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Angust 15, 1895.1
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115
THE HONGKONG INDIGNATION
MEETING.
(9th August.)
for the outrages, who had been ordered to remain in the province until the matter was settled. Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity a junior consular official is sent to make inquiries, in conjunction with one of the accused native officials, and to "repòrt to Peking." The Chinese must laugh at such a farce. One of our Shang-anti-foreign riots in Fuhkien and the neigh-held in Hongkong, not even excepting the
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hai contemporaries, the China Gazette, referring to the Kucheng massacre, very pertinently remarks:-"We do not lay all of the blame upon tlie Chinese ** mandarins.. We do not lay one half "the blame upon the hired mobs who ' carry out their behests, but we do lay upon the heads of such men, as Sir NICHOLAS O'CONOR, Col. DENBY, Sir THOMAS WADE Sir JOHN WALSHAM, Sir HALLIDAY MC. Cartney, Sir RobeRT HART, Sir NICHOLAS HANNEN, and many of the junior Ameri- can and British cousular and diplomatic "representatives in China, nine-tenths of “the responsibility for this culminating massacre of English and American women “in that distant Chinese city.” Sir HALLIDAY MCCARTNEY and Sir ROBERT HART are in the Chinese service, they are not responsible for the protection of foreigners in the sense that a Minister or Consul is, and their names therefore seen out of place in the above list, but the complaint against the others is well founded. Our con- temporary goes on to refer to the treatment the Szecbuen refugees received at the bands of their representative officials on their arrival in Shanghai. "Mr. JERNI- "GAN, the American Consul-General, to his honour be it eternally remembered, took a most active part in directing the action of the American missionaries into such "channels as would be likely to procure the "readiest ear to their grave position and "sufferings. But when the Canadian mis- "sionaries approached the British Consulate in Shanghai, we have it from their own
44
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
been taken in that direction. To send five hundred men of the Rifle Brigade and five hundred men of the Hongkong Regiment to Kucheng, raze the city to the ground, and bring back a few of the high officials for incarceration in Victoria Gaol would have an excellent effect and would put an end to bouring provinces for a long time to come, No shedding of blood would be necessary unless opposition was offered; the destruc- tion of the city and the arrest of the respon- sible officials would be quite sufficient. one could say the punishment was exces- sive for the atrocious crime that has been committed, details of which are given in our telegram from Foochów.
No
The public meeting held yesterday to ex- press the indignation of the community at the Kucheng massacre was the largest over meeting held on the Cricket Ground in 1878 to discuss the state of insecurity of life and property then prevailing in the colony. On made from St. George's Hall to the Cricket that occasion an adjournment had to be Ground, because the room had been packed
with Chinese before the Europeans arrived, but the attendance of the latter was not so large as yesterday, when the Theatre Royal was crowded to overflowing. The resolutions were carried with enthusiasm and adequately expressed the feeling of the community. Gentlemen who had in the first instance thrown cold water on the idea of holding a meeting felt constrained, when it
A public meeting is to be held to-day at which the community will have an oppor- tunity of expressing its indignation at the outrage and its sense of the steps that ought to be taken in relation thereto. There has been some trouble in arranging the meeting,
was actually called, to give it their one of the reasons being the strong anti- support and attendance, and although in missionary feeling that prevails in the colony. these few instances It is said the missionaries bring such out- been some mental reservation there could there might have rages on themselves, that they go out to be no doubt of the spontaneity of feeling seek a martyr's crown and when they have which dominated the great bulk of the got it they don't like it. But whatever may community. Doctors HARTIGAN, CANTLIE, be said of the wisdom or unwisdom of and STEDMAN are missionary methods no one can read the
to be congratulated details of the ghastly butchery of defence- meeting. The community was waiting for on their spirited action in convening the less women and children at Huasang without
some one to do so, and while others held back, a burning sense of indignation and horror, these, three of the busiest men in the colony, There seems to have been no feeling against stepped forward, and showed that they were the missionaries in the village in which they resided. The mob came from a city some politic as to the physical ailments of the in- as ready to attend to the ills of the body. miles distant, marched out to the sound
dividual. We congratulate them on the of drums and horns, arined with
success which has attended their efforts.
