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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
HOLLAND AND SOUTH AFRICA. | should feel some sympathy with a people |
(Daily Press, 17th February.) It seems strange that a nation usually so careful in its diplomatic relations as Holland should have exposed itself to a rebuff so severe as that which Lord LANSDOWNE has found it necessary to administer. The dispute in South Africa has long ceased to partake in any measure of the nature of a war, and is now only a contest with a few thousand irreconcilables, who, deprived of the liberty of plunder, are exercising their abilities to the utmost to prevent the establishment of any settled government in South Africa. At the best the rule of the Boer republics at any time was an anomaly. The Transvaal had in fact grown to be a menace to civilisation; with all the instincts of the nomad, the people who had gained the upper hand temporarily felt themselves as much out of touch with the civilisation which Was gradually closing around them as ever did the Turkomans of Central Asia. They had come to resent even the growth of their own population, and to look with a similar dislike on the introduction of any settled government which would have tended to restrain the wild liberty in which they were content to exist. It is true they had not commenced the practice of those raids on their neighbours which at last made the destruction of the Asiatic nomads a neces- sity, but the same causes were at work, and the Boers, as incapable of a settled existence as the Turkoman, were gradually affecting the manners of their kind. The veldt is not as barren as the deserts of Central Asia, but under Boer government it was rapidly becoming almost as unfit for agriculture, and every attempt at improving the agricul- tural capabilities of the country was steadily suppressed, by violence if necessary. Boers had become essentially a nation of wanderers; disgusted with the gradual growth of agricultural life, they had avoided it by trekking out into the pathless waste to establish the Orange State; left unmolested here, the soil had gradually become too scant for the life of the hunter. The remedy was found in another trekk beyond the Vaal, but even there population commenced to constrict their wandering habits, and when the discovery of gold in the Rand brought about the inevitable influx-of population, the nomadic influence at once made war upon it, none the less real that it was changed in direction by the lust for gold which seems the in- evitable accompaniment of રી nomadic existente. There is a stage in this nomadic existence when the wandering instinct becomes too engrossing to be east off, and this is evidently the condition of the followers of DE WET and others who, pre- vented from following their habits of destructiveness, set themselves in contest with the restraining forces of civilisation. Such
of affairs is nothing new on the face of the earth. The following of MAHOMET, released from pressure from the outstanding civilisations, instinctively burst over the neighbouring nations, murdering and plundering to their heart's content. The wandering hordes of JENGHIZ KHAN in their wild rush into Eu- rope destroyed before them every blade of grass even. The corsairs of Algiers needed the arms of Lord ExмOUTH, followed up by the advances of France, to restore peace to
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who, however remotely, are to some extent of her own kin, is but natural, but the English people bave always contended that this sympathy was not expressed in a reasonable or friendly way; and was really, by its unthinking advocacy of the wrong, effective only in entailing worse evils on the Boers--and this feeling has certainly been intensified by this last effort. It did not require much knowledge of human nature to understand that the proposition of Holland could only be accepted by a country actually beaten in the field. Eng- land has at all times been, and is still, perfectly willing to give her Boer subjects as much freedom as she has in practice extended to her non-English subjects every. where. Whatever sentimental grievances there may be, no subject of Great Britain has ever had the opportunity of saying that his liberty of thought or action was in any,
restrained, and its government has always been the first to make this under- stood. This was plainly told to the Boers at the very beginning of their hopeless struggle, and in the face of all that they have themselves done to weaken this feeling, it has been maintained all through, and is as much the intention of the English people even now as at the very beginning. Looking back on the position, it would have marked a far higher sense of sympathy with the Boers to have pointed out this fact to them, and showed them that this was the true way to recover their position. Had the govern- ment of Holland done this, and shown an intelligent appreciation of the case, it would not have met the unpleasant rebuff it un- deniably has undergone. There was a time, and Englishme are glad to recall it, when Holland and England contested on an equal footing for the command of the ocean; it was owing to mistakes such as we have had the necessity to check that Holland lost this position for herself. It is not to be regained by repeating the blunder of the last month.
