812
HONG KONG OPIUM HOUSES.
11
|
(Daily Press 11th May.) This being a Crown Colony, we take it that His Excellency the Governor, his Executive Council, and the Legislative Council, will have no option but to carry into effect the decision of the Imperial Government to close all the opium "dena in Hongkong. It may in England be sufficient to decide that it is "essential to maintain the standard set by the Chinese," regardless of the per- manence or otherwise of that standard, but out here the business is not quite so simple. The Goverment of Hongkong will have to consider ways and means.
Sir MATTHEW NATHAN in his last budget speech warned the ratepayers of this Colony what might be expected in the event of the British Govern- ment doing what it has done, and now we are face to face with the situation then forecasted. What is going to be done? How is the loss of a million and a half of our revenue going to be repaired? More than that, whence are to come the ou lass immediately consequent on our maintenance of the standard set by the Chinese? The Opium Farmer, from whose contract with the Hongkong Government so much of our revenue is derived, will have to be com pensated. His contribution to the income of the administration is $121,000 per month, and his contract has twenty-one months to run. Compensation will also be due to the keepers of the divans. These places, in Hongkong, number about two hundred, and they are not to be dismissed as mere dens." Those of the first class sell tea and other refreshments as well as opium, and they represent the ins and hotels where our Chinese fellow citizens spend their hours of leisure. With the closing of these places, a large number of respectable licence-holders will be turned adrift, and as there can be no market for their furn ture and appliances, they will require a large amount of compensation. The compensation to the opium farmer, even if the closing of the divans does not mein bis suspension from business, must still be consider able, as the people who smoke opium cannot afford to obtain and keep the necessary paraphernalia in their homes, so that in any case the increase of the amouut sold for home consumption is unlikely to compensate for the decreased sales due to the closing of the retail establishments. Who is going to pay the compensation-the Imperial or the Colonial Government? We know who will have to recoup the Colony's lost revenue. The ratepayers and the rent payers will have to do that, and it is not likely that the Imperial Government will assist them by offering to accept a smaller military contribution, which they ought to
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
|
11
surprised to leara that in Canton the opium drns are not open long after the Hongkong places are shut. Any attempt to make Canton "maintain the standard set by Hongkong is likely to breed an agitation that will make the Cantonese forget the boycott.
Locally, our moralists and missionaries may not log be left to rejoice over the success of their agitation. As the Times says:
In endeavouring to discern the possible moral results, we have to take into no out the pro bable continuance of the craving for narotic or stimulants, which history shows the chines always to have pos-ossed in common with many other nations. Profesor Giles recently collect- ed a long series of proofs that the Chines were not always, as now, a sober nation. Their literature contains many indictions that drunkenness was once rife among them, and it may be so again. Already from Kan-su a missionary, quoted in the report transmitted by Sir John Jordan, states that "the high price of opium has induced people to take to drink."
There are only a few samples of the considerations which the precipitate action of the Imperial Government has forced so suddenly upon the attention of Hongkong.
.
BRITISH POLITICS.
[May 1, 1.908. Kingdom to drop out of her allegiance, and become the hunting ground for Con. tinental exploiters, Mr. Asquith, who is beginning to feel that he has already vantured beyond his depth, into troubled seas, has found himself compelled to call a halt before he becomes himself ontangled in the meshes of selition-and this is being held to scorn by the Irish followers of Mr. REDMOND, who, having no fear of respon- sibility before their eyes, are prepared to follow any ad chimera at the call of their leader. Unfortunately for himself, Mr. ASQUITE lacks the bourgeoiss bonhomie of his former Cn ef which allowed the later to pluuge with a light heart into any quixotic scheme, provided its object were only the destruction of another constitu- tional landmark; and so commits the (ia Radical eyes) mortal sin of pausing to consider consequences before taking the final and irrevocable plunge into outer dark- Ds. Mr. AsQUITH, in fact, has a some-
what tender feeling of responsibility, which often awakes him in the night watches, and this it is that has evidently cooled the once fervent love of his ultra-radical supporters.
