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An extraordinary general meeting of the Japan Steel Works was held on March 1 at the Tokyo branch. Two important resolutions were passed: (1) The share capital to be increased by 5,000,000 yen; and (2) a foreign loan of £1.500,000 to be issued.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Among recent changes in the Imperial Mari- time Customs service is the transference of Mr. J. P. E. Jockle (who. will be remembered in Hongkong musical circles) from Peking to Kewkiang, and Mr. R. D. Mansfield. son of ex-Consul General Mansfield, and assistant to the I.M.C., Peking, has been transferred to Mengize.
Mr. Liang Yun Yih, who is described as the manager of the proposed Canton-Macao Railway affairs, recently had an interview with the President of the Board of Posts and Com- munications at Peking in the course of which
he stated that the line could be commenced as oon as the agreement between China and sortugal regarding the line is cancelled.
It has been reported in Canton that the Japanese have seized one of two small islands belonging to China which lie between the Kwan- tung province and the Pescadores. It is alleged
that the Japanese have hoisted their flag there and that they have also pulled down an old Chinese temple. The Viceroy of Canton has despatched two Chinese gunboats to the place.
Dominador Gomez, who has been stirring up disaffection in the Philippines, has been sentenced to four months' imprisonment. The Cablenews American reports the event Four months in jail was the sentence imposed by Judge Crossfield yesterday (March 12th) upon Dominador Gomez, found guilty of threats, and unless the Supreme ourt in tercedes on mandamus proceedings presented by his lawyers, the wily politico-medico will bo busy rolling pills in the dispensary of Bilibid after ten o'clock this morning, the hour set by
thus:
the court for the Doctor's commitmont to Bilibid."
The O. and O. steamer Asia, which has been seen in the waters of the Colony for years, has now changed ownership, passing into the possession of the Pacific Nail. An American newspaper, reporting the occurrence, states that the Asia's smoke-stock, hitherto a vacht-like yellow, has been painted black, and all the gay and festive touches of colour about the upper works that distinguished the ships of the O. und O. line have disappeared and the Asia is us close a copy of the other Pacific Mail steamers as paint will make her. The Asia has been under Pacific Mail management for some time, but the O. and O. company had at least a theoretical existence until the flag came down.
The Minutes of the recent meeting of the Committee of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce mentions the receipt of a letter from Mr. H. S. Cooke, suggesting, in view of the approaching Ratepayers' Meeting when a substitute may have to be found for the abandoned Opium Licences, that a Licence be taken out by all Chinese Hongs trading with foreign firms, an essential feature of the licence being that the names of all partners in the Hong shall be disclosed and any change in that respect to require notification and asking if the Chamber is favourable to it, to officially endorse same and bring it to the notice of the Ratepayers, is discussed. It was decided in the first instance to write to the Piece Goods, Metal and Sundries Dealers' Guilds
on the subject.
Our Macao correspondent writes that business at that port is in a deplorable state, and an effect of it is seen in the cessation of the Chinese
[March 20, 1909.
REFORM BY REVOLUTION.
The China Gazette understands that a scheme backed by a powerful group of Jewish financiers in London, has been formulated to build battle-
(Daily Press, March 15th.) ships, cruisers and torpedo craft for China to
An article of a somewhat remarkable the value of £25,000,000, the cost of each vessel
character bearing the signature “A Chinese- when launched to be covered by a loan issued in
appeared a short time London at per cent. for 35 years, plus a sinking Cambridge Man" fund of 13 per cent,, each issue to stand by itself back in the Contemporary Review. It bears and to be only secured by the general guarantee evidence of having been written by of the Chinese Government, which at the end someone well acquainted with affairs in of 25 years would have a navy free of cost-China, and most probably a Chinaman, but (and incidentably many years out of date).
The following gentlemen have been elected members of the Royal Society of Arts-John Ingram Andrew, . Inst. N.A., Messrs. G. Fenwick and Co., Ltd. Hongkong; Cheah Cheang Lim, Ipoh. F.M.S.; Khoo Cheow Teong. Penang Khoo Siew Jin, Kuching, Sarawak: Hidemi Maruta, Mitsu Bishi Dockyard and Engine Works, Nagasaki, Japan; and Wee Hap Lang, Kuala Lumpur, F.M.S. Among those proposed for election were: Percy Birkett, A. .I.Mech.E.. Explosives Factory, Hiratsuka, Japan; and Thomas Kershaw, M.I.ech.E., Kobé, Japan.
The N. Y. K. Australian Liner Nikko Maru which arrived here yesterday morning reports white the ove of Leaving Nagasaki a female child was born on board to Mr & Mrs (hristo- pher Hughson, passengers destined to Singapore, and the child was fittingly named Elizabeth Nikko Hughson. Both mother and child are doing well, and the passengers and officers of the ship have subscribed to present Miss Nikko with a silver mug, together with a knife and fork and a napkin ring in token of her first start in this world on board the Nikko Maru under the most favourable auspices.
