23, 1906,
likely to be thought seriously of when the subject lies some ten thousand miles away from St. Petersburg, and there only remains China. But China is in matters of state economy, possible, more reckless than Russia herself. Just now China is afflicted with the delusion that all she requires is to be left alone to work out her own salvation, | or destruction. If the manner in which she has treated her forests in the past be one of the signs of ber capacity she must be content to take the very lowest rank amongst nation; for not one has equalled
her in the extent to which she has wasted her own resources. In all respects then with regard to these Manchurian forests we are in an evil case. It is not only in the distress brought about by want of timber that forest destruction leaves its sting behind it, the climatal effects are still more serious, and of these it might be supposed that China has seen enough to make her cautious for the future. Nothing is more depressing to the visitant to Northern China than the climatic effects of her wastefulness in the past. Her productive land is every year being confined within narrower limits; her very soil is heing carried out seaward by the winds of Heaven acting on the now unprotected surface, while her rivers, swollen recurrently to flood by the absence of brushwood or forest, annually destroy the crops over · vast
areas. All these are preventible, and Chinese statesmen are perfectly aware of the fact; but still not one troubles himself to sound the warning note to his contemporaries. Truly of the Chinese nation it may be said that they make clean the outside of the cup and platter, while all within is reeking with rank carelessness and decay.
*
LEGAL HARDSHIPS.
66
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
A literal interpretation of the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill", was responsible for an Englishman's confinement in jail for six weeks. He was released by the Home Secretary after serving six weeks of a sentence of three months for cruelty to animals. When he was charged at Manchester it was alleged that old horses too weak to stand and supported by slings were found in his stables. At least 2,000 persons signed the petition to the Home Becretary for his release and it was argued on his behalf that he was a man of the kindliest nature, who would not hurt any living thing. He interpreted the sixth com mandment as applying to all created things, and he regularly bought old and infirm horses to save them from being shot. Hir stable was fitted up for their care, and he did all in his power to make them com- fortable and their end peaceful. It was stated that it was a collection of such horses that the officials found in his stable.
as,
Your
prejudice. The text may be found partly in | ARISTIDES, we must have the generalised the recent Hongkong police court conviction law, with its precedents, and processes, au and fine of a man guilty of possessing certain || other limitational lumber. "But if it be swords without police permission; and partly reasonable to ask the average man to think in the following excerpt:
more clearly and feel less acutely, how much more reasonable is it to expect that those who are called upon to administer the law should remember the inw's defects and limitations, and to cultivate und hat with a discretion appropriate to clear thinking? The Great Unpaid are fond of such formula
"We are very sorry for you. case seems a very hard one; but we are here to administer the law as we find it, not to amend it ". We should have more respect for this Spartan attitude if we had not noticed that the same magistrates can, on occasion (when heckling « consciétitious objectors", for instance), show that they have opinions of their own. The amount of personal discretion exercised by the administrator is often an index of his calibre. There have been in the past so many able men who have tempered hard- and-fast law with commonsense that thз' lawyers have little difficulty nowadays in finding precedents to accommodate both parties to a suit. This means, as is notorious, that the essential defects and limitations of all generalised law have been supplemented by an unnecessarily confusing accretion. But bad as all that is (to the clear thinker), it is scarcely bad enough to warrant such cases as the two we have selected. In the cruelty to animals case, the defendant seems to have had the Burmese view of what is proper treatment of our dumb relatives. His horse hospital was exactly on a par with some arrange. ments that are referred to in Mr. FIELDING HALL's beautiful bo k on the Burmese,
(Daily Pres", 21st July.) Gentle amusement may be expressed at the appeal recently made by a popular svelist for clear thinking, not. because the ghal appeal was unnecessary, not because it is a prayer that average human nature is scarcely able to grant, but because the writer was rash enough to advance a specimen, on a subject so difficult as the nature of eternity. Some metaphysicians have asserted that it is a name rather than a concept, that the human mind cannot possibly entertain an actual conception of such a nature. The novelist, after some avowed "clear think- ing", asserted that all the trouble arises from our foolish ignoring of the "fact" that eternity is a "negation of time". A little, more clear thinking would have shown him, we think, that such a negation is a concept just as bumanly impossible as the other. Time is. A