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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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than those false but loud-tongued flatterers who only sought their own aggrandizement, utterly regardless of any higher aim. It is well that the British Government should boldly face the situation; and this the more advisedly that many, if not the majority of the difficulties in China, have been conduced to by its inveterate habit of refusing to look its difficulties in the face.
TIBETAN TERGIVERSATION.
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[July 11, 1904. uust not be forgotten, treaty breakers al ready. That is how our Mission happens to be where it is; that is what, as Peterkin would say, they are killing each other for. The Chinese have not always enjoyed their present reputation for diplomatic probity; and the Chinese officials concerned in the recent negotiations speak of the Tibetaus as impossibles," inexpressibly stupid, and much attached to the argument known as the regressus ad infinitum. Under such circumstances, which it is really unnecessary (Daily Press, 7th July.)
to dwell upon at greater length, can any Yesterday's telegrams tell of the re- trust he put in negotiations which are not opening of negotiations with the Tibetans. as between conqueror and conquered? So The warriors of " the holy war "--the fierce, far, even with our small Mission, which was ignorant, and resentful inhabitants of the by no means meant to be a military ex Himalayan slopes-are said to have sud-peditionary force, we have conquered to denly realised the irresistible nature of the the extent of one or two inassacres, British advance, and to have expressed their which have hardly conveyed the lesson desire to negotiate with the unwelcome they would have done in the case of a invaders of their upstanding pastures. All less pachydermatous people. It is possi- humane folk would like to know of a ble, it may even be said probable, that this cessation of the dreadful slaughter that has sudden desire for pour parlera is prompted seemed necessary to persuade the Tibetans by the necessity for a respite. It was ad- that the British Mission was seeking mitted that if we had gone back before admittance on real business; but some Gyangtse, it would have cost us much more reservations appear to be necessary. Do on a second advance. Now that blood has the Tibetans really understand that the een spilt, and British lives lost, it were intentions of the Great White Chief are pity to let sentiment stand in the way of honourable; that his claims are just; and making a good job of it." The trouble his power great enough to enforce them? would only be scotched by dilly-dallying Do they, in short, now understand the real with understrappers of the Limas at this position of affairs; or are they in possession juncture. The Government having decided of some gossip of an Asian race defeating a to push on to Lhassa, will not be easily per- White in the further East; and, if so, are
suaded to abandon their purpose. It is to they (as some of the Indian papers have be hoped not, anyway; and the less weeping suggested) misled into thinking that the there is now, in the Press, about the poor, conquerors of Ind may be set at nought by dear, slaughtered heathen, the less occasion them that dwell on the roof of Ind? If for real weeping will there be in the future. by any chance they have got their relative It is not improbable, after all, that before position into proper focus, is it likely that these lines have publicity, the news of the they will enter into these later negotiations parley may be supplemented by news of with bona fide intent? For answer, it is more fighting. The true position of the surely proper to turn to the reports and euemy is suggested by their condescension comments of our own British representa in offering to "cousider the matter tives and pioneers, the men who have been abandoning their forts, after their delegates and seen. The Blue Book published earlier had sued for peace. in the present year offers overwhelming evidence against the suggestion that a treaty with unconquered Tibet could be of any durable value. Despite the voice of one missionary crying in the wilderness, that the Tibetans are a peaceful, kindly folk, we hearken to those cool, incisive official indictments of the devotees of DALAI as "jealous," "stupid," "treacher.
