June 25, 1906.]
fortunes without capital is a pretty specimen of special pleading, by one who wants to make an official railway with public capital. If his appointees are rejected, he fears the matter will fall through. If they are not. and it now appears that Peking is deciding for the VICEROY and against the people, it seems certain to fall through. The subscribers will want their money back, and
DO
others will be forthcoming. His EXCELLENCY's denial of a grudge is, by its superfluity, almost an admission; and it is certainly against all knowledge of human nature to believe him. To foreign minds the idea of a deadlock over a question of control and directorship seems absurd, when the natural procedure is so simple. The whole thing should obviously rest with the majority of subscribers, who should be protected from official intimidation. The VICEROY should not be allowed to interfere at all, not even as a shareholder; his part should be confined to the duty of seeing that the requirements of the law are carried out. The advance from the provincial exchequer, of which he makes so much, could easily be repaid by the railway company; the terms being arranged with an eye to the fact that the province must indirectly benefit by the transaction. To grab at once at a railway not eveu constructed is not a good way to gain security for the loan. The whole position is unthinkable in any country but China; and it is therefore all the harder to see a way out. It is not difficult now, however, to decide that of the Canton-Hankow Railway the VICEROY is a hinderer rather than a helper.
་
YOUNG CHINA METHODS.
(Daily Press, 22nd Junie.) When the fox robes himself in gown and bands, and sets up for a preacher, the geese may look out for an uneasy time. Such is the moral we must draw from the position of affairs in northern China; Young China has assumed the gown, and been holding eloquent discourse to the geese on the iniquities of the unspeakable foreiguer. The immediate occasion was the superhuman iniquity of the Municipality of Shanghai, which the fox told his flock was actually levying "taxes" outside municipal limits a sin which fox suggests ought to be punished by goose getting up another course of riots, when the Municipal Council would rightly be called on to pay the indemnity! Poor goose!
When some
❤
seven hundred years ago Shanghai was erected into hien district the rivers ran somewhat differently from their present courses. In consequence a little bit was left out in the north-east corner of the hien. The railway came into this corner and SHENG KUNG-PAO, who had contrived to get the line into his hands, would not permit LIU KWEN-YI, the Nanking viceroy, to make up this corner in the extension. As the settlement lies on two sides of it, and communication was needed, a road has been recently made through it. When Tso TSUNG-TANG, 8 previous viceroy, had taken over the old Woosung railway, the portion of the track running through this corner was made into a road, and successive taotais undertook to keep it in order. It was kept up in some fashion till the recent Young-China Taotai YUEN came into office. The road had be- come so bad as to be practically impassable, and the Municipality spent some eight hundred dollars on it, after fruitlessly drawing Tuotai YUEN's attention to it and the promise of his predecessors. The bill was sent to His HONOUR, who for the first
SOMBING
•
|
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
|
|
445
thet
pri
time ascended the pulpit and real homily | cally every case where the prisoner has been number one. The item was, he said, an sentenced, owing to the carelessness or insignificant one, and in contempt he would connivance of the jail attendants, ( pay it; but let all prospective Councils sonér has managed to get out. In no case know that the road belonged to the has any attempt been made to capture bint EMPEROR of China, and for the future he again. Whether this proceeds from the would permit no interference. As a salve fears or the unwillingness of the MAGISTRATE he added that be, Taotai YUEN, would for to punish a prisoner sent in by the foreign all futurity attend to the repairs of the Municipality does not appear, but there are road himself, and would keep it in proper strong reasons for attributing it to the latter repair. The road is now practically im cause. An instructive instance of the passable; its width has been the subject of lengths to which the present generation of encroachments on both sides, so that it has officials will go was afforded only the other degenerated to the condition of the day. A prisoner had been arrested in the ordinary paths in the district; but in settlements in the act of making counterfeit one most important respect much worse, coin, an with all the machinery and inasmuch as it has become the ordinary implements of the art. The case was too track of the pirates and salt smugglers, who clear for even the present MAGISTRATE to under the ægis of Young China haunt the refuse to convict, and he was sentenced to a district. Such reasons were effective some term of imprisonment and taken to the three years ago in inducing certain land- Municipal jail. As not infrequently bap. holders in the neighbourhood to put their pens in the case of this crime, the prisoner hands in their pockets, and make a new had wealthy friends, and