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AFFAIRS AT CHRISTMAS-TIDE.
(Daily Press, 25th December.) Christmas-tide in the closing year of the Nineteenth Century bids fair to be almost if not quite the most peaceful the age has witnessed. The sullen rumblings of approaching storm with which the year opened have quieted down and apparently passed away, and the world can keep its festival with a fair prospect that it is about to enter on an untroubled sea. So in the ancient times while the Halcyon built its nest nature to aid the task left off the elemental strife, and the year after its gales and uprisings closed in peace. But tran- quil as were the Halcyon days, the sailor who, trusting too blindly and persumptuously on the good gifts of the gods, neglected the seaman's precautions, found no favour from OLYMPUS. For him the Halcyon brought no respite, and well might he deem himself lucky if with his unkempt bark he succeed- ed with whole skin in reaching the haven. Fortunately for us the promise of the time is better than was held out to the ancient mariner. The past year has been one of anxieties and turmoil. When it opened the sky was overcast, and no one could tell whence the threatened storta might come nor how soon it might involve the world in its circle. It was not that any particular na- tion was troubled; the feeling was universal. Britain was engaged in a war of which she had underrated the importance, and the birds whose delight it is to pounce on the wounded quarry
were hovering about. France was smarting from the unpleasant revelations a military case had disclosed, and was momentarily reckless. The United States were not happy, for influences inimical to internal order and foreign peace were being dragged to the front. A wave of unsuspected ruffianism had passed through Europe; the Empress of Austria had fallen its first victim, but the Prince of Wales had been attacked, the King of Italy had been murdered, and several other plots which involved the lives of nearly every sovereign in Europe were only discovered in time to prevent an equally fatal ending. During the course of the year broke forth the pent-up elements of savagery which had been assiduously nursed by the intruding woman who had seized the reins of power in China, and who, like revolutionists in all ages, saw her only hope lay in fire and slaughter. Fortunately the Dowager Taze Si with all her wild schemes was too ignorant to bave studied the important question of the strength of the various nations, or even the forces they had momentarily at call in China. She had in vernacular reckoned without her host, and had to fly with the clothes she stood in before the forces the offended Powers were able to put in the field. But the most regretable part of the bad business was the effect it had on the various Powers, who, instead of working towards a common end, permitted their common jealousies to come to the front. It would be too soon to affirm that these have come to an end, but it is satisfactory
THE REPRESSION OF BRITISH ENERGY.
[December 29, 1900.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
one, and seeing this there has been a marked | the United States, or even so small a country diminution of those forces which tend to as Switzerland, the position of England in wards disruption. Both in Great Britain the electrical world is hopelessly in the and in the United States recent elections rear. That this is evident even to the have shown that the people are not only engineers of England is shown in the dis- united but know their minds, so that there heartening fact that, when after many years is left little room for the agitator to make knowledge of the practical failure of steam use of his sinister influence. On the whole traction in the underground railways of then there are signs that the worst of the London, it became a matter of actual tempest is over, and all are beginning to necessity to exchange steam for electric enquire whether by a little yielding on the motors, it is to American engineers, part of each some permanent ground of and American machine shops that the union may be found. At all events there is Directors have had to apply. Professor abroad less of the spirit of mere unfriend- PERRY makes as much as he can out of the liness, and opportunities which might have conservative instincts of British engineers, been taken for showing an unfriendly feel who will in their calculations make use of ing have been passed by or cleverly evaded. old and unpractical methods of ascertaining results; with the consequence that their neighbours, having adopted more ready and equally correct methods, are able to run out their requirements more closely, and intro- duce safe economies which throw the ad- (Daily Press, 24th December.)
