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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[November 11, 1907. without reason, which becomes in these concession to the same Russo-Belgian management of the line is half Chinese and matters a matter of quite secondary con- syndicate as had made the line from Hankow half English so that each item of expendi- sideration, is afforded in the opposition to to Peking. In addition to this being ultra ture is undertaken with the full knowledge the alleged "forced" loan for the purpose vires, the Chinese Government had its own of both, and all items of income and expendi- of constructing the main railway line from reasonable objections to the southern line ture and all details of traffic come before Soochow by way of Hangchow to Ningpo. falling into the same hands, but instead of both. As the line is not yet completed, as Now if this opposition were the genuine going in a straitforward way to excercise a matter of necessity the working of the outcome of national or patriotic feeling wa its rights under the agreement, it encouraged line is entirely under the control of the Eng- should be bound, however much we dis- its people in a cry of China for the Chinese, lish staff, but, of course, when the engineer. sented from it, to treat it with respect; but and the cancelling of the contract iu ing works are all completed it will gradually its very wildness and the methods adopted obedience to what was practically mob law. pass over to the Chinese staff, as that to keep it alive demonstrate how little there Subscriptions were invited from the masses becomes more practised in the economical is of what can be considered genuine about as a patriotic measure, and a sort of working of the railway generally. With the whole affair. It is, in fact, as the whole | inchoate scrip was issued. How much this end every means are being taken to of the "Boxer" movement of 1900, simply money was raised in this way cannot be establish schools so as to train the younger the artificial product of a small band of correctly ascertained, but the very first employees in their various duties, such as malcontents, who exist in China as in every action of the managers who worked the station masters, all these even at present other country under the sun where dis- affair was to put the money in private being Chinese, engine drivers, signal men, affection is played with and made a pet of hands and appoint their own friends to &c. The contract too places a time limit and the inciting motive is not so much manage" it as a semi-official affair. No when the loan is to be automatically dislike to the foreigner in person, as the accounts have been kept nor rendered, and extinguished, so tha', practically as soon as antipathy of the reactionary to change of it almost goes without saying that no steps the initiatory stages are past, the Chinese any sort, especially if likely to be beneficial. have been taken to apply the money col- will by degrees come into entire control. Doubtless, as in all movements of the sort,lected to the making of the railway. The How this is burtful to auy patriotic Chinese the individuals who permit themselves to be subscribers have tried to assert their it is not easy to see. As a fact it would made most prominent and who always appear right to appoint their own directors, but probably be much more advantageous for on the surface of these so-called popular on on pretence or other no progress
the Chinese Government and people did the reactions, are not by any means the origin- has been made, and to all appearance period of apprenticeship last longer; but in al instigators; that is a role undertaken by the whole of the money has been order to respect in every way the national a more dangerous, because concealed, class applied to other purposes; but what does desire to pose as untrammelled, everything of recusants who take good care to keep not appear, for according to Chinese practice, is being done to render the intermediate themselves in a safe obscurity. The foolish au official can never be asked to account period of mixed control as short as possible. It will from the above be evident how young men who threaten suicide as a proof for the receipts of his office. So has fared of their sincerity are more generally dupes the first attempt of the Chinese to build artificial is the parrot like cry of the present than sinners, and the present instance is their own railways. We may for a moment agitators, and how foolish the expressed only following the ordinary rule of popular cast a glance at the other side, and see in desire to build with Chinese money all agitations. Except in the minds of a few what respect the Chinese people have lost in Chinese railways. As a fact, even looking reactionaries who would willingly see China having their lines built for them on loan. at the affair from the narrowest national return to the state of semi-barbarism to which The first instance of this is the Chili Line, point of view, China has made a remarkably she was brought by the corrupt rule of the stretching from Peking to Shan-hai-kwan. good bargain in getting her railways made feeble successors of Kienlung in the first This has been carried out honestly and by foreign money with the least possible half of the last century, there is a general cheaply; practically it is managed by the expenditure of her own capital, and this consensus of native opinion that what the Chinese