Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/814

806 not last many years, and partly because the papers ought to be renewed regularly.

In addition to the papers issued by the territorial authorities, trading vessels are required to take out an "arms certificate" from the Customs. This certificate, which permits the carriage of arms for self-protection alone, can be called for at any time and the entries in it and the arms carried compared; any excess discovered is liable to confiscation, but ammunition used may be made good, with the sanction of the authorities, after the reasons for its use have been reported. To require junks to take out this certificate and to comply with its terms is a measure of considerable importance to the general interests. Permission to import arms is granted by authorities, when the application is made by responsible persons. Without such official sanction import is forbidden to foreigners under the Treaties, and to Chinese under special and severe regulations. Unless, therefore, strict control is kept over junks in this respect, they would be able to sell their armament inland and to replenish it on their return to Macao, with the result that the evil-disposed would be able to supply themselves freely with arms of precision. Inquiries instituted proved that this was on frequent occasions being done. Arms also continue to be smuggled in large quantities into the interior by passengers or gangs of coolies, specially engaged for this purpose, who pack among their luggage rifles and revolvers which have been previously taken to pieces to facilitate hiding. It is impossible to search all passengers and coolies, and the handsome profits gained prompt them to run many risks. That the Government is rendered far more difficult by this cause than it otherwise would be, no one can doubt. In a memorial to the Throne, dated December 3, 1889, His Excellency Chang Chih-tung, the then Governor-General of Liang Kwang, drew a graphic picture of the difficulties of coping with brigandage in this province. His Excellency wrote : —

"In the Kwangtung province piracy has always been rife, but especially on the sea-board; and the difficulties of combating it have always been seriously increased by the changes that have taken place during the past few years on the coast, as the memorialist has had the honour to lay before His Majesty in detail on several occasions. The chief cause of difficulty is the fact that Hongkong and Macao have become refuges for the pirates and their bases of operation. In each place they have their chiefs, and in each they form themselves into organised bands, each with its special designation, and from each they send forth parties to levy blackmail. The rich merchant living in a populous hamlet or a town, the poor potter in the open country, and the agriculturist farming the land — each is victimised in turn. From this blackmail very large sums are realised, and form a fund for the bribery of the foreign police, for the purchase of arms, for the issue of compassionate allowances to the wounded and the families of the killed, the balance only being distributed among the members. The ramifications of these gangs are deep and stable, and their fraternity very numerous; and in every respect they differ altogether from pirates and desperadoes elsewhere. These only organise together when they contemplate a coup, and distribute there and then among their members any loot they may secure; while, in the case of the Hongkong and Macao pirates, if they wish to hire vessels, the Chinese authorities have no power to intervene; if they wish to purchase arms, the Chinese authorities have no power to prevent them; if they propose to act in concert, the Chinese authorities have no power to intercept them; while, favoured as they are by the extent of the open sea and the ramifications of the inland waterways, they are able, whenever a piratical attack is organised, to join their forces and mass their vessels into fleets. The sufferings caused by these gangs to the law-abiding are heart-rending, for on shore they do not hesitate to kill the proprietor they are robbing, if he defends his own, or to fire the place, or to carry off his children; and on the water they do not hesitate to kill or drown everyone on the boat they attack. Before forces can be concentrated to follow and capture them, they have already made good their escape to Hongkong and Macao, and to capture them in detail or to attack them in force is then alike impossible. In a word, relying on the security Hongkong and Macao afford them, the behaviour of these men differs in nothing from open rebellion against the Throne," &c.

"How bold and daring these pirates often are is illustrated by the capture of one of the Salt Commissioner's launches. While the launch was at anchor at a certain place two informers went on board and offered to point out some junks carrying a contraband cargo of opium, salt, and kerosene. The captain's eagerness to make a seizure caused him to fall into the trap. The launch started in pursuit of the supposed smuggling vessels and, near Motomoon, caught up with a junk which was pointed out by the informers as one of the smugglers. As soon as the launch went alongside to board, a dozen or more well-armed pirates suddenly appeared from the hold of the junk, jumped on to the launch, wounded the captain, shot the engineer, and drove the rest of the crew into the cabin, where they tied them up. They then took charge for their own purposes, and after pirating three trading junks, they steamed to the Bogue, where a small boat was in waiting, transferred their loot, and made off. A part of this gang was afterwards captured and promptly beheaded."

