October 19, 1907.]
were
the
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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13
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255
majority votes, and might establishes its still right. Popular prejudices make rights at the polling booths iustead of on the battlefi-lis. That brings up another and diplomatic obligations. Evidently race aspect, the Imperial Government's treaties prejudice, like superstition, is a natural however it may be deprecated by the social force that has to be reckoned with, intellectually emancipated person. British Government had to give its assent The
to legislation in South Africa which im- poses upon British Indians disabilities and restrictions aginst which the intellectual. ly emancipated have frequently protested and of which they cannot pretend to
It may reluctantly have
cal measure into the Congress. If there one abuse of belligerent rights on
THEN AND NOW.
sides of the question, how can
we be which all civilised nations might have been
expected to approach a solution while (Daily Press, 15th October.) expected to agree it was the sowing of the 8 tudonts of history must often be tempted | asp cts?
conscious of so many more factors and sea wholesale with floating mines. We have to scout
The whole subject bristles with as fallacious those two hoary difficulties, and no statistics of any sort to show what was adages,
"not even the youngest "other times, otlier manners," and of the damage thereby inflicted in the Russo-
can afford to air assured "tempora mutantur one. Japanese war on the enemies' war fleets, but only the Hoagkoug Daily Press of dfty appears, there are some who wish to see Consider opinions. Even among the employers, it there is no reason to believe it amounted to years ago. To-day we print an extract anything serious. Both sides, it is true, showing that then as now, the question of man's land."
British Columbia maintained as a
"white lost heavily through the explosion of sub- | Asiatic immigration was very uiuch on the which no European should disapprove, yet It is a laudable wish, of marine mines outside Port Arthur, but | carpet. There has been practically no these were mines sunk in the ordinary course change in the situation as it existed half a
how glibly, how strenuously even, many of of warfare, and there was no suggestion even century ago, except that we are less inclined Japanese," and "
us resent the corollary of Japan for the of condemning the use of mines in actual
China for the Chinese." to the cocksureness with which our earliest How simple, how far less complex, must warfare. As a fact there are many philan-issues treated and dismissed the subject. have been such problems in the good old thropists who hold that the more destructive To-day we dare not wholly coudenn the days when might was right. Really, might become the actual fighting engines in war agitation as due to a "paucity of political the less destructive of life will wars become. sagacity" in all concerned, though at the There is a good deal of reason in the theory, same time we cannot. venture the claim that Comparatively few lives are actually lost such sagacity is more generally diffused on the field of battle, misery and disease thau it was fifty years ago. being far more fatal. The most wasteful certainly not changed with the times; the Mauners have and fatal wars on record were undoubtedly partisius on each side hetray the old-time those of Jenghiz Khan and his successors, acrimony. The disinterested observer to- and in these gunpowder had scarcely come day is bewildered by the plausibility of the into use, and plaved a very small part in the opposing arguments, and is fain to light on destruction. Bad as were the evil effects of some compromis. A London contemporary the Napoleonic wars, the destruction of life says there is a point beyond which the and property was light compared with the precaution of the exclusive Whites be- Thirty Years War, during the progress of comes prejudice and the adequate passes which Europe was almost entirely converted into the uureasonable. It does into a desert wilderness.
not If the improve- venture even a bint of where that point ment in weapons and explosives that has is to be picked up and ascertained, approve. marked the last half century, be carried on and that is precisely the most important do the same for British Columbia. Ethi- on the same scale for another half century, point of all. If we could only bit upon it!cally, such will be the destruction of life in the But what publicist dare attempt the def. and it is to be hoped that our nationals ours is a shameful predicament, field, that one or two battles will necessarily nition? Squaring the circle weren childish- will avoid the m-aly-mouthed protestati ins exhaust both belligerents; and there will ly simple exercise compared with that that have tainted American politics with be little left for disease and famine to do. problem. But the sowing of mines in the open sea is Daily Press of 1857 preserve their pristine unjust, through political exigencies, let us To-day the arguments of the hypocrisy. If we have to be illogical and actually a return to the most barbarous freshness. We are told that British be at least honest about it. practices of the past, and is even more Columbia comprises a vast territory, possess-
If political dangerous for the innocent neutral trader ing considerable variations of climate and preserve a little self-respect by not trying necessity knows no moral law, we can than for the belligerents themselves. Ger- diversity of soil and country, and endowed | to ride the two horses at once. Meanwhile, many, however, all through the negotiations with rich resources and possibilities, even as according to displayed such a cynical disregard to the Australia.