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Holland would have every- thing to lose and nothing to gain were she to succeed in establishing an interna- tional rule of seeking to interfere in the internal affairs of her neighbours.
THE SCHOOL FOR EUROPEAN CHILDREN IN HONGKONG.
(Daily Press, 19th February.) The correspondence forwarded to us for publication by the Colonial Secretary, which appears in another column to-day, will be read with great interest by the The Europeau residents in this Colony. education question is now one of the vital matters awaiting settlement here, and the co-operation of the Government and the community has within the past year succeed- ed in gaining the assent of the responsible authorities at home to the principle for which European parents have been striving hard, namely that the higher education of Hongkong cannot be efficiently carried on along the old lines of the co-education of mixed races. This principle being conceded, one of the main difficulties to be solved has been the location of the European school or schools in the Colony. residents in Kowloon have expressed their opinion in no undecided way that their interests can only be consulted fairly by the establishment of at least a branch of the new European school at some point in the the waters of the Mediterranean; and last, peninsula. The recently finished school, though not least, the world had to condone the building of which was due to the the exterminating arms of Russia, them-generosity of Mr. Ho TUNG, was looked selves unfortunately little higher in the upon by European parents in Kowloon as scale of civilisation, in freeing Asia from an ideal spot for such a branch, but they the curse of the Turkoman. That Holland were confronted by the obstacle that the
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[February 24, 1902. -
donor exprssely intended this to be a school for higher education without distinction of race. As will be seen from the correspond- ence published to-day, the Colonial author- ities have approached Mr. Ho TuNo on the subject and have induced him to consent that his school in Kowloon shall be for European children only, on condition that the new Yaunati school for Chinese shall be im- proved by the provision of at least one properly qualified English master and the maintenance of education there on the same level as in the European school. To these conditions the Hongkong Government is prepared to agree, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for the Colouies. Sincere congratulations are to he offered alike to Mr. Ho TUNG, the local authorities, and European parents in Kowloon. Ho TUNG has vastly increased the value of his munificent gift to the Hongkong public by his acquiescence in the Government's request, and we are sure that the result of his maturer consideration will be the ad- vancement on sounder lines
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of both
Chinese and European education here. Much as his original gift was valued, it was impossible not to feel misgivings as to the possibility of furnishing really profit- able secondary education for mixed classes. It is now almost certain that the desired higher education will be provided for Europeans and non-Europeans to the same extent but in different establishments, when the teaching will not be complicated by the race-distinctions which have hampered all previous educational work in this Colony. The authorities have reason to be satisfied with the result of their negotiations won a decisive victory and they have in the cause of better teaching for the children of Hongkong. For the European parents in Kowloon, it is hardly necessary to point out that the provision of so hand- some a building as Mr. Ho TUNG's gift for the education of their children is a boon of the. utmost importance. By the announce- ment of the news which we publish to-day, a serious difficulty in the path of the new European school has been removed, and the consideration of a suitable site for the main building in Hongkong itself is rendered in- finitely easier. It must not be forgotten of course that the assent of the Secretary of State to a dual establishment has to be gained, but confidence may be felt that this will not be withheld in view of the readiness of the European residents in the Colony to contribute their just quota to the necessary expenses.
THE CRISIS: TELEGRAMS.
[FROM OUR CORRE PONDENT.]
SHANGHAI, 14th February, 7.52 p.m. The native Press welcomes the Anglo- Japanese agreement while regretting China's humiliating position on the same level as Coren and Turkey. The hope is expressed that strong Government will soon extricate a great Empire from this "nursery."
SHANGHAI, 18th February, 9.20 p.m. All the professors at the Peking Univer-
sity, including Dr. W. A. P. Martin, the President, have been discharged with a gratuity of three months' salary.
On the 5th inst. at Foochow a presentation was made in the Club reading-room to the Rev. Llewellyn Lloyd, who, under the appointment of the Church Missionary Society, has acted as chaplain to the Foochow community for 25 years and is now going home for 18 months. A piece of plate was presented, with an address, by Mr. Westall on behalf of the community,