The-Hong-Kong-Weekly-Press-1909-11-13 — Page 3

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November 13, 1909.]

CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.

419*

CHINESE INDIFFERENCE AND to ask on the subject give careful expression | Syndicate undertook not to compete in the

BRITISH ANXIETY.

(Daily Press, November 10th.) Chinese indifference stood out in Hong- kong yesterday in strange contrast to British anxiety. By instructions received from the Secretary of State for the Colonies all the local celebrations which had been arranged in honour of the King's birthday -the public holiday, the parade and review of troops, the official dinner, the big Ball at Government House and other minor celebrations were all postponed till

the due date.

RAILWAY INTERESTS IN CHINA.

to sentiments which are, we believe, widely entertained in the Colony, Nobody takes пр the attitude that this Colony should not under any circumstances have postponed the celebrations; the objection is principal ly as to the manner in which this has been done. It does not need to be stated that had there been any evidence of intention among the Chinese of the Colony or in the neighbouring city of Canton to make the occasion of the funeral of the late Downger Empress a day of mourning, the Colonial Government and the British community the 25th inst. because the 9th inst. had been chosen for the obsequies of the late Dowager celebration

would have spontaneously avoided any of the King's birthday which Empress of China. Doubtless this signal would have been out of harmony with expression of British friendship and the observance of mourning. Of that we sympathy is appreciated by the Chinese

are confident. But seeing that the occasion Government, but we cannot help contrasting has been allowed to pass unobserved this kindly solicitude with the fact that, so

iu any form or manner by the Chinese far as the three hundred and fifty thousand in the Colony-as well as, apparently, Chinese who live in Hongkong are concerned, by the people of South China generally there was yesterday no outward and visible

except by the officials the con- sign of mourning to be seen anywhere. trast between British anxiety and Chinese When the late Emperor was buried many indifference is indeed striking. Had the Chinese firms as a mark of respect closed instructions from Downing Street been con- their shops. Yesterday there was no suspen-fined to the postponement of the celebrations sion of business by the Chinese in the at the Legation in Peking and in the Treaty Colony, not even for a single hour, and the ports of China it would have been perfectly theatres and other places of amusement re-

intelligible, but the circumstances scarcely mained open. Much of this must have been

warranted the issue of instructions to the true of Canton also, for no announcements British Colony of Hongkong any more than have been made of any arrangements for ob-

to the Straits Settlements, where the King's serving the day at Canton as a time Birthday, we understand, was celebrated on of mourning. Some years ago the news- papers of Canton were in the habit of suspend- ing publication on the occasion of the late Empress Dowager's birthday, as well as ou the occasion of the birthday of the Emperor, but they ceased to pay this tribute to the Dowager-Empress in her late years. The

(Daily Press, November 11th.) same distinction has been made in regard to The questions which the EARL of the funerals of the monarchs. This proves

STANHOPE has been asking in the House to be incorrect. The newspapers, without of Lords were doubtless suggested by the previous announcement, suspended publica outspoken article on this subject which tion and the day was observed by the formed one of the series contributed to the military and the students in government Times by Mr. VALENTINE CHIROL after hie schools. There were many signs of return to London from a brief visit to ths public mourning in Canton when the late Far East. Lord STANHOPE inquired, firstly, Emperor was interred, but the newspapers whether in view of the German claim for of the Southern Capital have exhibited participation in the construction and finan- the utmost unconcern with regard to cing of railways in the Yangtsze provinces, the arrangements for the funeral of the Great Britain still recognised Germany's late Dowager Empress, and the statement claims to exclusive railway and mining has been made to us by Chinese who should rights in Shantung. According to REUTER'S know, that it is extremely doubtful whether telegram Lord CREWE's answer to this one Chinese in a hundred in South China, question was that Great Britain had not outside the Yamens, knew that the given to Germany any assurance in the great State funeral was taking place at sense indicated, which we take to mean that Peking yesterday. All this adds point to Great Britain has never at any time given the questions which the Hon. Mr. MURRAY to Germany an undertaking to recognise STEWART proposes to ask in the Legislative her claims to exclusive railway and mining Council to-morrow. We do not, of course, rights in Shantung. If that is the meaning yet know whether it is really a fact, as the statement was intended to convey, those suggested in the first question, that the post- who have made a careful study of the history ponement of the King's Birthday celebrations of the battle of concessions in China will be was ordered by the Secretary of State for aware that, so far as railway rights are the Colonies without any previous reference concerned, Lord CREWE's statement is not of the matter to, or consultation with, the strictly in accordance with history as it has Government of the Colony, but the semi- been written in the Blue Books. The China official statement that the postponement was Blue-book, No 1 of 1899, contains the text of in accordance with "confirmatory instruc- an agreement made between representatives tions" from the Secretary of State certainly of a German Syndicate, the British and suggests that only an affirmative reply to Chinese Corporation and the Hongkong and Mr. STEWART's first question is to be Shanghai Bank, and it is interesting to expected. "Confirmatory instructions observe that the first proposal agreed to seem to suggest that there were reads as follows:-" It is desirable for the original instructions, and not a request British and German Governments to for advice. It was not more than agree about the sphere of interest of about twelve months ago that