Tokyo, the position is Its fruit-farming, agriculture, this, that the Japanese Government will assumed rights of neutrals that this became lumber, mining, and fish-canning industries not give its one of the noteworthy features of the await development, just as Australia's did. inasmuch as the immigration may be re- consent to any restriction, Congress. Perhaps there was in this some- Such development, we are assured, is stricted, when the Canadian Government thing more than appeared on the surface. hampered, "if not starved." by the lack of considers it necessary, without any formal While, as suggested above, there is nothing labour. Japanese and Chinese are really of agreement. Such restriction, however, would that Germany desires more than peace, she the greatest service in both British Colum- be regarded in Japan as a contravention of is by no means indisposed to turn to her bia and California, as they were in Australia. the Anglo-Japanese Commercial Treaty. own advantage the general apprehension of Yet while these statements may be admitted. Fortunately, most war; to take part in any scheme for the all the story is not told.
of the Japanese im- mitigation of the sufferings of the mere and enterprisers are
The employers migrants desirous of migrating to Canada auxious to obtain have alrealy left Ha vaii, and it is not neutral would be to lessen the terrors of war labour in large quantities at a cheap rate, anticipated that such large numbers will itself, and so deprive her in a great and they allege that without Asiatic invade Canada in the future. measure of the object lesson she is holding workers the country caunot be properly out to her neighbours. As a fact military developed. They allege further that the nations, and great military commanders agitation against Asiatic have in all time held in little regard the rights of neutrals; and the neutrals them- selves have been looked upon rather as a nuisance to be abated, than as a section of humanity demanding gentle treatment.
On the whole the Congress bas taught those capable of reading between the lines many unpleasant truths; but it is to be feared that in the present callous condition of Europe, there are few capable of assimi- lating the lesson.
There has recently been a sharp advance in wheat owing to the failure of crops in India and Russia from lack of rain and to the crops in the Argentine not coming on as asuil. Australia apparently is refusing to dispose of any of her stock in hand, while America is short on account of damage to orope in the Eastern states. The interest of this news for local readers lies in the relation it bears to the pro- sperity of the Hongkong milting company's enterprise. Four months ago, we are informed, the local mill bought up 30,000 tons of wheat at.a low figure, so that the company stands to do well in the flour market during the ensuing winter.
C
immigrants
is a 'purely selfish" one by the Labour Unions, fostered by racial antipathy. On the other hand, the agitators and spokesmen for white labour jeer at this virtuous depre- cation of selfishness, and quite properly. The men who want to keep up wages are uo more selfish than the men who want to lower them and even an honest and sturdy race prejudice is less reprehensible than the hypocritical recital of the theory that "of one blood created He all nations." Chris that all men of even one nation are of one tendum has so far failed to admit in practice blood. They hang the picture up as academically pretty, but turn it to the wall as socially inexpedient. They treat the ideal, in fact, as prudes treat the nude, good for the connoisseur, but bad for the public, Faced with the opposing views of Capital und Labour on the subject of Asiatic im- migration, even the best qualified critics despairingly plead that "it is not at preseut obvious how a permanent amelioration of the situation is to be effected." If such pessimism is possible vis-à-vis only two
to
CHINESE CURRENCY REFORM.
(Daily Press, October 16th). Wall Street, like some other thorough- fares where there are bulls and bears, does not always wait for events before reporting them. The zoological catalogue of these places includes more than bears and bulls : we may mention also the cock-and-bull, and the canard, in connection with the previously mentioned
" from telegram Washington to New York," that China bad
historical item, whatever effect it may have decided to adopt the gold standard. This
Londoners very long. had on Wall Street, did not concern the The bankers there treated it as CHABLES LAMB treated a man named in his hearing, but whom he did not know. They did not know, but they
damned it at a venture." According to our last mail advices, the manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corpora tion gave as his opinion that there was nothing in the statement, ** Some time ago the Americans sent a deputation to the Chinese with the view of persuading them
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