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New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 4813, 20 April 1877, Page 2

Telegraphic new 3 from the East published in another column is of a, mixed, but far from unimportant character. The rebellion which was created in Japan a few months ago by the old religious party who were opposed to the changes being made by the party of progress in the country, does not appear to have been quelled. It is now stated that the rebellion is of a more serious character than was at first anticipated. This is not to be wondered at. The rapidity of the changes in Japan from the old to the new state of things was such as could not have been contemplated with pleasure and satisfaction by those whose policy had for so many centuries kept the people ' and resources of the country strangers to the rest of the world. But if the party of progress consist of the material of which heroes are made, their course will still bo onward, and in the process of a few years the advantages derived from forming one of the family of civilised nations, enjoying comparatively free intercourse with each other, will be so palpable that those who now desire to revert to the past policy of the country will seek in vain for a following. These advantages may not bo so clearly defined at present while the institutions of the country are in a state of change, but when the new system of taxation, the new foreign policy, and the new methods of education, &c., have had time to bccome consolidated, the people will probably cling to them with equal tenacity as they did to those which have been superseded. The reports of an extensive famine in China are confirmed, and thousands are 'said to be dying daily of starvation. The distressed province is Kiang-See, one of the eastern provinces. This province lies immediately to the northward of Kwang-Ting, the province in which Canton is situated. Iviang-See is one of the large provinces in the Chinese E-mpvro, &xid lias a population of somewhere about 30,000,000, tlio average density of the population being about 320 to the square mile. Though the province is rich in agricultural resources, it is chiefly in the manufacture of silks, cotton, &c., that the inhabitants have been engaged for many years past. The, attention previously paid to agriculturelias grown gradually less, as the interests of trade mora and -more engrossed the attention of the people, and to this is due probably, in some part at least, the disastrous famine from which the ;people are now suffering. This too might account for the extraordinary stream of Chinese emigration which lias set in during the last, few months from Canton and other Southern and Eastern districts to Northern Queensland. It would appear also that Huring the last few years the greater part of Asia had been visited in. turns by exceptionally ' severe local ■' famines. A few years ago a large 'portion of British India suffered from a failure in the usual crops. Later, a. large portion of Persia, and some of the provinces recently annexed to the Russian Empire, suffered from the. same cause, and at the present' time a large district in British India, around Madras, is suffering from a failure in the rice crop. As civilization advances, and the means of rapidly travelling and conveying intelligence extends, the horrors of famine in any district where the crops may be a failure, will be averted; for long before the time for reaping the crops would have arrived, the fact of a partial failure in certain districts would be made known all over the world, and the surplus from other districts would be hurried away to where it was wanted as fast as steam and sailing ships could convey it, and the internal railways would rapidly move it from the seaports to the districts where it was most wanted. It was so- in India a few years ago, and when the abundant crop of the following year was approaching maturity, the granaries, instead of being empty, were filled to repletion. The meteorologists, in the early spring, in consequence of the greatly diminished rainfall, had foretold a probable failure in the crops, and acting on this intimation, long before the crop had been proved to be a failure, the Indian Government and the merchants had vast quantities of breadstuff's on their way to the distressed districts. Thus the distress which \i r ould otherwise have been experienced was averted. If the present famine amongst the millions in South-eastern China should be the means of inducing the Chineso Government to thoroughly intersect the country with railways and telegraph lines, it will not have been in vain, and such horrors as men, women, and children dying by thousands daily through sheer starvation, would then become : things of the past.