213
Partridge shooting prospects in the North are the worst for twenty or thirty years.
"East Sussex" in the N.-C. Daily News estimates that 75 per cent. of the young birds have perished owing to the wet and coldness of the
summer.
Akiyama Ichiyu, managing director of the Dai Nippon Sugar Company, who is now under arrest in connection with the sugar scandal, is reported to be suffering from brain trouble. Little hope is expressed of his recovery, and he has accordingly been admitted to bail.
The Berlin correspondent of the Times says it is semi-officially stated that recent trials of Po-schan coal on the German East-Asiatic station have been very favourable. The gun- boat Iltis is said to have achieved better results with considerably less expenditure of fuel when using coal supplied by the Shantung Mining Company, with which a contract was concluded by the German authorities last year, than when using Cardiff coal.
The Editor of a Chinese paper in Japan and
five other Chinese residents in Japan, have arrived in Shanghai in order to advocate a boycott of Japanese goods. They have paid visits to hinese newspaper offices and Chinese Chambers of Commerce as well as the Shanghai Taotai.he local Chinese Chamber of Com merce is quite determined not to have a boycott, and the Waiwupu has sent telegrams to Viceroys and Governors requiring that the provincial authorities should instruct people to keep calm and not attempt to boycott Japanese goods.
Imperial audience was granted, on the 27th, to the ex-Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Fairbanks, as well as to Admiral Harber and the commanding officers accompanying him, the American Charge d'Affairs (Mr. Fletcher), and the members of the American Legation and staff. The Admiral and navy captains were first received. After the formalities, the Prince Regent conversed with Admiral Harber. After- wards Mr. Fairbanks was received, and some time was spent in conversation between the Regent and the American statesman. The American visitors were entertained at an elabor- ate banquet given in their honour by the Waiwapa.
Japan papers publish a statement to the effect that the organization of Messrs. Samuel Samuel & Co., Yokohama, hitherto an unlimited partnership, has been changed, and the firm has become a joint-stock limited company (Kabushiki Kaisha), its capital being limited to one and a half million yen in consideration of the post-bellum economic condition of Japan. Although the new Company, in compliance with British law, has its head office nominally in Hongkong, with branches at Yokohama, Kobe, Osaka, Shimonoseki, Taipeh, Tamsui and Takao, yet in reality Yokohama is the location
of the head office, commanding all other offices, under Mr. E. C. Davis, Managing Director. The firm is still associated with Messrs. M.
Samuel & Co., Unlimited, of London, in the relationship of Principal and Agent, and under takes any big enterprises with their assistance as hitherto.
Several Shanghai changes are to take place in the staff of the American Consulate-General.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND THE CHINESE SAILOR,
SINCE
(Daily Press, September 4th.)
the passing of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1906, which imposed a language test on all seamen, British subjects excepted, and more especially since the issue some few months ago of a minute by the Board of Trade with a view to the stricter enforcement of this rule, we have seen some surprising statements published under the authority of one or other of the Seamen's Unions intended to discredit the Chinese The general grievance against sailor. Chinese sailors is that in a great number of instances they have succeeded in evading the Act by declaring that their domicile is Hongkong, and by the issue of the Board of Trade minute superintendents of Mercantile Maripe offices in the United Kingdom were informed that in future no Oriental seaman or other person of apparently foreign origin would be exempted from the provision of the Act unless he could produce a certificate of birth, a certificate of naturalisation, or some other authenticated official document showing that he is a British subject or the inhabitant of a British Protectorate. But even this does not appear to give satisfaction to the promoters of the Act, and resort is being had to other devices to prejudice the public Chinese sailor. Recently against the Chinese sailors were referred to by a Labour member in the House of Commons, on the strength of observations made in Poplar, as men who habitually get drunk and are so violent on such occasions that a single man needs the attentions of a half-a-dozen police- men. As was pointed out in the Daily Press at the time, the type of Chinaman found in Poplar, if the description given be accurate, bears no resemblance to the type in Hong- kong, where we have the advantage of seeing more Chinese seamen in a week than are to be seen in any European port in a decade. Seldom is a drunken Chinaman to be seen in the streets, and the Police Court records bear eloquent testimony to the sobriety of the race in that they do not show as regards the Chinese an average of one conviction a month for drunkenness. Another charge made against the Chinese sailor is that in an emergency he cannot be depended on to assist in saving life, as it is against his personal interests to do so. munication recently sent to the Press. by the Merchant Service Guild occurs the astonishing statement that, according to Chinese law, a Chinaman is bound to maintain the man he rescues from drowning for the rest of his natural life. We have
learn not been able to
there is
In a com--
[September 13, 19 9.
