Page
160
*
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[ August 29, 1895. for many years, the cowardly shifting of respon. intellectual inferiority. Since the life has been China, which is but one side of the question and sibility coupled with the hundred and one uu.five times longer than the English life (speak in itself might be a most dangerous thing for cloan results of a vauity-bred opportunism, and ing, of course, of the duration of life as societies), civilization) is not being and never
can be the absence of the most important factor of all, we might rightly xpect the stato of kuowledge brought about by any method so unnatural and moral courage, when the test came in the war to be a very long way ahead of that existing in nuattractive. Seeing that the workers in this which has just ended so ingloriously for China, England Wo find. on the contrary, that no case subordinate themselves to the Chinese, and in spite of the absurd boasts and prophecies as to stops have been taken oven jo acquire the know- must always bar a small proportion to the num- the impossibility of defeat made by her misguided ledge placed ready to hand by the resoarches of bors of the Chinese themselves, the conditions admirers before the heat of battle cracked off the Western scholars. Instead of delicate calcula here are much the same as in the case of self- veneer civilization and exposed the rottenness tions telling us the rate of approach or rocession | advancement, which we know well is impossible. within. To our minds there is something incon of a star that shows no parallax, wo find ignor We have seen not only that material advance is gruous and ridiculous in the very iden of men in ance even of the shape of the earth or the of itself insufficient, but that it cannot take place petticoats with fans and peacock feathere1 hats movements of the planets round the sam. Sc nuder presont circumstances Moreover, the directing a modern battle-ship and supervising far from having discovered a method of solidify rate at which the results are attained, when the letting off of machine guns. If it be said ing air, there is no suspicion that the atmosphoro attained at all, is much too slow to be of any real that by seeing these things done the Chinese is compound. Seeing that they have lived for value. We must not forget that mere movement will in time learn to do them for themselves, the fifty centuries without finding out much more is iu itself quite useless as long as the rate of reply is, first, that seeing things done by others than the names of the tribes and peoples inhabit- movement is not equal to or greater than that is not the same as doing them one's self, and, ing the globe, it would be in vin to look for of other nations. What advantage, for example, second, that were the nature to be instructed any science which has for its subject-matter the wou'd the Chinese gain from having attained young and pliable, which it is not, the thing comparison of the varied phenomena prosented perfection in naval warfare by the time that might be possible. You may look at a man play- by societies, The application of the sciences Englishmen were in a position to blow them to ing a violin for fifty years, but when you take to the advauce and comfort of everyday life pieces with melauite guns fired from ships float- up the instrument yourself you will find that cannot take place in the absence, of a knowledge | ing in the air? And finally, study of national your unrelaxed attention has done nothing to- of the sciences themsolvek Wo read that "if character supplies a proof which would be suff wards making you a musical genius. Let an old, their astronomical uotions are vague, their cient in the absence of all others, showing as it feeble, stiff-limbed idiot watch the game of tennis | geographical knowledge is pidiculous.” In tho does that an old rigid nature can be changed as long as he likes and he will be no more agile various branches of monstration and formula but very slowly, at a rate altogether insufficient or capable for his observations when he attempts used to describe the dingusions and weights of for modern requirements. As well might the to play the game himself, A Chinaman's nature bodies, they have reached duly a practical medio. leopard chauge his spots as the Chinese the does not admit of his doing anything for himself crity." Quotations such as this might be
nature of a mind moulded to its present con- so long as others will do it for him. It is a multip ́ied almost without end, but it is super-dition by the forces of many centuries. The nature moulded and fossilized by a slow hoary fluous to trace out in detail a fact that is not
secret of the whole position is the one growth of fifty centuries, and cannot easily be only obvious bat obtrusively and unpleasantly word character. Try to change an old man's changed. Without a change of nature there must thrust upon our attention day after day. Nor character, try to make him physically active, be reversion to the previous state as soon as the are our hopes less rudely disappointed ou examiu-meutally acute, and moral where he was immoral former conditions are restored. Mere acquisitioning the state of the moral civilization. The before. You will find the task a very difficult of the form of a thing without its substance is of
One. In a nation composed not of young chil- little use in these days when sham and make
dron with growing minds but of stiff old men. belief are met with ever-increasing contempt.
with shrivelled brains, the task will be one in- Now it is not difficult to see that to attempt the
finitely more difficult. Try to make an honest solution of the Chinese question from this stand-
man out of a thief descended from a whole point, granted even that the desired results are
generation of thieves, and you will get some idea possible, implies the assumption of a position of
of the obstacles to be overcome in dealing with inferiority, of an undertaking to do the work
ordinary character. Try to make an honest man for money received from the Chinese them
out of an old thief forming one of a whole nation selv.s. There is no precedent or warrant or
of hundreds of millions of thieves whose auces- possibility of any large number of the people of one nation devoting their time and money for nothing to the object of benefiting the people of another nation not subordinate to them. In the absence of the power given by control such action might, indeed, be suicidal. If the opera tions cover a large portiou of the scial life there is suspicion or resentment, and eventually a reaction; if they cover only a small portion they are ineffectual. Therefore the position from this point of view must be one of sub ordination, the workers being dependent for food and clothing on money collected from the Chicese people by Chinese officials; as, in fact, we see that they are.
