October 2, 1909.]
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to conduct these agencies at the cost of the Hongkong taxpayers, the more so that additional burdens have lately been incurred * owing to railway construction and restriction of opium." It is further mentioned in the letter that the Secretary of State has been in communication with the Treasury, and a telegram has been received by His EXCELLENCY informing him that His Majesty's Government will guarantee the Colony of Hongkong against half of the net loss incurred on the collective | maintenance on present lines of the Treaty Port agencies, and suggesting that the communities at those agencies should be required to contribute towards the remain- ing loss, as a provisional arrangement for one year.
The loss for 1910 is estimated by the Postmaster-General at $27,250, and His EXCELLENCY intimated to the Municipal Council that the Government of Hongkong would continue to conduct the British Post Office in Shanghai during 1910 provide the Council would guarantee to refund to the Government of Hongkong one quarter of the total loss on the agency. The Council has replied regretting that it cannot authorise payment on behalf of so cosmopolitan a community of a contribution towards the cost of maintenance of the British Post Office, since other national offices would be entitled to similar treatment There are in Shanghai branch post-offices under American, French, German, Japanese and Russian management, as well as the Imperial Chinese Post Office, and in the Council's opinion the support of any of these, or the British Post Office, cannot fittingly be made a charge upon municipal funds. Yet not only is the Post Office in Hongkong made a charge upon the local revenues, but we have out of our local revenueş to maintain British postal agencies at some half-a-dozen Treaty Ports in China, hardly one of which, we believe, pays its way. We may expect to hear something further regarding this matter when the Estimates for 1910 are introduced into the Council next month. It would be interest- ing to know, for instance, whether in this estimated loss of $27,250, the military con- tribution of 20% of the revenue has been reckoned. Last year the question as to whether the receipts from postal agencies conducted by this Colony in China should be liable to military contribution was under reference to the Secretary of State, but no announcement has yet been made of the result of that reference. It is obviously unfair that the taxpayers of Hongkong should be penalised for discharging an Imperial duty by having to pay a military contribution of 20 per cent. on a postal revenue not adequate to cover the cost of maintaining the service.
that time, as
291
her power
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. [ality of Tientsin and the Imperial Treasury emigration to Manchuria and Korea. The have between them met the deficit on the announcement will not surprise students of British postal agency at that port for the past the immigration qustion, for most people two or three years. The Shanghai Mugi-must have foreseen that it would come to cipality is not constituted in the same way, this in the end. The policy is one, however, and therefore the only way in which a con- which cannot but accentuate the distrust with tribution towards the loss could be obtained which the general policy of the Japanese from Shanghai would be from the funds of Government in those regions is already some private British Association, such as regarded by foreign public opinion. There the China Association (to whom the Muni- are at the present time upwards of one cipality has referred the letter from the hundred thousand Japanese in Korea; and Government of Hongkong). The Shanghai since the war with Russia came to an end Mercury suggests that one of the means there has been a large immigration of Japan- of reducing the deficit would be to offer ese into Manchuria, to the sword being greater facilities to the public in the matter followed, so to speak, by the plough- of mails via Shanghai, and concludes, that share. While the stream flowed withoue the only way out of the impasse is the special encouragement from the Government, increase of facilities and the taking over of the political significance of the movement the service by the Home Govern scarcely suggested itself to the man-in-the ment. For the present, we fear not much street, but when the Government appears as is to be hoped for in the way of increased
a driving force behind this immigration facilities unless the cost of transit is re-
movement, the policy is one which is bound duced. We believe that the increased cost to excite the gravest suspicion from a of transit since mails have been sent political point of view, however plausible or via Siberia has been responsible to some sound may be the economic reasons which extent for the Colony's loss on postal are pleaded. In an article recently contri- reveuue. Transit payments, last year, for buted to a Paris review by M. LOUIS AUBERT instance, showed an increa-e of $20,000, and dealing with the emigration of Japanes we imagine the plea of the Government into America, the writer adopts the view would be that until the mail subsidy is still of the American ultra-patriot that there is further reduced increased facilities are not behind the Japanese emigration movement possible owing to the heavy transit charges. not only the idea of amassing riches, but also It is manifestly the duty of the Imperial the idea of "fulfilling a national mission." Goverment, and not of the Government of
It is necessary," he says "that Japan this Colony, to maintain the Treaty Port should set foot wherever agencies, and we trust that the British is one day to dominate, not only in community of Shanghai will be able to Korea and Manchuria, but on all induce the Imperial Government to accept the coasts of the Pacific.”
