July 20, 1908.]
A THREATENING CALAMITY.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORTĮ THE FOREIGN POST OFFICES IN CHINA,
(Daily Press, July 13th.)
(Daily Press, 11th July.) Following closely upon the terrible de- vastation caused by the floods in the Kwang is the revived report of the intention of the A matter of great interest to Hongkong tang province comes the alarming news of a Chinese Government to join the Postal serious outbreak of cholera at Canton, the Union and to take over the foreign Post provincial capital. Our correspondent's information published yesterday is that include the various British postal agencies Offices in China. This would, of course, it is spreading rapidly all over the city and that
of the Hongkong Post Office. many deaths
Similar have occurred. That the state of affairs at Can- reports have been circulated and published ton is recognised by the city authorities as
before, but now it is categorically, though extremely serious is clearly shown in the officially, announced that the Peking
Government intends to take precautionary measures adopted to check different foreign Post Offices in China over the the spread of the disease. No suggestion is together with their staffs of employés, contained in our correspondent's brief para- foreign as well as Chinese, graph as to what the authorities deem to
The Head be the originating cause of the spidemic, but stated that the telegraph system is to be Office is to be in Peking. It is further we do not suppose it would be very wide of amalgamated with the post office system, as the mark to connect it with the flood and in England, and the work of both depart the resulting contamination of the water
ments will be conducted in the same offices. supplies in the southern and eastern suburbs There will be a special printing establish. where the disease first made its appearance. ment for the manufacture of stamps, and a If that be the origin it is greatly to be feared postal school is to be established in Peking that the city, and perhaps the whole pro- for the training of Chinese for the service. vince, may suffer terribly froin the scourge. Finally the report states that negotiations We sincerely hope these apprehensions will between the Chinese Government and the not be realised. Cholera, however, like bubonic Foreign Ministers in Peking are in progress plague, is not a disease that a city may easily at the present time respecting this scheme. rid itself of when once it obtains a foot- Our Tientsiu correspondent, however, as hold-as the health authorities in the the result of inquiries, informs us that the Philippines have been experiencing. They latter statement is without foundation, are still fighting the scourge in several Possibly, he says, the Chinese Government provinces. Since the 1st of January over 3,000 deaths have been recorded, represent-terested a proposition on the subject, but may be intending to make the Powers ia- ing something like forty per cent of the this has not been done yet. If it were cases notified. In the province of Pau- done, it is not likely that all the Powers gansinan especially it is still bad, but the would agree; indeed it is pretty certain bealth authorities appear to have success- that several of them would not. fully kept the port of Manila practically free of the disease, and the prevalence of cholera in the provinces has not occasioned the slightest apprehension in the ports having trade relations with Manila. But an epidemic of a maliguant type in the city of Canton, especially at a time when all the conditions appear favourable to its develop- ment there and in the neighbouring districts is a much
serious matter and may well occasion anxiety to the health authorities of this Colony as well as to the governing authorities of the neighbouring province. In Hongkong we have practically reached the end of a rather bad plague season in which the cases notified total near upon a thousand. How Canton has fared in the matter of plague there are available statistics to show, though to all appearances plague is not considered to have been as bad there as in Hongkong this year. It is recorded in the plague bistory of Hongkong that the deadly Scourge was imported here from Canton, and it is sincerely to be hoped that this may not have to be written of the no less deadly scourge of Cholera. When we think of the large passenger traffic between the two ports we can appreciate the difficulties under which the health authorities labour, but the news of the alarming outbreak at Canton, confirmed and substantiated as it is by the extraordinary precautions which the Chinese military and civil authorities in the city are taking to check the spread of the epidemic points plainly to the necessity for the exercise of the utmost vigilance with a view to protect the Colony from a new affliction.
more
on
establish Post
35
the coming years would show that China has been storing her energy to meet the new environment, the wonderful progress which is steadily being made with the organisation tion might well have occupied a prominent of the Chinese imperial postal administra- place in his thoughts. There are now something like 600 head and branch offices established throughout the empire, and an and upwards of 2,000 postal agencies
enormous amount of mail matter, both letters and parcels, is dealt with. As the efficiency of the service is increasingly demonstrated we can quite understand that offices will be viewed more and more by the the continued existence of the foreign post
Rights Recovery Party as merely serving to keep raw a patch of irritation in the national self-consciousness of the Chinese people; but we fear the time has not yet arrived when the interests of the foreign communities they those offices can be closed without injury to
serve.
