424-
have evidently heretofore entertained that the Colony was being called upon to pay excessively for the work.
In order to make the position clear we append a summary of the original and the latest estimate which will show at a glance under what heads increase in the estimate has occurred:
Survey Land...
MR. BRUCE MR. EVES
37,642 $ 10,500
412,650
Earthwork
1,530,997
Tunnels
1,924,860
Bridges and culverts
Salaries, Quarters and
Offices, Furniture
Office Expenses
Medical, House
Charges
105,000
Ballast and perman-
ent way...
716,625
Buildings, station
machinery
furni-
ture
315,000
Roads
Fencing
Telegraphs
Workshops
Plant (including roll-
ing stock
Home Charges
Accounts
ΙΠ.
2,268,176.05 3,499,824.69
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRES AND
[May 24, 1909.
I said on that occasion that he was not satis. I who do not recognise this distinction be fied that we were getting full value for our tween the leading article and views which money as things were going." When the may be expressed in a letter appearing in Chairman asked if members were prepared to the correspondence column. We have there recommend the vote, the Hon. Mr. HEWETT fore to say in reference to the letter by "An replied: "I certainly, for one, am not. Onlooker" that we do not endorse the view The amount is a large sum of money, and I that the chances are that under the Colony's think we should have more time to consider existing financial conditions the railway it." The result of the discussion was in- would not have been constructed on an 42.277.55 sistence on a report showing the progress estimate of over a million pounds sterling. 1.195,879.20 made on the work. It was during this Our own view is that the railway is discussion that the Government first public. vitally necessary to the future welfare and 1,0-2.614.50 ly announced that the original estimate for prosperity of the Colony, and the abandon- the railway was "about £550,000" (about|ment of the project could not for a moment £50,000, be it noted, in excess of Mr. BRUCE's figure, and we suggest that this extra sum was intended to cover rolling stock). The 534,885.56 Hon. Mr. KESWICK calculated that at the rate expenditure was proceeding the Colony 864,259.25
would find itself "liable for £1,000.000 | sterling for a line 22 miles long." A million 494,998.47 seemed to him "an extraordinary sum for 84,979.84 22 miles of railway" and as a member of 40,399.45 the firm of Messrs. JARDINE, MATHESON 26,971.42 & Co., who are
so largely concerned in 60,000.00 railway enterprises in China, bis words
doubtless carried more than ordinary | 691,540.10
While he recognised that the 74,478.29 weight. 42,843.53 country was difficult and that the tun- nel would be exceedingly expensive, "it
|
be entertained, whether the estimate was a million or a million and a half. On this point we shall have many opportunities, we trust, of enlarging in future and are content now with insisting on the importance of the line to the Colony, as the terminal port of the
trunk line from Hankow. great
of the The present concern
Colony is simply to see that it is getting in the actual construction of the line full value for its money, and once the impression is removed that "money has been, or is being, wasted," all will be well.
SOCIALISTIC TENDENCIES.
