་
July 14, 1906.] China
BIG SHIPS,
盡
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
19
whether it is in
seriously desires_to_restrict the | such monsters present when afloat. The purport of the questions. As we pointed consumption of the drug, the Governments eye cannot realise for us their dimensions, out at the time, the questions as put of India and Great Britain will agree to a so carefully are the proportions worked carried an implication which the Colonial plan which has this end in view, though at out. The slender-looking funnels" of the Office could honestly repudiate. It was a cost of some sacrifice of revenue". The Lusitania, we read, are each large enough impossible to deny that the Crown Agents promise is sufficiently vague to suggest that to allow two locomotives to pass each other its practical effect will not amount to very inside.
were involved, as they had been, or were The masts are a couple of feet intended to be, directly interested from much-at all events towards putting down taller than the corner towers of St. Paul's the beginning. The general mistrust of the the consumption of epium in China. It Cathedral. She has normal accommodation Crown Agents, to which we referred, would may be that the Chinese Government will for 1,300 third-class passengers, 500 second- be within the knowledge of the Colonial (as they have always before done when the and 550 first-class, in addition to a crew of Office, and it was, as a matter of fact, question has been brought before them) use about 800. This means that without undue evinced in almost every line of the inter-. the occasion for attempting to get further straining of her capacity she could com-rogation. No statesman of modern calibre. duties out of Indian opium; but it is to be fortably take away every white-skinned resi- could think of giving a plain hoped that if the matter is treated in this dent of Hongkong, as enumerated in the last such a question; he would fear the risk of Ves" to way, our representative at Peking will census. It would be quite easy to get lost seeming to consent to the implication of the insist on being assured that some bona fide among the ramifying corridors of her eight questions. We know that the popular action is being taken by the Chinese. It is floors and the electric lifts must be a not likely that the latter will be in favour necessity rather than
dislike of Crown Agent work in the Crown a luxury. At Colonies is not shared by officialdom, and of suppressing the import altogether and the time when losing a substantial revenue, as no one knows decided
the Cunard Company Crown Colonies are ruled by officialdom. to adopt turbines, H..S. To such a matter the complaining public is better than they that such a step would Amethyst represented the greatest horse- not allowed any effectual voice. Thus, not put an end to the consumption of opium, power applied to marine turbines. For the while our correspondent recognises that it but would only be giving a monopoly to the Tausitania the required power is five times is possibly a moot point native grown article-which is the particular as great. "The step forward in power was kind which, on account of its comparative practically as great," says Sir William work should be undertaken by the Crownl the best interests of the Colony that this cheapness, is made use of by the masses of White, in the engineering supplement of Agents and not by the Colony's own the people.
the Times, "as the total advance made officials". it can only be said to be acade gradually with reciprocating engines in mically moot. The question has been from forty to fifty years." It is to a com- decided, not only by the Colonial Office, bination of state aid and private enterprise but by the local GOVERNOR. As the that this great advance in the shipbuilding answer told us, "all the steps taken had art is due. There has been and is much the full concurrence of the GOVERNOR of division of opinion both as to the policy of Hongkong". the annual subsidy and the capital loan to of the local officials, to complete the con- The capability or otherwise the Cunard Company, and as to the real struction of this section of the line, was advantage to the Navy in the arrangement. never in question at all. The authorities Probably the experiment will be repeated; but, questions of policy apart, the result, if than they have done; possibly the Crown never expected or invited them to do more all goes well with the new vessels, will be Agents would have been too strong for agreeable to the British people. The race the authorities if they had. for supremacy of speed appeals to their there " has been sporting instinct. Those who mourn for
no change of the romance of the sea have surely only to addition to
which may be taken to mean, in compare the elocular craft of a few gedera- there never will be any change in the its obvious meaning, that tious ago with this many-chambered floating policy of putting everything into the hands hotel, to see that their mourning is vain. of the Crown Agents, until those who With the Dreadnought and the Lusitania mistrust them do something more than there appears every justification for the grumble. At present, it is not easy to see claim now being proudly made in the papers, what more they can do. The Crown Agent that Britannia once more rules the waves. question would presumably have to be made an election cry, like "Chinese slavery", and as most of the people who object to the Crown Agents' methods are outside the electoral area, there is poor prospect of that. Representations and petitions got snubbed. Men may come and men may go up locally are often ignored or otherwise but the Crown Agent system goes on for ever. At present the disfranchised residents of Crown Colonies seem to have no course open but to "grin and bear it". Supposing Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL had said simply "yes" to those questions, what could have been done? Nothing. Much indignation might have been authorities are by now inured to Colonial.
