2nd Oct.
Tue very interesting memorial on railways from the Admiralty Board to the Throne, a summary of which we publish in another column, is generally believed to be the composition of the Marquis Tseng, who has not, it is supposed, been above using foreign assistance in drawing it up. very practical paper, and as the Empress Dowager, to whom it is addressed, is known to be in favour of railways. and is in fact the great supporter of the party of which the Admiralty Board is the mouthpiece, we may take it. that this Report is intended more as a manifesto to. the Empire generally than as a document intended to convince the Throne. We have a ly explained how it came about that Chang Chih-tung's suggestion, much to his surprise, was accepted; the present report is designed to shew wherein Chang Chih-tung's memorial is impracticable. Although the Board has had to give up the Tientsin-lungchow line for reasons which we have already explained, it carnot help reverting to it; pointing out that short as it was it would have paid better than the whole of the line now authorised, and that a sum of nearly a million and a quarter taels had already been borrowed to pay for the survey and some of the plant required, which, the Throne is evidently intended to understand, has been thrown away. 'The members of the Board " trusted indeed that in their former memorial they had sufficiently exposed the imaginary character of the ' five dangers' held by Chang Chih-tung to be attached to the "Tientsin-Tungchow plan; but they bow to the commands of the Empress, and submit to the carrying out of that plan being postponed." 'These five dangers' seem to be the spread of foreign religions, the exposure of the capital fo invasion, the enuployment of foreign men and materials to the detriment of native interests, the necessity for new defensive works (which is much the same as the second danger), and the throwing out of employment of a large number of boatmen and carters. The first. three Chang Chih-tung himself treated as of little weight, while he used the English objection to the Channel Tunnel as an ment to defend the fourth.
in discussing the financing of the new railway the Board is not as clear
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.