May 19, 1906.3
THE SOCIAL TERTIUM QUID.
(Daily Press, 16th May.) Allowing for some of the exaggeration which
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
for trouble, the suicide's way, if they had to | experience half the privations of the honest fellow who keeps a roof over wife and weans, pays his own doctor's bills, and
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earn seems a necessary concomitant of nll | fights the demon debt with the same energy valued servants, that remark would hold
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there was a certain reasonable ness in the article by "GEORGE EGERTON", published in Saturday's issue of this journal. The poor we have always with us"--the professional poor perhaps we may say, to distinguish the pet objects of sentiment and pity from that mute, inglorious army of middle-class serfs who suffer worse pangs than the submerged tenth, as a conse- quence of that "decent pride" which others all a "shoddy ideal". These "hardest and worst paid workers of the country", who march under no clamorous banners, who enjoy no eight hours' day, are, we read, the miserable buffer between the classes and the masses. They pay an unjust proportion of the taxation that provides the working man of the horny-handed variety with cheap dwellings, cheap transit, free education, free baths, free libraries, free asylums; and it is they who will most feel the pinch of paying for the half-promised free boots, free meals, and pensions. As the writer told us, "None of these benefits the middle-class mao, with the exo-ption, perhaps, of the free libraries. To send his children to the Council school would
be to negative the efforts of years of self-denial and to lower his children in the social scale; to endow them with an accent and tone which would handicap them in most of the professions; to give them a premature knowledge of evil words and facts; to fores them to mix with the off. spring of every congenital criminal who begets his kind whenever he gets a spell out of prison, of every lunatic who is cast out of the asylum during temporary lucid intervals, of the wastrel, of the feeble-minded, and the degenerate. No, he stints a bit more, gives up bis cheap wine, his cigar, and pays for the private education of his children, and an unfair tithe to the education of those of the working man who could better
afford to contribute himself.”
Those of us who can afford to put into practice the theories of “Sartor Resartus", and kindred ideas of emancipation from convention—and it is a bold and often costly thing to do--are able to see the shoddyness of the middle-class ideal, which, however, GEORGE EGERTON" tells us is "at least an ideal whose attainment calls for thrift, self-denial, and personal respect; and, when all is said and done, this shoddy ideal is the keystone of England's greatness, the solid foundation of her Imperial Dominion". It is, moreover, an ideal which prevents the victim from crying out and drawing public
attention to his troubles.
The article came rather appropriately for Hongkong, just when we were hearing about the poor coolie's grievance with regard to high rents. It is a question whother, the house rents in this Colony do not bit others harder, those who are much higher in the social scale than the coolie, and who yet are not so in respect of propor- tionnte salary. Where the coolie pays twenty-five per cent. of his wage as rent for, his cubicle, the "middle-class serf", to adopt "GEORGE EGERTON'S" term, pays fifty per cent. or more for his flat or suite. He cannot send his wife and children into the country to live healthily and cheaply, He cannot ride in the workmen's trams, even when he is prepared to sacrifice dignity for solvency, Part of his "shoddy ideal' we suppose, is more of a stern necessity. He must maintain a certain standard of respectability of appearance, if he does not wish to risk his means of livelihood. We heard some time ago the wail of the Griffin", who complained that the cost of living was now out of proportion with wages. These luxurious young gentlemen might begin to think of the Far Eastern remedy
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that earns him all his employer can afford to pay these hard times. When we endeavour to think of his supposed circum- stances in detail, we wonder that any can be found to weep over the grinning coolie, who indulges in riotous orgies with every extra windfall of ten cents, and would presumably be quite happy if the Sanitary Board people would only refrain from bothering him with what he regards as irrelevant details. Το the academic observer, he seems a far happier individual than the BOB CRATCHITS whose troubles we have been guessing at. But, as we have said before, Mr. CRATCHIT Would probably be the first to resent pity. If as little were heard of the woes of the poor landlord (who also has his troubles) and of the poor coolie (who does not wear them on his sleeve) the Levite need not be put to the trouble of crossing the road.
THE CHINESE CUSTOMS.
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EMPRess Dowager told him two years ago that his continued presence in Peking was more necessary than ever, and if nature would but stay its course in the case of such -
good to-day. Undoubtedly much of his, influence and spirit animates his able lieutenant, ir ROBERT BREDON, who has lately relieved him of much responsibility, The change, when it comes, will be little
more than the transference of ELIJAH'S mantle to Elisha.
RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST.
( Daily Press, 18th May .) Not very long ago we quoted from Russian newspapers which induced us to the belief that in some quarters at least Russia's traditional ambition-towards the Pacific, get so notoriously unpacific-was wenkening. Striking confirmation reaches us direct from St. Petersburg, in the letter of a corres- pondent who has been attentively observ. ing the
progress of the elections. The points of resemblance between China and Russia vis-a-vis reforms continue to appear. Referring to some of the re-actionary associations which have been defeated by the Liberals, our corres- pondent, who knows Japan and North China intimately, says they are "almost Chinese in their self-complacency and their dislike of all things foreign". As samp'es of their unmistakeable backwardness, we need oul; quote two passages from their programine". One says, "The Hebrew question must be treated apart from all other allied questions, in view of the instinctive hostility of the Hebrews to, Christianity and towards nou-Hebrew races, and of their striving after world-wide domination.”
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Another says, "In the province of foreign affairs, the Tsarists attribute all the mis- fortunes of their country to its failure to interfere in the Anglo-Boer conflict. Russia had theu an unprecedented oppor- tunity of coming to the rescue of a handful of heroes fighting for their country against a powerful enemy and of also ranging on their side Germany and France. For that sin of omission we have been punished. We would now advocate a continental alliance," ie., against England.
(Daily Press, 17th May). The Elict appointing Chief Commissioners of Customs does not imply any such whole sale revolution in that department as many foreigners have feared; and the approaching resignation of Sir ROBERT HART may easily it have no connection with it whatever. has been suggested that he, or his British successor, will find the Commissioners TIEH LIANG and TANG SHAO-TI, who now take over from the Foreign Office the supreme control of the Inspectorate-General, much better to work with than the circumlocutory Wai-wu-pu. So far as the Edict itself is concerned, it contains nothing more than does its free translation as published in our previous issue. There is no talk, except among subordinate me ubers of the service, who may naturally feel qualmful, of foreigners being superseded; and if Sir ROBERT HART retires, the probability is that he will be succeeded by his relative and Deputy, Sir ROBERT BREDON, as a result of Great Britain's understanding with China. So long as British trade looms largest, so long will the Inspector-General be a Britisher. So there need be no alarm on that score. That there should have been. expressions of alarni at the change is partly crats now figure conspicuously in the new to be regarded as evidence that the Chinese Parliament, and if their influence be as have not yet earnel the coufidence of great as their present boldness, the indica. tions are that Russin in the Far Est foreigners, iu matters where the interests of the latter are involved. In respect of the will be a quite negligible quantity. The somewhat pro. Customs, of course, foreigners have every Liberals represent the right to interfere, as they have a mortgage nounced opinion, previously noted by us, on the Customs revenues until China's that Russian imperialism has been mis. obligations to them are fulfilled and dis-guided; and it is said that its Asiatio adven- charged. Sir THOMAS JACKSON reminded the Chinese Travelling Commissioners at "if the China Association's dinner that every tael of revenue found a safe resting place in the Imperial exchequer it was impossible to conceive what China might not acc.mplish", and we fancy it is well understood at Peking that at present there can be no question of treating the foreign employees of the Customs as superfluous.
There cannot be any real regret felt when Sir ROBERT HART retires, for he is well past the three-score-and-ten mark, and it would, be unreasonable to expect that he should continue to enjoy the genius for affairs that has characterised his long rule. His appointment was a unique one, his work for the last forty-three years constitutes a record of which any man might be proud, and the general admiration he has earned cannot find adequate expression. The
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The Liberals and Constitutional Demo-
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tures have a disgusted the people that. they woul I be quite indifferent to the loss of Finlaud, Poland, and Eastern Siberia. They are very outspoken as to the unpa. triotic and dishonest motives of the officials
Why did the. who form the burencracy, Government occupy Manchuria”?'demanded Mr. RODICHOFF, one of the stormiast orators of the Leit. His own immedinte answer, loudly applauded, was, In order that it might find more places for officials". From this we may gather n quite sufficient idea of, the spirit with which a Liberal Government- in Russia (should the TBAR not break his word again, and send his Cossicks to break it up) will approach the outstanding questions of the Far Ens. Of course the practical situation remains in any event satisfactory to all who fear further- Russian aggression at this end of the world. The'. Duma may be suppressed, the Liberala.
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