As to the substanee of the resolutions spears and tridents, and all to butcher a few women and
children who had there was no difference of opinion whatever. given them no cause of offence whatever. As to the form there was a slight difference The missionary question does not enter into between the Chairman and the mover of the matter at all, or if it does it sinks into the second resolution, but Sir FIELDING insignificance when it is remembered that CLARKE's complaint seemed to be that b "lips that they were frozen off aud put into the motive of such outrages is less anti: had not been shown the full draft, not that
missionary thau anti-foreign.
British officials.
of the
The speech of the day was that of Bishop BURDON, who spoke well and to the point and carried his audience with him in almost everything he said. The explanation given by his Lordship of the anti-foreign move, ment in China, differing as it does in toto from that put forward by Mr. T. JACKSON, is in our view entirely correct. The outrages are instigated and encouraged by the mandarins. There is nothing anti-dynastic about them.
"the official refrigerator with the desire of
he objected to the actual wording. There cooling their indignation and preventing "them from making trouble." And following
Given the opportunity and a match applied was, however, some feeling, which found ex- that we have the case of the British Consul to the powder, and the Chinese would treat pression in conversation after the meeting at Foochow, who, it is alleged, thought the us all, even here in Hongkong, as they have had broken up, that the censure murder of a few English ladies a matter of treated the small missionary community British Government was ill-advised. There too little consequence to be allowed to inter- at Huasang.. What led to the burning of is no doubt the community does feel deep dis-
There was no question gust with the apathy of the British Govern-- 'rupt a few days' recreation he was taking in Shameen in 1883 ? the hills; so that British subjects had to of missionaries there. It was simply an ment, but under the circumstances under outbreak of auti-foreign feeling, the which the meeting was held it might have been appeal to the American Consul for protec-
more dignified if that particular part of the tion. We should be sorry to do any injustice sparks which set fire to the flame being in to Mr. MANSFIELD, and it must be remem-
the first instance a fracas between some Cus-resolution had been recast in words that bered that his side of the case has not yet toms employés and natives and afterwards a might have been made equally strong with- been heard, but there is a primâ facie case
row on a river steamer between a watchinan out conveying a formal censure of the against him which he should be called upon and a runner. On that occasion the foreig- Government. to meet. While denouncing the neglect of
ners happily had notice of the approach- Chinese officials the public whose indignationing mob and had a ready means of escape has been so deeply stirred by the recent by the water, but had any of them fallen lamentable occurrences cannot be expected into the hands of the rioters doubtless their to tolerate equal neglect on the part of fate would have been similar to that of the ladies at Huasang. The outrage against which to-day's meeting is called to protest touches all foreigners in China, Here in ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING AND
Hongkong, under the protection of the HOW TO MEET IT.
garrison, we experience no personal feeling (8th August.)
of danger, but our interests are identical From a telegraphic inquiry received from with those of our friends at the treaty ports Shanghai yesterday we gather that it was and what touches then touches us. Mis- reported there that a detachment of troopssionary methods have often been adversely had been sent from Hongkong to escort Consul MANSFIELD, of Foochow, to Kucheng to inquire into the massacre near that city. The troops have not been sent and so far as we are aware no orders have been received that they are to be sent. Possibly the rumour at Shanghai had its origin in the attribution to the British Government of qualities of vigour and determination. To send troops would be the proper course and the assumption that what was proper would be done may have led to the belief that steps had already
criticised in this column and the policy of sending bands of younggirls into the interior, literally carrying their lives in their hands, appears to us altogether a mistake. But how any man can allow his anti-missionary views or sentiments to temper in the slightest degree his sense of indignation at the blood curdling atrocities perpetrated at Huasang passes our comprehension. The foolhardi- ness of the missionaries cannot be held to justify their murder, nor will the protest of to-day's mecting necessarily imply an dorsement of the missionary propaganda.
en-
In isolated cases, such ផន the attack on the French Mission at Ho Yun, reported in another column, outrages may be the work of robbers, but in the majority of instances they are carried out by mobs of the settled population acting with the connivance and often at the direct instigation of the officials. In the Yangtsze outrages of 1891 and the more recent Szechucn outrages this has been proved beyond doubt, and in the case of the Kucheng horror the authorities took no steps to afford protection, although, as the Bishop said, they must have known what was brewing. Mr. JACKSON's idea that the Chinese Government is powerless to prevent The outrages appears to us quite untenable.