LAW IN CHINA

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 June 1928, Page 2

LAW IN CHINA

TALE OF TWO CARS

The state of the law in China has been the subject of anxious study by an international commission, including among its numbers some of the most eminent jurists in the world. Its findings have been embodied in a valuminous report, which is never read in this country because everybody in it knows the position already. The report, however, is greatly appreciated by foreign Chancelleries, and frequently used as the basis for inspiring speeches by diligent “politicians (writes the Pekin correspondent of "The Times”). A few months ago a sartorial artist of Pekin bought himself a small but elegant motor-car, the possession of which enabled him to reside at the racecourse suburb and drive the six miles into the city daily to business in style and comfort. Being a new toy, the car was brilliantly polished and otherwise groomed, and was the envy of all owners of ancient boneshakers. One night about Christmas time, Mr M , with a friend, stepped into the car and steamed off to the country. The way leads through a thronged gateway in the city wall, then along a filthy canal (reserved for thousands of ducks in summer, and in winter served up solid in cocktails), and to a railway crossing, where steel gates are manipulated by a uniformed official of the Pekin-Hankow Railway. When the gates are open cars shoot across.’ When the gates are closed, there is a wait until the train goes boy, and another wait while the official puts on his uniform, clears his throat in the time-honoured Chinese manner, and finally bends himself to his task. As the gates were open, Mr M shot through, only to realize, when he was on the line, that a. huge, roaring, devouring leviathan was descending upon him. Bonnet and front seat were past the rails, but the tail was struck and the whole car hurled on to the bank a mass of wreckage. Mercifully both occupants were unhurt, except for faces cut by the shivered glass of the windscreen. The case was clear —gates open, gatekeeper negligent, railway administration responsible. Mr m—. — to the administration to ask for a new car, or the value in ' specie. Negotiations, as was to be expected, were long drawn out, but the outcome was this. All liability was denied on the ground that there was nothing in the Ifiws of China about motor-cars, but as an act of grape the administration offered to repair the car in the railway workshops, and Mr M was told by a clerk that they would put a funnel oh it, like a locomotive’s. Mr M naturally did not want that kind >of car, and as a last resort proposed . that the railway should keep the remains, pay him the cost of repairs, which the railway could recover by selling the car 1 after mending and painting it. Nothing doing. If the offer to repair Was . not accepted it would be withdrawn, , and Mr M was invited to remove . his remnants.

By this time the local Press had the case well in hand, and the liability of the railway thoroughly established on a sound legal basis. The newspapers began to make suggestions for bringing pressure to bear to secure a just settlement. Reference was made to the Chinese custom of creditors sit-

ting on the debtor’s doorstep, and even bringing women to wail, in order to obtain satisfaction. One correspondent advised Mr M to take his wife and children to the crossing and get them to lie across the rails, both as a protest and as an impediment to traffic. Mrs M , however, refused to entertain this proposition. All to no purpose. Mr Wen, the railway representative, remained adamant. Last week another Mr Wen, who is head of the police of the same railway, got into his car at his office and drove down to the main road, parallel to which are the tramway lines. Alert drivers before crossing the lines look to see if any tramcars are coming along at 20 miles an hour, which they are entitled to do in an open space where there is little traffic, but because Mr Wen was a great man with an armed soldier on the running board, his chauffeur disdained precaution and shot over the tram lines without looking/ with the painful result that a hurtling tram plunged into his car and made mincemeat of it, contusing Mr Wen, the chauffeur and the soldier in a manner they are never likely to forget. Here also the case was plain —view of coming tram clear, tram within its rights, chauffeur negligent. But Mr Wen raised the devil with the tramway company, demanded a new car and excessive damages for injuries to self and servants. The tram administration, knowing' what Mr Wen’s railway had offered to Mr M proposed to repair the car in the company’s workshops —with or without funnel is not known—but denied liability for damages, as the fault lay with the chauffeur and not with their driver, who was coming along ringing a bell and clapped on all his brakes when he saw a lunatic trying to cross in front of him. After a week of vain endeavour, Mr Wen took the law into his own hands. And this is how he did it, as many of us saw with our own eyes. He got a hundred coolies to push and scrape his damaged car into position, its head across .one -pair of the tram lines and its tail across tho other pair, thus effectually blocking traffic. To guard against interference he put five hulking soldiers with rifles inside the car, with orders to bayonet anyone trying to move it. For half a working day the car stopped all the trams on the main route between the east and west parts of the city, enormously to the inconvenience of the public and the loss of the company. Mr Wen was victorious, the tramway company had to pay or go out of business, and injustice triumphed, as it triumphed in the case of Mr M .