April 8, 1905.]
though fewer, are more likely to keep the Chinese awake to our prestige than were the vessels that we ventured to call "portable residences for naval tea-parties." Or, more exactly, they are much less likely to canse us to suffer loss in that respect than were the vessels withdrawn. Of course, when our contemporary speaks of the frequent sight of the British flag inspiring or re-inspiring prestige, it is mere hyperbole. We know how bravely the Russian flag has been flaunted all over north China, and how flimsy was Russian prestige even before the Japanese lowered it still more. Finally, when our contemporary expresses the opinion that the British ships at river ports should be sufficiently numerous to keep up our prestige vis-à-vis cellent friends the Japanese," we think it is so "destitute of imagination" that it has failed to recognise what we imagine may well have been one of the intentions of the parties to the Anglo-Japanese contract.
RUSSIAN PRESTIGE.
*4
our ex-
Daily Press, 6th April. We have on several occasions recently, that is to say, since the Russo-Japanese war took the decided turn it has taken, treated as obvious what no one seems to have thought of disputing that Russian prestige is irretrievably lost for at least this gener- ation. Recent statements coming from Europe give us pause; make us consider if that assertion was not too sweeping. Military prestige, perhaps, yes. But is warlike renown, the reputation of the con- queror at arms, the only prestige worth Considering? There is the statement that Russian officials engineered that premature and wholly incorrect report of the Dogger Bank Enquiry Con mission, in order that English newspapers might comment upon it; and then allowed all journals containing such comments to enter Russia uncensored,
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
a
281
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give Russian officialdom credit for unusual gained by many "griffins," perhaps because shrewdness. If we may accept only half there are so many discontented cynics who the conclusions of writers like PUTNAM are diligent in imparting such instruction to WEALE, who professes to know Manchuria the new arrival. "Even before he steps off better and more intimately than the the ship that brings him to the new world Londoner knows the Strand, we must to which he looks forward so eagerly, he admit that "for ways that are dark," and may be told that the British communities tricks not altogether vain, the Chinaman in the Orient are characterised by the can give the Muscovite a long start and a most virulent forms of snobbery. The beating. The most transparent failure of great social distinction drawn between these wily schemes is to be noticed in the money and no money, between public ser- real public feeling in Russia. If Russian vice and private trade, and, in the instance officials did think to deceive their con- of the latter, the social advantage of belong- stituents (a quite inadvertent sarcasm, that)ing to the Wholesale, as opposed to the by importing bogus news in the way sug Retail,-all these are earnestly pumped into gested, they have gained prestige for an the young man, until he loses all joy of astuteness that should bring them success; possession in his new dress-coat, and starts but they have experienced the inevitable the life Oriental in a state of distressful failure that must cost them more prejudice. He is (if we may confine our- than they gained. The reported as- selves temporarily to this one type) ill at cendency of the war party (sure to be ease when making new acquaintances, being REUTER'S, again) is silly thing to full of mistrustful thoughts inspired in the flash from West to East. The war party way indicated; and when, as he inevitably in Russia, being the official party, has never must, he encounters some individual too ceased to be ascendent, even when a bomb busy, too pre-occupied, to take the trouble ‘has exploded under some illustrious member to rake over and through this superimposi
of it. Russian public feeling, according to tion of handicapping folly, he perhaps L. VILLARI in the Monthly Review, still is becomes a little bitter, and reflects on things that the war is an unmitigated curse, and he has heard about some leading local light the policy that led up to it criminal folly. of redundant periphery and resplendent As to the bait of peace to secure a new war watch-chain having come out as a ship's loan, it might work, remembering how steward or something of the sort.
