HANKOW.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Japanese yarns and shirtings fell away, but crimp cloth, cotton blankets," handkerchiefs and towels from Japan were quite consider- (Daily Press, 29th July)
able imports, the net result of the change Hankow, so far as the foreign trade centres being in Japan's favour. The Shanghai of China attract attention at all just now, Mills sent 21,580 pieces of shirtings, drills may be described as the cynosure. The and sheetings, against. 13,670 pieces in 1903, rivalry of the settlers of various nation, one third going inland under pass. Nearly alities, the growing business population, and all the 52,835 cwts, of Shanghai yarn was The VICEROY, whose the numerous openings still offering for re-shipped westward. enterprise, all combine to focus attention reply to Professor JENKS that China's cur- The 1904 rency must be copper we have already more and more upon this port. report of Mr. Consul-General FRASER, dealt with, has been inconsistent enough although issued by the Foreign Office into issue, as an experiment a standard May, is, therefore, not too helated for treasury tael coinage. Judging by a com- consideration, even if its matter were not so parative list of equivalents," the experi- interesting as it appears to be. To begin ment only complicates the complexity of with, Mr. FRASER notes an advance over the Chinese silver market. 1903 of eleven per cent. in the gross value of Hankow trade, and of eight per cent. in its net value. The rate of progress was faster in the three preceding years; but the year 1903 was a sort of flood-tide, and the war has no doubt had its influence in checking the prosperity of Hankow. In any case there is a difficulty in getting at the full figures, and when the I.M.C. report is satisfactory" it may safely be assumed that fuller returns would justify the prefixing of very.' Mr. FRASER says there is a large trade of which the Imperial Maritime Custours take no cognisance." Intermittent transport service (big steamers cannot get up winter) and the likin impost,
continue to retard. trade here as elsewhere. It is to be noted that but for an unusually good depth of water in the last quarter, Shanghai: river traffic would have shown a serious
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falling off. As it was, the total was well maintained; and it is to a certain extent satisfactory to note that British vessels held their own despite the keen competition of the German and Japanese lines, whose cheaper rates gained them full cargoes as a rule."
'full Of course some of their cargoes represented part of the British trade of Hankow. It is reported that there is to be a direct Japanese service between Hankow and Japan this year; and Mr. "It is certain that FRASER points out:
tell in proximity must, as time goes on, favour of Japan in shipping as in other branches of trade." The Japanese are also threatening more competition on the run up to Ichang. It seems certain that au appreciable revival of trade would be brought about by removing the sandhanks obstructing the passage to Changsha, and by buoying the channel across Tunking Lake. Whenever the latter be done,
are assured that
"thriving town of Changteh will be accessible, at least half the year, for light draught steamers. British shipping claimed 47.15 as its percentage of the Hankow tounage, and 51.33 per cent. of the trade. gaining in both, while German and Japanese shipping lost. It appears that the absence of Russian vessels is held to account for much of the British improvement under this head. How the foreign importer is being surely elbowed out by the natives is made apparent in the following
we
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extract :-
tbe
A few of the smaller merchants have tried to take a direct share in the import trade by means of shops in the native town, but such retail enterprise cannot effect the practical surrender of this business in all articles but sugar and kerosene to the Chinese. who have learned to watch exchange and scan market reports, and so to eliminate the foreign middle man in imports as they will gradually dispense with him in exports. The objection to this development is that it deprives foreign and especially British trade of that protection against arbitrary exaction for which the treaties were designed."
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:
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THE FOREIGN INVASION OF THE EAST.
are
[August 7, 1995,
good example. The Chinese householder maltreated the commercial traveller, who called in the police. The flag followed the trade, and not vice versa. When the foreigner interfered and made it clear that life and sacred, and established property were arrangements to defeat those other robberies that are accomplished other than by force of armis, he was conferring benefits which are only now beginning to be recognised owing to the example of those isolated corners where he succeeded in "doing evil that good might come." Hongkong, Shang- hai, and the other trade settlements are object lessons for the Chinese who see now how peace may follow war, and justice reign where at first one injustice was apparently All the being substituted for another. prating of freedom sounds plausible until definitions are called for. In India the natives, a section of whom still clamour for this blessing, had freedom from the foreign yoke, but they had also freedom to oppress each other; and in China it was the same.
