June 21, 1909.]
as a
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. declaring that China would cease to be a it is impossible to ascertain precisely what producer of opium in a couple of years. loss of revenue the Colony will sustain, Though it cannot be gainsaid that the and so until new tenders for the Opium cultivation of opium during the past twelve Farm under the altered conditions have months has been greatly reduced in some been received the Government does not districts, the Edicts and proclamations of consider itself in a position to ask the provincial officials in many other districts Imperial Government to translate the term have not been so implicitly obeyed, and it will probably be found that the native By the weight of the official majority "substantial" into a more definite promise. opium grown during the present year is quite the second reading of five-fold the amount of the total import carried, and thus we shall have to wait the Bill WAS from foreign countries. We may notice in perhaps many months for the information this connection a statement by the Rev. which it 18 H. E. Du Bose, who has prominently should have almost immediately. It is most important that we identified himself with this question in North customary to lay the Colonial Estimates China. The rev. gentleman has recently before interviewed the Governor of Chekiang, who September, and we
the Council in the mouth of is extolled for the anti-opium measures he understand how it will be possible t› frame Bre at lose to has undertaken, but there is no indication in the Estimates unless the course of the statement made by the
the Government is informed whether the promise of a Governor that anything tangible has, been "substantial contribution" means a quarter, accomplished so far in that direction. What a half or the full amount of the direct losa the Governor told Mr. Du BOSE was that "it of revenue sustained through the pro sibition was too late in the season to stop the growth of opium divans in the Colony. Surely it of poppy this year, but he would issue in-hould not be impossible to obtain from the structions to the Prefects and District Imperial Government a promise in that Magistrates to allow no poppy to be planted form. What the Secretary of State may in the autumn, so that next year the pro-regard as substantial this Colony may con vince should be entirely free from the sider extremely inadequate. On the authority production of the drug." As in spite of the Attorney-General we have it that of the proclamations of last year nothing the Secretary of State's promise canot has apparently been done in the pro- be interpreted vince to reduce this year's cultivation, we
promise of the whole amount, and when the Attorney- may well hesitate to place a great deal General spoke of "the whole amount of confidence in the statements as to what seemed to regard this as the difference will happen next year. The Governor of between the price at present paid for the Chekiang, like the Viceroy of Nanking, is Opium Farm and the price which will be anxious that the Chinese Government should paid under the new contract. It cannot, we create a monopoly of opium imported from think, be too strongly emphasised that abroad, so that the officials may the more this will not fully represent the loss the easily control the sale of the drug.” It is Colony will suffer in carrying out the unnecessary, he says, to wait for ten years policy of the Imperial Government for opium to be entirely abolished from
If Parliament were to be asked for a graut- China, and having entirely suppressed in-aid equal to the difference between Chinese opium, he proceeds to show how the present and the future rental of the by annually increasing the retail price of opium under a Government monopoly
Farm it would not be excessive generosity use of the pipe will soon become unknown in the land.' The objections to a Govern- ment monopoly have been frequently stated and there is no need to repeat them. China is able to entirely suppress opium- smoking throughout the Empire in the course of another eight or nine years she will have accomplished an ambition which few impartial observers believe to be possible. If the Chinese Government is able to en- tirely suppress the cultivation of the poppy within its own dominions within a year or two, there is obviously no need to create a monopoly of the gradually diminishing import in order to secure an annual advance of one hundred per cent. in the retail price, because that would in all probability result under the natural law of supply aud demand.
"
44
the
It
HONGKONG'S OPIUMR EVENUE.
a sub.
(Daily Press, 19th June.) We think the community generally will support the action taken by the unofficial members of the Legislative Council at Thursday's meeting in pressing for an interpretation of the Secretary of State's promise to ask Parliament to give stantial contribution" towards making good to the Colony the revenue which is found to be lost by giving effect to the Imperial Government's instructions for the closing of the whole of the opium-smoking divans in the Colony when the existing contract with the Opium Farmer expires next March. The
Government answered that until the Bill now
before the Council is passed, deciding the conditions on which the Opium Farm is to be leased when the existing agreement expires,
|
#f
te
513
a big railway loan with no certain prospect of being able to meet the interest out of railway revenue for some years to come. The Colony is therefore anxious to be assured that the promise of naturally very a substantial contribution towards loss of revenue resulting from the anti-opium policy STEWART has termed "the demonstrable is not likely to be less than what Mr.
loss."
