August 29, 1895.]
by H.M. Consul and no doubt this request, baokod
up as it Was in person by the U.S. Consul, had the effect of placing the launch at our disposal. The insinuation therefore that he did not ask for a steam launch to meet the wounded is untrue. The Consul wrote to the Viceroy appointing Monday, not Wednesday, to see his Excellency. I have no doubt H.M. Consul, when he returns, will be able to answer for himself, but in the interests of justice and fairplay I send you this during his absence.
Another correspondent, referring to the above, writes to our contemporary as follows:-
Ou perusing the letters in to-day's paper one might well imagine Mr. Mansfield crying, "Save me from my friends."
According to these letters Mr. Mansfield left Fooohow early on the Saturday in order to reach | Kuliang "in the cool of the morning." He was met half-way up the hill, seven mil s only from Foochow, without sna hut or umbrella or chair, and though it was not dangerous for him to go on apparently, it was as much as his life was worth" to return with the messengers the seven miles to Foochow “in the broiling sun' "in the nool of the morning." (The letters show that the messengers reached Foochow early on Saturday, which confirms the statement as to its being "the cool of the morning.")
Therefore the excuse about sun hat and umbrella only makes the Consul's conduct appear the more contemptible.
-CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
for that
159
HUNAN TO BE OPENED.
the real type of nation to which China belongs. We are accustomed to consider her uncivilized There is no longer any need for our French or savage, but we do not recognise the true friends concealing the very important enter nature of this want of civilization. We know prise which they have on hand in the centre of that the Fuegians and the Kafirs are uncivilized, China, which means nothing more or less than and are in the habit of placing uncivilizad the opening up of, the most conservative and nations together in one class and thinking that anti-foreign province in China-Hanan. We the type is throughout the same and that havə several times of late mentioned the generally the method of treatment should be the
the gunboat Lutin same. There could be no mysterious mission of
greater mistake. in the Yangtsz, anl a few days ago we Though they may both possess many traits link- reported that her destination was the Tungtinging them together as members of low types, Lake. We now learn from a reliable informint there is
a trait present in the one which is: at Hankow that in ad lition to the extra offtoers entirely abs at in the other. Between such and crow, the Lulia has og þard M. Emil types as that of the Faegian and the Chinese Rocher, who is to be the cisf of the French there is all the difference existing between an Commercial Mission now being organised to ignorant child and an old idiot. As we should exploit China by the unitel French Chambers of meet out to the former a far different treatment Commerce. M. Rocher was formerly Com from that which we should adopt towards the missioner of Customs in the I.M. Chines latter, so also much stronger measures are neces- service, which he afterwards left
sury in the case of a great nation grown old and of his own country in Tonkin. He has rigid than in the cise of a small people still travelled extensively im Southern Chiua,
young and pliable. The differencs indeed is and is the author of the standard work on greater than appears at first sight; for while a Yunnan, "La Province Chinoise du Yunnan." young uncivilized tribe or nation may with truth M. Rocher's prasant mission is, we understand, to be compared to an nacultured child, we find in advise the French Govorament as to the best old rigid natious not that they have lost the point in the Tungting Lake for the establishment wis lom they once had, as is often the case in of a Treaty Port, Opinion is said to be divided senility in man, but that they have grown old between Changteh-fu, Changsha fu, and Yochow without acquiring wisdom. Whilst the national fu. So far we understand nothing definits as to body is that of an adult, the national mind is the exact site has been settled, though politically that of a child. And the mistake of supposing the opening of the provincial capital Changsha the two types to be ideutical has led to the moro What we want to know is, what was tho to foreigners would be the greatest triumph for serious mistake of supposing that the remedies Consul doing from "early morning" till "early French diplomacy and the cause of progress in both oases should be identical. Let us glanja the same evening." whilst the American Con- generally in China, while Chang teh and Yoohow at the solutions of the question which have ben sul was busy doing our Consul's work, and are both greater places commercially than the suggested. exerting himself to secure transport, and capital. Bat we must wait further information.
Having had five thousan1 years in which to organise the relief party, which his Marshal We believe, however, that the opening of a become civilized, and having acquired in that accompanied in the absence of the British port in Hunan is one of the conditions of the immense period bat an infinitesimal portion of Consul?
new Franco-Chinese Treaty, which is as yet a civilization as compared with that acquired by It is to be hoped that Consul Mansfield's ex-sealed book to British diplomats and like every other nations in one-fifth of the time, the Chi- planation, if he coudescends to give one, will thing else not understood awakens suspicion and nese people may rightly be regarded as incap. include something a little less paltry and vague terrors, where probably, when the full able of self-advancement. Even if any possible ridiculous than the lack of sun hat or umbrella, document is published, there will be found to conditions admitted of their being left to them- and the fatigue of a walk of seven miles in "the be no cause for such fears. The opening selves, we cannot by any effort of imagination oool of the morning"-not to mention the possi- of Hunan by any nation will be an im conceive the nature of the people, after being bility of obtaining a chair, or at least the loan mense gain to all foreiga interests in China, unchanged for so long, suddenly taking to itself of an umbrella; otherwise your correspondent's as it will strike at the very heart of the anti-
a new character and bursting forth into new life. simile of a modern Nero fiddling at Kucheng's foreign devil, and tend to enlighten the natives Not only have we no warrant for believing that burning" will not be so very absurd.