Temporary prohibitions to export arms and ammunition have on several occasions been made by the Governors of both Hongkong and Macao, and such prohibitions would tend to the peace and well-being not only of the mainland but of the two colonies as well, but, unless they are made permanent the disorderly in China will continue to provide themselves with the means of oppressing the law-abiding, of robbing the wealthy, and of resisting the lawful authorities. Towards the close of 1892 Companhia Metropolitana de Rio Janeiro, for the promotion of Chinese emigration to Brazil, opened an agency in Hongkong, but the legislative enactments there being unfavourable to such an enterprise, the locus operandi was removed to Macao, and the German s.s. Tetartos was chartered to convey the emigrants to their destination. The steamer was arrested in Hongkong in July, 1893, on a charge of infringing the Chinese Emigration Ordinance of 1889, but was acquitted by the jury and released. In September she came to Macao and left on October 17th for Rio with 474 "emigrants." She was reported to have reached her destination, but the actual date of arrival was variously stated. The Chinese authorities protested against this emigration and the objections to it were many and serious. A Treaty was negotiated, it is true, between China and Brazil in 1881, but no provision was made in it for emigration, and its inadequacy and the necessity for a supplementary special convention, in order to secure the labour desired, had been recognised by Brazil, by the despatch to China, for this purpose, of a special Envoy, who was then en route. Brazil had no representative in China, and China had no accredited agent in Brazil to watch the emigrants' interests. The Brazil country was in the throes of revolt, and the fact that the Company refused to await the Envoy and the conclusion by him of the negotiations its own Government acknowledged to be necessary, naturally raised suspicion of its boná fides, especially as the terms offered to the emigrants contained a most objectionable clause, transferring the emigrant and his contract to third parties. The Macao authorities virtually maintained that, as long as the emigration was conducted in conformity with Portuguese law China had no grounds of remonstrance. As a matter of fact, Portuguese law provides only for free emigration, i.e. emigration under which each emigrant pays for his own passage — an impossibility when the passage is as costly as it is to Brazil. But waiving this point and admitting that emigration to Brazil under suitable conditions might be desiratile, China would, in the circumstances detailed above, and seeing that the emigrants were not residents of Macao, but subjects of China, have failed in one of the primary duties of a self-respecting Government to its subjects had she remained silent. Her protest was ignored, but no second steamer has been despatched.

In 1895 the plague made its appearance, and raged with great violence till towards the end of the following July. It was first observed in the least sanitary and most densely populated Chinese quarters, whence the germs spread all over the place, chiefly through infected rats. The rats invaded some of the best situated and thoroughly disinfected foreign houses on the hills, where, in their hasty flight for safety, they had sought refuge, and were found dying or dead in the woodwork of the ceilings and in the roofs. In several cases observed, though disinfectants had not been spared and every care was taken, the Chinese servants removing these dead rats were attacked by the plague almost immediately, and succumbed. The appearance of the plague created a panic among the native population, which nothing could stop. During this period of nearly four months' duration, trade was greatly interfered with, and for a while was almost at a standstill. No sooner, however, had the epidemic abated, than the people came flocking back, and in a very short time all signs of the dire calamity had been effaced, and the place and the trade had resumed their normal aspect. Since then plague has been more or less endemic, and cases occur, in greater or smaller numbers, almost every year during the spring, with the beginning of the rainy season.

The volume of trade passing the Lappa Stations, though, of course, largely affected by the conditions, climatic and financial, of the neighbouring districts on the mainland, is practically measured by the degree of prosperity enjoyed by Macao as a commercial centre; and the future prospects of that trade depend in the main upon whether the influences affecting Macao tend towards the expansion or restriction of its commerce. There is probably no doubt that their tendency, at present at least, is towards the latter. The greater wealth and constantly increasing commercial importance of Hongkong cannot fail to make this port each year a more serious rival of Macao and to withdraw trade from Lappa to Kowloon. In the past, several causes have tended to obscure the effect of this competition and,