The Board of Posts and Communications recently sent a despatch of an important nature to the Telegraph Administration, Shanghai, in which the question of a wireless telegraph ins tallation in the interior was pointed out by the Administration as one of the most important needs of China to-day. It is, said the Board, practically impossible to establish the ordinary land line acoss the great deserts between Peking and the extreme North West (HsingChiang, Altai &c.] but the natural difficulties could be surmounted by the use of wireless. Balkson's system, the despatch stated, is the newest and most efficient, and the Administration was ins- tructed to make the necessary inquiries, and were also given a list of questions as to technichal matters which it was their business to answer.
the Chairman
In laying the Estimates for 1909 before the ratepayers of the British Concession at Tientsin. of the unicipal Council mentioned that it was thought advisable by the outgoing Council to provide a guarantee of $4,431.50 divided in proportion of 3th to the Senior Concession and 4th to the Junior Concession in order to keep the British Postal Agency open for another year so as to give the British Government further time to consider the question of making any loss on the agency an Imperial Charge. He was not aware that British Minister was addressing enquiries in any decision has yet been arrived at but the order to ascertain the present state of the question.
Judge Thayer, the new Judge of the United 10th inst. Mr. Jernigan, as Doyen of the American States Court for China, re-opened the Court on the Bar, extended to His Honour a cordial welcan which the Judge acknowledged in a speech in which he said he assumed his position as Judge of the Court with a great deal of concern. The Court was unique in its position and in its character. In connexion with the exercise of its functions, it must meet and solve a large number of difficult questions, due to the state of the law available to it as an extraterritorial lottery known as pu piu. The monopolists have Court. These difficulties appeared very large to broken their contract and forfeited the security one who was newly introduced to the U.S. Court they had lodged with the Government. Those for China, and who had suddenly imposed upon who run the big lottery-known among him the duty of presiding over the Court. In foreigners as the Macao lottery are also reported to have been losing heavily, and this source of revenue to the Government is consequently likely to dry up too. Another uncertain source of revenue in the immediate future is the rental
derived from Opium farm. Macao residents are anxious to know where the Government is to get the money to meet ordinary expenditure, to say nothing of the great improvement schemes we have been hearing about lately.
the nature of things he felt that he would make many errors, and he would frequently have to make large drafts upon the indulgence of the members of this Bar, whose assistance and support would be of great value, especially in the early days of his service. The welcome he had received both in Court that day and since his arrival encouraged him to believe that he was to receive such support and aid, and in that lay his hope of a fair measure of success.
certainly, if such is the fact, it is to be hoped the author of the article will not let his identity in this respect be known, if he has any intention of returning to his own country. Under the colour of setting forth the social changes which have of late years taken place among the people, he unspar- ingly attacks the Chinese Government and scarcely disguises his hope that the present state of matters may culminate in a revolu tion upon so grand a scale as to completely reverse the existing order of things. If this article has really been written by some Chinese student at Cambridge, it would appear by no means unlikely that he is playing the part of Advocatus Diaboli, and desires reilly to show the conclusions to which those who advocate too rapid a change in China are tending. Certainly, if this is his object, he may be congratulated upon having done a good deal towards altaining it.
Much, bowever of what he sets forth as to the social advances, which recent years have produced in China is well worth considering. He points to the vastness of the chauge, from a Chinese point of view, in the spread of independent newspapers in the Chinese language, in the movement against small feet, in a similar opposition to the use of opium; in the fact that some of the higher officials in China now look upon the mercantile classes with respect, and, have in some cases entered upon mercantile transactions themselves and other like circumstances as plainly showing that a vast social change is coming over China and that the days of the old official aristocracy are passing away. This combined with the great improvements which have been effected by railways and telegraphs in intercom- munication throughout the country, and the general desire shown by the younger gener. ation for an education which will fit them to become good, useful citizens,-in place of science-constitutes, as he justly holds, one which left them ignorant of all modern evidence of a vast social change such as should, in the nature of things, lead to the renovation of China, and should bring condition, and its system of administration. about complete reform in its internal The progress, however, which might thus be expected is, according to the writer of the article, entirely checked by the maladminis tration of the Central Government; and against them he is unsparing in his invective. They have, he says, no other financial policy than that of demanding money from the Viceroys or Provincial Governors; and the latter, in their turn, demand it of the people by incressed tax. ation, direct or indirect. He goes on to say that" the Government is always short sight- ed, always crowded by men who are seeking after their own interest and making the situation worse by their presence." This is surely a very strong indictment, and it has the fault of being couched in such general terms that it is almost impossible to answer it. On the one hand it is clear that in a certain way, similar charge, might be made against almost every government that ever existed. On the other hand it is un- questionably true that shortcomings of the kind indicated do specially attach to the present Chinese régime, and that
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