Government, only the permanent eutirely independent of the fact, as disclosed empire most needs is to have its communi- way and the engineering works which remain by the history of the Canton-Hankow line, cations, allowed to fall into disorder through as security for the advance till it is repaid that every penny of expenditure is known misgovernment, put into order; and as being under foreign control. That the and checked by her own people, instзal of the only means of accomplishing this is public are badly served, whether they are being placed in the hands of irresposible by making railways, railways themselves English or Chinese, is a matter of notoriety, officials over whose expenditure, according are in favour. So much is this the case but beyond such interference as shall secure to the present system of government finance, that the mischief makers amongst the the keeping up of their security, the English no supervision of any sort is possible. That in the end affairs will be reformed,—that at reactionaries find it a hopeless task to representatives do not appear on the scene. inveigh against the railways themselves, Very much the same may be said of the line the moment they are being reformed--is so have had to change their plans. It is from Peking to Hankow where the line is left undeniable; but the road of reform is long, always an easy task in any homogeneous as much as possible to the Chinese staff, and the wants of communications are press- country to raise an outcry against the subject only to the necessary supervisioning and immediate, and Chin, in accepting foreigner as such, and China is no exception to secure the regular payment of interests to the rule, and as under existing conditions accrued. the people at large have in business matters no confidence in their own governing classes, the reactionaries knowing that the placing of railways in official hands implies their postponement till St. Tibb's eve, they have been skillfully playing upon this antiforeign element. The movement has, in fact, for its object not to induce the people to rally round their own kith and kin in the construction of the main lines, but to put an end to the building of railways altogether. As to what is certain to occur in entrusting their own money in official hands we have a pretty plain object lesson in the Canton-Hankow line. Here, it is true, the Chinese had a good cause of com- plaint against the original concessionaires. The right to make this most important of the main railway lines had been granted under certain stipulations to the representa- tives of certain American capitalists; one of these stipulations was that without consent the acquired rights could not be surrendered nor transferred; such clauses occur in every lease, and are in such a transaction practically essential. Ignoring these clauses altogether, the Syndicate after delaying beyond the stipulated period for commencing, without consulting the Chinese Government, made a contract to sell their
the aid of the foreigner with the necessary safeguards which have been supplied, has been acting in her own truest interests a wise part.
TRADE MARKS.
(Daily Press, November 7th.) The interesting communication seat to the press by the Yokohama Board of Trade, and reproduced the other day ia our columos, sheds a little more light on the vexed question of trade mark infringements in Japan. Without denying that Japanese businessmen, like businessmen in all other countries, include some rogues in their
Finally, in the last of the lines, which is not yet completed, that from Shanghai to Nanking, we find every effort made to fill every appointment possible with Chinese. The line having to serve the richest district in the Empire has been undertaken on a liberal scale, and the permanent way and rolling stock are of first class construction, equal in fact to the best lines in England. Having the advantage of home experience, and being as a pioneer line free from the trammels that surround the construction of a line in England, the loading guage has been made some two feet higher, and con- siderably more width left between the up and down tracks, and this has enabled the engines and carriages to be both wider and higher than at home. Every engineer who knows how much English railways are hampered in these respects can understand Japan, as elsewhere, "the law is a bass.” the enormous advantage thus gained in the The alleged pirates, or at least some of them, first instance at little increased capital appear to have kept within the four oɔrners expenditure. This, however, had by certain of the law, and in business circles every- mischief-makers been brought up as a where that is generally regarded as quite complaint against the management, forget sufficient to maintain a reputation for com- ting that the contractors for the line have mercial integrity. Altruism and chivalry had to supply the money as well as the
are foreign to the European counting-house, construction, and have felt sufficient conf-just as bushido is a stranger to the hong and dence in the undertaking to justify them godown in Japan. The Japanese Patent in the extra
expenses.
The board of
number, this communication may be taken as showing that the sins of the Japanese ia this connection are no blacker than they have been painted. It also shows that the Government, like other Governments, has
the best of honest intentions, and that in
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