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VICEROY CHANG'S VISIT TO HONGKONG.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
(Daily Press, August 2nd.) We doubt if any of the distinguished representatives of the Chinese Empire who have ever set foot in this Colony of Hongkong came here with more pleasure. able anticipations than H. E. Viceroy Chang Jen-Chun, who has just spent two days in the Colony; certainly there has been none whom it has given the Colony greater pleasure to welcome. Viceroy CHANG during his three years at Canton has maintained the most cordial relations with the Government of this Colony. His Excellency's donation of two lakhs of dollars to the Endowment Fund of the proposed University and his efforts to obtain contributions from the wealthy residents of the two provinces under his Government, in the bope that a total of about half a million dollars may be forth. coming from the two provinces of China nearest to Hongkong, affords very tangible proof of His Excellency's appreciation of this Colony as being in the widest and best sense of the term an educational centre which has been of great benefit to China in the past, and likely to prove of immense service in the future, now that China is beginning to remodel her institu- tions on Western lines and to make use of Western scientific methods for the develop-| ment of the vast resources of her great Empire. The two days spent in this Colony have been full of interest for His Excellency, while the advantage to the Colony of such a visit, we cannot doubt, will not prove unsub- stantial.
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[August 7, 1909.
attempt to develop the resources of the country has resulted in new enterprises being established, industries have sprung up in many, parts of the country, and the populace, becoming conscious of the ensuing prosperity, are naturally averse to the Government embarking on a course of action which is likely to take them from peaceful avocations. This is the crux of the whole problem. No war of any magnitude
In
mercial developments in China. His Ex-century they have learned a little of the cellency also, has probably recoguised better advantages of industrialism. A serious than any of his predecessors in the Viceregal Yamen at Canton the disadvantage which attaches to the rule forbidding a Viceroy to travel outside his jurisdiction. Were it permissible for the Viceroy to exchange occasional visits with the Governor of Hongkong, we cannot doubt, that it would be mutually advantageops When the railway from Kowloon to Canton is com- pleted the identity of interests between the Colony and the neighbouring province will and it is apparent that the present fight- become increasingly evident, and it will be ing is more serious that was at first anti- to the mutual advantage of the Colony and cipated-can be wage without augmenting the neighbouring empire if the highly satis-the peace establishment of the army. factory relations which have been established time of peace Spain's standing army does between the two Governments can not only not amount to more than 100,000, but when be maintained but strengthened as time wer is threatened conscription is applied and goes on. The fact that the successor of that number is doubled, while, if necessary, H. E. CHANG, while filling the post of the
reserves can be called out, giving Tuotai út Shanghai, had the misfortune to another 100,000. Now we see that 75,000 come into serious conflict with foreign in- inforcements are demanded for the troope terests there, has excited some doubt as to | in Melilla, which means that men will have whether these friendly relations are likely to to be drawn from their various employments be maintained in his time, but while we
to bear arms. As the people bave no have as Governor of Hongkong an adminis reason to look back on recent wars in which trator of Sir FREDERICK LUGARD's tact Sain was engaged with any feeling of an ability, and at Canton a Viceroy of pride, they show little enthusiasm over any H.E. YUAN's education and intelligence, military enterprise; but when-added to that gloomy anticipations of this kind are to be they have learned to enjoy the blessings of deprecated. We sincerely hope that they pence and to reap the advantages of a will be as completely and agreeably falsified growing industrialism and a revival of as they have been in the case of H. E. tinde, their present attitude does not seem CHANG.
quite so inexplicable. Some might see in this a happy augury for the future. They might regard it as a harbinger of that happy era when the men of one nation will cease to fight the men of another whom they do not know, and with whom they have no personal quarrel. But the time anticipated by CARLYLE has not yet arrived, and the wisdom of the present day having decreed- that men must be prepared to bear arms in the service of their country when called upon, it is not improbable that Spain will have to make her sons realise that while erjoying the blessings of peace they must ever remember that the best guarantee for peace is preparedness for war.
AFFAIRS IN SPAIN.
