November 12, 1906.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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319
has been led to underestimate the importance | skeleton, disclosing the hitherto hidden eeria feeling appropriate to juvenile of the issue at stake. This also would seem | background. Leafless, livid, dead—it is memories of enchanted lands. However, as to throw a flood of light on the apparently quite clear that no sensible herbivore, self.satisfied content of Sir ROBERT HART himself, as to what may befall should the office be suddenly vacated. For our own immediate readers, it is expedient only to hint that the big journals at Home know no more of what is really going on than does Sir EDWARD GREY, and it would be decidedly improper at present for those who do know to expose the hopes that are being entertained for the ultimate appointment of a man regarded as stronger than either the present INSPECTOR-GENERAL
or his deputy. Our previous hint that interna- tional jealousies have all along been more important than Chinese diplomacy in this connection should not be overlooked.
"}
AN INTELLIGENT PLANT..
(Daily Press, 6th November.) AT Kowloon, on an unoccupied lot that lies just beyond the new post-office, and that is traversed from corner to corner by a well- known "short cut" path, there is growing in abundance a shrub that is at once pretty remarkable and remarkably pretty. It has a palm-shaped grouping of pinnated foliage, which turns to the sunshine one of the comparatively few soft greens that are observable among the prevailing harsh, metallic greens of Oriental verdure. The few observers among the unheeling crowds that daily pass it by speak of it, when it does happen to be mentioned, as "the sensitive plant"; and although the world bas many equally wonderful, we might justly grant it the definite article, if only for the irresistible conclusion that this shrub takes a more intelligent interest in those who enter its neighbourhood than is the case vice versa. This is a big thing to kay, and may shock sme people who have failed to keep an open mind in view of the remarkable discoveries of the scientific truth-seekers of the last few decades. We must therefore attempt to justify our employment of the word "intelligence" as
however hungry, would dream of looking here for anything to eat. The remarkable thing is that the leaves not only close up and shrivel, but that their stems and petioles, previously extended at a little above the horizontal, hang down, often seeming to shrink and hide themselves along the vertical branch or trunk. This is the great difference between this and other well-known "sensitive plants " such as the Sun Dews, whose actions are predatory: it is impossible to doubt that this plant's behaviour is for self-defence. How far its mimicry of death | (and consequently of insucculency) is intelligent, a few simple experiments promise to demonstrate. It is noticed at once that the plant takes no notice of the buffetings of neighbouring grasses, blown into contact with it by the wid. It takes very little notice of the first tap or two with one of the same grasse, placked and wielded by the hand of the observer. If however, these blows are repeat-1, either rythmically or in irregular succes o, the plant seems to decide that there is so ne unusual agency present, and at once" plays possum". "There is a certain intelligence about its resumption of its firm 'r state. For three minutes it waits without any sign. In five minutes it has opened partly one is tempted to say cautiously, for if the observer make any impatient movements, this partial reanimation is maintained, and the full resurrection delayed. In short, there is an uncanny feeling of something alert and watchful in the vitals of this wonderful plant. In eight minutes, un- disturbed, the bush is again completely green and flourishing; but it requires from thirteen to fifteen minutes for the stems to recover their normal horizontality. Probably an enterprising photographer with a bioscopic cimera would get a living_picture" of remarkable interest here. We have often experimented with the carnivorous Sun Dey, feeding it alternately with an insect and a tiny pebble, and it was impossible to resist the conclusion that the plant could discriminate between the edible and the inedible. It closes on both, but it exudes no peptic fluid for the p-bble, which it soon disgorges. What is more, a healthy Sun Dew leaf has been known, in!