negation of time is, paradoxically, a time when time is not. To illustrate crudely, when all the clocks and mechanisms for marking time are not, when there is no longer any conscious entity to note the divisions or passage of time, the novelist's eternity may be said to begin. Suppose that time is negatived on December 31st, at the stroke of midnight. Although there is an absolute vacuam, empty even of clear or any other thinking (another impossible concept), at the end of an interval that would have been counted (just before) as sixty minutes long, it will be one o'clock of the first day of eternity, whether it be recognised or not. This preamble, is an accidental outcome of an intention to plent for clear thinking in some mundane matters which, however them importance be dwarfed in metaphysical syes, are well worth the effort of struggling to get free from habit, convention, and rank
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Such cases—the two cited are typical of frequently occurring ones customarily provoke some people to indignant outbursts, but these are outnumbered by the majority whose attitude is blended of a half cynical despair and a perhaps consequent phlegm. The indignant outbursts do not always tend towards reforms, possibly because they are more often characterised by moral indigna tion than by clear thinking. Even the clearest of clear thinking, with its result in the shape of logical argument, cannot be expected to work immediate miracles. If a man convinced against his will retains the same opinions still, it is obvious that men are not easily to be convinced against their ingrained sentiments. The most effectual The Soul of a People". Yet the sufferings arguments", 13 electioneerers, have of the horses were sufficient to justify (to recently been demonstrating are those the non-clear thinkers) the charge of which appeal to sentiment. We are some cruelty. Allourlaw touching on this matter times tempted to believe that we are aga race of cruelty is inconsistent. It does not apply less ruled by reason thau we claim to be to all animals capable of suffering pain. It Sentiments, or instincts, or whatever the punishes a poor carter for working a horse hidden motives may be, seem to account for with a saddle-sore, and it ignores the shop more of our actions than we might care to keeper who tortures a hundred flies at a realise. Philosophy, like poetry, too often time on one of those viscid abominations appeals to our mood rather than to our called fly-papers. It fines a man for testing mind. The one that fits our mood, or our terrier puppies (meant to accompany otter preconceptions, we call good poetry or goodhounds) on an ownerless cat; and it posi~ philosophy as the case may be. Still, we tively refuses to think of the panting agony are always admitting, by our very preten- of the hare or fox, aud the excruciating sions, that it is our manifest duty to strive moments that must precede the actual kilį. after clear thinking. His Excellency the It needs clear thinking to discover what is GOVERNOR on Thursday repeated our "wilful cruelty". That the clear thinking regular boast that man alone is a reasoning was not done until the unfortunate human- animal. us reason together, then, itarian had endured six weeks' of cruel oftener; clearing the ground sometimes, as injustice is & matter for keen regret,' our Judges are supposed to do, by sweeping Assuming that the man's explanation was away for the purpose all preconceived given at once, his persecutors seem to have opinions that are not elementary and self- had the purpose of the law hidden by their evident propositions. There, however, is a too careful study of the letter. It seems point where we often stray we must be to us quite evident that no Hongkong certain that our premisses are axiomatic in legislator ever intended that the possession the strictest logical sense of the word. The of an old-fashioned Japanese sword, in story
lady canvasser who carved ivory sheath, was to be regarded as an assumed that Mr. CHAMBERLAIN's protection offence entailing a penalty and confiscation. policy was something of interest to all The MAGISTRATE who tried the case the lovers of animals typifies the carelessness other day himself took the same view, but we would avoid. When this clear thinking subsequently, apparently after some furtherl becomes a more general habit, when more representation by the police, fined the men insist upon thinking for themselves, possessor, and confiscated the "curios?”. such anomalies as the imprisonment of an What was that representation? If it was to ultra-humane man, and the fining of a the effect that the swords in question were. seller of curios, will lead to changes of the destined for an unlawful purpose, and that law, radical alterations and simplifications they were dangerous lethal weapons dis- that no tradition or conservatism can stave guised as curios, then the fine-any fine- off. All law at bottom spells equity and was quite inadequate. Is the matter really justice: these are its sole and sufficient to rest here? Is there to be no clear think. reason for existing; but no code or system ing at all? We do not suggest that the ever invented was capable of fitting all and machinery of the Legislative Counci, every case.. So long as we cannot rely should be invoked to qualify the ordinance upon a uniform supply of men like as it stands. There is no need for that
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