July 5, 1909.]
NOTES FROM JAPAN.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
TOKYO, June 16th. THE FUTURE OF KOREA.
CHINA OVERLAND TRÅDE REPORT.
be sprung upon him, and feels he has no remedy, for just grievances. The Tanko Kisen Kaisha or Hokkaido Steamship and Mining Co. is a case in point. Last half-year this company paid 14 per cent. and its shares changed hands at 110. To-day it promises 6 per cent. and the ruling price is 48. Last half-year the Tokyo Yokohama Electric Railway paid 10 per cent. and properly managed it should be one of the most prosperous concerns in the Kingdom. To day it pays 6 per cent. Last half-year the Dai Nipponngar Co. paid 15 per cent today most of the people who were directing that concern aro in jail. A good many company directors, who are now free, ought to be in jail. There is a sad lack of high principle, training and experience. The public company system is not new, but it is not old. There are hundreds
The event of greatest political moment that is being talked about is the resignation of Prince Ito of his post of Resident-General in Korea, and the elevation of Viscount Sone, Deputy Resident-General to the high office. The ostensible reason for the change is the advancing age of the veteran statesman, but one of the remarkable things about Prince Ito, which the papers love to dwell upon, is his Highness physical vigour. He cannot, moreover, bo called an old man, for much has been done and is still being done in the field of action of directors and other respousible men to-day by men who are many years beyond three score who are quite unfitted for such positions, but are and eight. As 'resident of the Privy Council, brought into existence by the sudden increase the chief advisory body to the Emperor, it in the number of public companies. The tyros may he said that Priuce Ito has by na find themselves in the novel position of being means relinquished control of Japanese policy in guardians of large sums of shareholders' money, Korea that he remains in fact the sovereign's and the responsibility is too much for them. En. mouthpiece in all which concerns the govern-couraged by a negative system of auditing, prin- ment of the peninsula. Viscount Sone is only ciples of sound business, and the common caution eight years younger than the elder statesman, they would exercise in using their own money go but very much younger as a man of affairs. to the winds. It is not, perhaps, realised that to Prince Ito in this respect has had a rich ex- be a successful director of other people's money perience, beyond that of any of his contempora requires an exceptional standard of integrity. ries. It is interesting to note that Prince Education, especially that form of education Yamagata, who has always been considered the given in the Japanese Schools, have nothing to militarist leader, just as Prince Ito is looked do with it. Claptrap about bushido, which was upon as the chief advocate of peaceful, non- evolved when one part of the nation were slaves militarist measures, resigns from the presidency and the other au arrogant military caste, is out of the Privy Council and becomes au ordinary of place entirely, for bushido has nothing to do member. These two statesmen have always with common honesty. Business ability and been political rivals, and consequently there integrity can only be aoquired by experience and would appear to be some significance in the conviction that honesty and plain-dealing the appointment of Prince Ito to the are the first essentials in business. Theso presidency of the Council. in place of Prince coffrictions the average business
in Yamagata, who is the former's senior by this country three years and in the estimation of his country might be an honest upholder of the principles does not hold, although he men equally distinguished. When Prince of bushido, Ito was at Seoul he was not handicapped by orders of the Privy Council, but his successor will not enjoy like freedom. He will be subject to the Privy Council in Tokyo. Prince Ito has accomplished what is called the first stage of the government of the peninsula kingdom, and it is not necessary for him to be on the spot.
THE TOKYO RAILWAY PROBLEM.
The Tokyo Electric Railway Co. has decided to declare a dividend at the rate of 5.4 per cent.. after putting aside the usual 500,000 yen to sinking fund against the time when the system has to be handed over to the city gratis. The number of passengers carried in the six months was 84,000,000, the revenue being 3,000,000 yen. The directors declared
the largest dividend possible after putting aside the sink- ing fund, which they are determined shall be increased by five hundred thousand yen every half-year, and laying aside necessary legal and depreciation reserves. Hence, on the present rate of fare, it will be impossible ever to declare a dividend which is considered a fair return in this country, namely, 7 per cent. An increase of one
sen in the fare would realise some 800,000 yen every six months, sufficient to pay an additional 4 per cent., and a fresh effort wili | no doubt be made to obtain this increase. Meanwhile a rather norel question has cropped up. The engagement of the company with the municipality is that the city receive a portion of the profits remaining after a 7 per cent. dividend has been paid. At present, of course, the city receives nothing and that is a sore point with the city fathers. It is now reported that the authorities are of opinion that the 500,000 set aside every half-year should be considered profit, when the city would have a chance of getting a dividend. Were this 500,000 divided, however, the city's proportion would be small indeed, for as it takes some 200,000 yen to pay one per cent., the city's share, a third of the excess of seven per cent,, would only amount to about 20,000 yen, whereas it was originally estimated that the annual revenue to the city by the arrangement would be some 300,000 yen. The only remedy seems to be municipalisation or an increase of-fare.
