28th June.
It may seem to many as if the building of the railway from Yanking on to the Yunnan uplands were an affair concerning only the companies engaged in it, their shareholders, the entreprenewrs to whom the various portions of the line have been let out, and so on. If they treat their coolies too badly they will not get any. Then they will have to continue paying their European gmployés withend getting any forra'der, will nob be able to m their engagements, and self. terest alone must make them so treat their workmen, that they
anyone may say off-hand, and turn will remain in their Cage Thus unconcerned to his own business or pleasure, But the fact thab "All are needed by each one Nothing is pure or good alone," that the good of one is for the good of all, is one which humanity in Bitter strikes, and bloody wars is neral with ita fierce rivalries,
very far from appreciating yet. Thus we cannot wonder that eubcontractore, many of them men of almost no education, risen from the ranks of the workers by a mixture of sheer, brute force, determination and happy circumstances, do not realise that what is fur the advantage of the coolie they employ is for their own advan-also, Had they done before ever any coolies arrived from afar to make the line through the dreaded Numti valley, Yiionan coolies, somewhat accustomed to the climate would have been engaged to build rough shelters for the men on the high ground, from whence they could go down to work, and return to the hills to slop under proper cover. Provisions would have been laid in and everything done that could be done to make it possible for men to work in such a pestiferous region. Alec all labour should have been discontinued there doring the specially feverish seasons, the men being given achango to further along Uupon the roadway, where the splendidly refreshing Yannan air would have infused new life into them.
As it is, nothing of all this was done, and the anguished cry of humanity must be heard. "Last January Frenchmen arriving from Yiicnan reported two-thirds of all the coolies who had been employed on the Nam'i valley railway already dead, and that the newcomers soon would be. M. and Madame Comby, the distinguished French travellers, had already roisted how, as they passed through Yunnan,
down the River, bow when they met corpece of eoolien floating they wont for a half-hour walk they saw at least three unburied corpses by the path—further poisoning the already fetid air, and how their own chairs we spat upon by the peasants of Yin-nan where previous travellers have met with nothing but civility and friendliness. Many a foreigner employed upon the railway has come away with shattered health and a sad tale of deceptions, Italians as well as Chinese have had to sleep out on the fever-laden slopes of these mountains, And now comes the letter of a member of the China Tnlaud Mission stationed in Kwei-it} chow province, outside Yunnan altogether: "They come in gangs of five to thirty; sometimes more than one hundred per day kneeling, ab our door (in Chenyuan) ani asking help. They say the Shanghai gistrate refused to allow them to sail from that port, knowing what awaited them in Yaonan;""—Wise Shanghai magistrate!|—"so they all embarked at Ningpo for Haiphong. As soon as they went to work they, began to sicken and die so the foreman turned them adrift to get home as they could. The stronger of these refugees have now passed us and the poor, struggling rearguard are upon us. They can scarcely rise after sitting down at our door to beg." According to their story they hed to make bute for themselves, receiving some rice daily at famine prices; no vegetabler, ment. salt or oil. They say that the were driven to work in tunnel full of poisonous by armed guards, that they asked for their wa} but were refused. Some had worked for ten or eleven months; they were "told that if they would work till their job was completed, about five years, they would receive their wages in full," It seems that some 7,000 men from the country round Tientsin had been engaged ab the rate of one dollar per day.
lan we picture the helpless despair of these once strong uor-them men, vot paid in full, not housed, unable to buy what they felt they required—Yannan hardly produces enough food for its own consumptioi—and without money even if the food were there, day by day growing weaker, seeing their comrades dying round them, helpless, hopeless, and, we may depend upon it, hardly used, even if the armed men who drove them into tunnels are un exaggeration. The contractors have staked the hard-earned gains of a—Inborious life in Bombay, in Turkey-in-Europe, in Asia Minor, in North-Chiva, upon the contracts they have accepud. If they cannot fulfil them they will be rained men, may be ruined even if they do. How can they be expected to show pity or consideration? Iv is darly a case where Governments must intervene and protect or restrain their nationals, According to Chinese it was through the intervention or on the guarantee of French Consuls th theas Chinese coolies were procured and allowed to go forward. If 80, it is to be hoped that French Consuls may see their way to redeeming their French government interference in ledges. But if there has been no
the past is this not a case that calls for it in the future? Clearly if the half of what is related be true, no more Chinese coolies of uny sort can be permitted to go (o their deaths in the Namti valley, and before they can go to work there, before suffi cient confidence can be restored for to be willing to go, effective steps must be taken for their pro tection by some authority that can be trusted.
In Turkey when this same railway company was making the line to Salonica the saying was: "Chemin de for chest chemin de I'enfer." It must in any case be a most arduous enterprise to get a railway ap from Red River on to the paradise of the the plague-stricken shores of the Yiionan uplands, but for that reason many and careful arrange ments will have to be made. We cannot be deaf to the cry of the aauedl ater Geis sacrifice, nor ignorant men, so ruthlessly
can we be insensible to the danger of some dreadful malady being bred and disseminated amongst these dying, fainting bu-man beings struggling to wal right across China to get home—to Tientsin. Consideration for ourselves and our friends as well as pity for the sufferers prompt us to Rove sone prudent measures of precaution will be drawa up by the French Government, some lines of conduct prohibited.
The letter reproduced in our columns from our French contemporary bids us hope that something has already been done, but all we bear from other sources leads us to fear that as yet the case
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.