'So much experience has China had in the past with—depreciated currencies that the' only idea the /Hankow. Governmient can have hi tablishing the, Central Bank have been to disrupt the entire fabric of trade..Of course it we done under absolute Communist auspices, and, in combination with the embargo on silver in possession offers, and hence it was that when Communists arrived there to" attempt fo disrupt things they had such a chilly reception, for Communism and trading have no affinity.
Siantuing Road Hospital The disastrous collapse of tiarket in Chinese territory, reported in another column, brings lof the foreign banks, it to a I wrge the unique work done by Shantung extent achieved its object in that Road Hospital very much to the unfortunate centre. 'The wonder to-front. The accident took - place day is not that Central Bank notes in Chinese territory, yet victims exchange at $1.75 to a real dollar, were brought all' the way in but that there ig any quotation at al from there to be treated, no fewer for the notes have been so long on than 85 arriving by noon, and their road to worthlessness that the hospital was busy all day they are practically useless for} treating these unfortunates. The Jnormat purposes, Lacking anything work of the hospital in aid of these jin the shape of a silver reserve, Chinese cannot too strongly be em-they cannot hope to escape the fate phasized, for while it receives annual Jof other similar currencies through. grants from the Council of both the Jout the world. The question then Foreign Settlement and the French favises as to what the next step wilh Concession, no subsidy at all is given bbe once these notes have ceased to be by any Chinese municipal body. Yet} worth even the paper they are] in the hour of need it comes to the Iprinted on. Since the war all such assistance of Chinese from outside experiments with a fictious currency the Settlement, and one can easily have ended in precisely the same imagine what the plight of these way, for the old notes have had to be Poor people would have been did such utterly worthless, institutions not exist_and extend] jand such now currencies as the their services to all. There was an-in Austria, the gold mark other example of the irony of fate in any and the chervonetz in jeonnexion with the relief of the brought into existence, wounded yesterday. It may be re-[Taking the ease of Russia, one may, membered that Dr. Gordon Thomson ry what advantage accrued from had to evacuate Dr. Main's hospital the issue of all that enormous mass at Hangchow owing to the de-lof rouble currency which flooded the predations of the Chinese soldiery. country, because it cannot be said Yesterday he was engaged all day ito have hastened the triumph of long operating at Shantung Road [Bolshevism there or put it on any. to aid the Chinese. Comment is un-more substantial footing, but in the necessary, long run it was an actual encumprance to the Soviet, Such being the Jease it, might have been thought} Saving Shanghai that, in order to secure a reasonably We have dwelt very Often on the Tong lease of life in Hankow, the value of personal propaganda, and Reds might have dealt more have stressed the fact that if every tenderly with currency matters. If} business man in China who regietthese notes were not issued to Jers complaints in private conversa-provide a cheap way of financing! tion against his " Goveroment or their campaign, these people were doing nothing in his defence were to surely going to' unnecessary trouble make it a religious daty to write a for there wore other and - more Jcértain number of personal letters traditional ways of milking the to friends of some influence at provinces through which they passed Home, he could contribute to: shap-Jand. that without the trouble of ting public opinion on events in issuing notes, [China which rational faction, "The replies to & business Scotland and Shensi man's letters to political leaders in A somewhat cryptic sentence ap-Great Britain which we publish peared in this paper last week from two Labour Members in the course of an article entitled Parliament, are an illustration "Life in a Tibetan Frontier Town." in point." We were given the Describing the composition of Ta. privilege of reading a score or more chien lu, our correspondent pointed Jof these replies and while all did out how its population is largely not go to the trouble of explaining fan alien one, people from Tibet, their own points of view, the re-'Yunnan and' Shensi making up [sponse to this individual's single considerable proportion of it. effort was never anything but apmentioning the native patriotism of predative, All wanted news and these people, our correspondent, opinion from the viewpoint of the jsaid:—"The lao-sans love Shensi—man with a stake in the country; pretty much as a Scotsman loves! all pledged themselves to study the Scotland." We venture to think material supplied with care and that our readers (Scottish ex-nearly all asked for more. It is cepted) will at once jump to the Jenterprise of this sort that eventu-conclusion that the Shensi people ally shapes government policy, as who live in Tachienlu have no} the destructive forces at work thorever to go back to their na-Joughly understand and as we have tive province, in the same way tried to explain many times. Such the English always credit the Seats enterprise moreover helps to con-with believing their country to be vince men of spirit at Home that very fine one—to be. out of.