the the two countries regarding the railway Unofficial Members of Council very properly constructions in China and to mutually protested against similar action on the part support the interest of either country.' of the Secretary of State in connection with This resolution was proposed by the the closing of the opium divans, and it is Representative of the German Syndicate, much to be regretted that the necessity for who also proposed the two resolutions a renewed protest has so soon arisen. The defining the respective spheres of German questions the Hon. Mr. STEWART proposes and British interest in China. The German

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was im-

English sphere, and England engaged not to compete in the German sphere. · Though no diplomatic notes were exchanged between thetwo Governments it is made clear that the arrangement made by the financial groups was endorsed by both Governments. Not-- withstanding this agreement the Germans, as Dr. MORRISON pointed out a few months ago, have secured not only a railway connection between the three Treaty Ports on the Yangtsze, namely Hankow, Shasi and Tchang, covering two-thirds of the distance Westward to the Szechuan border, but also, a branch line running from this main line northward to the important inland

"port"

of Siangyang, and thence eastward to the Peking-Hankow trunk line. Russia, too, though in 1899 she gave an explicit undertaking to Great Britain "not to seek for her own account, or on behalf of Russian subjects or of others, any railway concessions in the basin of the Yangtsze," has recently furnished a loan for railway construction in this sphere. Lord STANHOPE inquired whether in view of this abrogation of the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1899 British subjects were now free to claim equal opportunity north of the Great Wall. Lord CREWE's reply to this was that the loan did not appear to contravene the Convention. Literally it does not, but it is unquestionably a flagrant violation of the spirit of the agree- ment. His lordship said it portant to remember the great change which has taken place in China since the Anglo-Russian Agreement was made. Whereas at that time the battle was for rail- way concessions under foreign control, all railways now being constructed are under the control of the Chinese Government— and presumably in the view of the British Government all danger of foreign "conquest by railway" is removed. But that is not the view of the Times correspondent whose letters have recently stimulated public interest in these questions. There is no gainsaying the fact that important political and economic advantages have been lost to Great Britain by the neglect or inability of the Govern- ment to secure the due observance of the solemn agreements whereby Yangtsze region was believed to have been conserved as a purely British sphere of influence, and though, as Lord CREWE says, the times have changed in China since those agreements were negociated, yet it cannot be seriously maintained that the changes warrant the scrapping up of those agree- ments. Mr. CHIROL has very forcibly pointed out how the permanent stability of China's credit is likely to be impaired by placing at her disposal large amounts of money without adequate guarantees that they will be usefully and honestly expended. It is public knowledge that the Germans acquired their interests in the Yangtze Valley by offering money without the guarantees that the British deemed absolutely essential; and if the British were disposed to take the same risk in Shantung there is nothing in Germany's mining and railway agreement with China to prevent them acquiring either railway or mining interests in Shantung. But they have no inclination at present to compete along those view of Mr. CHIROL and many others the Chinese Empire is exposed to the danger of national bankruptcy and ultimate dis- ruption through reckless borrowing to which German' finance, it is considered, so willingly.

This is a view the British lends itself. Government does not apparently take into account, and in any case it is powerless to do anything in the matter. It is China's own concern.

the

lines. In the