expressed, but the indignation. If there is any room for satisfaction at all in this matter, it must be found in the assurance that we gave at the time, that the worst implication of the questions is not warranted; that, in short, there has been no slighting of our local government or its officials.
THE KOWLOON-CANTON RAILWAY.
(Daily Press, 11th July.) The sometimes heard complaint that the romance of the sea has gone with the wind. blown ships is not to be instantly admitted, The question arises if the romance has not merely changed in form, to its betterment. Those who paddled along the coast in coracles might as justly have complained of the ocean-going galleons, which added wonderfully to this aspect of seafaring; and when looked at rightly, there is no dearth of romance about the new Cunarder Lusitania. The matter-of-fact statements now appearing in the public press would a few years ago have come quite appropriately from the pen of JULES VERNE, without detracting from our admiration of his wonderful imaginative gifts. In mere length the Cunarder launched last month offers some points for ejaculations, of amazement. A London paper points out that the combined front- ages of the Hotel Cecil and the Savoy equal only half her length. If an attempt were made to get her into the Cosmopolitan Dock, by the time her stem touched the
(Daily Press, 12th July) inner Tai-kok-tsui eud, there would still be The questions asked in Parliament last two funnels and a full half her length mouth, concerning the construction of the showing outside. The biggest basin of the British section of the
Ї Kowloon-Canton Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company Railway, and Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S would not conceal her; there would be over answers thereto, are the subject of a two hundred feet, enough for a fair-sized special communication from our London steamer, left outside. There is not enough correspondent, which we publish elsewhere. room, by more than a hundred feet, for the It appears that the Member who at his, Lusitania to lie between Murray Pier and suggestion put the questions was Mr. H. G. the Wardley Street Wharf; but wharf LEA, representing East St Pancras, and accommodation might just be managed by not, as we wrongly assumed at the time, removing Blake Pier and the Ice House Mr. A. H. LEE. Mr. LEA, it will be seen, Street Pier, and mooring one end to is a new member, but by no means a Douglas Pier and the other to the Wardley nonentity. He appears to take a keen Street Wharf. A glance at the scale-map interest in all Colonial and Imperial matters, in the Directory and Chronicle shows that which is as might be expected from a man the Lusitania on land would just span the with the broadening experiences indicated length between Blake Pier and the Bowling by our correspondent. The interest of the Club. She is nearly three times the length questions, which appeared in full in our of the Hongkong Hotel, and stands a little telegraphic column on June 15th, does not, higher. The Lusitania, in short, is eighty however, depend upon the man who asked feet longer than any vessel, now aflcat. As them. They were questions that were her calculated speed is to be twenty four to being asked locally, and no satisfactory twenty-five knots an hour, or about a knot answer seemed to be obtainable except by more than the German record, her power approaching the fountainhead. It will be has to be expressed in marvellous figures. noticed that to those interested in London Her turbines must develop 68,000 h.p., or Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S reply has failed fust 30,000 h.p. more than the 8.8. Kaiser to give entire satisfaction. The form which Wilhelm II. has got. The biggest steamers the questions took left a loophole for the that have visited Hongkong have already UNDER-SECRETARY to give a perfectly boua given us an ea of the deceptive appearance fide reply, and yet to avoid the main
case
policy
$
In any
Works deals with land sales by auction, with In his annual report the ector of Public
nominal terms. grants on short leases, permits out suction, extensions granted, grants on to occupy land for short periods and extension of short period leases to 75 year leases. During the year 1905 387 lots, having area in square feet of 18,834,845, and a total annual Crown rent of $25,386.05, were sold, the premium on premium paid into the Treasury during the same being $292.782.31. The actual amount of
year was $394,56 1.96, or considerably less than the estimate, which amounted to $500,000,
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