One of the subjects treated of in the second series of Prize Essays recently published by the Polytechnic here, reads, "How should evils be extirpated from Steamships and Telegraphs so as to insure permanence to those concerns?" It is quite superfluous to say that Chinese steamships and Chinese telegraphs are alone referred to; indeed, the suc-
whittle down their subject to the China cessful essayists have for the most part Merchants' S. N. Company, treating telegraphs, where they touch upon them at all, as an afterthought. The framework of a Chinese essay of this class bears some resemblance to a Scotch sermon, in that it is divided into firstly, secondly, and the rest; on the other hand it is not inordinately long, and is sometimes amusing. Thus the first prizeman enumerates eight evils from which in his opinion the China Merchants' Company suffers, the second, six, and the third, ten, Some of these are necessarily identical; in fact not the arguments alone but often the actual wording of them are so curiously alike, that were the essayists boys in the same form at an English school, no examiner who had any reputation for sagacity to support would hesitate to have them all flogged for copying. In this present instance, it is probable that they have derived their phraseology from some common source, possibly the leading articles in the vernacular press.
Chinese names are a weariness to western ears, even to ears rendered callous by long suffering, and so the styles and surnames of the essayists shall be reduced to the simplest form of No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, and their arguments alone given. No. 1 enunclates his evils as follows: The lightness of the treaty tariff, the hold which foreigners have secured on the trade of the Yangtse, the extraterritorial privileges of foreign employes, the competition of foreign lines which prevents the poor chinese company from establish ing monopoly, the difficulty of replacing: by natives the foreign officers engaged, the depression of trade, the concentration of power in the hands of one individual—the general manager—and the indiscriminate engagement of the company's servants. Some of these particulars seem to be of wider interest than the subject set before the writer, but in his treatment of them he is careful to point their application to the China Merchant's Company. Before showing how this is done, however, it may be well to give the lists of evils supplied by his compe-titers. No 2 arrays his thus: (1) the Company is unable to employ its funds in purchasing cargoes to convey abroad,—so as to carry the fight into the enemy's country; (2) it has no system of training native cadets to command its vessels in the future; (3) the duties collected by the ' Foreign" Customs being only about half those of the ' N2- tive, Chinese merchants engage foreigners to pass goods for them; (4) when a vessel of the Company's fleet is damaged, the Marine Superintendent (he, we presume, it is who is meant by ' the Captain General) alone sees to her repairs, and makes out their cost; (5) the head office of the Company has nemeans of checking; passage moneys received; and lastly (6 consignees' goods in the company's godowns are foundtobe either short in number or broken open. No. 3 prefersto throw his list into the form of remedies called for. "The public election of a general manager; care in the appointment of a marine superintendent; engagement of compradores; selection' of ships' captains; inspection of passage tickets due control over the seamen; reform in the godowns; monopoly of the grain transport; calling in of all debts; and finally, an increase of the Company's capital."
It will be seen that the essayists give themselves plenty of room for a healthy diatribe, and they nove of them fail to fill the opening. They spare nothing, and no one, from the humblest_godown keeper to the Great Viceroy himself. And the amusing part of it all is the running commentary which Sheng Taotai, who set the subject, keeps up at the head of each page. When No. 3 is in the middle of a tirade against the Company's compradores, their vices, and the arts by which they obtain their berths, Sheng ejaculates this is all my tauli No. 1 has a pet scheme for running light draught steamers in the inner waters as a strict Chinese monopoly, so as to dish the foreigner, wh hold of the coasting trade Pector, general would upset it before-ud," says Sheng. The necessity for employing foreign officers to navigate the Company's vessels is of course a poignant grat to all patriotic Chinamen, No. 1's feelings on this subject carry him a great deal too far. After explaining the western system of granting mates' and masters' certificates, he observes that "the Company always make a point before engaging a captain, to examine his certificates and testimoniels, but no sooner does a foreigner take service under Chinamen than he changes his conduct altogether; if he is not gambling or frequenting houses of ill fame, he is getting drunk and idling away his time. He becomes careless in navigating duties, and presently the ship is lost. He ought by western law to be put on his trial on a criminal charge, and if his misconduct is grave to be imprisoned for life, if less heavy to be deprived of his certificate. But though all Chinese steamers lost of late have been commanded by foreigners, the penal laws have proved powerless to touch them, abuse.cannot reach them they slip gaily out of the affair, and then turn round and demand their wages! Little wonder they look on the Company's property and the lives of its constituents as so many toys! The remedy should be to require at the time of their engagement their consul to stand surety for them, and require them besides to enter into a bond for 10,000 taels, inserting in the agreement certain penal clauses,—as that for frequenting houses of ill fame such a fine should be submitted to, for getting drunk such another. If the ship is lost, the whole amount of the bond would be estreated and the captain punished to. boot." This course No. 1 thinks would prevent foreign employes of the Company from following their own sweet wills, and would restore confidence to shippers; but Sheng, with more prac= tical wisdom, observes, "we must. wait till Chinamen can navigate their own ships before carrying out the author's suggestion."
"No do full justice to these interesting essays it would be necessary to translate them at length, and in this present notice we have done little more than indicate the line of argument pursued by each writer, reserving for a Inter occasion a more particular account,—when, as No. 1 politely puts it, "if you will not despise details, we will venture to dilate on the subject."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.