Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/842

 720 CHINA

Chinese). There are also private schools and mission schools with medical missionaries and hospitals, all of which are successful. In 15 provincial capitals colleges have been founded, while primary and secondary schools, mechanical, agricultural, police, and military schools are springing up all over China. In the Wuchau prefecture about 60 Government schools have recently been opened, local Buddhist temples having been confiscated and adapted to school purposes. There are numerous Catholic and Protestant mission schools and colleges at Shanghai and other ports, where the French and English languages and lower branches of western science are taught. It is estimated that altogether some 36,000 educational institutions of all grades (military and naval schools included), are to be found in China, with an aggregate enrolment of 880,000 students.

The engagement of America to return to China the surplus of her indem- nity of 1900, amounting to some 10 million taels, produced an undertaking from China to spend an eq^ual amount in sending students to the United States. Three such batches of students have already been sent.

Translations of foreign standard works are gradually reaching the most distant parts of the Empire, with the effect that the desire for western knowledge becomes year by year more evident among the people. The Chinese Government has of late years established schools with and with- out foreign instructors in connection with the different arsenals and military establishments at Tientsin, Pao-ting-fu, Nanking, Shanghai, Canton,^ and Fuchau, and steps are being taken for the gradual re-organisation of military instruction.

Ten Chinese newspapers are published at Shanghai, and some 20 in Peking, while the number of native papers and the influence they wield is growing rapidly. Altogether there must be well over 200 daily, weekly, or monthly journals in China.

Justice.

Under the old system justice was very badly administered ; so much so that the Treaty Powers had to claim the right of extra-territorial jurisdiction over their own citizens in China. The new regime has brought changes in the judicial system. For the present four kinds of courts are established : (1) The High Court of Justice {Ta Li Yuan) which is the Supreme Court of Appeal. (2) Provincial High Courts {Kao Teng Shen Pan Ting) in each of the provincial capitals. (3) District Courts, and (4) Courts of First Instance.

Great Britain and the United States have special courts in China, the one. His Majesty's Supreme Court for China at Shanghai (established 1865), and the other, the United States District Court for China (established 1906).

The first trial by jury in the annals of China took place on March 23, 1912.

Finance.

No comprehensive statement of the revenue and expenditure of China is published officially, and such estimates as have been formed by Europeans are founded on financial reports of provincial governors published from time to time in the Peking Gazette.

According to the Budget for the year 1911 (China's first Budget), pub- lished (October, 1910) by the Board of Finance, the total revenue amounts to 297,000,000 taels, while the exi)enditure is 376,000,000 taels, leaving a