used to be. Professors of vulcanology will think this nonsense, and so it is; but it is at lesst natural. An event which turned in ten short minutes a large city and ten miles of environs into a silent cemetery is humanly expected to bave consequences in proportion. Since that cataclysmic holocaust, more or less serious disturbances have occurred all over the world, many of them almost as important as the more familiar and recent occurrences in Formosa, Madagascar, Italy, and America. Greece, Far Eastern Russia, Cornwall, Syracuse, India (notably the destructive Bandar Abbas affair), Dakota, Portugal, New York, Persia, Philippines, Algeria, Saxony, Jerusalem, Derbyshire, Hungary, Wales-all those places are named in the list of notable earthquakes occurring since Mt. Pelee erupted; and in this connection it is of interest to recall that San Francisco lad a
warning in 1902, when severe shocks were reported at Los Alamos, California, in July and August of that year. Much of San Francisco is built on reclaimed land, like our local Praya, which may account for the wholesale way in which the first buildings collapsed. But it seems to be clear that the shock, though comparatively short, was a most severe one; and its effects will doubtless make architects in that part of the world think twice about the "skyscraper question. A curious point has been raised in connection with the fire insurance of the ruined property. It appears that many American policies debar fire losses caused by earthquake, and may be argued that all the recent fires had such an origin.
RELIGIOUS MAMMALS.
"
(Daily, Press, 25th April) Judging from a Times review of "The Tree of Life", a new study of the origins of religion, the author of “The Mystic Rose has been leaving sane anthropological research for less safe metaphysics. It is a little difficult to disentangle what is Mr.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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it was "the only spring of religious im- pulse", but simply this, that human fear, born of human ignorance, was the mother Eve of all supernaturalism.
RUSSIA'S FAR EASTERN INTERESTS.
[April 30, 1908.
to establish a permanent, army of qœoupa tion, they urge that colonists be encourageck in every possible way to settle there, sent circumstances are unlikely to continue, because
::4༔
ST. GEORGE AND EGREGIOUS ENGLAND.
(Daily Press, 27th April.)
"the riches of our Pacific coasts, are too..great. and too ill-guarded for foreigners to keep their, hauds off them, all the more as the, article in (Daily Press, 26th April.)
the Portsmouth Treaty conceding to the The recent report that, in connection with Japanese the right to fish along our costs the mysterious Russo-Chinese negotiations, Accordingly, we ought to take measures for the,
opens a wide field to all kinds of plundering, the Russian Minister at Peking had pre- real occupation of thee rich regions ourselves. sented to China what was practically an by means of colonists who will people the cOURI | ultimatum,_is a report difficult to take try and exploit its resources. The history of seriously. If M. PokoriLow did threaten every colonising enterprise olearly, shows that to send the women and children out of the protection of an unpeopled and uncultivated Siberia, he might be perpetrating a ridicu-country is impossible if there are no colonists, lous "bluff"; but the probability is that he while it is possible if there are. colonista, even
colonists who exploit the country in a wasteful: | did nothing so foolish. Of all that has manner."
