172
1
Municipal Council was to some extent misleading, "in that the rules in question do not purport to strike at the root of the abuses which it has been the Council's nim in the past to redress, that the Council has had no part in their framing, and that their text has not been submitted for their com- ment." In plainer terms, the Municipal Council fears that he new rules will be inadequate, and naturally regrets that its consideration thereof and comments thereon were not availed of. The only reason for their being ignored is " diplomatic," which may mean anything. It can only mean that the Chinese dislike the Council, or that the diplomats are jealous of its growing importance. The first is probable; the second not impossible. From what is so far known of the new rules, secured with so much pains by the diplomats, the opinion is current that Shanghai will be practically in no better position than before, where essen tial points are at issue. So much for diplomacy and high politics. The same disputes are bound to arise again; the Chinese obstructionists will enlarge on the letter of the rules; the Municipal Council for its constituents, will fight for the principle and for the usage that has been putting that principle into practice. If the responsibility really rests with the Diplo mats, it should not be impossible to have pressure put upon them from Home, in the future inevitable negotiations, to pay more attention to local wishes and local arguments.
PILLS AND POLITICS.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
bot
|
[4
[March 18, 1907.
•
We bave been careful in not using in connection with these evid nces the term documents, because we may safely assume that there are not, and never have been any documents in the case. The invention of writing in China is a thing of comparatively Inte growth, and was even in the days of CONFUCrus ia so embryonic a state that though it might he ma·le to represent facts to a certain extent, it could not express the corresponding words, nor act a a medium for thought. It was not indeed till some three or four generations after the death of the Muster that his historical
and just as it is no respecter of diseases, so substantial. While it may be affirmed the ethical, religious, political panacea without fear of contradiction that the fabrio claims to fit all persons and all circumstan-which has up to the present passed current ces. There are so many of these universal 88 History" in China is a thing of inven. remedies, too, and so many enthusiastic tion and barefaced forgery, it does not prescribers thereof, that the normal, healthy uecessarily follow that all the evidences on person hardly knows where to seek peace which it is pretended to be founded are that he may find it, "You are not looking equally untrustworthy. at all well," comes the greeting, to one absolutely unconscious of anything wrong. "What you want is a pick-me-up. Take a bromide." Very often the suggestion does its work; the faith-cure does its part; and a well person feeling as he really and was, joins the ranks of the fussy, meddlesome, impertinen', well. meaning,
insufferable busybodies who go about offering unnecessary advice and unneeded reforms. Most sane minds are aware, if ever they indulge in the luxury of reflection, that there cannot possibly in the nature of things be any medicine that will cure all diseases or suit all patients. Sugared water with a Latin label will, and does, cure most of the diseases of the im- agination, and probably this accounts for mauy of the illustrated testimonials that are thrust into our letter boxes from time to time. The point to note is that the drug that cures a certain disease for one patient may be useless, and even dangerous, to another patient with the satne disease. This is a point about which we suppose even doctors never disagree. It is so with creeds and politics. This is no mere analogy, no parallel of superficial resemblances. seems to us that it is a point which, while not new or original, is habitually ignored by missionaries, politicians, and social reformers. Pages of concrete examples could be cited, but perhaps this is far enough to let a quack circular take us.
:
THE NATURE OF CHINESE “HISTORY."
(Daily Press, 15th March .)
It
We have received from the S. P. C. K. a
|
*
lectures contained in the Tso Chwen were reduced to writing; and the record of the " conversations" of the sage contained in the "Lünyü," bear on their very face the evidence of still later, probably Han, reduction to writing. Writing during the time of Tax SHI HWANGTI, was, ar We learn from the nearly contemporary record in the "Shi Ki,” in but an inchoate condition; and SSEMA T'SIEN records bow the minister LISSE was the first to introduce a method of writing which could be intelligible in the various languages and dialects then current.