on
notice to hoist sail and dash to the rescue of any craft in distress. Mr. OLIVER READY, "Life and in his interesting book on Sport in China," devotes a couple of pages to the work of this Guild the Yangtsze, and from personal observa- tion writes in high appreciation of the rescue work done by these boats. As a set-off to the one or two isolated instances of callousness to which we have been refer- ring as occurring in the harbour of Hong- kong, we may recall the interesting ceremony which took place only a few months ago, when thirteen Chinese gigmen in the service of the Imperial Maritime Customs at Taishau, in the Kowloon district, were the recipients of well-merited honours conferred upon them by the Viceroy of Canton for the gallantry they displayed in saving the lives of some 150 junk people during the typhoon of last year. Mr. HARRIS, the Commissioner of Customs, when handing the honours to the men, spoke in the highest terms of the
services which were thus rewarded, and added that the men had acted as he should have expected them to ast-faithful to the traditions of their native land. The Chinese sailor may have his defects, but he has many admirable qualities, too. Sobriety is certainly one of them, and we would hesitate to believe that in an emergency Chinese sailors would compare at all unfavour ably with average crews of any other race. That the Chinese sailor would be
held
back from rescue work by a knowledge that he would saddle himself, under Chinese law, for the rest of his life with the responsibility of maintaining the person rescued is an idle invention too palpably absurd, we should imagine, to de- ceive anybody,
LIKIN AND CUSTOMS DUTIES.
(Daily Press, September 6th.) The suggestion which was some time back thrown out by the Chinese Government that the time had come when it might be desirable for the foreign nations having treaties with China to consider whether the duties on foreign goods should not be increased, is one which we may be certain will be renewed when opportunity offers. The proposal that was made was that there should be a conference of foreign nations on the subject, but this was met by a very distinct reply from the British Government that, as the Chinese had not given up the collection of likin dues upon foreign goods, they could not reasonably ask for an acceptance by foreign nations of increased The answer is a very customs dues. obvious and a very conclusive one, bat it end here; nor, for some reasons, is it perhaps desirable that it should do so. What seems almost certain to occur is that there will be the whole of the agreement as to duties made in the British Treaty of Tientsin (and the treaties with other foreign nations strict reference to the question of the likin taxes, with which the tariff, both import and export, is so intimately connected that it cannot be properly dealt with apart from it. This, as is only too well known, has been a matter of trouble and dispute almost from the day the Treaty of Tientsin came into force. The agreement then made by be un-the Chinese was
the slightest foundation for this can hardly be supposed that the matter will
Since Mr. Amos P. Wilder, who succeeded Mr. Denby as Consul-General went home, Mr. kong, deliberately refusing to assist a reconsideration, in one form or another, of
instances have assertion. While one or two come within our own knowledge of Chinese sampan men, in the harbour of Hong-
upon to do so, drowning man when called yet those who know their China well are aware that this callousness is not charac-
China has had its "Lifeboat Guild" for, we dare say, hundreds of years, and it is rightly regarded as one of the most meri torious of the elaborate systems of guilds which permeates
Chinese society. We are not aware that the laudable work of the guild is much in evidence in South China, but no one who has travelled
Percival Heintzleman, Senior Vice-Consul, has been in charge, but now it is announced that he is to return to the State Department at Washington. Mr. Heintzleman was formerly for eighteen months Assistant Chief of the teristic of the whole race. On the contrary- which adopted the same principles), with Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs in the Depart ment, having previously been engaged in China, and about nine months ago he came to Shanghai as senior Vice-Consul, and was to leave on the 7th inst. by the s.s. Tenyo Maru for home, when he will take up the position of Chief of the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs, a post of much responsibility. The duties of Vice-Consul in charge new devolve upon Mr. W. Roderick Dorsey, who on a previous occasion assumed charge during a temporary absence of Mr. Denby. In view of the departure of Mr. Heintzleman and Mr. Hull, Mr. J. I Viney, who was formerly at Shanghai, will be transferred from Peking, and will be junior Mixed Court Assessor and have charge of the Land Office.
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up
can the Yangtze River familiar with the excellent rescue work performed by the "red-boats," which in fine weather lay up in creeks and shelters while the crews pass their time in leisure, but as soon as a storm arises put out and ride to á drift anchor, ready at a moment's
that Transit Dues on foreign imports should commuted by an extra payment of half the tariff dues at the foreign Custom House an arrangement which was certainly both convenient and just. The idea the foreign Plenipoten- tiaries had undoubtedly was that the
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