vantage on their side. That there is some It is not long since we referred to the gen- truth in this no one who bas been watching eral repression of British trade and energy the course of mechanical development within which has been conspicuous in our relations the last few years will deny. But English with China during the last ten years. It engineers have never been deficient in the was not so much the actual loss, though in power of adopting the readiest means to an some directions Great Britain had actually end, and there must be some reason why in gone backward, as in the proportionate de- this instance of electricity they should in cay when compared with other countries these calculations have failed to keep and the fact that it was in staples, which abreast of their competitors. It was but a but a few years ago we held our own by a comparatively few years ago since the kind of prescription. That the fault was to engineers of England were at the head of be attributed to mistakes on the part of our electric engineering, and most of the practical Government, irrespective of party, we pointed applications of the new force were led by out, as well as the very different manner in British engineers or inventors; it is hardly which other countries, more especially Ger- to be expected that the nature of the men many and the United States, treated their could have entirely changed within a frac- nationals. On the one hand it was a policy tion of a man's working age. Professor of holding back; the merchant was an in- PERRY in his strictures on the engineer dividual to be feared and restrained, and the acknowledges this. Men who had commen. duty of the Consul, and more especially that ced practical work, and who not many years elaborate organisation of the Supreme Court, ago were at the top of the tree, find them- was in the first instance avowedly directed selves to-day left hopelessly in the rear. to the suppression of the obnoxious trader. is the hope of reward that sweetens labours, On the other, the representative of his gov- and when a man for his existence has to ernment was before every other consideration devote all his time to mere routine, and to remember that he was sent to China to understands that the alternative is to starve, foster German or American interests, and he finds but little leisure to go into theories, that his position as a repressor of crime was the results of which bring him neither not to be looked upon as antagonistic to honour nor profit. When the electric this object. The consequence of these differ- question some ten years ago began to assume ent interpretations of their duty is that the importance, and British capitalists and British Consular Official sees everything at British engineers were prepared to under- first as a judge views the business of his take large schemes for lighting and traction, court. It does not, in fact, concern him it may be remembered that Mr. GLADSTONE'S in the slightest degree, except so far as Government took the matter in hand with it may, or until it comes before him judi- the object of repressing this new danger cially. All the preliminaries are things to the confort of the citizen. The result with which he has nothing to do; they are was a bill brought into Parliament, not only matters for the plaintiff and defendant, of throwing cold water on the whole, but im- which he knows nothing and cares nothing, posing conditions so impracticable that for till they come before him in his judicial nearly eight years not a single scheme was capacity. That he has any executive capa- introduced, and it was not till these condi- city, beyond the mere carrying out of the tions were altered and relaxed that any one decrees of his court, probably never enters his practical scheme was undertaken.
Mean- head, except when one or two instances of the while it is notorious that in other countries, effects on the careers of his fellows, follow whose Governments had more enlightened ing unpleasantly on some attempt at inde-views as to their duties, electrical engineer- pendent action, intrude themselves on his ing was growing from being the nurseling mind. On the other side nothing is so much of the philosopher into the sturdy child of dreade1 by an American or German official the practical manufacturer. It was only as a complaint from a prominent national | last session of Parliament that a scheme for terially improved the position and permitted that any remissness in pushing the interests | running an electric railway from Manchester some breathing space to be devoted to a better of his subjects had been exhibited. There to Liverpool was thrown out by an ob- understanding of the position. A working are few British subjects in business in China agreement between Germany and Great Bri- who have not had cause to substantiate this tain has materially aided this, and there is very great distinction in the methods of the at last some hope that with the close of the Governments concerned. It is always sooth- year the tension has been materially les-ing to one's self-love to have companions in sened. It is not for us to search too in- timately into the parts taken by the leading Powers, but it is a matter of congratulation that it has come about at the close of the year. Germany has in more ways than one indicated that her position was a friendly
that the events of the last few weeks have ma-
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misery, and it is instructive to find no less an authority than Professor Joux PERRY, F.R.S., the President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, making in his address to the Society almost identical charges. It is unfortunately a fact that compared with
It
structive Parliament; and the reason will serve to explain why our merchants and our engineers are losing the leading position which a few years ago they occupied. The Engineers of the scheme announced their intention of making the trains traverse the line at the rate of 210 miles an hour. Gzozor STEVENSON'S cow got in the way but it was not the " Coo but the train that got the worst of the collision; a wise House decided that to travel two hundred miles an hour
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