January 18, 1909;]
22.
command of the public ear, might expect have. All his good deeds hitherto, so far from telling in his favour, would be found to score against him. In addition to all this, if not actually more important, is that jealousy would prevent any provincial officer of any standing from joining him, and as the provincial officials, almost in spite of YUAN's efforts to centralise, have still considerable say in all military affairs he would find them to a man opposed to any such pretensions.
CHINA MILAND TRADE REPORT.
:
t
list in virtue of their business the rent they pay (£115 a between the partners being exclude them from the petty Hence arose the question as to stitutes a “
merchant, "
Counsel authorities. First he took the diction The edition of WEBSTER of 1856 d a merchant as "a man who trafios carries on, trade with foreign countries, or who exports and imports goods and sell them wholesale." The 1902 edition defines a merchant as one who traffics on a large scale specially with foreign countries, trafficker, a trader, JOHNSON's dictionary says a trader" is one who traffics to remote countries"; while the Standard édition of 1906 describes a merchant as "a person who buys and sells commodities as a busi, ness, and for profit, especially one who a place of sale and stock of goods, a trader."- As one of the Justices remarked, the
the defini- tion seems to grow wider and wider as we get nearer to-day. Baron BEAMWELL, in 1872 laid it down that "a merchant of, or in, an article is one who buys and sells it an 1 not the manufacturer selling it." According to this legal definition any man who buys lawvers, like doctors, differ, and as opposed, or sells may claim to be a merchant. —— But to Baron BRAMWELL's definition, STROUD'S Judicial D'ctionary was quoted as saying, " Everyone who buys and sells is not a merchant, only those who traffic in the way of commerce by importation or exportation. Bankers and such as deal by exchange are properly called merchants." That * a de- finition which, we think, fits the English conception of a merchant. but in Scotland,
duced into Hongkong from Canton. Exactly how it was introduced baffled in- vestigation, though it has long since been generally accepted that rats from the ship ping formed the means of communicating it from one port to the other, and the authorities in their wisdom decreed that the ropes by which ships were tied to a wharf should be provided with phlanges to prevent rats getting ashore from the ship, as if rats preferred walking the tight-rope to the broad plank of the gangway. The Individually YUAN has never in any way fact has to be faced that it is impossible to evinced any disloyal tendency. It is quite prevent rats getting ashore from a ship at a possible that the worst of his overt actions, wharf, if they are so minded. They may his betrayal of the late Emperor, was either walk or run ashore, or they may be dictated by a very creditable fear he was conveyed ashore in cargo. There can be going too far under the inspiration of untried little doubt, however, that it is by this means advisers; there is little reason to suspect that plague is spread. If any additional even that he had any idea of the conse-proof of the fact were needed we may quences that under the aegis of an unscru-
obtain it from Shanghai. When on the 8th pulous, yet hysterical, woman afterwards ult. two dead rats found near the wharves arose, were possible or likely. So we may at Shanghai were ascertained to have died acquit him of this, the worst charge that of plague, a systematic search for dead has been made against him. At the same
rats was made in all the sanitary districts of time it is easy to see that he and the new
the Settlement, and of the forty-nine (out Regent could never pull together for the of 1,329) that were found to have died benefit of the country, and that the treat of plague, nearly all were found in the, neighbourhood of the wharves. The Health Officer, therefore, concludes that there is little doubt that the introduction of plague has been effected through the chan- nel where the preventive measures taken by the Port Health Authority have been weakest, namely those for preventing the introduction of rats by ships from plague. infected ports. Consequently this unplea- sant discovery led to the formulation of potential measures and a plan of campaign which, we hope, will be successful in preservas ing Shanghai from a scourge which has cost the Colony of Hongkong in the last fourteen years many thousand lives and several millions of dollars. It is interesting to note that Dr. STANLEY regards the cat as the most successful agent for the exter- mination of rats, and says that by cats alone it should be possible to keep houses rat free, and, as a direct result, plague free. Every householder, therefore, is recommended to keep one or more cats in bis house. This ie an endorsement of the new method of combatting plague in Hongkong. We un- derstand that the advice given by the Sanitary Board in this connection is being generally followed, and in the coming plague season We trust a considerable improvement may confidently be anticipated upon the mortality returns of last year, when plague was more prevalent in the Colony than it had been since 1903.