JShanghai is worth saving, which And those who utter such gibes will Jwhat Shanghai has so lamentably doubtless suggest that while the failed to prove up to date. It must best road in Scotland is the one never be forgotten for a moment that leads over the Tweed, in that individual statesmen in this ease of iensi_ it is the highway generation do not shape foreign, towards Tachienla, Our correspon-policy, in keeping with their own dent, however, is surely not among, information or judgment, without the scoffers, but bel taking public opimian very carefully spor nto account. ° The best informed) Parts of the earth in their youth fand prime, Scotsmen do go back their native heath, as doubtless the Shensi people, when they can Public opinion relies entirely on the afford to, Like the people from material available, No one can 'Yunnan and Tibet, the Shensi people supply the sort of material that are in Tachienla' not out of any.
Shanghai wants to put before the special love of the place, but because Public but Shanghai and, with the of the opportunities for trade it Jexception of a few energetic individuals who have gone to great, pains and no little personal expense, rudeness by saying we have the persons who have indulged in hasty tempers as though that effective personal propaganda abroad was' something to be proud have been those in league with or instead of ashamed of. We have in sympathy with the destructive orders of froth-blowers and forces... The pernicious minority as; tobacco-puffers why not an order usual is permitted to do all the jof good tempered people? shouting, so the results must be region of the not-easily-provoktaken as a malter of course and Jare nothing to whine about.- Tt all led; the members would be as boils down to the inevitable con. jweicome as a breath of chill air Jelusion that we arrived at éditori. ]when the thermometer is nearing jolly on Monday; if Shanghai can-ithe 100 degrees mark in our Jnot organize to defend herself she homes. jis not "worth eating.
The Community's Honour The protest filed on Tuesday by: }Mr. Bos, the Netherlands Deputy, against the surrender of a pawnbroker tothe Chinese military authorities by the Provisional Court fter an attempt had been made to kidnap the man in the streets-of the [Settlement and when no evidence had queen submitted to prove that he }was a Communist, suggests extort tion, as Mr. Bos did not hesitate to say, and, therefore implies a charge against the Provisional Court more serious than any that has yet appeared in print. The stiortcomof the Court commented upon in the past, in Deputies' protests or in the press, have all been of a negative character. The Court hai been criticized for failing to this that or the other thing. this case, however, the offence positive,' for the Courts tenced a man, to we know not what "who was already the victim of a kidnapping attempt—by turning him over to the military, without demanding the presentation of a scrap) of evidence to prove that he was Communist, Mr. Bos suggests that} the motive behind the demand that. the military made for his surrender was extortion, and from outside testimony upon which we, rely absolutely we know that ex-tertian was the motive. The Court had as good reason to' suspect this 43 Mr. Bos, so we can think of no possible' excuse that would' justify the Court "in ' complying.
the military order—without insisting upon convincing evidence. So grave a case was this that undoubtedly the honour of the whole community was affected by it, and had no steps been taken to redress such an evil it would have been a blemish on the fair name of the /Settlement, So, it is matter for satisfaction that no time was lost in upholding that honour. As we report in another column, the case was fiardly concluded before the Police took steps to undo the wrong in which the Provisional Court had acquiesced, and within just over 24) hours the unfortunate pawnbroker found himself once more a free man, In commending the action of the Police in this matter, we may [press the hope and belief that in leates of such a kind in future equal-.
