14th Oct.
Tue letter which we publish in another column from our Peking correspondent, than whom no one is better informed on the subject, will cause grave and general disappointment. The construction of more railroads in China is indefinitely postponed. One reason for this decision, or rather for this revocation of the Emperor's recent decision, is the destruction by fire of the Temple of Heaven; but the real reason is the) want of money. The government will not make a large foreign loan; there are no funds available in Peking, and the provincial governments profess their inability to find any. There is plenty of money in China, but as we have often pointed out, those who have it will not lend it to an official undertaking, Nothing could surely be more hopeless than the Fresent state of things in Peking. 'The Empress Dowager, the Emperor's father, and the more intelligent high officials are strongly in favour of building railways, and' the Emperor has been induced to state in a decree that "to make a country powerful railways are essential"; but there is an immovable mass of ignorance and stupidity at the capital against which the waves of progress beat in vain, and it, aided by the thtmderstorm of the 18th September, has proved its invincibility once again. That Chang Chih-tung's heart was never in his proposed railway is well known; we leam from the south that he has been doing all in his power to get his transfer to Wuchang cancelled, and he naturally has shown no alacrity in suggesting a way of raising the necessau Li Hung-chang has no prejudices against foreign loans, but they offend the ignorant pride of the more conservative officials, and railways are to wait until the provincial governments can save up the necessary funds. Why should a Viceroy or Governor whose tenure of office is always precarious, and at the successor may build a railway, being best brief, save up money that his
ignorant himself of the value of railways, and afraid probably that. they will bring with them dangers when they do come, which seem to him more terrible, because they are unknown? Five years hence we may hear of rail-tis true, tis pity; and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.