ment of his late brother, which in his miud must ever be associated with the overt act of YUAN, would always interfere to prevet any cordial co-operation of the two. In such a state of affairs the question would be bound to rise as to whether YUAN, or the Regent were to become the master of the State; and it is very evident even after the short experience of a few weeks, that Prince CHUN has both the ability, mental and bodily, and the intention to be himself, under responsible ministers, it is true, the head of the Government. No doubt, after a succession of debauched or incapable rules, such as China has had to submit to for a century, this is the wisest course in the interests of all, governers and governed alike.
PLAGUE RATS AT SHANGHAI.
WHAT IS A MERCHANT?
well as in the United States
3
merchant may be "one who keeps shop or store for the sale of goods; shopkeeper" Etymologically such a use of the word would seem to be justifiable and general practice must he regarded as the only authority for the restriction of the use of the term "merchant" to large wholesale dealers. The Justices at the Guildhall Quarter Sessions, while they admitted the claim of the appell- ants in the case before them, did not venture to lay down any definition for the guidance of the officials charged with the duty of compiling the Jury lists, but we gather, from, the tone of the observations made by the Justices in the course of the case, that they did not regard shopkeepers and petty traders as "merchants" within the meaning of the Act.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
CHINA.
(Daily Press 14th January
WITH
pai
(Daily Press, January 12th.) The discovery of forty-nine rats proved dead of plague at Shanghai in the course of a fortnight, last month, has naturally caused anxiety to the Health Authorities of the Settlement, as well as to the authorities in the ports up the Yangtsze. So far as is known, there are no records to show that the Yangteze valley has ever been swept by plague in epidemic form," or of any records of even isolated cases having occurred, with the exception of infected persons who, from time to time. have been removed from steamers entering Shanghai from outside ports." But the absence of records is not necessarily conclusive of the absence of plague in any part of Chinr. When the first epidemic broke out in Hong- kong, in 1894, Dr. Lowson caused careful inquiries to be made on this subject, and the result was that after, months of diligent searching, Mr. DYER BALL, who was deputed to make the investigation, had to report that Chinese history contained no erence to any epidemic of plague. and by what means, bubonic plague was introduced into Hongkong no man can positively say. Prior to 1894 plague was unknown in Hongkong. It had practically been endemic in Pakhoi for over twenty years, but the only occasion when it had been epidemic was ten years before the appear- ance of the plague in Hongkong. It was Jury Act of 1870 provided that, amongst merce who had ventured to have private early in February 1894 that an epidemic began at Canton, and it broke out in Hongkong in May. In those four months there was no plague at Pakhoi, and it was, therefore, assumed that it was intro-
.
(Daily Press, January 13th.) What is a merchant ?The question is one which often comes up for discussion in the Far East where every man who imports or exports a bale of goods designates himself a "general merchant," and speaks grandilon quently of his "firm." But much the same state of things obtains elsewhere, even in the City himself a merchant." In the City of London of London where" almost everybody calls
"merchants
13
have hitherto be exempt from sitting on common juries, but under a new Act a fresh list bad to be made and the justices at the Guildhall Quarter Sessions last month were called upon to answer the
"What is a merchant? question:
The
common
others, any person who was "a banker or merchant" should be exempted from service ou
juries. Accordingly last Я firm trading as Colonial month, merchants claimed to be on the special jury
As a rule, when a minister at a Court comes prominently before the 'public it is in connection with some indiscretion or other it being the established rule in diplomacy that a Minister's opinions shall be the sole property of his Government, and shall not be exhibited by word or deed; unless under instructions from his own Foreign Office. China has been more or less looked upon as Owing to very peculiar circumstances,
an exception to the rule, and Ministers at Peking have at times expressed their own private ideas in language which can hardly be considered diplomatic, especially when the subject was the delinquency of come unfortunate merchant or chamber of com- opinions respecting some pet scheme other of the British h Minister for the being. No Minister to China has obnoxious to the besetting sin of the Pe Minister than Sir JOHN JORDAN, the
me
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