been said and written of the recent denoue-Failing this, they say, they should honour. ment in the Far East, there has been ably liquidate all their Far Eastern nothing to really enlighten our curiosity as "dominions" now, and "so spare ourselves the to how the Russians regard the altered state
humiliation of having them taken from us by, of affairs. Their own internal troubles, the yellow-skinned Asiatics or the white. following so soon after the debacle, helped skinned Americans". The journal hope to divert attention, of course; and in any shat Russia will not be dilatory “as usual”. case it is the way of the world to watch the but submit the question at once to the bearing of the conqueror with most concern, Imperial Duma. for a time at least. But many people, reflecting upon the tremendous alteration in the Russian national status, must have wondered just how and what the Russians have heen feeling. A leading article in the Novoe Fremya, ELS translated by Mr. FRANCIS MCCULLAGH, late of Tokyo, helps to give a little insight into this field of speculation. The Russian journal notes that "our possessions on the Pacific coast' are connected with Russia in three ways, There is the line of railway (part of which runs through Chinese territory), the river Amur (impassable six months a year), and the ocean route. The Novoe Vremya pes- simistically regards the latter as the weakest of the three. Recent events had proved conclusively that in war time it is completely closed, "and ther fore it will be necessary to leave communication by sea completely out of the question, and not to think of sending transports or men. of-war ". As regards naval power, then, we may take it that the feeling is at present one of despair. Russian history, however, is against any theory that that despair will continue forever; they have had either splendid vitality and courage in the past, or alse very short
memory. Similar pessimism distinguishes the consideration | of railway communication. Our contem. porary says that they no longer possess Manchuria, aud gone is "the aureole of strength and invincibility " which encircled their brows, It would take an entire year to raise an army strong enough t› regain and hold the railway, and offensive move- ments even then would be out of the question. "The Japanese could now march
on
ERNEST CRAWLEY's from what is the Times reviewer's; but on the whole we suspect that the sense is the thinker's and the nonsense the critic's. The reviewer Buys it is undoubtedly true that the religious impulse is individualistic, not altruistic, but he strangely canuot accept Mr. CEAWLEY'S hypothesis that basic religion is ☛ vital instinct akin to the instinct of self- preservation. Why, if so, be demauds, shond it not be implanted in the other mammals? Now the fanciful belief that it may be we do not champion, but we may safely, quarrel with the critic's assumption that it is not. No one as yet has proved or reasonably established the negative; and on the other hand, there is the singing of certain birds to consider, that singing which is not prompted by the amative Harbin and we could do nothing." nstinct of spring, and its consequent Also, they do not believe that China could pugnacity. The autumn evensong of the be induced to remain neutral another time, thrush might well be attributed to au or when, to quote their own characteristic impulse to worship. On the same point, expression, "the next Russo-Japanese war the critic makes what we must regard as takes place". There is the best reason, they another pure assumption, when he says, "if think, to expect China's active participation the vital desire were the only spring of in the struggle. If the Chinese have not religious impulse, we should expect to
been over-reached in recent negotiations, find the lore of life strongest and we do not think they have, we among savage races, whereas in fact it anticipate that they will be confirmed in is among these races that the fear the fath of La HUNG-CHANG, that it is
death and the will
live is better to quietly watch while thieves weakest". (He probably means the “fear of fall out, 20 that hopest folk death" is strongest.) As to the will to regain their Own in a frugal way live
we should imagine its best index, However, the final conclusion of our suicide, practically confined to civilisation, Russian contemporary is that there is no would tell otherwise. What Mr. CRAWLEY means of communication with their Far meant by the instinct of vitality inspiring Eastern possessions that is not utterly. pre. the religious impulse was doubtless, not that i carious, and as it seems out of the question
to
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may
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The compilers of the annual report and, year book for 1905 of the Royal society of St. George appear to be serious-minded persons, determined to regard their association 8 a miasion rather than a hobby. They have only just discovered, however, that there are kindred societies at Shanghai and Yokohama, and have never so much as heard of the St. George's Society at Hongkong. The local SECRETARK ought really to encourage them, with news of the moral support of Hongkong. The year-book suubs rather too severely our contemporary the Japan Chronicle, whịch. bad indulged in a dream of cosmopolitanjam, and had disavowed all aympathy with
parochial patriotisin". Bemarking ins cidentally that China is the only country that does not teach patriotism, the report says it is not wrong to thank God we are Euglishmen. On the contrary, we should be "still more thankful that we are not cold-blooded cosmopolitans who love no country, but only themselves". The Rt. Hon. Sir JOHN COLOMB's plea for a wider patriotism may not be inconsistent with the idea of the Society; but it does not seem to harmonise with the comments, that accompany
it on "The New Ministry". It
is a queer sort of patriɔtism which, finde - out what few of us, would, have noticed. that the new British Government practically excludes Englishmen (and Irishmen) ! We read the amazing statement that with the single exception of Sir Enward. Grey the English members may be classed, no
Anglophile. Scots". That the, repres sentatives of England are relegated to minor posts" is dismaying; and we du hope that Sir HENRY Cameball BayxERMAN will, as requested, bear in mind that it is not as the Prime Minister of Scotland tha he has been returned to power. "As Englishmen and Imperialista. (P.) we cannot regard the exclusion from, ofien of our countrymen with equanimity. The salaries" (almost a Scottish touch, this)" attached to the respective offices, ajp comparatively unimportant"; but English- men should have had “a just share of the loaves and fishes '." It would really appear, adds this distressing report, as if “no English need apply," were already, displayed, over the portals of every Government, Depart-