the influence of road in lieu of that abandoned to decay by this became soon apparent. It was of coufhe Tuotai YUEN. Other people came along a source of trouble that so promising a and built houses on it, and as these people subject should be made to undergo the were enjoying police protection, and needed disgrace of being lodged in a Municipal jail. light and water, it was arranged that the But the subject was delicate and had to be Water Company should supply them with carefully worked out. The first step was a water, but the Municipality having no very politely worded notice that the prisoner's power to raise taxes beyond the actual health was suffering from bis confine ment, limits, the Water Company agreed not to and that it was necessary that he should be supply the water unless the residents agreed treated in a native hospital. To this the to contribute towards the cost of policing Council rudely replied that it had received a and upkeep. As owing to the neglect or daily reports of the condition of the pri connivance of the recent native government souer's health, and in none of these was authorities crimes of violence had become there any notice that the prisoner in rampant in this particular district the question had anything whatever the matter tenants of the new houses were willing with him; there was, however, a hospital enough to agree to the proposal. This is attached to the jail, and in case of illness he the theme of preacher fox's last and most would be carefully treated. The next step eloquent discourse. But this antagonism showed that the officials themselves were to matters municipL is by no meaus actually at the bottom of these attempts to confined to preaching to the inasses the upset the course of justice. We have before doctrine of physical force, but is carried this hal occasion to comment to the length of directly encouraging fantastic rule which makes the consul senior crime. We spoke recently of the lawless by residence, independent of any other condition of the lower province of qualification, the intermediary between the Kiangsu, owing to the practical encourage Chinese authorities and the Municipal ment afforded by the officials to armed Government. In the present instance the bands of salt-sinugglers, who have recently Belgian CONSUL was the Seuior. Avowedly become bold enough to carry their oper- the smaller European States are in favour in ations even west of the Tai Hu. Crims Peking, as not being likely to raise "frivol- of violence, in most cases traceable to
ous" objections; and of all the minor coun- these lawlegs binds, have of late become tries Belgium stands highest. Of course unpleasantly frequent in the districts this lasts only during good behaviour, so adjoining the Settlements, and ever within the coast was seemingly clear. The SENIOR the limits, where the whole of the ground CONSUL accordingly wrote in a mild letter is not yet occupied. Practically all the to say that the crime of false coinage being outer roads to the north and east are unsafe
one of those reserved for the judgment of after nightfall. A recent case of attempted the higher courts, he would feel obliged jail-breaking engineered by prisoners by the Municipal Council having the known to belong to these smuggler gangs, prisoner sent into the city for future was fortunately suppressed the judgment. The CHAIRMAN replied that as promptitude of the jail officials; but for the prisoner had already been tried and some minutes the situation looked extremely seutenced, and the whole question of the dangerous; several lives being lost on the regulations were at the moment under side of the rioters, and some of the police discussion, the Council could not comply. guards having met with severe injuries. At the same time it was pointed out that This attempted emente, there is every reason this was not the first attempt made to get to believe, was intimately associated with possession of the prisoner, and the story of the murder, close to one of the most the feigned illness was duly explained. It frequented thoroughfares, of one of the is not necessary to follow the story to the warders, a crime to which no clue has as yet end; enough has been shown to indicate the been discovered. It is known that the methods being adopted in China generally emeute within the walls was to have been by the party of irreconcileables to sow accompanied by a rising of these desperadoes dissension, and retard the coming of a outside, and it is probable either that the better time for the Empire. We see the warder had obtained some clue to this, or same thing happening everywhere, whether that he was supposed to have in his posses with railways or mines; whether with sion a key to the outer gate. From time regard to the Cutouts, or the Post Office, to time, under existing regulations for or the Army; or in fact everything wherein the Mixed Court, prisoners captured a foreigner can come in contact with a outside limits have to be sent into the Chinese official. That history repeats itself native city for trial and punishment. In is an old and well-worn aphorism; neverthe- most cases merely nominal punishments are less it is instructive to find in old PETER nflicted; and it is notorious that in practi- l'AgBɛɛ that precisely the saine arguments
by
+
on the
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.