$ 5,053,274 $11,004,128.00 | still seemed to him that some economies might be made in the execution of the
(Daily Press, May 17th) work." The impression "that the cost of the How far the more reaching objects of railway is excessive, and that money has Socialism are likely to be realised is a ques-, been wasted" dates from that discussion. tion upon which the most speculative may We will go further and indicate how that well be uudecided. The general feeling with impression has now been strengthened. It regard to the movement is that common is shown in the latest report of the Chief sense must surely come in somewhere, and Resident Engineer with regard to the tunnel, a comfortable hope that, in spite of what is the most expensive item of the undertaking, going on in so many direction, a reaction will that, notwithstanding the fact that in 1908 set in at some time, and a return to more rock of unusual hardness was encountered, moderate principles be brought about. Mean- the cost of tunnel-driving per lineal foot time, however, it is impossible to ignore that was about 150 per cent cheaper than in 1907 Socialism is making great strides, and that when the driving was not so difficult. Here there is an increasing tendency to look to the are the Chief Resident Engineer's figures :— State to do what ought to be done by in- "The average costs per lineal foot of heading,dividuals for themselves. It seems surely a enlarging and bricking-in during the year sorry illustration of the old spirit of Anglo- (1908) were $70.49, $140.86, and$113.54 re- Saxon independence and self-reliance that spectively. Up to December 1907 the figures large classes can no longer educate themselves, were approximately $184.00, $275.00 and guard themselves against casualties incident $221.00." Here then, is one instance, to their work, or old "age-pension" them- where striking economies have been selves, but must look to Government to do effected since that discussion in the all these things for them. This tendency Legislative Council Chamber. Well might forms also a striking illustration of the the Governor "dread to think" what principle that extremes meet; as though it would have been the cost of the tun emanates from the masses, its practical nel had the rates of 1907 not been so effect is to place the people at large in`a substantially reduced in 1908. We think it position in some respects little better than was His Excellency who explained that the that uuder the system at work in China, reduction in the cost per lineal foot was due which we are in the habit of looking upon as to the engagement of the trained labour re- the embodiment of all that is arbitrary and patriated from South Africa; but this can oppressive. The same combinations among only excite surprise that this trained labour the masses that have brought sufficient was not engaged at the very beginning, as it pressure to bear upon the Government at has been reaching the Colony in shiploads all Lome to cause it to pass socialistic measures the while the railway works have been in pro-is rapidly bringing so much coercion to bear gress. We have entered into these parti calars to indicate to the Government-in to the China Association-that the impression which" a large section of the public" have that money has been wasted is not based entirely on the comments of the newspapers on the latest report made by His Excellency the Governor to the Council, but upon the suggestions of the Unofficial Members of the Legislative Council, which seem to be con- firmed to some extent by facts and figures in the official reports.
(Daily Press, May 22nd.) When we penned a footnote to the letter from Mr. MURRAY STEWART, published in our yesterday's issue, we considered that, so far as we were concerned, the matter might be allowed to rest. But in view of the comments we have heard on the correspond- ence we published yesterday, it is perhaps advisable that a little more should be said. Mr. MURRAY STEWART quoted the testi- monial given by Mr. GROVE at the tiffin held by the railway staff the other day, as satisfactory evidence that the Colony has got its money's worth in the railway. Now no one will be inclined to dispute that the| line will be a "a lasting monument of British engineering and of British Colonial enterprise." But this does not touch | the question of cost, which is the main question in which the Colony, as the payer of the bill, is for the moment interest ed. Mr. STEWART rightly says that "a large section of the public believe that money has been, perhaps is being, wasted; that the cost of the railway is excessive. If it is not the case, he adds, an assurance from the Government seems called for. That assurance, it seems to us, cannot be given in a hurry. To quote the speech made by Mr. GROVE is not sufficient. The impression that the Colony is paying too much for the railway has been engendered, not so much by the comments of the Press on the last statement made by His Excellency the Governor to the Council on the subject (as the Chairman of the local branch of the China Association has represented), but by the public know ledge of the history of the railway from the beginning, as conveyed in the discussions at the Legislative Council. In order that the Government, if it intends to give the assurance Mr. STEWART says is called for, may give it with a knowledge of the circumstances that have tended to create the impression that money has been wasted, we will recall what took place at the Legislative Council about eighteen months ago. At a meeting of the Finance Committee held on January 23rd 1908, the Gommittee was asked by the Government to vote, on account, $4,250,000 for railway works. The Hon. Mr. KESWICK
Some further comments on the subject suggest themselves, but sufficient unto the day is the amount hereof. To conclude, however, we may add this remark: It is generally recognised that a newspaper publishing & letter from a correspondent does not necessarily endorse its correspondent's views, but there are, it appears, some readers
upon the individual that it is scarcely exaggeration to say that in the present day a large number of the power classes in Great Britain cannot call their souls their own. Trade Unions, and other like associations, now regulate matters in which formerly individuals were free to act for themselves according to the best of their judgment and ability; and at almost every stage they look to their Union for direction and to the Government for help. This has been the effective result of socialism s› far as up to the present time it has been possible to put it into force; and those who are acquainted with the state of affairs that has for ager existed in China, caunot fail to recognise, an ominous likeness between the condition to which Society is now drifting in Great Britain to that with which they have long been familar in the Celestial Empire and
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