" He is easily the money market may sometimes be no better than I," be soliloquises; therein coaxed, and what an inducement there is showing (now that we are enlightened as t›› for those who, already deeply in, plunge the working of his mind) where the real further in order to save and recoup; but we snobbery lies. Thinking of these things, will be exceedingly surprised it Russia does we wish often that some new and more succeed, after recent revelations, in securing charitable THACKERAY would arise to give more European money at anything like us a new "Book of Snobs," something to normal rates. These statements, as we show, as indeed TRACKERAY has shown to have said, indicate that Russia has retained discriminating readers, that a person may a certain sort of prestige; but it is of the be a snob and yet escape damnation. As kind that enables us to recognise how im- GEORGE MOORE says, "The one eternal and portant it is that any form of prestige, to immutable delight of life is to think, for be of use, must be deserved. And even this one reason or another, that we are better later prestige, it seems to us, is based on than our neighbours." There is the snob- fallacies. The conduct of a suicide surprises bery of cash, which could be defended on a jury so much that it verdicts "temporary various grounds. If a recent dictum be insanity." In the case of Russia, they are accepted, that a man's value to the world also surprised, and conclude that behind is the value of his earnings, we may argue all these erratic movements there must be that conspicuous financial success implies some deep design. Poor Russia!
in a man a certain superiority over his fellows; and on economic grounds it is a good thing that moneyed folk are
"stand- offish" with those of lesser means. Good for the latter, we mean, for it absolves them from the necessity of wasteful expenditure to keep up appearances; and it ought to act as an incentive to them to bide their time, to be careful and industrious, that someday they may go and do likewise. It only needs to conjure up such a situation as that of a millionaire and a poor man trying to spend a holiday together, to show how unsuitable are such associations. The former is sub- jected to the discomfort of travelling third class; the latter to the humiliating reflection that he has caused such discomfort, The question of hotels offers like difficulties ; the emulative LACKCASH must either pay more than he can afford, or feel "small." Another kind of snobbery may be religious. The Pharises was a religious snob. Even then, since it sets a standard for the in- dividual, ou the principle of noblesse oblige, may we not argue a certain value for snob- bery? In all its forms, snobbery could be thus defended, as one of the forces which move men to effort, sometimes foolish, no doubt; but, at any rate, effort and euter- prise. Returning now to its application to the East, we may express our conviction that the "griffin" was mistaken. There is enough snobbery to make the statement in our open- ing quotation false; but not more than there is at Home or elsewhere. It may take different forms in different localities; but
so that the Russian people might see for themselves, by unimpeachable English ad- missions, bow Russia had scored a triumph in that particular affair. There is also the statement that all these reports of peace negotiations have been deliberately inspired by Russian officials, in order that a general belief in the near-at-hand cessation of the war may restore public confidence in Russian finances, and so enable Russia to raise a fresh foreign loan with which to continue the war! There are numerous other similar statements attributing to Russian statecraft a far-sighted cunning that it were feeble and inadequate to dub Machiavelian, for the crafty Florentine himself could scarcely see so many movs ahead in the great international chess-play, as Europe seems now disposed to give St. Petersburg credit for. Is this not prestige? Prestige of a kind to count? It would
SNOBBERY IN THE FAR EAST,
(Daily Press, 7th April.) "In the colonies the lines of class demarca- tion are generally fainter than in the mother-country. As in the East a street fig-seller of yesterday may be a Pasha to- morrow, so in the colonies it is even now easier for a poor man to become rich than in countries where Possession has secured ninety-nine points of the Law. Besides, so many men now rich were themselves póor a few years ago, that they have not had seem that Europe would be ready, suppos- time to have their new rank patented." ing some great natural cataclysm in the Far This passage is taken from an address on East were to swallow up Japan and all the subject of education in South Africa, her forces, to give Russian diplomacy that was delivered before the members of credit for in 8ome way bringing it the Royal Colonial Institute, and that about. The survival of the fittest, it appeared in the last issue of the Institute's is often necessary to point out, does not Journal. How far the ideas therein ex- imply the survival of the strongest. Cun-pressed are justly applicable to the South ning in innumerable instances defeats mere strength; and if we are to believe that St. Petersburg enjoys a tithe of the preter- natural wisdom which we have dropped into the habit of attributing to it, there can be no question which nation will survive in the long run. There is a cunning which defeats itself, however, like that which is foolishly ascribed to the head-hiding ostrich; and if we carefully weigh Russian schemings in China with Russian results achieved, we
sill find that there is no serious occasion to
African colony, we are not in a position to say; but entertain the opinion that in this colony, and in other British settlements in the Far East which, in connection with any consideration of the subject so suggested, must be counted as British colonies, it does not present a truthful picture of society. We have no intention, however, of proceed ing to the opposite extreme, of affirming that the lines of class demarcation are peculiarly strong in British communities out here. This is the early impression
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