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The action for libel brought by the Asiatic Dredging Company against Mr. Gordius Nielson, recently editor and proprietor of the China Gazette, Shanghai, has been adjourned until December 1st. The defendant is appeal ing against a ruling given by the Danish Consular Judge.
Mr. J. A. Erichsen, Superintendent of the Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration at Peking, having resigned his post of his own accord, the Board of Posts and Communications in recognition of his past services in ( hina, has given him a bonus of $500 and £100 as passage money, and has appointed Mr. H. E. Henning sen as his successor.
A police report was recently submitted to the Shanghai Municipal Council on the subject of opium smoking stating that in the Native City there are seven establishments where opium may be bought and smoked surreptitiously. The
names and addresses of these houses were
accordingly communicated to the Senior Consul for the Taptai's information.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
The Prince Regent, in view of the intro- duction of Constitutional Government, a Pek- ing contemporary says, proposes that, to set an example to the public, the members of the Imperial Clan shall be punished for offences under exactly the same conditions as prevail in the case of the general public. This he has submitted to the State Council.
A famine is reported in the district of Ching Cheng in N. W. Shangtung as a result of failure of crops, caused by rains and floods during the past year. In response to a memorial by the Governor the Central Government has decreed that the taxes etc., paid during last year by the populace in the stricken district, are to be
returned and distributed amongst them.
The attendance at the late Mr. C. Lenox Simpson's funeral was a record in the way of funerals for foreign Tientsin. Sir Robert Bredon, the Acting Inspector-General, I.M.C., was detained in Peking, owing to a meeting of his superior Commissioners, but he was almost the only noteworthy absentes. With one exception, absolutely every representative person
in Tientsin was there The exception was H. E. Viceroy Yang, who was indisposed and was obliged to send a representative.-The China
Times.
What may be regarded as phenomenal for the time of year is the apparent break up of the winter in the North. The Chief Officer of the Kaiping on arrival at Shanghai last week stated that on that steamer's last trip no ice was met with crossing the gulf of Pechili and that during their stay in Chingwangtao of four days the thermometer reading on the deck before sunrise was only 26 degrees F. Chingwangtao also was quite free of ice with the exception of the fringe between the wharf and the shore and in the Tientsin River the ice is rapidly thawing.
We are glad to note that Messrs. Noel, Murray & Co., in their weekly circular, referring to the report that one of the largest and the oldest Import Firms of Manchester goods in Shanghai was in difficulties and that its sus- pension would cause a large quantity of mer- chandise to be thrown on the market, state that the latter eventuality has been entirely obviated. The circumstances of the firm's difficulties admitted of a satisfactory explanation and the necessary accommodation has been forthcoming in the interest of the whole commercial com- munity
The N.-C. Daily News says that a Cantonese, Mr. Ho Chen-huan, has arrived in Shanghai and has published a letter in the Chinese press, appealing to the Kwangtung comiqunity there and calling on them for some effective action in the matter of the Fatshan incident as he says that in the three months since the incident occurred, nothing has been done by the British and Portuguese Consuls or the Chinese authorities. Should the matter be allowed to rest as it is, urges the writer, Chinese lives will henceforth be slighted and valued no more than "geese feathers," and this, he adds, is no happy news for the Chinese brethren in the empire. He has, therefore, specially come to Shanghai and calls for suggestions and opinions from his fellow-provincials, so as to ensure justice being, done, according to law. He promises further to announce the place and date of a meeting in connexion with his campaign,
It is stated that Mr. J, W. Jamieson, C.M.G., of H. M. Consular service, formerly Com-. mercial Attaché and for the past three years Foreign Superintendent of hinese Labour in the Transvaal, will shortly be appointed H. M. Consul-General at Canton.
1
Captain James Home of the Hong Bee has been fined $500 at Singapore for being the Captain of a vessel used for importing opium into the Colony. The evidence for the Farm showed that twenty-two tins of Amoy opium valued at $624, were found hidden in the vessel near the engine room. The opium was confiscated by the Farmer.
A new German Town Hall has recently been opened at Hankow in the German Concession. Mr. Schlichting, the Chairman of the German Municipal Council, in taking possession of the building in the name of the Municipal Council as well as of the Concession spoke of it as an ornament and a credit to the Concession. Mr. Dunne, Chairman of the British Municipal Council, made a speech on the occasion in which he warmly eulogised the energy of the German residents and the rapid development of their
Concession.
have
The following regulations made by His Majesty's Minister and declared to be urgent been published under the authority of Article 15 of the China and Korea Order in Council, 1904-1-On and after January 1st, morphia or instruments for the injection of mor- 1909, any British subject importing into China phia except in accordance with the conditions laid down in Article XI of the Treaty of Sept.. 5th, 1902, for the importation of morphia, or any British subject manufacturing in China morphia or instruments for the injection of morphia shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding £50, or to imprisonment to any term not exceeding three months, or to both such punishments, and the morphia and the in- struments for the injection of morphia may be declared to be forfeited. 2.--Those Regulations may be cited as The Morphia Prohibition Regulation.