(L
two hours, to move towards and seize a living fly that was pinned down half an iuch away. That was surely intelligent perception. This Colony offers exceptional opportunities also for the study of the phenomena of int lligence in roots; ho they travel up. or down, or sidewise, in their hunt for congenial moisture, leaving the most extraordinary permanent proofs of their intelligent prseverance ia many uncongenial places. Witness the banyan's negotiation of stony places. Instances of what we call plant intelligence can be multiplied indefinitely, but we have space only to mention the most remarkable one
applied to a mere herb. This will be more difficult than it ought to be, because the majority cling so firmly to traditions that have been cherished so long as to be accepted as incontrovertible facts, notwith- standing that many such have been exploded in the most disconcerting manner. Condrmation of the daring theory that plants have some share of what we call intelligence was forthcoming at the last annual congress of the British Association when the microscopista dwelt on the dis- covery that plant cells are not isolated, but connected by veins as in the animal organism. This, however, was too technical to appeal to the general public, who usually follow with greater interest illustrat ons and examples that may be investigated and examined by themselves. Our Kowloon plant, then, for which perhaps some expert of the Botanical Department may be kind enough to provide us with a name, the attention of anybody who cares to devote beautiful Botanic wilderness at Singapore a few minutes to its interesting characteris- it is misleading to call them gardens-there tics. Lightly touch a leaf, and in the might have been observed four or five twinkling of un eye it seems to have ago, and we suppose still, a ground creeper disappeared. It has folded
more sensitive than any in our experience. TOW of pinnates against the other, It did not wait to be touched, but as people and where just before a tender green
or animals approached, while they were still fan outspread, there now hangs some.
two or three yards off, it clapped its leaves thing like a withered twig. Select an together as a butterfly shuts its wings. So outstanding bush of it, the most conspicuous quickly and so p-rsistently did its neigh. bours take warning and do likewise, that mass of foliage, and flick the stem with a finger; it is positively bewildering. The for yards ahead the pedes rian was persuaded observer will wish for a camera to prove that some small animals were leaping about that his eyes have not been deceived. For among the grass. The discovery that ther, there remains only a wintry looking was really nothing but vegetation evoked
invites
up one
we
have
80
far
encountered.
In the
years
WO hava suggested, Kowloon présents a handy object lesson for anyone disposed to take an interest in the modern belief that the relations of the children of Nature are as close as that phrase implies. Not only meu and apes are blood brothers, but it looks as if we must shortly welcome our sister the cabbage.
"We be of one people", said KIPLING's Mowgli" to the snakes, and slowly the scientists are preparing us to recognise, in even greater degree than COLERIDGE did, inat 'he prayeth best who loveth best all things or great or small", for it is only proper that we should love our
relations.
RUSSIA IN ASIA.
(Daily Press, November 7th.) If the recent statements by Mr. PUTNAM WEALE as to the condition of affairs in the Russian Far East cannot be accepted by all with absolute confidence--and he has his critics-confirmation of a wholesale nature has lately been provided by the Russian newspaper Novoe Vremya, which no one can expec. to be troubled with either pro-Japanese or anti-Slav tendencies. In a recent lending article, it made statements almost identical with many of those we lately quoted as emanating from the brilliant author of the Reshaping of the Far East". Trade and manufacture in the Primorski region is,
#
our
Russian contemporary has stated, absolutely undeveloped, so far as Europeans understand the term. Its undoubted natural riches are practically untouched, and the country remains almost in its primitive condition. In fact, the Novoe Vremya admits, "during all the time that it has had control of the Primorski region, our Government has made no serious attempt to colonize it and to increase its material prosperity. On the contrary Europeau Russia continued up to 1900 to send thither the refuse of its criminal population-hardly a good method of raising the intellectual and economical level of the country. Its commercial policy was characterized by routine, and by a complete ignorance of local conditions, thanks to which the Government continually swung from a high tariff to free trade and up to the present it has not made up its mind as to which of these systems it shall adopt. This want of decision on the part of the Government has, of course, a bal effect on cal trade and commerce". Mr. WEALE concluded that
Russia had no Far Eastern policy at all at present. The domestic disorder in European Russia had dislocated the overseership of interests so far away, and local jealousies, couple with a general pessimism among the disheartened officials on the spot, were against any consistent attempts at govern- ing and developing these rich regions
which Russia has annexel but never The translation of the yet assimilated. Russian comments referred to indicates that there is, however, more than one policy, and the writer proceeds to discuss a question closely affecting the co.numercial interests of these parts. It appears that notwithstanding the pressure of graver affairs at home, the Far East has not been overlooked at St. Petersburg, which indeed we might have fairly assumed from the evident contro! maintained by the bureaucracy over the powers of the Minister
same situation as some of our Colonial at Peking, who finds himself much in the Governments have lately done under a Colonial Office that can boast of the energetic assistance of a WINSTON CHURCHILL special commission has been sitting at the