36
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[January 18, 1909. against Chinn; the desire may linger, but | Imperial Edicts and that it is their duty to unless China herself by some mad action help China to eradicate the mischief what should provoke hostility, she has a fair use is there to travel beyond the usual field before ber. She has not even the channels of diplomatic action? Great Britain embarrassment of having schemes for her relying on the good faith and sincerity of internal benefit thrust from without on her. the Chinese Government in its announced Foreign nations have at the moment quite intention to suppress the cultivation of the enough to do to look after their own mis- poppy and to suppress opium-smoking in managed finances, and have no induce neut, China, has already co-operated to the ex- nor indeed ability to throw their surplusses tent of annually reducing the export or at China, whether the latter be willing or opium from India to China. India has ot. How long the respite may last, it is, thereby been sacrificing about a quarter of of course, impossible to predict, but the fact a million pounds sterling a year in revenue remains tat for China it is very real, and since this order came into force. What very agreeable. China's momentary task, loss has China suffered in her revenue from then, is to take advantage of the respite to native opium? We hope the Commission put her own financial affairs in or er. On may be placed in possession of that informa. the 30th ultimo we mentioned incidentally tion. If China h is effected a proportional that Peking was at last beginning to reduction in her own production and con- learn the lesson. Now this is a sub-sumption of opium, Indian exports will ject which the Chinese 08 a nation continue to be reduced. In the course of a are quite capable of grasping, when once few years the trade will be automatically they have mastered the initial difficulties. extinguished. What need, then, is there for Those difficulties arose from the defects in this International Commission "to assist the fundamental basis of government which China?" Excepting Great Britain, we led to a complete severance of interests believe no other Power is represented on the between governed and governors. This Commission which is concerned with the difference of interests is not confined to cultivation of opium or countenances its China, but prevails wherever satrapial consumption. In Japan, as well as in the government exists; and as China is the one Philippines, opium smoking has long been country that has carried this system of under the ban of the law, and we are unable delegated control to the furthest limit, so to see in what further direction these she has found the separation wider. The Powers could do anything to assist China. agitation about representative government, With the practical support which India and provincial assemblies is the direct issue already accords and will continue to accord, of the coming change, and it would seem if China's promises are fulfilled, China wiser to permit China to take her own time ought to be able to work out her own about it; at all events all international salvation. In a few years the Chefoo experience goes to show that a nation must Agreement, so far as it relates to opium' be left, like an individual, very much to its would become a dead letter, and no harm own resources to work out its salvation. then would be done by the abrogation Now this is the very thing that the present of the agreement, placing China in the action of the Ministers at Peking is more position to prohibit, if she wished, a.trade likely to hinder than to advance. Pro- which had ceased to exist. So far as the fessedly they declare they desire a strong British Colonies are concerned we see no China, practically by attempting to dictite justification for further interference. The a choice of ministers they weaken the Straits Commission found that the vast executive in its most essential point. majority of smokers indulge to an extent China is apparently desirous of attacking that may properly be called moderate, and abuses which none but a single-minded that excessive indulgence occurs ouly in and single handed xecutive can attempt, isolate instances. They further found that especially as they are of old growth; the there has been no increase in the prevalence introduction of a system of divided respon of the habit, (and in this they included use sibility would, of course, render all such in moderation and use in excess, during the projects hopeless. A much worse minister past decade. Nor did they find it proved than YUAN SHI KAI with a full sense of his that the evils arising from the use of responsibility, would be far better than the opium have in any way increased best of all, if the sense of responsibility during the past decade. All this is were extinguished.