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A Peking contemporary states that the Wai- Viceroy of Kwangtung stating that the Portu- wa-pu recently received a message from the use in Macao are at present very active and appearances indicate that they are attempting to bring the whole district, and the Chinese residents therein, under their control. In addi- tion to this the Portuguese have now occupied both banks of Wan Chia and have forced the distributing the Portuguese National Bank notes throughout the district an insisting on their being accepted as legal tender in and around Ma To Ho. They threaten to punish any of the natives who refuse to accept them. They are constantly breaking treaty stipulations and refused to listen to remonstrances from the officials who were sent to negotiate upon this matter. The Viceroy asks the Wai-wu pu open proper negotiations with the Portuguese Minister in Peking and have these affairs settled. The Wai-pu-pu has already notified the Portuguese Minister of these facts.
boatmen to submit to their control. They are
to
[February 15, 1909,
YUAN SHI KAI.
(Daily Press, February 6th.) Certain mischief-makers in China, it is to
be hoped, mainly from sheer ignorance of the actual conditions, have been endeavouring to construe the dismissal of YUAN SHI KAI, as an evidence of a Manchu plot to deprive the Chinese element of its proper weight in the .dministration of the empire. As we have before pointed out, there is no doubt that the dismissal of YUAN SH1 Kar was to a considerable extent due to personal reasons, owing to the inability of the REGENT to Work with him on account of the relations existing between him and the late EMPEROR with regard to the reforms attem- pted to be introduced by the latter. Now it is worthy of note that one of the principal of these, and one that more especially brought down on the young EMPEROE the wrath of the late DOWAGER, was his scheme for the abolition of all difference between Man- chu and Chinese in the Government, and in token of this his desire to make the wearing of the queue optional with all officials. Now the new REGENT has made no secret of his desire to follow out the policy of his was rudely and forcibly interrupted by the coup d'état of 1898, and brother which
with that coup d'état the name of YUAN SHI KAI is indissolubly connected; so that only wilful ignorance, or, what is still worse, a deliberate and disloyal atempt to falsify the case, could have been the actuating motive in the suggestion, at once false and mischievous, that the dismissal was in any way the outcome of a plot to exalt the Manchu element to the detriment of Chinese interests. This is the more noteworthy in that it was largely owing to his Manchu associations that YUAN SHI KAI owed his all through was the late DOWAGER, who, promotion to high office; and his patroness whatever her birth, was from all her surroundings a Manchu of the Manchus. Doubtless YUAN owed much of the favour displayed towards him to the fact, that, like the DOWAGER herself, he was capable of making up his mind, and acting on it with- out swerving; and so presented a strong
contrast to most of the weak-kneed crowd of courtiers who surrounded her; but unless he bad in addition proved himself a persona grata to the Manchu element surrounding the Court this alone would hardly have proved a passport for his advancement. So far then from his dismissal being an indication of any desire on the part of the REGENT to advance the Manchu element in the Government, no Chinese official in high office has earned to the same extent the gratitude of the Manchu hierarchy as the dismissed YUAN himself.
We notice in L'Annam-Tonkin an appre- ciative reference to the proposed University for Hongkong. There are two great means, On the other hand, and this is really the - our contemporary remarks, of reaching the only serious part of the present agitation, conscience of a people-two pacific means: the rail and the book. Both are efficacious. The there is every reason to believe that the first increases the domain of the merchant and outcry about an imaginary Manchu plot to the manufacturer, benefits the native and advance Manchu interests to the detriment the State. The second is perhaps more dur- of Chinese, is actually the work of the able 8.8 а means of expansion because it revolutionary party, who foiled in their aims at the domain of the spirit. These efforts to stir up disaffection on more thoughts, says the writer, were suggested by tangible grounds have raised the belated reading the remarkable discourse of "Sir Luggard," the Governor of Hongkong, wherein determined opponents of YUAN while in cry of Manchu supremacy. None were more` His Excellency apppealed for funds for the
office than this self-same revolutionary endowment of a University which a generous philanthropist, Mr Mody, had offered to build party;-and this for the good reason that at an estimated cost of $290,000. "Passing in
no other official understood so well their review the efforts of his French and German aims and methode. Herein YUAN was a neighbours the Governor made a warm, and at tower of strength to the Government, and the same time very convincing, appeal upon the it shows well how little there is of good or importance of a University in the Far East with ennobling principle amongst the leaders power to confer degrees of the same value as some of the English aniversities. Some questions of the movement to veer round at the last of detail remain to be arranged and probably: having dismissed him on account of his under the patriotic impulsion of 'Sir Luggard,' Hongkong will become an intellectual centre as Chinese proclivities. In politics Yuan was it is one of the greatest entrepôts of the world.” 'above everything else a conservative,
moment and accuse the Government of
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