January 13.
Tue path of true reform never did ran smooth. This or a similar reflexion must be passing through the mind of the (Chinese Government on finding itself engaged in really serious struggle for existence as the executive head of this disjointed Empire. For the moment individual reforms have to stand on one side; for the basis of all lasting progress must be a sound central government with power to speak and to act for the country as a whole, and to-day this power is denied to the Peking administration. Ina grave domestic quarrel of this nature the instinctive tendency of foreign countries would be to leave the matter entirely to the parties immediately concerned. the Central Government and the Provinces. Unfortunately, however, it has been left to Great Britain to supply the spark that has fired these combustible elements, with the result that, in order to gain popular support which would otherwise be given reluctantly or withheld for their campaign against the Central authorities, the provincial agitators sound the never-failing _anti-foreign tocsin. Coincidence that is all the more regrettable in view of the general relations between the two countries brings this long-threatened conflict to a head at a time when negotiations with a British syndicate for a railway loan are taking place; while the notorious insecurity of life and trade on the West River has produced the inevitable complications with the foreign Power chiefly interested in those waters. Yet a third cause is supplied by recent events in the Transvaal, where the Asiatic Law Amendment Act has aroused the hostility of Chinese as well as British Indians. The new Act provides for the compulsory registration of all Asiatics in the Colony, and the form of registration includes the record of finger-marks. Against this enactment and especially against the formality of giving their finger-impressions both sections of the Asiatic community protest, and three Chinese have allowed themselves to be arrested rather than conform to the sentence of the Court which ordered them to leave the Colony within forty-eight hours for having failed to register. To-day a telegram states that an account of the trials is to be telegraphed to Peking, while as far back as October petition was- sent to the Chinese The H.-C. herald and S. C. & C. Gazette.
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Mini in London protesting|arrest. Their crime would seem to against the new measure and re-|be one of omission rather than cording the determination of the|commission, for it is alleged that Chinese residents in the Transvaal Yin, the manager of the Savings "not to submit to the Act and to Bank, consulted the Chinese Cham-suffer any consequences that may|ber of Commerce a week ago on follow such breach of the Law."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.