184
were needed, that the characters of people be- longing to aggregates of the first order" can- not easily be changed, which contention was the very backbone of my whole paper. Those who have given some time and study to this matter know that no one in a position to give an opinion would expect any change in national character in fifty years or even in a hundred. You must first have the people in such a position that you can compel them to listen and act) and keep on compelling them, and then only can you reasonably hope that the accumulated effects of habit on character will in time-probably a very long time-bag about some permanent change. Yours faithfully,
THE WRITER OF THE ARTICLE. August 27th, 1895.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
in
11
peruse my last letter, I think he would have seen that I insisted on the importance of self pre- servation as against improvement of the Chinese raçe :-"We should restrict this dangerous growth-even at the cost of damage to or destruction of the Chinese society-before it becomes too widespread to be rooted out What steps should be taken to restrict or uproot the Chinese weed it is not easy to say, but it is obvious that dealing with several small societies by their respective foreign governments would be an easier matter than dealing with an immense rigid aggregate under its own government.' By this is meant not the unrestricted improve- ment of the people under us, but only their improvement as long as it is to our benefit. The right and effective means will no doubt be found in time. So long as the people are independent TO THE EDITOR OF THE
we must meet them as equals or inferiors, and "DAILY PRESS.'
cannot mould or guide or restrain with any SIB, I am glad to think that I have been the means of benefiting the readers of the certainty of permanent result. In what way we Daily Press by inducing your contributor to should best lead them is, I admit, a difficult further elucidate his short and easy method question, but it seems to me, as I said before, with "yellow savages." Even were you to per. that it would be easier for several European mit it I have neither the time nor the wish for governments to control several small Chinese a controversy on the subject. Besides, such societies than to resist the growth of one large would be worse than useless, seeing that I am united nation and compete with it on equal terms. The evil effects of this competition are "utterly lacking in the ability to grasp even the most obvious meaning of an argument." I already becoming apparent. By a curious coin- have no intention of imitating anyone in assum- oidence there appears in your issue of the 30th ing the attitude of pussy when the terrier makes inst., in the next column to" W's" letter, and playful overtures. To discuss such a big sub- just opposite to it, a most telling quotation ject as the regeneration of the Chinese race re- showing how the growing danger of the Chinese
"weed
is being felt in Australia. I cannot quires more time than a mercantile man can
resist quoting it snatch out of a busy day. My chief object in
full" We cannot addressing you was to warn your contributor of compete with Chinese; we cannot intermix or the danger of weakening his case by allow-marry with them; they are aliens in language, ing himself to use language unnecessarily offen-thought, and customs; they are working animals sive. Admitting that it would be for the ulti- of low grade but great vitality. The Chinese is mate benefit of humanity at large that the Chi- temperate, frugal, hard-working, and law-evad- nese should be civilized on our lines, I would asking, if not law-abiding-we all acknowledge He can outwork an Englishman, and the writer of the article whether he does not that. think it probable that the few thousands of starve him out of the country-no one can deny Europeans sent here to govern the hundreds of that. To compete successfully with a China- millions of natives would be absorbed and gra- man, the artisan or labourer of our own flesh dually sink to their level. What would have and blood would require to be degraded into a become of Macao and the Portuguese thereof mere mechanical beast of labour, unable to sup- had it not been for this British colony and the port wife or family, toiling seven days in the Foreign Settlements at the Treaty Ports? week, with no amusements, enjoyments, or com- They would have sunk to at least far below the forts of any kind, no interest in the country, level of the Portuguese of Europe and have made contributing no share towards the expense of no perceptible impress on the Chinese. How Government, living on food that he would now then would it be if the hooportion of Europeans reject with loathing, crowded with his fellows to natives were, as hatwould necessarily be, ten or fifteen in a room that he would not now Ad- incomparably less ? Will your contributor live in alone, except with repugnance. point out any instance in ancient or modern mitted freely into Australia, the Chinese would history that can serve as evidence that the starve out the Englishman, in accordance with character of the Chinaman would change under the law of currency that of two currencies in foreign rule. Rome and her colonies will not a country the baser will always supplant the
better." do; nor will the case of India serve. India at no time could come under the classification of
Now, leaving for the moment the question of "an aggregate of the first order," and its popu- the danger itself, there can to my mind be no lation is in race akin to its conquerors.." The doubt that, whatever else we may do, it is cer- writer of the article says that to avert the dan- tainly not our duty to pursue the suicidal course gers which threaten our civilization should be of positively helping or trying to help this our first object. I really fear me that his plan unclean and dangerous people in the way
those
I spoke who serve them do. If would not change the Chinese "weed" into a rose; but would give it the opportunity of strongly on this point it was because I feel spreading more widely. But in truth there is strongly, and surely no language could be too nothing to fear; the human race has been pro-strong to denounce a method by which a man gressing from the time of the earliest geolo- may be encouraging the great-grandfather of gical records till now and will continue to do the murderer of his great-great-grandchildren. so whether the "yellow savage ever becomes Because the result of the deed may be far re- like unto us or not.-Yours faithfully,
moved the deed itself is not thereby rendered any the less criminal. We have only to imagine for a moment the results which would follow an inversion of the state of things in India, to see. the gruesome effects of thus traitorously aiding the onemies of our own people. But it is un- necessary to dwell louger on this unsavoury matter, for the situation is so unnatural that anyone who thinks cannot but be convinced that it must right itself again before long.