COMMERCIAL SURPRISE PACKETS.
very
The shareholder in Japanese companies at the present day is not exactly a fortunate persou. He never knows when some new surprise will
THE "INKYO,“
one
Such a
13
among business men of Japan. He has ripe ex. perience, convictions, and, we hope, many years of life before him.
A CURIOUS EAILWAY ACCIDENT.
A disastrous railway accident of an uncom Yonezawa, 150 miles north of the capital, a mon nature took place between Fukushima and few days ago. four passenger cars and seventeen goods wagons, A compound train consisting of heavily laden left ukushima with an engine and while negotiating a heavy gradient some- in front and rear. The district is mountainous, thing went wrong with the rear engine.. The forward engine load alone, and coming to a standstill the was unable to pull the train began to move backwards, The brakes were applied but without effect; something and the train increasing in speed at every seems to have been wrong with those also,
wayside station the engine and some cars were moment, rushed down the incline. Nearing a derailed, the shock crushing to splinters many wagons and carriages. Four persons were killed outright, while over twenty were seriously injured.
|
A pleasant reminder of old days, when Japan was not bothered by foreign trade and competi- tion, and foreign ideas of honesty, is the old man one constantly meets on the street carrying a baby on his back and contentedly whiling away the day doing nothing but looking after baby, his grandchild. He is an "inkyo, who has abdicated his portion as head of the family in favour of his son and retired from active life. The latest would-be recruit to this class of the people is Baron Shibusawa, our premier mau of commerce, who has announced his intention of retiring from the many companies he is connected with. thing as retiring absolutely is of course impos. sible for the man of the prominence of Baron Shibusawa, but he can relinquish a great deal without giving up all. He will not, for example, sever his connection with his own creation, the Dai-ichi Ginko, the pioneer of bauks, established by him in 1873. For years he had to fight against the opposition of a conservative people, who would not trust this new institution. He has fought all that down, however, and is to-day not only famous among his countrymen, but the proper type of the man of business. His education, gained in the infancy of Japan's modern growth, could not have been extensive, but he is an example for the products of the schools of to-day. The Baron states that his advancing age, he is seventy, makes it necessary for him to give up much of his work, making way for the younger generation, among whom he believes there are many men of great ability. No doubt the Japanese business world is full of men of energy, enterprise, and ability. But is integrity among these men & pronounced characteristic ? The progress of the sugar scandal trials shows the manner of life led by the men who may be fairly taken as a common type of the nation's legislators and meu of business. Bribes were easily given and received, no question of right or wroug cropping up, and, from the evidence, these leaders of the people lived in an atmosphere of restau. rants, concubinage, and various forms of corrup- tion. The restaurant and singing-girl play an important part in business affairs, and with these you cannot dissociate corruption in all its forms. It would be a good thing if Baron Shibusawa were to become a General Booth
•
INTERESTING TO STAMP COLLECTORS.
The other day a friend received an advertise- ment delivered not by post but by a city delivery agency. The article was too large to come through the post, but the agency undertook delivery for the modest sum of three sen, and as delivered in the same district, it is conceivable some hundreds of the advertisement were
that the enterprise is profitable. The post office but it will probably have a word to say about cannot complain of this form of competition, the labels which franked the advertisement. These are a very close imitation of the current although comparison with the government 3-sen stamp, sufficiently close to deceive the eye,
stamp shows the inferiority of the imitation
and at many points. The name of this interprising delivery agency is the Nippon Ben tatsu Kaisha, its telephone number appears as the cancellation or postmark, suggesting the ordinary date stamp of the post office! The is worthy of the attention of the postal imitation in both cases is remarkably close, and authorities, for the idea will suggest great have been tried in England; that is, advertising possibilities for the unscrupulous. Such things labels simply, not in imitation of stamps, have been stuck on postal missives, but an order of the Postmaster-General was recently issued confusing to the sorters. While on the subject, forbidding the practice, because the labels were
attention to the matter of confusion in postage it is high time the Japanese Post Office gave
stamps, for the present three and four sen stamps are in practically the same colour and have the same design. The colour of the four- sen is fixed according to the regulation of the design or colour of the three-sen could be International Postal Union, but either the altered with advantage.
A MONTH-END IN LONDON.
latest announcement in connection with the Shanghai to London in fourteen days is the journey, via Siberia.
This is done via Tairen. It is, after all, only as it should be. The time bridge the distance between Tokyo and London, will come when ten days only are required to
always presuming, of course, that company and then our holiday jaunts will be more frequent,
dire tors here remain simply, directors and not appropriators of our money
HONGKONG PLAGUE STATISTICS.
table showing the distribution of plague this We have been furnished with the following
season in the Colony of Hongkong :-
Kowloon City.. Old Kowloon--
Yaumati
Tsim Sha Tsui
.31
...38
.11
Tai Kok Tsui
Hung Hom
Quarry Bay..
Harbour
City of Victoria
.30
117 Of the 30 cases returned from the City of Victoria 6 Colony and 2 at least came
were imported from outside the ACTO88 from Kowloon.
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