equally true in Hongkong, and, like the Straits Times, we should be prepared to seriously question whether there exists any justification whatever for interfering with personal liberty as far as the Crown Colonies are concerned. Opium is not, like alcoholic drink, which will probably take its place in China, an active agent in the propagation of violence and crime. The Bishop of London told the House of Lords recently that 93 per cent of the inmates of the prisons of Great Britain were there in consequence of drink, and the Lord Chan- cellor said a Judge of Assize had told him that 11 out of 12 cases that came before him were directly due to drink and the 12th indirectly, while the Lunacy Com- mission in their last report state that 22 per cent of the men confined in the lunatic asylums were there directly through drink "to say nothing of the multitudes who owe their lunacy to hereditary disease caused by drink." What is true of England in this connection is more or less true of other countries where alcoholic drink is largely used as a stimulant. The drink bill of the United Kingdom amounts to £166,000,000 a year, People reading the publications of the
occupant of the post, and no minister has of] recent times enjoyed so much of the confi- dence of his nationals in China; it is there fore with "considerable regret that we find him probably under express orders from the Foreign Office-eeking to interfere with the undoubted function of the new Regency in dismissing a Minister of the Crown. It is doubtless true that the dismissed minister, YUAN SHI-KAI, as practically giving tone to the relations of China with the outer Powers, has vastly improved on the methods of his predecessor, and has brought China into line with the greater European Powers. The incident of his dismissal might very well then have become the subject of a private remonstrance with the Prince Regent, but it is hardly becoming that at the present stage, unless we are prepared to establish a quasi-protectorate over China, that it should be made the subject of a public interference. Doubtless Sir JOHN JORDAN feels this himself, and has been made to occupy a disagreeable position through the influence at the Foreign Office of some over zealous non-official adviser. YUAN SHI KAI, it is surely well to remember before proceeding to the length of a practically public reprimand of an independent government, is not the only man in China capable of conducting China's foreign affairs; and it would have been wiser before administering the rebuff, to have ascertained who was likely to be made his successor. Indeed, as in commenting on the dismissal on the 11th instant, we pointed out, there are many equally comperent statesmen in China at the present moment, with a far cleaner reputation than YUAN. We showed in that article why with all his ability for administration, there were many things in YOAN's past record which could not but prevent his being a persona grata to the present Prince Regent; and these things, it is also well to remember, brought him at the time into not altogether pleasant contact with the foreign Powers. It is quite true that YUAN atoned, so far as the Powers are concerned, for these errors, but it is by no means cer- lain that he succeeded equally in persuading the late Emperor of the entire purity of his conduct, and it is one of the most reassuring points in the Regency of his brother that he has so far shown a desire, avoiding his mis- takes of immaturity, to follow in the path of reform too hastily attempted by the late KWANG So. That only by such measures can China be extricated from the slough of despond into which the misrule of the last gentury had plunged her is acknowledged by all even in China herself, with the sol· exception of a band of reactionaries who Lave been battening on the miseries of the
(Daily Press, January 15th.) country; and it would have been far wiser
We reproduced a few days ago the text on the part of the British Foreign Office, of the instructions given by the Government before committing it elf to an unfriendly of the United States to the delegates course, to have ascertained the real inward-appointed to represent that country at the ness of the situation. For obvious reasons International Opium Commission which we have not considered ourselves called upon begins its deliberations at Shanghai next to adjudge the rights and wrongs of YUAN month. The British delegates, Sir EDWARD SHIH-Kar's dismissal as between him and GREY informed the House of Commons, ara Prince CHUN; these being matters that con- being furnished with instructions on similar cern themselves personally; we only review lines. It appears from these instructions ed the case sufficiently far to sow that that the sole purpose of the Commission is, there was some reason for the action not to investigate the claim which China without calling into the matter the too makes for the suppression of the trade in frequently obtruded cry that it was anti-foreign opium, but simply and solely to foreign." For ourselves we do not believe arrive at some basis of common action" for that it in any measure partook of this nature; the questions at the moment of the greatest importance to China are not those in connection with foreign affairs; and fortunately for the Empire there are at the moment no important foreign questions at isane. No country either desires or is in a position to undertake au aggressive attitude
THE INTERNATIONAL OPIUM COMMISSION
the gradual suppression of opium cultivation, traffic and use within the respective Eastern possessions of the Governmenta represented on the Commission, thus assisting China in her purpose of eradicating the evil from her empire." Now, if the Powers are agreed that the evils in China are so gigantic as they are represented to be in the Chinese
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