To those who are not content with looking at the surface of things, the anomalousness and absurdity of such a position will at once be apparent. Let us look first at the Chinese as he is. What a small distance from the animal he has succeeded in getting during all these centuries is shown not only in his everyday life and habits but in his physical structure itself. To begin with his head, we are told that the Chinese skull shows both a "parti- cular deviation in the formation of the temporal bone" and a "noticeable narrowness of the tem poral region;' "two phenomens which are generally observed in the skulls of inferior races." His square heavy features, down-drawn eyelid, oblique eye, and flattened profile are not traits found in the most civilized races. His coarse black hair, so eloquent an indication of origin in the half-caste, is of the kind common to the Bashmen, Hottentots, Australians, Tasmanians, and New Guines people, but not to the civilized white man. His bodily framework, admitting of his assuming the position of rest most usual with the monkey, is different from that of the civilized white races, who cannot assume this position with ease or at all and who show no tendency to assume it in daily life, as the Chi- nese do. His nervous system, not nearly so evolved as that of the European or American, and of * coarser make," refuses to respond to all the delicate tremors of a complex environment, and enables him to regard the most revolting scenes with complete unconcern. And his skia, dry, hard, and yellow, is almost as far removed in degree from the soft white skin of civilized humanity as that of the Negritto bead-hunters. Accompanying this phy- sical inferiority we find an equally pronounced
prevalent disregard of accuracy in speech, the wish to deceive in deed or word, as long as this can be done with advantage and impunity, the avarice and peculation which impregnate root and branch of the official system, the frequency of brawls and fights, murders and massacres, which Suggests that for such savage acts savage methods of retribution would be the most appropriate, and many other similar tráfts, will at once occur to the mind as examples.
Looked at from the sociological standpoint, tors have been thieves for thousands of years, then, the Chinese must still be regarded as in a
and it will be possible to dimly realiz both savage state. We will not dwell on the reprobathe immensity of the task and that methods tion which might justly be heaped on a poople who far different from those now employed will have have wrought so little in so long a time; wo
to be adopted for its accomplishment. The will not take more than passing note of the ridi- character of a nation is the character of its com culousness of the claim-nay, boast of civilization ponent units. In the case of the individual we in face of the proofs of savagery so constantly do not waste time in attempting the impossible manifesting themselves, nor of the assumption of
task of kueading the old stiff limbs into supple superiority which almost invariably accompanies members nor of imbuing the cold brain with ignorance; but we will most emphatically call
new intellect, So also it would be wise not to attention to the anomaly of the civilized white
waste valuable time in attempting the impossible man accepting the money and placing himself task of transforming a stiff rigid pation five under the commands of a people of so low a typo. thousand year old into one young and active. It has always struck is a strange that anyone follows in the natural course of events. It must In the case of the individual disinterration should put himself under the orders of a savage and then plume himself on his position." If follow also in the case of the uation. we think of what that position means, how the very bread he eats and the clothes he wears are provided out of the taxes taken from the Chinese people by their grasping officials, if we think of how low in the scale of humanity the Chinese really are, of their daily habits and unclean ways, we must feel convinced that no European who respects himself and who has taken the trouble to think out the true nature of the relationship into which he is antering would for a moment tolerate the idea of thus selling the birthright bequeathed to him in tras, by the nuited results forefathers. It
of the efforts of all his
do not
on
Shall we not, then, take refuge in the appa- rently more satisfactory solution of the difficulty presented by the attitude taken up by the mis
Here, at any rate, we sionary and his kind? have a factor working out, or trying to work out, the moral regeneration of the people, not from a subordinate standpoint or one of dependence upon the Chinese, but from one of equality-of men dealing with men as equals. Surely we have here a method against which nothing can be said. Surely it must be acknowledged that in missionary work is to be found the true solu tion of this difficult problem. We wish we could say yes. Unfortunately, however, the facts admit of this conclusion, and the
out oxperiment turus
examination to unlikely to succeed and 88 useless if successful as the one just considered. The same elements, indeed, enter into the matter There is, in the first place, the in both cases. same nature to be dealt with. Granted that the converts made by missionaries are genuine (which may well be doubted in many instances), granted, too, that constant reiteration of Chris- tian precepts produces Christian conduct (which is still more doubtful, as proved every day), the number of converts is far too small to keep pace with the increase in population, to say nothing of the vast numbers who remain unregenerate. To borrow an illustration from finance, you may appropriate all the interest and yet leave the whole of the capital untouched. But, we are told, the missionaries are the educators of the people in On hearing this we science, duty, and faith.”*
is a subversion of the ory law of progress itself. Nor does this concern. one European It wo nation only: it concerns om nearly all. try to realize the mental condition of a Dutch-be quite as man who is responsible to ja Gorman, who is re- sponsible to a Frenchman, who is responsible to au Englishmau, who is responsible to a Chinese, we shall get some slight lea of the anomialons nature of the present syklom. In view of the fact that Peace Universal and Perpetual has not yet asserted her sway, it is generally considered out of place for à subject of one European nation to place himself under the direction of the officials of another European nation. How much more out of place therefore must it be considered for subjec.s of many European nations to subordinate themselves to the officials of an un- civilized Asiatic nation of a low order of deve. lopment.
It is important to omphasize this point because we habitually ignore the fact that a solution of the Chinese question (not the regeneration of
i
* North-Ching Herald, June 17th, 1895.