THE WEST TO PAY FOR THE EAST.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10966, 5 January 1912, Page 2

THE WEST TO PAY FOR THE EAST.

DANGER TO BRITISH TRADE IN CHINA'S REVOLUTION. (Express' Correspondent.) When the stay-at-home Englishman reads about a revolutiort breaking out somewhere or other, it does Hot usually, ; seem to him that such events are likely to affect his private fortunes- .and affairs, for the fighting is going on a long way off among alien peoples in whose concerns he takes but ■ little interest. „ Recent revolutions, such as the.. Turkishj • Persian, - ; and : Portuguese troubles, certainly -do not : affect him., particularly, nor -do they touch .his pocket directly, but the long-expected revolution which , has at last broken _out in China may.possibly do both of these things.... An .in a system or government affecting directly four hundred millions of-, people, must surely react sooner or later on the rest of the world's inhabitants. . . Last August England had a dock laborers' strike, and by this time has •forgotten about it more or less, but we in China are actively. feeling results from that strike just now:; for the belated cargo - is arriving, a rev olution is in progress, and it is impossible to get the Chinese to take, delivery of the goods ordered, as. commerce. is at a standstill.' -English merchants have to carry the cargo and>finance it, and the English dock strike' , hits , us , three months later! Conversely, the Lancashire cotton mills are receiving few, if aiiv, orders from China now, and China is-one of that,county's most, important customers. > This revolution is going to hit British industry indirectly, just as it hits us here directly. Of course, when it is all over and a stable Government is ; formed, the ■ China" trade will boom like .liqt cakes, but the important point to be . remembered ■ is that when China, develops her own vast resources and seriously , starts | manufacturing for her own require- i irients to such an extent that she will no longer need to buy other, goods, tjie effect /on England's -industrial, 'affairs i will be serious indeed; ' - i

The significance of this Chinese* revolt is. most grave, and. marks, in niy opinion, the beginning of an epoch which j .-starting in economic industrial, conflict-, ;will eventually- merge into a world-wide race, conflict;

Ltifink that the pendulum of Western racial' predominance lias swung to its limit; and- will now begin: its very slow, but, sure aiid certain, journey towards the East again. Tne old, old East, With-its teeming myriads, is awake now, and the 1 awakening is ominous for the West. The Chinaman learns .easily ;he : is teachable, can do anything, and go, any where. And, wherever lie goes; to live under iust rule he has proved himself a good citizen, -law-abiding, thrifty,: frugal, and industrious. ■ And now for the revolution. How did'.it start?. The beginning, so far as Hankow and Wuchang are concerned, was for a bomb happened .to explode accidentally, as', bombs sometimes do. Inquiries were made, and arrests* followed. It turned out that the house in which the bomb went off . was an important centre of the revolutionary organisation. Uniforms, arms, badges, codes, plans, documents, and the usual paraphernalia of plots and plotters were discovered. . . • The arrested meit. were taken across the river from Hankow' to- Wuchang, where the Viceroy's yamen is, and; which is the seat of the Hupeh Go-, vernment. Viceroy Jui Cheng inter--i rogated the'chiefvChiriese Guy Fawkes, | who happened to be a brave man. After; answering some questions, lie got impatient, and defied the powerful representative of-the Son of-Heaven, telling him that the Manchu Government were i not fit to ask him questions. He was immediately taken out and beheaded at the front gate of the yamen; This started the ball rolling, and, the same evening the troops revolted under, their second-in-command, General Li Yuan Hung. The next day the Viceroy's yamen; was a smouldering heap of ruins, and Viceroy a fugitive for his life. He escaped on board a. Chinese cruiser, carrying his seal of office with liim, and from this .sanctuary he. sent- the: following pitiful' story, to his Imperial, master , in Peking::— "The day before yesterday, when Iwas seizing the leaders of the revolutionaries, a- number of them made their; escape without any fault; of mine. They incited the engineer troops "and the artillery to mutiny; arid the latter succeeded in setting fire to their, camps and occupied "'their arsenals. After negotiating with tlie commander-in-, chief of the Hupeh forces, I called on the police troops, which, however, were surrounded bv the rebels, whereupon I took refuge on board the cruiser Chuyu... Then I telegraphed and a;sked for reinforcements from Hunan and Peking." Peking's reply to this was an Imperial Edict saying that the whole affair had been badly muddled, because the troops, without Jui Cheng's knowledge, had made common cause with the revolutionaries a long time a,go; "for which reason," it went on, "Wuchang has now been lost by the sole fault and negligence of Jui Cheng. He is therefore punished with immediate removal from his office as Viceroy, the duties , "of which, post he has nevertheless to fulfil for the present, and he is ordered, under penalty of most severe punishment, immediately to recajiture the city."

A man rises and falls quickly in the East-. Viceroy Jui; Cheng is now a from tlio vengeance ; of Imr perialists and revolutionaries alike, and men say there is a' price upon-liis head.

As nearly all his troops had mutinied and gone over to the revolutionary side, he coujd, of course, do nothing, and very wisely took steamer to Shanghai. He'is living here in the seclusion of a British subject's residence, but though" we talked of him a few days ago, events have moved quickly, and Jul- is now forgotten in the general turmoil'.': Last--night,- while I read, of 3000 people slaughtered lip at Hankow in the battle wliicli has been going.on there ■for the past few days; 'ray; "boy" came, in and said: "Master, largee fire have got Chinese cisjr* ; . My.-think ••■•must-, belong Taotai's yamen." I went out to' see, and found the firemen working under Revolutionary orders—taking the greatest care not to put it out, but to prevent its spreading. The plan is to burn the yamens, for, in very; characteristic Chinese fashion, siich object lessons serve to emphasise the contempt of the revolutionaries for the powers that be, by destroying the places from which power- is exercised. I may add .chat the Taptai (Peking's representative in Shanghai) was not inside his yamen ; lie. prefers to live in the international settlement. \ ■■ ■

The event here to-day has been the I capture; of tlie Shanghai Arsenal by I local revolutionaries, ■ and, .as it is one i of the largest small, arms factories in China, and has a cartridge-making plant capable of. turning out 50,000 cartridges a. day, it, is of considerable/benefit to .tlie -Republican cause.' -i; It was; comparatively, a inikl affair, ojily about .xen -killed and thirty wounded, and the it_ are.-now patriots with white bands, round their left arms, reminding one of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

There is no doubt that- the Chinese are in earnest, and their leaders really mean to try to improve the system of government. It is a gigantic task, and I .think they will succeed, though it must take time.- On November 1 the Throne published an Edict which Admits the faults of the Government, ailcl to-day tlie Throne has accepted the /19 proposed regulations put forward as a basis of the new Constitution. The first week in November, 1911, has seen the Chinese Magna Charta accepted by its Prince Regent on behalf of his son, the baby Emperor, but the question eyery one is asking is whether or not | it is too Jato : "to save (the present dynasty. .

The rebels head their despatches to foreign representatives, "The Military Government of the. Chinese people/' 5 and they date them, "Ninth moon of the 4609 th year of the Huang-ti period," and that little matter ,of date does not augur well for the Manchu dynasty, which is only a recent one-of the last three hundred years: