C
January 22, 1906.]]
EXTRA-TERRITORIALITY IN
CHINA.
(Daily Press, 16th January .).
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39
would have in the exercise of judicial tions. Before we could have confidence in the latter we should have to be convinced that the Chinese had improved altogether in their administration, and that, at least, a great deal of the venality and bribery which are proverbially rife among them had been abandoned. Such a change as this is too much to look for for many years to come, though it is not so impossible as might at first be thought of being ultimately at- tained,
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. sent that, as with the showman, if asked | human question is as far off from settlement which was Europe and which was America, as ever, even though SLUL. in Mr. PIERCE, we could only reply, “whichever ou please. | be amongst the prophets. you pay your money, and you take your choice." Even so late it is impossible with our present knowledge to define the prob able distribution of the continents. We know that somehow Europe and America were connected, and we know that what was It appears that among the suggestions as apparently an ocean. bisected Asia and to the future policy of China in respect to Africa, and joined Atlantic and Pacific. her foreign relations, which were made by
once the Chinese mind can be This we find, too, accentuated in what the Chinese Minister in. Paris, was that of ethnographers have ab-urdly called the China's effecting so great a reform in her made to work out of its accustomed grooves. With all their shortcomings, the Chinese Mongolian " race-the low, swarthy, most- judicial proceelings as to entitle her to ly round-headed, lauk-haired races who ask for abolition of the exterritorial clauses have a fair sense of justice, and if they range from Lapland to Labrador, and who, in her Treaties, which deprive her of juris-could only grasp the enormous practical in alloys of varying degree of betterness or diction over foreigners resident within her importance of putting it into play in public worseness, still form the foundation layers borders. No doubt this is an end which matters, they would, with their keen intellect of our European populations. So our is most devoutly to he wished; but it is and practical common-sense form on the blond races, which some of our ethnogra- one which is by no means so easy of attain- whole good jurists. Such a change, however, phers again would class under a generalment as at first blush might appear. Or must be the work of time; and it would be heading of Aryans, were till a few centuries dinarily the ground upon which the clain necessary to wait for many years before ago strictly confined to a comparatively by Europeans to exterritoriality is justi. there could be a hope of its being brought an acces- about. Until such time it would be unsafe narrow strip reaching from the western fied is the existence of torture as shores of Europe to Mid-Asia; here again sory to judicial proceedings. This is so to give up the right of extra-territoriality. coinciding with a very well
Before leaving foreign subjects dependent marked manifestly a just reason for claiming the zoological " Province," which we may; privilege that it is has come by degrees to upon Chinese justice, European nations must be satisfied that it will be administered roughly associate with the tiger and his be looked up n as though it were the sole relations. HUXLEY once divided mankind ground for doing so. There is thus a danger in a way in which they could have reason- into four races-the Mongolian," the that if the Chinese gave up this exploded|| able confidence. The doing away with tor- Australian, the Negro, and the fair-be and barbarous custom, it might be hastily ture and even the abolition of barbarous in themselves called them Xanthocroid, but that's no concluded that there was no longer any punishments would not matter. He had a better inkling of the reason for insisting upon extra-territoriality. quarantee this. Something possibly might case than
many more modern ethnologists, This position is very likely to be taken up be done as a tentative measure in the form who use harder yames. But the fair race by the Chinese who have always (and not of mixed tribunals, where the authority of must be divided into two; above we have unnaturally) felt a humiliation in the the Chinese might be recognised, but with spoken of one; the other has been called system, and are anxious that it should be the proviso that a Europeau official should kind of Co- many names, "Semitic,"
"Mediterranic" | abolished. If they could come forward and always sit in the Court as and a great many more. It was anciently say to foreign nations you have no more Judge or Assessor, and that no judgment or merely
* Red," Adamites, Edomites, occasion for exterritorial jurisdiction, as sentence should be put into effect without Idumeans, Homerites, Phoenicians, &c.