vigorous steps will be taken, [showing law abiding Chinese of the: Settlement that their interests and safety are the first concern of our Local Fascisti On the principle that desperate is require desperate remedies, the announcement local Fascist Organization of thie body has been, ing for several weeks, and is by no means a new one, for as far back as 1925, when Labour Union headquarters were 1 in Keeping up an agitation which, if left to itself, would have died a natural death within a few days, there was talk of such a body to deal with the mischief-makers, The pity of it is that it, did mot then come into being, as. there have been ample opportunities. for the exercise of its activities in the interim, but now, when we are face to face with a very special situation, we may expect that the i enthusiasm invariably attendant on the initiation of a new movement will do much towards grab) successfully with the problems of the moment. At this stage of the Proceedings it would be unfair to consider or criticize in detail the objects of the Fascisti as set out in the memorandum which we publish to-day, for, of necessity, when members begin' to flock in," other important matters, of which mention ig mot made now, must beloficer, who is alleged to have placed in the foreground. For our- received a bribe selves, we should naturally suggest nection with that attention to the position of the, Post Office would not be amiss, but we do not complain at the omission of any reference to it at this juncture, knowing that only a broad Outline has been given by the promoters of the organization, and that. they would certainly include it under one or other of the general headings. We understand that certain people who are just as enthusiastic as others in protecting, our rights within the Settlement, did not like the use of the title Fascisti, but their objection need not be taken too seriously. Let it be borne in mind that Mussolini and his Fascisti saved not only Italy but the whole of the west of Europe from Bolshevism. Woe are up against the same thing here— ant and it appears in many different forms—and an earnest of their de-[termination to fight against it and other evils here is seen by the adoption of a name the bearers of which won the admiration. of the The Spasmodic Excise Nothing could be so immediately iment to the question that we have raised concerning the right of the Maritime Customs to abet the collection of illegal tax by the Bank lof China than the question of the Wine and Spirit Stamp Tax which iwas supposed to come up yesterday, The "Nationalist" authorities, as we all know, fixed a surtax of 574 per cent, upon "C" class luxuries, the tax to be imposed on or after September 1. That this makeshift [political dictatorship had no right to jerrive at any such tariff adjustment Jand that the Chinese Maritime Customs had to right to pay the slightest heed to such a schedule we Jalready know clearly enough. The Nanking people were also well Jaware that they had nothing to work Jupon but the terrorized subservience Jof the Bank of China and the complacent recognition of the Bank of China as the Haikuan Bank, Very recently, however, it became some~ what likely that there would be no }"Nationalist" administration here to impose or collect irregular taxes tion of the fact that the foreign Importers could hold wines and spirits indefinitely in bond, the pros beneficiaries of the illegal might never collect at all unless they began early. Whence the spasmodic announcement of the 80 per_ cent. tax. Yesterday the N.Y.K.S, Katori Maru was due in port with ct from various Home and Far East jem ports subject to something like Tls. 500,000 duty under the suddenly improvised tax, Tt was the anticipation of this and similar shipments of spirits which prompted the unsteady but ever-hungry "National ist" tax experts to announce the peremptory levy upon cargo from August 11 forward, If one cent of this fantastic duty is paid the recipient of cargo really ought to be spanked, Here again we have a tax collectable by the Bank of China, lover and above treaty tariff, on Jgoods which cannot be cleared from ithe Customs until the arbitrary ex-tertian is paid, "Again we have ex-{tortion within the settlement which is subject to police control and again we find the Chinese Maritime [Customs seemingly helpless party to extortion, As those who will read the protest of the dealers in Janother column will find, the role which the Customs plays' in this violation of common police regula discreetly defined when it is Thus in effect using the involuntary"medium of the Chinese Maritime Customs." Wo are by no means sure that we should like to subscribe to the word "involuntary."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.