June 21.
The Rickshaw Board would have spared itself much criticism and gentle sarcasm if it had published the proposals which appeared in these columns yesterday morning before their scheme for the improved rickshaw. They would also have deprived the rickshaw owners of the opportunity of making mis-Yepresentations to the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce as well as to the rickshaw pullers to which at least a portion of the announcement made on Tuesday was an obvious reply. There is evidence in the statement issued tending to show that the interests vested in the rickshaw business are not only not ingenuous but willing to take advantage of the concessions made by the Board with regard to consultation for the Purpose of putting the Council's; intentions before their members and the rickshaw coolies in the worst possible light. And it would Seem that a greater acceleration of the issuance of communiques to the public would be not only in the best interests of the Rickshaw Board but would tend to offset the deliberate propaganda of untruth which is at the present moment one of the chief weapons employed by those actively engaged in resisting reforms. It is clear also that the Board, implementing its wish to work, if at all possible, amicably with the Owners' Association, has been the victim of a campaign of prevarication which it will take no little work to offset in the minds of those most nearly concerned, namely, the rickshaw coolies. Because of arguments which follow it is suggested that while every possible means should be adopted to secure a peaceful settlement of the issue raised by the Rickshaw Commission's report, there should be at the same time nothing done calculated in any way to diminish either the Council's or the Ratepayers' authority in this matter.
Recent meetings of the Rickshaw Owners' Association and the Organization of Rickshaw Pullers Suggest that in the ultimate result of the owners not having their way, the International Settlement will be faced with the possibility of a strike of rickshaw coolies. There is even a suggestion that this might be extended to a general stoppage of work. That, in the shortest possible phrase, is sheer defiance. There are occasions on which compromises can be effected with dignity to all parties to a dispute. That is generally the case when they refrain from endeavouring to slam the door against negotiation. But it would ill become the Government of this Settlement if, faced with a threat of public disorder and the dislocation of at Toast one phase of its traffic, it were to abate in any large degree the intention which the Council, supported as it is by the Ratepayers, has in mind. There is, it is admitted, a vast deal of difference between the status of the Government of Hongkong and that of this International Settlement.
But it has to be pointed out that in the case of the former, despite the opposition of the Chinese, it was possible to secure reforms in the mui tsai system agreeable to those who so successfully agitated the question in the House of Commons. Shanghai, unfortunately, is not equipped with the same powers of government. A desire for improvement in the lot of the rickshaw coolie, however, is not 80 purely a Chinese question as that of the mui tsai, because foreigners are concerned to some extent in the rickshaw issue where they were not at all in the perpetuation of a Chinese system of servitude in the South which came in for so much criticism. But if the conditions which have been proved to exist are allowed to continue there can be but little doubt that the International Seltlement and the Municipal Council, having powers to effect a betterment, will
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.