His concurrence. Such a system might work we have now given up torture, which was It stretched from the Pillars of Hercules to what you objected to," it is possible that satisfactorily as a step towards ultimately the border of Afghanistan, and from they might succeed in their representations giving back complete jurisdiction to Mesopotamia to the highlands of Abyssinia. It would, however, be a great m stake China. It would have the advantage on the It curiously also coincided with a zoological if this change aloue
were considered
one hand of making the Chinese acquainted "Province," having the lion, the African sufficient for making
radical So
with foreigu modes of adininistering justice, elephant, and the ostich for fellow residents. | change. There is much more than and on the other of showing how far they Nowadays these affect South Africa, but
the system of torture which is radically were capable of doing so by themselves. If that is a thing of yesterday, certainly since wrong in Chinese judicial procedure. With such au attempt failed, it would be obvious man walked the plains of Arabia, HOMER out wishing to lay unfair stress upon the that it would be uusate and inadvisable to told of these folk; be called them Ethiopi-point, it is impossible to ignore that there think of abandoning extra-territoriality, but aus, and he said their leader was a daughter is an amount of habitual corruption among if on the other hand it were found that were able and willing to of Eos, the " rosy-fingered " dawn.
He Chinese officials, which, it is impossible to the Chinese
alminister substantial justice, this inter- certainly never heard Negroes called by the ignore, finds its way into judicial as well as name, which if we analyse it, was only into other matters; and further there is the mediate course would pave the way to a anothername for red-that was an absurdity undoubted fact that in many cases the full recognition of Chinese jurisdiction. The of later date. The only one of the four to officials are too much inclined to yield to subject, however, is one which must be dealt be accounted for is the Australian; HUXLEY popular excitement, and are thus deprived with with much care and circumspection. While all liberal-minded persons must feel of the independence which is essential in the administration of justice. To do away
the desirability of removing what is un- with these two drawbacks it would be doubtedly a humiliation to any people that necessary to effect a revolution in the whole is being deprived of the inherent right as a of the Chinese administration, and to raise
uation of administering justice in its own way within its territorial limits, it cannot it to a position which it must take time to atṭain. It may, of course, be plausibly be overlooked that the question is not one argued that detects of the same character of theory but of far-reaching practical he Consular system has are found among other nations, and that in importance. dealing with them, we are content to take worked fairly well hitherto, and it cannot then as they are and accept their full he said that any grave injustice or even in- territorial authority as we claim the like onvenience has ten caused by it either to for ourselves. It is difficult to argue when individual Chinamen or to their Govern- the question at issue is one of degree; but ment. we think there are few who will not recog nise that there are essential points in which the Chinese differ from almost all other nations in this direction. The idea of treat ing foreigners with the same consideration as they treat their own subjects woul i never occur to the Chinese mind, if they had an absolutely free hand in dealing with them, It is true that in many instances they have shown themselves willing to do justice, but this has been under the cousciousness that should they tail to do, pressure might be brought to bear upon them through diplo- matic action. This is a very different thing from havin a perfectly free hand, as they
would have it that it included the older dark races of India. We may leave it an open question with a good namber more which we have no space to mention.
Now we have some grounds for fixing the place of origin of the two fair sub-races. One must have been somewhere about
Central Asia, the other inust as necessarily
have been about Arabia. But what of all the others! We certainly have not an atom of evidence, nor even probability, whether derived from myth, tradition, or geology to go on Myth, tradition and geology all
point to the Fairs being the last of the
""
Ïot; all the lands originally occupied by them are geologically new, but whether the new peoples came conten, oraneously with the new lands, or occupied them long subse- quently we can form no judgment. We have a good deal as evidence that there were already pretty widely spread
over the earth" Mongolian
races when the first of the Fairs put in an appearance. Fortes ante asamemnona. But we
have not a scintilla of light to cast on the rest of the question of origins. Wus "Mongol" older than Negro? Were both older or younger than “Australian?" We cannot begin to form even an opinion; to all appearance the
a
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There is, therefore, no serious or pressing reason for a chauge, and however willing we may be to remove anything which may, wound the legitimate national self-respect on the part of the Chinese, it would be neither to their interest nor to • our own that we should assent, merely upon theoretical and sentimental grounds, to a change which might be fraught with much practical danger,
Individual shipowners in Japan, who own 180 essels of 350,000 ton, propose to form a great steamship company with services to all the leading Asiatic and European ports. It is reported that the capital required will be at least 20,000,000 yen,
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