SEDITIOUS NEWSPAPERS.
(Daily Press, 14th July.)
in Seoul for the publication of seditious The recent prosecution of alBritish subject newspapers in the vernacular has resulted in the issue by the British Government of Regulations for the control of British news. papers in Korea. These regulations provide that
to British protection shall be maintained at a register of newspapers entitled
newspaper which is not registered shall not the Consulate-General in Seoul, and a
as the property of a British subject. If be denied to be entitled to British protection the owner of a registered newspaper is not or linarily resident in Korea, the name of some responsible British subject resident as his ageut for all purposes relating to within the jurisdiction shall be registered these Regulations. The owner or agent, as the case may be, is deemed under these Regulations to be responsible for the publication of the newspaper and for all matters appearing therein. There is really nothing in these Regulations to which
any one can take serious objection, and their
appearance excites curiosity only because their operation is limited to Korea (though issued under the China and Korea Orders
only just arisen for their enactment. In in Council), and because the occasion has
fact there was no feature that we can recall in the recent prosecution which disclosed not deny that he their necessity. The complainant did of the offending vernacular papers, and Was the proprietor
But the whole difference these Regulations he was therefore amenable to British law.
makes is that if newspapers owned by British subjects duly registered at the Consulate they will not have the benefit of British protection, but must take their chance with the laws of Korea. It has been made abundantly plain that the countenance the publication of seditious British authorities will not
matter in Korea.
hear more of this matter.
Sooner or later, however, we are bound to planks in the platform of the "Chinese It is one of the Rights Recovery Party" in the capital. What, they argue, would be said in Eng- land, if the French, German, Russian, Belgian, Japanese and Chinese residents there proposed that their Governments should
Offices in the principal English ports? No doubt a great deal would be said ia Eogland analogy can
the subject; but at present no be drawn between the two countries in this matter. able to prove to the satisfaction of the When China is
Powers that she possesses an efficient postal administration, competent to deal satis- likely that she will have much difficulty in ofactorily with the foreign mails, it is un- inducing the Powers to close their establish- ments. The Chinese Government is doubtless aware Very few of them pay their way. that Great Britain and France formerly maintaiuel their own post offices in the principal treaty ports of Japan. In 1871 Japan based her postal service on the Western model, and three years later joined the International Postal Union. By 1879 the service has been brought to such a state of efficiency that Great Britain consented to close the British Post Offices at Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki, and France followed Those who have been watching recent that example a year later. We learn that events in India will not have failed to notice among prominent officials in Peking the that the mind of the British Government opinion prevails that it is of no use China has been greatly exercised of late by the joining the Postal Union until the foreign mischief wrought in the Indian Empire by Post Offices have been abolished. That was seditious publications; and the Korea Order not the attitude of Japan. She joined the in Council of 1907 and the stringent Press Union while foreign post offices were func Law recently enacted for India evidence a tioning in her principal ports, and these noteworthy change of attitude on the part served examples and competition of a stimulating Government has been extremely slow to a useful purpose in furnishing of the British Government. In India the
character for the native establishments. take effective measures to suppress seditious When Sir ROBERT HART at the banquet publications, simply because such prosecu given by the China Association in London tions under a comparatively mild law in his honour, expressed his confidence that have proved not merely ineffective
An extract of meteorological observations made at the Hongkong Observatory during the month of June shows the average maximum temperature to have been 83.6 degrees, and the minimum 77.2 degrees. The rainfall for the month was 15.245 inches and we had 117.8
hours of sunshine,
f
ard
not in futura
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