We may the full responsibility.
dismiss from our minds the far-fetched notion that any idea is entertained by Japa- nese statesmen of dominating "all the coasts of the Pacific," but we must agree with the "Japan Chronicle" that the state- ment we bave quoted assumes a certain degree of verisimilitude when it is applied to Count KOMURA's policy of encouraging emigration to Manchuria. "Here", says our Kobe contemporary, there is no inducement for Japanese labourers to swarm into the country. There is no work that cannot be done cheaper by the Chinese themselves. The economic conditions are absolutely un- favourable to the Japanese, and in order to they must be subsidised in some form or be encouraged to proceed to Manchuria
other, either by grants or by high wages from the Japanese authorities. Hence the suspicion is bound to arise, however unjust it may be, that the motive un lerlying such an expensive policy on the part of the Japanese Government is first to Japonise and then to annex Manchuria." Our Kobe contemporary looks tor the solution of the emigration problem in "the operation of natural laws, the working of which is only delayed by artificial attempts at a solution." The natural laws in this connection are declared to be, firstly, that increased strenuousness of life in Japan, owing to the sterner economic struggle, will infallibly be reflectel in a decline to the
THE JAPANESE EMIGRATION
PROBLEM.
the Hawaiian Islands
·
as
(Daily Press, September 30th.) In the days befor the Russo-Japan war, back to the time of the American annexation of Hawaii, much was said and written regarding Japan's need of an outlet for her surplus population. America and Australia gration of the Asiatic races, and the idea was were making an outcry against the immi- generally entertained that Japan would therefore be practically forced to secure ground for her surplus population, and a dumping
at the same time keep the door open also in Korea in view of future needs. Notwithstanding the fact that during the last twenty years the Japanese emigration movement has been growing annually, the population of Japan proper has risen in these two decades from forty millions to over fifty-an average of half a million per annum. The Colony of Formosa has now
a
Japanese population of about four Times have changed very much since millions, and large colonies of Japanese these postal agencies were established. They are established in Korea and Manchuria, in were established when the only route from Hawaii, in the United States and elsewhere. China to Europe was via Hongkong. At As our readers will be aware, the immigration a Shanghai contemporary of Japanese into the United States has of late points out, all other nationalities sent their years been much restricted in accordance mails by British Post Office, and the rates with
birthrate, which will relieve an arrangement amicably made were much higher than they are now.
In between the Governments of the two the emigration problem, and, secondly, that those days, no doubt, there was a profit on the postal agency at Shanghai. But to- observance
countries. The results of Japan's faithful artificial barriers and race distinctions will
of the agreement are
vanish as their maintenance becomes more day the mails of Shanghai go to
beginning to make themselves felt in and more expensive consequent upon the ini Europe by seven different post offices, and Japan. The scheme to send Japanese creased mingling of the various peoples. But by three or four ifferent routes, so that the labourers to Mexico and South America has these, we fear, are visions of a very distant British post office has come to be used failed, so that, with the doors all down the future, and the present day problem can almost exclusively by British subjects. Pacific coast of the American Continent hardly by shelved to await the Millenium. The question of whether the British post- from Alaska to Peru practically closed If old outlets for her surplus population are office at Shanghai shall be closed or not is
against the immigration of Japanese closed against Japan, we must expect her to not merely a local but an Imperial question, labourers, her statesmen have been obliged seek new ones whilst there is no sign of a and so long as other Governments maintain to seek outlets elsewhere for the rapidly decline in the birthrate to relieve the national post offices in the Treaty Porte growing surplus, of population. It is re- problem; and as regards the second argu- it is imperative that the British offices ported to be the intention of the Government, the "artificial barrier," which would shall be maintained too. The Municip.ment of Japan to direct the stream of prevent the peaceful conquest of Manchuria
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