RANDOM REFLECTIONS. Whew! Isn't it warm!
If the Hongkong University does nothing successful inasmuch as it has touched Chinese else, the scheme must be regarded as highly liberality to a remarkable degree and it has shown Chinese confidence in the British authori- ties here.
**
Work carried out by the Government does not always compare favourably with private the enterprise. According to a notice I saw other day, Messrs. Jar dine Mathe- son and Co's new offices at the corner of Pedder Street will be completed about the twelve months since the work was commenced. end of September, although it is only about The Government building on the opposite side has been in progress for years, and
looks as if it will take as many years as the other took months to finish.
Had it not been for the Bandmann Company potentialities for joking lay in the bother over we might not have been able to realise what Jeyes fluid. As the clever comedian put it, the Sanitary Board did not know whether the fluid was Jeyes' or they were. That is of course unkind. No one who knew them would suggest that the mem- bers were juys. In the present matter Mr. Hooper has shown that when the Crawn Agents urdered Jeyes' fluid they, in the words of the Irishman, ordered something else. Mr. Hooper has thrown down the gauntlet. What coura- geous member of the Government is going to
take it up?
little additional enlightenment thrown on a state Discussions on railway affairs continue with of affairs which is not altogether satisfactory. The crux of the matter seems to be whether the
five million dollar estimate with which we started was an estimate or not, the
it was an estimate, but now it seems we were At the time we thought
mistaken in regarding it as such. However, once bitten twice shy. We'll watch well the undertaking. next estimate laid before us for any great
The Hon. Mr. MURRAY STEWART indicated very clearly how the prosperity of the Colony is likely to suffer from the sup- pression of the opium trade. Everyour. he said, "will feel the effects of this measure from top to bottom of the community, Europeans and Chinese alike, from leading merchants to the humblest coolies.
on land and in the harbour. Fewer or l'here will be less employment for the lat er emptier ships will come and go. The port will suffer. That is the price which Hông. kong will have to pay for the opium policy of His Majesty's Government that is the burden which we asked in vain might be imposed gradually. If it had been imposed gradually we should have borne it unassisted, But under the circumstances, it would only be right that the whole of the demonstrable loss to revenue should be made good."
The indefiniteness of the Secretary of State's promise is the more tantalising the more it is considered. In the first place, we do not know whether the substantial contribution, are in accord with views of the Government, as to what is a the views of the Colony; secondly, we have what the Government proposes; and thirdly, no assurance that Parliament will sanction
propose to continue this grant-in-aid. Each we do not know how long the Government
to year the quantity of Indian opium sent
China It is therefore certain that the Hongkong
is cut down
by one-tenth. Government will have to prepare for au annually increasing loss of revenue from the opium farm, and it is at the same time
obvious
import of opium will seriously affect the that the annually decreasing general prosperity of the Colony. On top of all this the Colony has become liable for
Touching the cost of railways once more, I notice that notwithstanding Hongkong's ex- erience. Mr. J. M. Barry told the members of railway in China would require a capital of The Shanghai Nanking Railway was constructed £200.000,000. That works out at £6,666 a mile.
at a cost of £9,661 per mile “including land, construction and equipment." I don't know how many miles of railway we are going to have in Kowloon. The Hon. Mr. Murray Stewart at the Legislative Council last week mentioned that we are to have "many miles of sidings at the terminus." Let us be generous and allow for four miles of sidings to 21 miles of railway, and land, construction and equipment" is costing we find that our 25 miles of railway "including £40,000 per mile!
of the Royal Society of Arts that 30,000 miles
to preserve song birds in the Colony
The desire of His Excellency the Governor A very laudable one. Holders of game licences are
between the two species of magpie found in the asked to destroy magpies whenever opportunity offers. The notice makes no discrimination
song birds there is not much to chose between Colony, so I presume that as enemies of the
them. When I heard a friend express surprise magpie. I looked up an article on the bird life of that this charge should be laid against the
H. Jones, B.N., and I pass on the information that there are two kinds of magpie in Hongkong Hongkong, written by Staff-Surgeon Kenneth
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