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190
WEIHAIWEI,
Do
(Daily Press, 21st September.) To read the Wei-ba-wei report for 1906 is to gather the impression that Mr. J. H. STEWART LOCKHART, the Commissioner, would have entitled it "Ichabod," if the Colonial Office permitted journalistic head- ings of any sort. As already noted, the chief local event of the year was the dis- bandment of the Chinese Regiment, sudden, surprising, and arbitrary freak of the Department at Home, for which British subject in the Far East has succeed- ed in guessing the reason or justification. The Commissioner between the lines breathes respectful disapproval, and other residents appear to have been fluttered considerably. The disappearance of that regiment, writes Mr. STEWART LOCKHART, is in many ways a great loss to the Territory. It was well-behaved, smart, and efficient, and though the Commissioner does not permit himself to suggest so, it seems silly to abandon the excellent result of a good deal of pains and care in training and disciplin- ing taken by the officers and N.C.O's responsible. It is a specimen of the heart-
breaking discouragements that home-staying
arm-chair bureaucrats at Home are for ever
springing on the men who toil on the front- iers of the Empire for the national prestige. As a step towards abandoning Wei-hai-wei altogether, it would have been more in- telligible, but in that matter the British Government does not seem able to make up its mind to a plain yea or nay. Some in- dication of the waste of money is afforded by the remark that there are now many buildings, formerly used by the garrison, unoccupied and useless, and no prospect of tenants or buyers, we suppose, for a long time to come. In addition to that, the departure of the soldiers neces-itated the appointment of a district officer and more police. The revenue for the year was $76,777, and the expenditure $160,899. Each year there has been a deficit of from three to twelve thousand dollars, which the British taxpayer has bad to provide. The Com- missioner's administration of the Territory would seem to be as nearly ideal as a British adaptation of an excellent Chinese theory can be. There are 26 d strict bead- men, responsible for about a dozen villages each, who ably assist the two magistrates, much as prefects used to ease the burden of the house masters at school. The arrange ment, we can readily believe, has worked very satisfactorily and is much appreciated by the people. Before the British Govern- ment takes any further step with regard to Wei-hai-wei, it might find it useful and instructive to take a plebiscite of the wishes of the natives. Coming to the trade, agriculture, and industries of the Territory, we read that the imports for last year showed a considerable increase in kerosene oil, yara and piece goods, sugar, and dyes. A great deal of Japanese timber was also imported. Rice and refiued sugar seem to have been the biggest imports, while rice, salt, and groundnuts were the chief exports. Nuts and seeds were exported in greatly increased quantities. We cannot discover any ex- planation of the movement of rice; of why * 92,000 piculs should be imported and 95,000 piculs exported. Of the importance of the trade generally, the Commissioner takes no exaggerated view; he is not sanguine as to future development. He also inscribes a terse obituary of the Wei-bai-wei Gold Mining Company, of whose lingering illness we have had to speak before. This time, we suppose, it is to be K.I.P. Fruit growing seems to promise well as an industry of the future,
[September 30, 1907.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Commercial shipping entering during the primitive weapons, than be heir to all the year aggregated 363,202 tons (473 steamers) comforts and improvements of science and as against 873,864 tons (562 steamers) in | invention. But that is only a phase. The 1905. Education is well looked after, crime triste feeling soon passes. The Simple Life and sickness is rare. also has its drawbacks; and unlike the has decreased, "Othello's occupation," Wei-hai-wei's raisun writer in The Rudder, we do not find it d'être, seems to have gone; it is "not so impossible to say " which is the better life," frequently or regularly visited by ships-of-or at least which, with liberty of choice, we war."
MIXED MORALISINGS.
(Daily Press, September 28rd.)
An excellent article on the early history of steam navigation, in the yachting monthly, The Rudder, concludes with the following | curious reflection:
"To-day we are becoming as dependent on machinery, our slaves of iron and steel, as was the Roman upon his human slaves at the most effete period of the Empire. We can scarcely move without the aid of machinery. Men have almost lost the power of locomotion. We cannot climb the stairs, and in order to obtain sufficient physical exeroise are obliged to resort to all kinds of artificial exercises. For our food supply we are absolutely dependent upon our machine slaves. If to-morrow the steam engine were to strike and refuse longer to assist us, we ahould die like flies in Autumn: Our great oilies within hirty days would be filled with starving people. We live from hand to mouth, trusting that our slaves of transportation will not fail us; but if they should, how terrible the situation! It is almost impossible to realise what the failure of steam would mean.
