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CHINA'S NATIVE PRESS,
(Daily Press 12th August). There is not quite so much emphasis put nowadays on the influence of the Press. Whether it he demoralisation or merely commercialisu, newspapers are as often called echoes of public opinion as moulders or lenders thereof. In China, however, it appears that the Press has not yet reached the stage of comparative insignificance that Western journalism is supposed to occupy. There is a gentleman in Hongkong whose learning is so great that he is able to read both Chinese and Japanese journals; and in the case of the former, he has had experiences which convince him of the normous power wielded by the vernacular papers. Of the South China native Press men it may be truthfully said that "ideas are their weapons and newspapers their fortresses." It appears that this is partly because native journalism locally is still in the period of strenuous and hopeful youth. The Canton correspondent of a northern contemporary remarks that:
. d tors
"The rative Press of China, at least of the South of China, has grown up
within the last twenty years. We remember when were harassed and their offices confiscated, if they published anything less harmless, and more interesting than the Peking Gazette. It may be confessed that the Hongkong native Press, whose roots struck deep in the island, but whose branches spread out over the Kuan- tung province, had much to do with the present vigour of the native news- When complaints were made papers here. to the Hongkong officials by the Canton mandarins, that government matters, hitherto so sacred, were handled with a rough irreverence, they got little comfort and less assistance. Freedom of the Press was the rule in the colonies of Great Britain; Hongkong was a colony, therefore the editors could not be coerced. The conse- quence was that the mandarins, seeing that they were helpless, submitted to the inevit- able. After a time, when nothing very serious happened, either to their revenues or to their harems, and in those days they did not seriously care for very much beyond these two absorbing interests, they ceased to be so obviously anxious, and so a native Press developed not only in Hougkong but in the city of Canton, which to-day is no small industry, and no unimportant factor in the life of the great city.'
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This authority gives to the native Press of Canton a much higher character than we its news imagined it deserved, describi
"
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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[Angust 21, 190$.
be has been the subject of the peculiarly possibly eleven and a quarter, which in turn viperish and hysterical comments of which makes the pretensions of the "sellers at At present our Canton contemporaries are capable $15" somewhat ridiculous. when they try, We note that there are these lists give no useful indication of the further signs of weakening in the native condition of the market, the explanatory press at Shanghai, and that some of the words being as misleading as the figures. writers who most diligently faune the One stock is quoted with unanimity as to flame appear now to be alarmed at the price, but while one gives it a selling price, result. They are appealing now to reason, others give it as merely nominal. Whether where before they appealed to passions; and, this looseness is indicative of the calibre of but for the things that foredoomed the the clients, who know very little themselves movement to abortion, they would appeal of the signs and are content to trust in vain perhaps. The power of the native to others to tell them; for whether it по proper press of South China, real as it is, does is because there is really not rest upon this capacity for abuse; but system of ascertaining the actual feeling the market, WO cannot gay. It upon the power of publicity. There were of things which, hushed up and hidden, could seems to us desirable that these things, Iro commonplace to profes. endure; but which, exposed as the Chinese | which papers expose them, are obliged to disappear.sionals, ought to be better understood by If they do strive after trustworthy presenta- the people whose capital or whose savings tion of facts, and more temperate comment, are augmented or diminished by the fluctua our native contemporaries will yet work tions the quotations are supposed to index. wonders in bringing about a real union of If the double quotations were reverted the Chinese, by which great døds will be to, the embryo financiers would soon under- possible. But that is the only way, stand which means selling and which buying and that even then you cannot always go by the papers "; as then the tendency would be to keep slightly outside the actual figures. The actual transactions of the market never anywhere truthfully be true, but reported reports may not the whole truth and so these alleged "sales" have to be weighed against others not mentioned. There is no clue to these "sellers," whether it means that money
SHARE QUOTATIONS.
