Mr. Stephen's Account of What Gen. Lu Yung-hsiang is Doing for the Province Striking testimony was borne to the good government of eneral Lu Yung-hsiang, Tuchun of Ché- kiang, by Mr. A. G. Stephen, chief manager of the Hongkong Shanghai Bank, in an interview on Wednesday with a representa five of the ''North-China Daily News."
Dir. Stephen visited Hangchow on Tuesday, and -although, of course, he had no time to go. outside the city, the evidences that he saw in Hangchow itself of what has been done by General Lu, and what he heard from others on- the spot, were most attractive. It is several years since Mr. Stephen visited Hangchow, and the difference between the city then and now is very marked.
One is immediately struck, ho said, by the cleanly appearance of the city generally. Excellent roads have been made, and there is a genera] appearance of prosperity. Yhese outward signs are fully supported by internal taxation im Chéxiang is light, and most of it goes back into the province in public improvements, a small proportion only being spent on administration. The soldiers are well paid and well drilled. At the present time, numbers of them are being employed (as described yesterday by our Shaohsing correspondent) in building a great trunk road right through Ché- kiang from the capital to the borders of Fukien.
Hangchow—and Chekiang generally—is well policed, robberies are hardly known, and, said Mr. Stephen, a woman can walk about without fear of being molested at any hour of the day or night. Indeed, the influence of good paternal government is even shown in moral directions, for it is said that the bad language for which. Chinese unfortunately, though doubtless unthinkingly, are notorious is not nearly so much heard about Hangchow as used to be the case. Altogether, Chekiang affords an excellent example of what China may become under wise administration.
Mr. Stephen visited General Lu and spent a considerable time conversing with him. The conversation was Of a private nature, but there can be no.doubt of General Lu's sincere patriotism and earnest desire for the good and re-unification of China.
As a result of the recent uproar in Macao, the Chinese newspapers state that there has been an unparalled exodus from the- Portuguese colony. Seventy thousand Chinese are reported by one paper to have left, while the "Shanghai Journal of Commerce" alleges that about only one per cent. of the ordinary population still remains,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.