(Daily Press, August 3.) Misfortunes still crowd upon unhappy As time goes on it becomes more Spain. Not only has the fighting with the and more important that the most friendly Moors so far resulted in nothing but a relations should be cultivated between the succession of disasters, but the unpopularity Governments of Canton and Hongkong, of the war has grown to such an extent that and we view with the greatest satisfaction it has found angry expression in riots and the progress made in that direction during street fighting which have had to be quelled the past two years, thanks alike to the by the artillery, who have been responsible diplomacy and tact of Sir FREDERICK for a death roll which has not been equalled LUGARD and the wisdom and fore-by some of the recent sanguinary encounters sight of H. E. CHANG. As is clearly in which the forces of Spain have been shown the interesting dispatch on the worsted. The outlook is far from hopeful. University project, written by the Martial law has ben proclaimed practically Viceroy to the chief oficials of the various throughout the country, but what is perhaps Government Bureaux under his juris- the most significant of all the news items diction, which will be found reproduced wich have filtered through from Madrid in another column, His Excellency is a is that the Queen and the Dowage:-Queen man of progressive ideas. He was not slow have retired into France, indicating that to appreciate the fact that the University there is a feeling of uneasiness as to what which it is proposed to establish in my happen with the people in such a the Colony would offer important temper as they apparently are in at present. advantages to the youth of China and Though the telegraphic information tells of is likely to be of "real use in the the growing unpopularity of the war, it is development of the industrial and commer- still strangely silent as to the reason for cial enterprises on which there is now this. As we remarked before, it might noticeably growing tendency in China to em. have been expected that national pride bark. His Excellency's visit has doubt would have insisted on the hostilities which less given him a better idea than any num- have broken out between Spain and Moroc o ber of the reports can do of the opportunities being pursued with a vigour necessary to which abound in Hongkong for Chinese ensure the success of the Spanish arms and youths to acquire a practical training in the maintenance of Spanish prestige, and we Applied Science. His visit to the Taikoo su gested as an explanation either that the Dockyard must have made an indelible Government had lost the confidence of impression on his mind and enabled him to
the country or that the people were not realise more clearly than he had probably convinced that the possessions belonging to ever realised before what important advau- Spain in North Africa were worth the cost tages are gained by Chinese youths working of maintaining, with the single exception, in establishments such As this, equip-perhaps, of Ceuta. But from information ped with the most modern scientific derived from other sources we have reason appliances. As His Excellency ponders to believe that a lack of confidence in the what he has seen in Hongkong present administration is not the cause and all that it imports, be will
wiich has given rise to so many forceful not fail to recognise how much China is expressions of disapproval of the present already indebted to Hongkong, which campaign. Neither is the opposition to the has educated during the past sixty years war based on any sentimental foundation so many thousands of Chinese youths who that war is wrong. The explanation is are now prominently identified with the new simply that the people prefer peace to war. political, educational, industrial and com- Si. ce their unfortunate experiences of last
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THE LIKIN PROBLEM.
(Daily Press, August 4th.) It was always hoped that one of the most important results of the introduction of rail. ways into China would be an improvement in the means of levring the likin dues upon merchandise in transit through the Chinese Empire; but from the facts to which attention has been called in more directions than one there appears reason to fear that these hopes will be disappointed. In one wav or another the likin farmers find mans of obtaining taxes out of goods which are taken by rail, and they spare no pains either to divert goods from the new channels of communication, or at all events to come down upon the owners for what they claim as their dues. Attention was prominently called to this matter in connec tion with the Shanghai-Nanking Railway. and there can be little doubt that this is a typical illustration of what is likely to take place in other directions, unless the Central Government can come to some reasonable understanding with the Provincial Authori ties upon the subject. If there is no early prospect of the total abolition of likin as promised in the MACKAY Treaty, it is to be honed that something may be done in this direction, otherwise the interests of all railway enterprise in China must be severely menaced, and, not only so, the country will really be the Iser of a large portion of the revenue which ought in reality to come to it,
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