!
L
December 12, 1904.]
|
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
BARBARISM.
427
state of civilisation, the more numerous usually are the cases of felo de se. This scarcely needs to be demonstrated.
China. To use a colloquialism, it was contemporary says, characterised by cunning | berately, slowly, and without flinching." Russia that was being sold. Our contem-
and duplicity, but it is certainly not, as our Finally, the tactful apologist of the Monthly porary says "the Russian Minister at contemporary states, one-third "shortsight | Review tabulates the average number of Peking
succeeded in persuading deness." The best public opinion in China" suicides per annum per million inhabitants, the moribund Earl to send the following must admit, on the contrary, that what showing that, in this "barbarous" feature, letter "the"following letter," it will be LI HUNG CHANG foresaw has come about. France, Denmark, Switzerland, and Ger remembered, stating plainly that in the We are afraid that our contemporary must many are worse than Japan, the respective event of the Japanese gaining sufficient have read the letter very superficially. They numbers (as given) being 246, 238, 233, advantage we can join with the latter and say that "solid arguments brought Li 206, and 177. These things are quite help them to drive the Russians out.” If LI HUNG CHANG openly to the side of Russia." typical of the tendency of enthusiasm to HUNG CHANG was sincere when he wrote We say this bombshell of a letter must alter prove too much. The suicide statistics are, that, and our contemporary says "he knew our estimate of the Dan. It certainly as most readers will recognise, directly an- when he wrote it that the hand of death shows that Russia was getting a sorry re- tagonistic to the writer's thesis that the was upon him," the insincerity seems to turn for her" solid arguments," and it in-charge of barbarism against Japan has no rest with the Russian Minister, who, accord- dicates that LI HUNG CHANG was no inten- foundation in fact. The more advanced the ing to our contemporary, succeeded in | tional traitor to his own country. persuading" him to write it. The North China Herald expresses great faith in the authority of the Foreign Editor" of the Times, who "penetrated the true character and aims of LI HUNG CHANG better than anybody else. Surely, however, the letter speaks for itself, and cannot carry the con- struction put upon it by our contemporary. Whatever his methods, the aims of LI HUNG CHANG in this matter appear correct. The only point of our contemporary's com- ments with which we agree is that in which they repeat our previously expressed opinion that LI HONG CHANG was wrong in attach- | ing any value to Russian gratitude. Our contemporary
determine.l to are duplicity in that letter. A little disin- genuity there may be, in his assumption that Russia might win the inevitable war, for we are quite willing to believe that the man whose shrewdness stands out so con- spicuously in the letter had some inkling even then of the surprises that Japan had ready for the legions of the TSAR. It
seems
would, apart from such inkling, have been quite in keeping with the characteristic Chinese conceit for him to calculate as foot- ballers do sometimes, that if A team beats B, and B beats C, theu A will also beat C. Japan had beaten China: she would also beat Russia.
Our contemporary styles the late diplo- mat "the man who sold China," but in the same sentence points out that the sale was not completed, "owing to the patriotic opposition of the Yangtsze and Southern Viceroys." LI HUNG CHANG regarded them as stupid, misunderstanding patriots, and we are still inclined to adopt his view. It is exceedingly likely that "all the high Chinese officials," our contemporary, and the Times "Foreign Editor," who call LI HUNG CHANG traitor, and publish a letter that seems to prove he was not, are also misunderstanding the matter. If all those high Chinese officials referred to by our contemporary continue, in face of this letter, to believe him false to his country, we are sorry for the country whose affairs they presumably administer. It should rehabilitate him, even in the eyes of the Times, which fortunately vouches for the letter. Even in the wily, double game he played, the duplicity of which our contem- porary condemns, LI HUNG CHANG was true to the traditions of his nation. "HUA NAN TEZE, prince of Kuang Lang," in the History of Great Light," says "force can only be successful in combating what is weaker than itself. . . but weakness can overcome what is far stronger than itself." If we read on, we learn that by is implied such diplopincy as LI HUNG CHANG outlines in this posthumous letter "It is always the man who does a thing for the first time who has the difficul- ties to contend with ; the pioneers are simply the target on which those who come after them practise shooting. That is Chinese gospel, so to speak, and La Hung'a letter is permeated with it. It is, as our
of his.