Hongkong, 29th August, 1895.
W.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS. SIR-Were youth perennial and man im- mortal, it were possible, provided the patience of the Editor and his readers were infinite, to cut off one by one the many heads of the hydra controversy and ultimately to shake hands over his corpse. As the conditions of such a contest are not likely to be fulfilled, it is to be feared that neither will the happy ending be realized; but though "W" and I do not yet agree, I feel that we are nearer to an agreement than when we began the fight, and he has at any rate shown that a controversy with him would probably prove an exception to the rule that polemics usually end in abuse. Under these conditions, too, it would be possible for each combatant to carefully consider his opponent's statements, so that the time spent in repetition and in dis- proving things which have not been said would be saved. Had "W" had time to carefully
Turning to "Ws supposition that the white rulers of China would sink to the level of the Chinese, I think it will not be difficult to judge In the first place, him out of his own mouth. his illustration of Macao and the Portuguese thereof" is particularly unfortunate. No one cau stay long in Macao without seeing very plainly that the Portuguese permanent residents there have "sunk to at least far below the level of the Portuguese of Europe and have made no perceptible impression on the Chinese." This is a fact no one who has lived in that colony for any length of time will deny, and it is, to say the least, a very curious statement that
[September 4, 1895.
"W's
they have been saved from sinking below the level of the Portuguese of Europe by “this British Colony and the Foreign Settlements at the Treaty Ports." If the Macanese who have left Macao for Hongkong or the Treaty Ports are superior to those who have remained, that is not a sign of any improvement in those who have remained. It is a sign rather that the govern- ment and conditions of life are better in those places than in Macao. No instance could be given which more strongly supports my case. If the great majority of the Portuguese long resident in Macao have sunk almost to the level of the Chinese-which will be denied by no unbiassed. witness-why have not the English done so in Hongkong, or why do they not show some ten- The proportion of whites to dency to do so? natives is smaller in Hongkong than in Macao. In the Treaty Ports it is smaller still. Will anyone allege that in the Treaty Ports the Eng- lish and other white residents are sinking to the level of the Chinese? I for one have not observed this tendency, nor have I anywhere seen existence seriously maintained. What its
Macao with Hong- this comparison of
the Treaty Ports does prove kong and is that the English character is not one to sink to the level of the people they govern. It shows the difference both in the characters of the people and the systems of government the soundness of the one and the rottenness of the other. Have we sunk in India to the level of the Hindoo? No. I have greater faith in the grit of the good British race than to believe that our governing China or a part of it would be tantamount to our degenerating into Chinese savages.
Referring to the other side of the question, and passing over the anomaly of approval, in his first letter, of the suggested remedy although, in his second, he argues that it would not be beneficial, I am not prepared to give instances showing that the Chinese char- acter would change under foreign rule, for the simple reason that to do so is not necessary to my argument. Whether the character changes or not it will be equally dangerous to us, possibly as much so if it does not change as if it does. Sociology, however, warrants us in believing that changed habits by gradually accumulated effects modify character, and people belonging ..... to social types like that to which the Chinese belong are likely to do anything sooner than change their habits unless compelled to. Be- lieving that some change might thus be wrought in time does not imply that it is our duty to change the weed into a rose otherwise than in a way which shall be to our own advantage. Of the two evils it seems plain that our duty is to choose the lesser one of placing ourselves in a position from which at any rate we shall be able to do something, and endeavour to turn the evil into a blessing, rather than to sit idly by and watch the evil growing without making any effort to nip it in the bud. The case of China is unique in the world's history, because all other “ "aggre- gates of the first order" have been compara- tively small and have disappeared in the natural course of events. "W" believes there is nothing to fear. He lumps the whole human race toge- ther and says that it will continue to progress as it has been doing all along. On that point I quite agree with him. But let him think of the difference there must be in time between the mere numerical strength of the descendants of a family of 2 and of a family of 1,000 in only 100 years, and all that that implies, and he will see that there must after all be some vital meaning in the existence at the end of the nineteenth century of an immense rigid social aggregate of four hundred millions of yellow savages.-Yours,
THE WRITER OF THE ARTICLE. August 30th, 1895.
DAILY PRESS.
as
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEAR SIR,-In your issue of August 24th appoured a lengthy article under the above head- ing. A subsequent writer has already anim- adverted thereon and characterized it "crude." The original paper is evidently from the pen of a close observer of the people among whom presumably he dwells, and many of his judgments few foreigners who have lived long in China will dispute. The two paragraphs, however, in which he discusses the methods, ideals, and results of mission work, show that