(Daily Press. 14th August). Share lists are by no means unpopular reading in the home countries, but it is doubtful if they appeal to so large and varied a circle of readers as they do out here, where the average price of stocks is comparatively lower, and almost everybody a speculator or investor.
is It is perhaps a pity that the methods and accuracy of the European lists cannot be imitated in China. Even in London, where the prices are tabulated from the official list of the Stock Exchange, or direct from the market repre- sentatives of the Exchange Telegraph Com- pany (tape prices), filled up in some cases by late advices from brokers, it is sometimes alleged that the prices as published are very misleading ; and brokers have to complain relations that in consequence their with
are
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are
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so tight that many holders of big boldings are willing to sacrifice a third of their investments to realise the rest, or only one two nervous small-fry, It might mean sharing the nervousness. either at present. Perhaps the committee of the local 'Change will take the opportu nity of the existing slackness to consider ways and means of getting out reports that will enable the public better to understand just what is going ou.
THE BOYCOTT MOVEMENT AT
HONGKONG.!
their clients are sometimes unsettled, the client placing implicit faith in all he reads in his favourite paper.
shorn of the Local quotations
(Daily Press, 15th August,) double price puzzle, perhaps because local cliens are believed to be in need of the Hongkong, as we have on several previous has for various simplest possible form of presentment; but occasions pointed out, we doubt if the lists can ever indicate so reasons enjoyed comparative immunity justly the state of the market as do the from the turmoil and trouble incidental to familiar columns of, say, the Times. For the performances of Boycott demagogues. instance, we have at the end of the week It was, of course, against nature that the just over compared several of the lists natives here, many of them imbued with published in the colony, and noted several | the pugnacity of the men of Clinton, should unaccountable discrepancies. Three of feel reconciled to inglorious inaction during them quote "closing' prices by adding such a pretty fight; such a unique oppor- as trustworthy and valuable, and its policy
an explanatory word, sales "buyers",tunity, from their point of vies, for making that of guiding and fostering public nominal", "sellers", and so on. This ought history. We are led to believe, by a well
Sometimes," opinion.
we are told, the, to be clarity itself, and perhaps if properly infornied representative of the Chinese native editor "comes very near to real-
managed, it might be. But how are these community, that there has been an actual We note in a northern disinclination amongst the really respon- ising this ambition. But often, we have prices obtained? previously learned, they depart far from it. contemporary a humorous suggestion that sible members thereof to join in the move- We are bidden now to admire the way in when the market is as stagnan as it ment; but that latterly their hands have which they lash out
Dow on the corrupt admittedly is a Hongkong, all bren forced by its popularity. It is not Government, and at particular officials," quotations are nominal, and that the local difficult to understand that great discretion and believing that these objects deserve association of brokers holds a faut in sé nec was and is required in arranging to support all the castigation, we would not refuse to decide what, those quotations shall be. such an agitation within a British colony; were it not for a conviction that the Apart altogether from such joking, it is and we are curious to learn how it came of the usefulne-s of it is impaired by their difficult to account for the diversity of rates about that Saturday's meeting babit of lashing out all round, like to be discovered in the last three lists Chinese Commercial Union came to be camp mule. Naturally, the Canton papers available for comparison. One well-known attended by such a rabble about eight have been earnest supporters of the boycott; and old established company has its stock hundred irresponsibls, we are told, pre- and according to custom, they have been variously quoted on the same day at “ $14 suming to express disapproval of the official bitterly resenting the utterances of all who sales,” $15 sellers," and "ll sales." communique which forbade the holding of could not, like themselves, go the whole- | Wide prices are necessary when the market the meeting. The men.bers of that Union hog." YUAN SHIH-KAI is not one to accuse happens to be nervous, as we believe is the hal, we suppose, at least a tacit right to of pro-American and anti-Chinese feelings, case with the stock selected; but those are assemble qua Union; but the members yet because he was able to see more than altogether too wide: Sales at eleven and could scarcely have been ignorant of the restrictions of the one side of the question, and felt it his duty a half mean to the interested reader of requirements and
Ordinance of 1888, for the Regulation to warn the agitators that they were not the share list, especially if
Clauses 49 and 50 of going the best way to achieve their objects, templates selling, huyers at something less, of Chinese.
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