That this is no fanciful fear be-a lawyer accustomed to closely sift the evidence of the trivial occurrences of daily life-can no matter longer doubt. Each election, no what the position or aims of the consti- tuency, has declared against him, and the last, that of Wolverhampton E., though it did not exclud: his nomine, has been the unkindest of all, inasmuch as instead of carrying the seat by a majority of 2800 be has just managed to retain it by a miser. able 8. On the other side the Unionist party, thoroughly aroused to the destruction that a premature dissolution, while the country is in an unsettled mind, might be expected to entail, are quite prepared to sink all personal ambitions and considera- tions rather than that, through apy fault on their side, fresh dangers should be per mitted to arise.
(Daily Press, 12th May.) Since the death of Lord PALMERSTON in 1865, nb prime minister seems to bave found himself in the same predicament as Mr. Asquirн, as depending. for his con. tinuance in office on the abstention of the regular opposition of the day. When ou his accession to office in December 1905, Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN made his frantic appel to all the elements of dis ruption, wiser men than he saw that he was raising up against himself a Frankenstein, which would e'er long bring about his own destruction. Toe cuormous clear majority of 104, which he apparently possessed over Unionists and Irish Separatists combind, was, it was seen, a source rather of weakness
It was thus that Mr. than strength,— a fact patent enough to HALDANE'S Army scheme was by the entire ordinary statesmen, but to which the new
male to depend on its Premier persistently closed his eyes; and party excluded from the ranks of party
questions, and which showed but too plainly that he had intrinsic merits; an 1 it is thus again that already lost the command of the Liberal within the last few days a new scheme for Party, and was being drawn by his dan the improvement of University Education gerous a-sociates into the Maelstrom of in Ireland has likewise, instead of being anarchy. Accordingly when bis evil smell-side-railed off the track from mere party ing Education Bill was so amendel as to be jealousies, been frankly accepted in prin. incapable of recognition by its own parents, ciple as the basis of future legislation. he was forced by the tail behind him to
This is all the more noteworthy that the declare war against the House of Lords, and
bill has been introduced b Mr. BIRRELL his new found revolutionary zeul carried
who in his Education act last year proved him so far that the muzzling of the House himself so unyielding that no compromise of Lords as an integral part of the constitu- could be effected, and owing to the back tion was actually lugged into the King's pressure from his extreme illies, a really Speech. Encouraged by these evidences of dangerous constitutional crisis was evolved; the incapicity of the Premier to preserve which at one tim) see ned likely to lead t any show of order unless by yielding to the something very like armed revolution. With regard to the usefulness of "main-most turbulent of his fighting tail in the
It Was in the same spirit that Lord ta ning the standard set by the Chinese House, it was no wonder that the Socialist LANSDOWN, though administering a well or, as it really means, of surpassing it party, which now for the first time had com-
deserved castigation for his folly, was able though there is little use in discussing it menced to be an acknowledged section of to extricate Lord TWEE MOUTH from the now, there is more than a doubt. The the House of Commons, was encouraged to worst consequences of his trea mnt of demand will persist, and Turkish, an other openly ventilate there its peculiar ten-ta. the letter received by him from the opium will be forthcoming. Very probably How its leiders would have fare l at the German Emperor-the outcome of which the trade will go to Macao, and we shall see hands of Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, has apprently been, that in the scheme of that colony thriving apace at the expense with whom ever prevailed te plicy of
reconstruction necessititel by the death of of this, with, no doubt, the stream pouring yielling to the clamour of his tail, a Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Lord hitherward from Goa as in the old days. whose motto might well have been fuctio TWEEDMOUTH has been scrupulously left We shall have to increase our expenditure quam consilium, must now remain for ever an the water police and perhaps other enigma, but his lieuten int, Mr. ASQUITH, branches, to cope with a revival of smuggl. on whose shoulders now rested the respon- ing. Native pium will improve in price sibility, was enough of a statesman to stand very shortly, and it will be surprising if this in the breach, and for ever incur the und does not promote bigger crops, rather than ing hatred of this section of the so-called decreased output. The latest information is Liberal Party. Similarly unable to follow that in most poppy-growing districts in their entirety the wild Irish separatist "cultivation has not yet been appreciably views of Mr REDMOND with regard to restricted,
part " and we shall be very much permitting that integral
do.
on
of the
U
in the cold. In the case of Lord PALM RSTON's last ministry, it had anc cee led the short-lived administration of Ird DERBY, which hai come in as n
protest against the erpetual restless0033 of previous Ministry, who looked upon the Constitution with similar eyes to BUTLER's aren fanatic, who would have it
That aligion was intend 'd For nothing better than being mended.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.