(Daily Press 31st July.) There is a point of view which enables those
The mandarin and the merchant were taking it to regard as immoral and unjust the encroachment upon one people of another free nd independent, the former to oppress people. To put it as plainly as possible, and " squeeze," the latter to cheat. Foreign there
those who roundly declare interference, immoral and unjust as it is des- ⚫coasion seems to whenever
require, cribed, has in sundry places relieved the that foreigners have no right to be in China merchant from that oppression and squeeze, at all, so long as there are Chinese who while it imposed upon him certain restric object to their presence. There is a foreigations in commercial methods. That the newspaper in Japan (itself as much a merchants recognise the balance in their trespasser as any foreigner in China) which favour is evident by their flocking to the centres where foreign ways are paramount. invariably sympathises with China in its frequent disputes and contentions with the and by their reluctance to return to the foreigner, and its grounds for so doing jurisdiction of the mandarins. It is not appear to be only that-that it is morally hard wrong to thrust upon China blessings that wants. The China neither asks for nor same system of ethics demands that Britain in India, and America in the Philippines, must as quickly as possible prepare the conquered natives for self-government, and then retire, leaving the people to their own resources. They back these ethical and somewhat abstract postulates with eloquent quotations, like:
them
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of
10 see that although Professor IRELAND devoted his lecture largely to the economical necessities of foreign policy in the Far East, there is also a real ethical basis, once the distinction between freedom and licence is clearly drawn and recognised.
There is, so far as we know, no record in China of any serious agitation for popular government prior to the foreign invasion and the social ideas that came with it. The
Chinese fatalists have been content under But what avail the plough or sail, their present system, which can in no way Or land or life, if freedom fail! be said to grant to the masses any form of
pooh- It is easy, as well as pleasant, to
real freedom. If it had, there would havə been more evidence of the sentiment of nooth such views, and many practical, utilitarian minds will dub the entertainers patriotism which has only within the last fools. Mr. ALLEYNE IRELAND has called two mouths been named in one breath with
verv ignorant
tropical the Chinese. As in pre-British India, the conditions. Nevertheless, such opinions are village communities of China were self. frequent and persistent, and it may be well contained the economic life was con- sometimes to treat them seriously; even ditioned almost entirely by causes operating arguing the matter on an ethical basis. within the community"; and the political What then, may first to asked, originates authority of the central government foun 1 these invasions of countries far afield? Not almost its only expression in the exaction of revenue and the issue of regulations earth hunger, as is too often assumed; but trade. We have seen how Holland invaded affecting ceremonials and other externalities. the East, and England India, in search of Thus the settlement of Shanghai is self- markets. There is nothing immoral in practically on all fours with any calling upon a person with something to contained native community in the interior, ell. The assiduous agent or eauvasser the principal difference being that the skins may be, and often is, styled a nuisance, but of those in authority are white, and the exac- when was his work ever designated sinful tious fewer and less oppressive. The faw who have by experience or observation Granting then that trade is legitimate, aud that the traders have a moral right to intro-realised the real effects of the change have duce their goods wherever there is likely to long ago abandoned those prejudices which be a demand for them, how does subsequent are still dominating the ignorant an uain- trouble arise? Mr. ALLEYNE IRELAND formed; and which, unhappily, appear to reminded the members of the Royal be approved by those alieu intellects to Colonial Institute that there ara which the letter of ethics is everything, and two conditions to the absence of which the spirit nothing. Professor IEELAND thinks that "a conviction of economic Commerce cannot adjust itself-two cou- citions which are absolutely essential to the enslavement, so far from outraging the existence of any great commerce at the moral sentiments of the people of India, present day. One is reasonable protection would fit their religious beliefs with the of life and property, and the other is the utmost nicety; and it is not less clear that, presence in every important trade area of in a community so deeply religious as the competent and impartial courts for the Indian community, the fatalistic ides would adjustment of commercial disputes and for he strong enough to check any tendency
These two towards political activity, even the enforcement of contracts.
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if the
* conditions were lacking in China, to take one i economic conditions were such as to suggest
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