We must then dismiss as little more than a fable the pretended burning of the ancient literature" put forward by the literates of another age as a screen to their own bare- faced, and generally ignorant forgeries. That in a moment of anger at the tirades of the scholar SHUN YUYUEH, who essayed to teach him how to rule the State his prowess had won, SHI HWANGTI did order his books to be burnt is likely enough, but SseMA T'SIEN does not add that the hasty order was ever carried out. The absence of the books was, in fact, mainly brought about by their non-existence, added to the general confusion of the times. It is perhaps a piece of good fortune, in some respects at least, that the recension of the ancient literary remains should have fallen to the lot of the ignorant scholars of the Han, inasmuch as the style of the few genuine remains still existing is in marked contrast to the productions of the forgers. It is, however, unfortunately a fact that owing to the primitive and imperfect system under which the ordinary student, more especially should he belong to one of the "services," learns Chinese, that the personal study of style is not encouraged, and the text is out in vernacular gen rally droned paraphrase wherein all consciousness of the rhythm of the original is completely
(Daily Press, March 14th.) The receipt of a deeply interesting pam- phlet in which a large number of residents in the Far East testify to the superlative merits of a patent medicine gives furiously to think." Assuming that they are all actually existent and traceablo persons, and that they have not been paid to proclaim the miraculous efficacy of the nostrum, what is it that makes them so willing to remember { and recount their past miseries, and to urge on others the advisability of giving their mixture a trial? The patentees will sug. gest that it is gratitude, but as these people all paid, presumably, for their cures, and as some knowledge of human nature teaches that gratitude is not a universal attribute, some more satisfactory answer has to be sought. In some cases it may be egotism pure and simple; and in others, sheer indiffer- ence to responsibility and disinclination to refuse the vendor's request; but about many of these testimonials there is an earnestness strongly suggestive of propa- gandist fervour. May it not be that there is some affinity between the worthy rejoicer over a drug that "did him good " and the expounder of a creed that
all
obscured. seems
Are the sufficient to the one expounding? volunteer advocates of pet policies on a par with the people who would, quite disinter-criticism, or had made a deep study of the estedly, persuade us to take pills? The canons of philological research, we could suspicion grows, and becomes some.
have welcomed his little work as a valuable thing more than n mere suspiciou, assistance to our knowledge of the past of that these worthy folk have much in com.
extreme Oriental history. Mr. ALLEN is mon. Abolish ceilings and kissing, cries unfortunately a tyro in both these sciences, one: there be plaguey rats in the first and and germs in the second.
You are ruined with- out Fiscal Protection, says another; and three hundred odd bishops draft a book of instructions outlining a cult that alone can save all sorts and conditions of souls. They are alike in their catholicity, these well. meaning friends of ours, whether pushing pills or propaganda. The patent chemical compound will cure anything; a host of witnesses assure us that it has cured every. ;thing, from indigestion to housemaid's-knee
1
book entitled Early Chinese History: Are the Chinese Classics forged? by H.B.M. HERBERT J. ALLEN, sometime Consul at Newchwang. The S. P. C. K. have before this shown themselves superior to that vulgar credulity which would retard the progress of Christian knowledge in the future, through the ill-founded fear of, through a frank acknowledgement of the errors of the past, destroying the founda- We have therefore tions of religious belief, no reason to express our surprise at the Society having given its exequatur to this somewhat crude production of Mr. HERBERT ALLEN'S. Hitherto credulity from various causes, principally ignorance and remoteness from the schools of modern thought, have reigned supreme in China, so that Sinology has come to be a hyeword in the historical and philological world. If Mr. ALLEN had shown himself
10 an adept historical
80 his attempt to introduce some measure of commonsense into that very
bizarre subject, Chinese scholarship, will, in the first instance at least, have rather the contrary tendency. In the long run it is doubtless a gain to the cause of knowledge in general that the very suspicious fabric on which has been erected the structure mis- named Chinese History, should be exposed, but in seeking to demolish one unsubstantial structure Mr. ALLEN has only succeeded in erecting another equally flimsy and un-
|
Mr. ALLEN has thus been led to confuse the few genuine remains with the vast and prep nderating mass of verbiage in which Another disability they are concealed. arises from the very nature of the medium. The authentic works of antiquity have all been handed down orally, many of the * Shi King "for close on a ballads of the thousand years, before at last they were committed to writing. During this period the languge underwent a profound change; from being like its neighbours in the West an infl-cted speech, it suffered the usual decay to which language is subjected when learned by an alien race; and became reduced to what may be best described our readers, for the understanding of
wherein first all "pidgin." a as inflections were sloughed off, and secondly the remains of the speech which survived
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.