually juries understand (especially since the our arborescent treasury would be regarded to gaze at and admire. His father hal coming into force of the Workmen's Com- by the public, we would gindly take it for suffered under the impression that he could, pensation Ad) that their sole and simple granted that no more interference will be tell what horses would arrive first at the business is to well and truly inquire how rashly entered upon. At the same time, winning-post, and in the course of a long and by what means the deceased came by before leaving the subject, it seems advis life in which frequent failures to make right his or her death." The human sympathies able that we should traverse some of the selections did not d sabuse him of that of jurymen have to be tempered by the comments made by Mr. Duxx upon the nocion, he contrived to leave for his son professional man's training in the ways of warning that we and our readers felt obliged some obligations that lel his heir to denude law and justice. to utter. The Superintendent explains that the hills of the oaks and elms and pines that; all things straight that
The temptation to set between one-twenty-fifth and oue-thirtieth made them beautiful.
seem awry is There was iL tre- of the forests in the Colony have matured, mendous outery, but it came too late.
very great, and NO the coroner has For learned to sit patiently while the fore- and that "as is done everywhere where tree nearly a decade the traces of the crime mau reads off a string of "riders" and re- planting is systematically carried out," the remained painfully obvious, and it became commendations which he and his colleagues matured trees are being felled and sold, customary to point out the bleak hillsides have no power to insist and young trees plantel in the spaces left
upon. Such as object lessons the evils of betting.; erogatory additions to the findings of juries vacant thereby. It seems evident, from Fortunately there is no sach imperative in are usually forwarded to the proper quar- that particular comment, that Mr DUNN, centive to drive our local Dpartment into ter," and there they sink into the oblivion misapprehends our point of view, and the making such a sacrifice. We hope that any they too often deserve. In our Colouy we point of view of our correspondents. We eagerness on their part after revenue as a have no coroner qua coroner. His functions are quite aware of the systems followed by primary object will be nipped in the bud. have been, since the 9th June, 1888, fulfilled the afforestation experts of India and of; Mr. Dúxs seeks to cheer us by mentioning by a magistrate or magistrates. Europe. At Home-meaning England, the rapid growth (here) of the Caina pise gentlemen have the discretionary powers These course-it has been our duty and our pri- but his mere nary suggestion (the phrase is, enjoyed by the Coroner at Home. In the vilege in the past to point out Great Bri- used in its inoffensive sense) that the
presence of tain's neglect of the science of arboriculture, ¦
an official or professional report profitable time to cut the tree is at twenty- with which they feel satisfied, they may rule and to urge the Government to emulation five years of age
cuts us to the quick. that au inquest is not necessary. They may of the work of France, Austria-Hungary, What are we going to feel during the dozen even hold an inquiry without summoning a Denmark, Russia, and the Forestry Asso- or twenty years intervening betwixt pro- jury at all. In one respect, Hongkong is a ciation of America, in this respect. Where fitable time? All human trouble, we are long way ahead of the old country. as our fore-elders practised forestry for rounded, has come from meddlement with section six of the ordinance referred to, it is sport's sake (as in the case of WILLIAM the a tree; and unless the Afforestation Depart. left to his discretion to dispense with or in- CONQUEROR and the New Forest), or for ment lets well alone, they will sorely trouble sist upon the dismal and often unwise for- purposes of financial profit (a motive we more people than they imagine to be in mality, of viewing the body." Recently trust to remain absent from Hongkong), terested in the fate of our forests. After, there has been an influential agitation at the modern heirs to the wisdom of the an- all, they are an af-forestation, and not a Home to bring about some amelioration of cients and the scientific knowledge of the de-forestation department. It is pertinent that requirement, and it is anticipated, or new have learned to practise it for greater to remind them of that. Fually, Mr. DUNN, was recently, that an amendment making gains than those. We look to our planta- has suggested that from the hygienic point the practice akin to the American one (of toins to modify extremes of temperature, to of view, four young trees are more salubrious the coroner only having view) would be
¦
13
1
1
;
I
#
super-
In
I
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.