"weaknosa
"
£4
(Daily Press, 7th December.)
ex
Barbarism is the antithesis of civilisation. It means individualism, ignorance, the lack of that law, and order, and culture, and self repression, that a civilised community is supposed to possess. It is often used to denote cruelty, ferocity, and so on, although these qualities are not confined to barbarous races, as recent events have proved. Tak ing the word in its stricter meaning, the allegation that the Japanese are a bar- barous or barbarian nation is absurd. Their civilisation is older than our own, their apprenticeship to the arts of peace It is nonsense eveù much more extensive.
to suggest that their European veneer has Their added much to their civilisation. social manners (that comportment which denotes the gentleman) are superior to ours, aud more widely diffused. Coming to the question of the sanctity of life, which appears now to be the standard of civilisa- tion as we understand it, they are, tempera-
mentally, on a footing with Europeans. Until recently, their penal code was as ours used to be, very severe; and as our circum- stances then were, so their similar environ- ment, lasting longer, has prolonged the period during which life per se is lightly re- garded. Temperamentally, we contend, all men, however civilised the community that contains them, are barbarians, for barbarity is but "nature, red in tooth aud claw."
Feudalisin held life cheap in England, just as it has done in Japan. Armed men on the high roads, the naked blade gleaming on every hand, makes men familiar with the machinery of murder; and familiarity, wa are told, breeds contempt. Continued or frequent observation of such matters bruta
The tiresome question " Are the Japanese people barbarous ?" still continues to be asked; and more tiresome still, there are people who will, with misdirected enthusiasm, persist in answering it in a certain way. The new editor of the Monthly Review has permitted one of these apologists to commit various indiscretions in that usually sober and safe magazine. The contributor, who signs the article "X," has more insight into things Japanese than into human nature. He admits the massacre by Japanese of three hundred thousand Christians," which seems to sully for ever the fair fame of Japan"; but argues that for their aggres- siveness they deserved all they got. The Japanese Government's order in 1825, viz.: ,,In case there be any foreign ship approach- ing the coast of Japan, the officer in charge need not ask the reason why they have come, but should fire at once on such ships," is also admitted. That, he says, was because "in 1806-07 and following years the Russians attacked and raided Japanese islands in order to frighten them into subjection, and such was their brutality that, though all foreigners were hated and despised, the Russians were most feared and most hated by the Japanese. Unprovoked murderous attacks on peaceful Japanese, and the bombardment and conflagration of many villages on the coast, were com- mitted in order to open Japan to trade and to introduce civilisation,' and in a famous declaration the Russians promised that they would return and ravage the coast of Japan year by year until country was opened to trade." In view of that, the subsequent murder of three Russians in Japan was "but natural." The other murders were mistakes: "the Japanese masses could hardly be expected to discriminate between the Russians imagination portrays the reality of blood and the British." They were revenged and wounds, that we understand, and by the European Powers with in- shudder, being civilised. The keen sword
men The is more impressive; but
cannot credible and unpardonable severity.' case of Mr. RICHARDSON, the Shanghai go on shuddering for ever. merchant, cut down by a retainer of a ness to the blade it is only a step to callous- This, subject to Satsuma prince, was due to the murdered ness to the blood. man's "stupid and wilful provocation" in refutation, is our theory of the different not getting off his horse and kowtowing estimates that different races put upon the value of life. At bottom, we rapeit, there while the procession passed. The attack on foreign shipping which brought about the is no real difference between East and international bombardment of Shimonoseki, West, in this respect, and the charge that too, according to "X," was a mere act of barbarism against Japan needs neither
The "no serious damage." proof
Japanese disproof. of folly, and did Showing how Japanese jurisprudence has soldier in the company of his parent reformed in the humane direction, "X" or his child is gentle as the gentlest. quotes the barbarous penal laws of old With the foe in front, and weapon in haud, England; and then goes on to describe he is very much like his European confrère, hara-kiri as & proof of the spirit of somewhat of a savage, intent on killing. heroism, rather than of barbarism." As, There are, unfortunately, pseudo-civilised he puts it, "any coward can take poison soldiers who behave like savages when no or shoot himself; it requires the nerve and foe is near, as some of our east coast fisher- spirit of a hero to commit hara-kiri deli- men have lately learned.
*C
the
lises the observer. Accustomed only to the modern implements of war, which kill at a distance, our acquaintance with their re- sults in action is also a distant one. It is only when some soldier, writing home with simple vividity of that he has seen or felt, or when some literary genius gifted with
•
nor
From callous-