of the most ignoraut and prejudiced province as it could do this, but thers are very strong rea- to the true object of the mission of the Ocoi
sons, depending on biological and psychological dental in China. A few years back a great laws too long to state clearly in a small space, fuss was made about a projected visit to the for believing that it could not do it. No solution The Kucheng massacre is still the subject of shores of Hunan by a British man-of-war of the question, then, is to be looked for from the greatest interest here. So far as any of us with Mr. Consul Chris. Gardner ou board, within. And if the solution cannot come from can learn, it is the American Consul who is but it proved abortive and never eventnated
within it must, if it is to be brought about at all, practically looking after the whole affair and
as the Americans say. It will be a nasty jar for come from without. There are only three con- pushing matters with commendable energy. British diplomacy to have the work which it ceivable ways in which it can so come by forces You already have had full particulars as to failed so miserably to carry out, after openly talk-operating from a position of inferiority, of the pusillanimous manner in which the British ing about it, quietly accomplished without any equality, or of superiority. Let us ex umine each Consul acted when the news of the horrible flourish of trumpets by the French. But British of these on their merits. massacre was first heard. He has continued, diplomacy is a thing of the past, like British up to the very present, to display the prestige, in China.-China Gazette. same indifference, and while most of the British subjects are afraid to speak their minds publicly on the subject, there is great indignation felt against this Consul and his conduct every. where. The Express" that the Rev. G. B. Smyth issued on Saturday was fully justifiable,
It is said, though we believe the assertion and has already resulted in good. At. rests upon inadequate evidence, that Guillotin. first the British Consul was very hot and the inventor of the guillotine, was the victim of demanded a public retractation, which, of course, his own invention. Whether he was or not, Mr. Smyth would not make, A public meeting arranged for yesterday to discuss the there is no doubt that China, the nation which conceived and uses the ling-ch'ih process of dis- matter was postponed on account of the coming membering certain criminals before putting of the Detroit, and as the Consuls both start for them to death a savage methot adapted to a Kucheng this afternoon the matter will probably savage people is slowly dying by this self-same not be heard of again in an official manner.
process. During the course of the last few Mr. Mansfield said that if Mr. Smyth did centuries her members have, one after another- not publicly retract he would take the here a tributary state and there an outlying pr thing to Peking, and Mr. Smyth sent vince or island-been severed from the main him word by the American Consul that if he had any complaints to make of him to body, leaving at the present day hardly anything Peking he had better wait until the Shanghai the coup de grace. There remains nothing but papers came in, and he would have something the stab into the heart. worth complaining about. You will hear more about the matter if anything comes of it, and probably it will be interesting reading when it
The following, dated Foochow, 18th August, appears in the Mercury:
C4
THE LING-CH'IHING OF CHINA.
[CONTRIBUTED. Į
Did civilization consist in material advance only, or in intellectual advance only, or in moral advance only, it might be possible for an on- lightened people to make an old rigid people civilized. If living in well-built houses, using railways, and being possessed of ships of the most recent type were all that is naossary to civilization, it would be possible to make the Chinese civilized without much difficulty. But civilization consists in none of these three elements alone: it consists in them all com- bined. So long as we are lacking in any one of them we cannot be truly civilized. It is obvious, therefore, that any system which advances only the material civilization of the Chinese, even if completely successful, leaves them still two- thirds uncivilized. You may dress up a Kaffir in a neat new coat and a silk hat, but if you assert that you have by this action transformed him into an intellectual and moral man you will Take away the outward show and he is seen to be a Kaffir still. His belief that the dead revisit the earth in the form of serpents is the same as before. His thirst for This expression represents more than a mere blood has not been quouched. You have not it represents a homology. A society is changed his mind. Your attempt to pass him 0. Social aggregates and organic off as a civilized human being deceives only those Les both commence as small clusters who do not look below the surface of things, and ensibly augment in mass; both assume the farce can have but short duration. So, toɔ, e as they increase in size; both become ver more mutually dependent in their parts; The Mercury says the new Minister to Japau, and in both the life of the aggregate is Yu Loong-si, had audience with the Emperor on far longer thau and independent of the lives the 2nd instant, and left for Tientsin on the of the component units. Inadequate study of 11th. He was expected to reach Shanghai on the structures and functions of societies, past
way to his post to-day, the 26th inst.
and present, habitually shuts out from our eyes
comes.
+
only be laughed at more than the trunk itself. It is now time for
ients
ity
and if
em is
Mr. Smyth has grit, and gave police latiuually increasing complexity of struc- you may supply a nation with new ships aud new
British Consul not one particle more tha". deserved.
his
rifles, you may build her forts and arsenals, you may collect her taxes for her, without making Were her one jot more intellectual or moral. proof of this assertion needed it is ready to hand in the bombs filled with lime, the rifles supplied with the wrong cartridges, the nou-existence of half the soldiers for whom pay had been drawn
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