"'obstinate
men, not unnatura:ly objecting to trespassers upon their ages-old privacy, and determined, so far as in them lies, to do all in their power to repel the invader. They speak of it as a "holy war"; and what wars in history so long as those with priests beneath the bauners Fortunate. ly, with the change of times, methods have changed, if manners have not. The men who are opening the way for policing these troublous mountain fastnesses into some semblance of good order for the peaceful trader in their ways, are equipped with better machinery than were their ancestors who fought for the Holy Grail. On the other hand, the Tibetans, spite of the ad- vice and assistance of others who were per- haps better left unnamed, do not seem to have so much as approache the fighting weight of the old-time Saracen. They have, however, all the pugnacity that an Asian is capable of, and if the correspon- dents are to be credited, their doggedness is the doggedness of despair-always a danger- ous sort. It is nonsense to suppose for one moment that they have any of that perhaps foolish quality which impels some few of the Powers to keep treaties. To say that their word is as good as their bond is no compliment to the said bond. They are, it
British Minister in June, 1885. No greater blunder, even in an age so prodigal of blunders, was ever made; and with his acceptance of the office Sir ROBERT HART's career of usefulness may be said to have come to an end. The good administrator and the good politician are seldom combined, and Sir ROBERT was no exception to the rule; as an administrator he stood on the; highest level, and might have continued there to the end of his capacity. The British Government, without running counter to the interests of other Powers. were able to support his action; and the consciousness that this support would be forthcoming frequently enabled his recom- mendations to be cried even when they were opposed by the most reactionary methods of the Chinese obstructives. All this was changed when the Inspector-General unwisely accepted for a time the position of British Minister. It is true that the offer of the post was one extremely flattering to the self-consciousness of anyone, however high his previous position; and had Sir ROBERT ART previously been free of his engagements with the Chinese Government it might have been a wise appointment. As it was, it was evident to anyone intim- ately acquainted with the workings of the position that its acceptance must lead to endless misunderstandings, and could not be conducive to British interests. As a fact so great was the friction induced that from the very beginning the appointment
· proved a fiasco, and it became necessary to choose between Sir ROBERT as British Minis- ter and the occupancy of the Inspectorate by a British subject. More uu:ortunately still, it was subsequently arranged that the Minister, with his wings clipped, and his power for good irrevocably ruined, should go back to his former office of Inspector- General. From that time the Inspector General was almost forced to convert the office from one of administrator pure and simple into a political factor wherein he found himself opposed to all the other Powers, while the British Government for a similar reason were unable to afford him :dequate support. This was shown in a curious but instructive manner when, Sir NICHOLAS O'CONOв having been appointed Minister, an influential intrigue was started amongst all the other Ministers then at Peking, wherein it was suggested, probably without a particle of reason, that the Inspector-General and the British Ministerous," were playing into each other's hands, and so powerful was the pressure brought to bear that the Minister, contrary to all precedent, was at once sent as Ambassador to St. Petersburg. From that time till the outbreak of the Russo-Japan war British influence has steadily declined at Peking, and with British influence also that of the Inspector-General. who gradually, from being the trusted adviser of the Peking Government, sank into the position of being its humble dependent. To such an extent was this carried that in the troubles of the spring of 1900 the Inspector-tieneral, to whom the British Government, clinging fast to memories of the long ago past, trusted for information of what was going ou around him, proved to be the absolutely worst-informed îndividual in the capital.
As the question of Sir ROBERT HART's successor must arise within the immediate future, and as his retirement is openly mooted, we have unwillingly broken our usual reserve. It is true that the operation of recent events has in some slight measure restored the weight of British councils at Peking, by pointing out that on the whole they have been actuated by a greater regard for the interests of the Chinese Government
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MISREPRESENTING JAPAN,
of
(Daily Press, Sth July.) The number of writings about "Japan as she really is," "the Real Russia," and so on, continues to increase apace, there being no lack of people anxious apparently to turn a dishonest penny by relating all that they do not know about the two countries which at present loom so large in th public eye. Mousieur JULES HURET has done it, and that eminent French journalist, while an authority on the evolution of his national literature (always barring his nisestimate of the Romanticists), can scarcely claim. equal right to respect for his opinions on Far Eastern matters. When he says that the Russians are far from being a, warlike nation, he must be shutting his eyes to the long list of battles and conquests which ex- panded Russia, south, west, and very far east. He is equally incorrect in stating that Japan has still kept "ber fauatic belieć in Buddha." His recital of Japanese
massacres as far back as 996 B.c. slow that
he has neglected t observe the little dis- tinction between legend and history; and his murder of 47,000 Christians in Japan in the reign of Louis XIV. is a prima facie absurdity. There never have been so many Christians in Japan at any one time, native or foreign. Much of this attribution of bloodthirstiness to the Japanese is the result of a bad attack of Yellow Peril fever, aud for the rest, M. HURET has been misled, like the rest of the world, by careless (or worse) writers. Whether it be as
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