Civilisation is physical degeneracy; it is one of Nature's methods of destroying that which she creates, nourishes, and then seemingly grows weary of. Although we delight to talk of our civilisation as a splendid manifestation of human forces, although we glory in its results and prate of its splendours, in our hearts we realise that we are paying for these things with the coin of our bodies. Which is the better life, that of the savage or that of the civilis-d, it is impossible to Bay. blinds us to the real delights and beauties of The glamour of civilis tion existence. Like the migrating bird, we are entranced by the intensity of its glare, and dash and beat ourselves to death, willing to perish when we have once known the ecstasy of that instant of exhilaration."
would pick for ourselves. It is quite pos sible that soon after bows and arrows were invented, some thinker harked back to the period of clubs and spears, and mourned the decadence of the rice. If all who imitated Lor's wife shared her fate, there would be no scarcity of salt. It is more natural, some- how, when encountering the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," the imman. ent, incidental, and inevitable disabilities of existence, to look back than to look forward, We know that yesterday was; to-morrow that it should be so, but if you think it over. may never come. Moreover, it is curious you will admit that we are nearly all apt to be optimists when reviewing "the good old times," and pessimists when peering into the unknown future. Under" civilization, the struggle for existence may be more hurried; we cannot think it was less poignant to the bygoue unfortunates. In the ultimate analysis, there is probably very little difference between now and then. "Devil take the hindmost" was and is the motto, though civilization is perhaps mealier-mouthed about it. The socialists and collectivists think they could change the law of life, but we doubt it, nay, are sure they cannot. Nature is not mocked. The clock may be stopped, but time goes on just the same. KOHALETH, and OMAR KHAYYAM, and many others, have really anid all there is to say about it. Those who are too busy living to prattle about Life with a large L are the ones who really score.
CHINESE ESPERANTO.
(Daily Press, September 24th.) The originator of the Tower of Babel story It is true that we have to pay for all we must have been an observant man familiar get, but never in the history of the world with the helplessness of peoples unable to was it otherwise. Arcadia never did exist; communicate with each other. Anything Eden was impossible on the face of it. more helpless than a person in need of some- Those of us who have inherited instiucts thing for which he is unable to ask, among that survive and come to the surface of our foreigners, it would be difficult to think of Whatever it may have been in the feeling, occasionally do sigh for the old days offhand. and the old ways. In the hunting field it far and almost unimaginable past, the is the primal joy of living that returns to us language of signs is an inadequate business for a brief while; wandering through the as we know it. Only the most elementary expressions can be produced, and those woods or through unfamiliar country our
senses are the liable to be amusingly misunderstood. roving eyes and alert symptoms of a renascent fervour; beating Writings and pictures and diagrams are, of up against a stiff breeze in a lumpy sea, the course, out of the question, as altogether too thrill that mounts up from the hand on the cumbersome to be of service in every day tiller to the heart of the yachtsman is the needs. Men want among their very first same thrill that shook our simple forebears. and most pressing daily requirements & The sight of the windjammer pleases, while language, a vocal medium of thought ex- the smoke-stacks and churning screws of change; and since they have developed the the liner repel; the cry of the sea-bird is nomadic habit to an extent their wandering forebears could never have dreamed of, the music, while the distant hoot of the au- tomobile ashore somehow serves to bring trouble that cause I the cessation of building disenchantment. That is a remembering operations at the Tower of Babel has forced instinct Breasting the wind over the crest itself upon their notice, with the result that we have the Esperanto enthusiasts and their of the hill, after a stiff climb, we are not attuned to admiration of the locomotive just like. When the language difficulty presents disappearing round a curve in the distance. itself within the confines of what purports Feeling as we do, primal emotions resurgent to be oue Empire, one people with common within us, all these modern inventions appear national int rests, it is obviously aggravated. intrusive, discordant; we regret civilization If it be a desideration that a man should be and its so-called blessings, and are moved to able to make himself understood wherever envy of the tribes still left undisturbed in he goes, it is clearly of the first importance We that he should not encounter misunder- their jungle or mountain fastnesses. think we would rather be a head hunter in standing while he goes about his own
Yet in Unina, as the attentire ! Formosa, or a Tibetan on the Himalyan | country. heights, than a cockney in London or a schoolboy knows, there are several speech in use, and a good dent hustler in New York; rather have expan- mediums
and inconvenience: sive lungs, sturdy limbs, clear sight, and I of
confusion
It