126
IN PRAISE OF DIVAGATORS.
THE HONGKON) WEEKLY PRESS AND
(Daily Press, 24th August.) That was a curious remark that Prince BUELOW made the other day to a French journalist, that Germans would be more easy to govern if they a 1 dressed alike. The pride with which he had just pointed out the Teutonic tendency to individualism forbids the suspicion that he would like to practise topiary on his nationals, and so he was probably making a merely academic excursion into a wel known field of phil sophy, or rather, looking over the hedge t it. For his reflections on the apparent anomaly of German devotion to discipline showed that he was not familiar with the paths across it. Germans were individua- lists and, therefore, superior fellows; but they also loved order and organization, like the good fellows they were. To nyo e who has seen how red-tape rules the citizen in Germany, it will require more to bring conviction of his individualistic tendencies than Prince BUELOW's this explanation that being accustomed to submit to he laws, be accepts and obeys them," The solut on seems to be that, though endowed with a full share of mankind's saving grace of originality or individua.1-m, the German, in spite of WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT, is gradually having it expelled from him. Instead of realizing that the conditions of life must constantly change, the managers of other people's business are always hailing the latest standard that happens to have met their approval as perfection, and they demand its universal adoption. Like a child crying for something pretty but ро s nous, they are everlastingly hankeri after uniformity on the pattern, of course, that has caught their own faucy for the moment. The last phrase is a relative. In the eternal flux of Nature the whole life of the greatest reforner can be count d ouly as a moment, the ideal be lives and dies for but one aspect of truth, which has many, many sides, and even these subject to kaleidoscopic change. China is a country that beyond all others affords an object lesson of the futility of orthodoxy. Long ago its thinkers discovered a good set of customs, excellent working hypotheses, and straightway they took that most fatal form of opiate, stereotypy. No one has been permitted to do any thinking since. Indeed, the finality and immut- ability of their wisdom has been accepted for so many thousands of years that it is doubtful if any learned Chinaman has ever thought there was any wisdom left to glean, much as many Englishmen believe that SHAKESPEARE has put tue copingstone on English literature. No one really believes that there are in the sea as big fish as ever came out of it; at least our behaviour indicates disbelief. Man claims more even than God did, ia the table of creation. As the various parts came into being, we are told, He saw that was good. Man, of his own progresses and achievements, uses the superlative, says this is the best, and once satisfied himself, cannot compreheud why it should not be good enough for every- body. The heterodox are the salt of the earth, even the Peculiar People, the Christian-Scientists, the Simple Lifers, the Collectivists, and so on. They are useful so long as they are heterodox, but the moment their heterodoxy threatens to become orthodox, they have done their work, have served their purpose, like the coral insect of the rising reef. They have helped to provide that variety which is the substance with which thought builds, and they have helped to keep alight the flick- ering flame of originality, or individuality, without which the path of progress cannot
[September 2, 1907.
be trodden. It is the nonconformists who | tuck shop, and long immunity from having save us from the despotism of the majority, and the peril of that tyranny is so great, so ever present, that we may be thankful for almost any kind of freak or abnormality which keeps us awake to the possibility of diversity. The German, like every other man, is all too easily drugged into un- conscious servility," and it is to be hoped, for his own sake, that he will never be more easy to govern." The people that is easy to govern is lost, moribund, useless. Circumspice !
A
CHI ESE AND MANCHUS.
(Daily Press, 26th August). well-informed Chinam in of
our
his aut cracy questioned, has done for hi n. He is flabby. Even bluff will not serve him now, for the small boys have begun to notice his condition. To change the image, they have discovered that the brazen joss has feet of clay, and they are less inclined to genuflect before it. More than that, the monster is in peril of being overturned. Tue pro-Chinese vernacular journals are getting to be very outspoken. They are calling spades spades, and Manchus worse. Our Chinese friend anticipates trouble, and that soon. Incidentally, he is much concerned about the possible interference of Great Britain As Hongkong depends upon Canton for most of its food supplies, which would be seriously interrupted by an upris ng, it is indee! not unlikely that the British Government would have something to say. But it will be time enough to think of Pasteur when the dog bite us. No one dures t› prophesy. but we venture the opinion, anyhow, that the time is not yet, nor
the man. Mr. SUN YAT-SEN matters no more than a pip in a pumelo. It is the paragraphs growing daily more pointed, the casual bombthrower, the wordy studeat, who are thrusting in the wedge. The nature and results of the upheaval depend upon the manner in which the populace leans upon the lever.
TRADE MARKS
acquaintance anticipates trouble in China, par icularly in Kwangtung. He has a greater opinion of SON YAT-SEN's power than we have, and the bal crops, famiu-, | and hardships of the people will, he think, make it easy for that agitator and bis helpers to fan into flames a fire that is, he asserts, already well alight. There is, he tells us, a new and better public spirit abroad throughout the Chinese. He in-ists that it is the people themselves who are keenest on the suppre-sion of the opium vice. They have become convinced, our instructor alleges, of the physica' and noral degeneration involved, and are familiar with the argument as to the drainage of the country's fiuncial resources that the con-umption causes.
That is as may be.
(Daily Press, 27th August.) Scepticisin toward such views has ben so
Neither Cuina no Japán has so far fallen long implanted and so firmly rooted that into line with Britain, America, Germany, assertions and assumptions of that nature, and Italy in the matter of protec ing the however
well-informed their inspiration rights intended to be securel by trade appears, pass over the old resident as the marks. China did some time ago under- missiles from Chinese ordinance have hither-take to establish offices for the registration to passed over pirates and other enemies. of foreign tra le mirks, but the regulations On one p int, however, we were glad to drawn up in 1904 by the Chinese Board of welcome conversation, and this point was Trade were not acceptable to the foreigo contained in our question whether there Governments interested. These drafted a really is any general antipathy noticeable as set of trade mark regulations which were between Chinese and Manchus. The submitted for Chinese guidance in 1905, but answer wag in the affirmative. Our over a year later, in November of last year, suggestiou that such antipathy is most it may be remembered, China produced likely confined to the official classes, and another series which were equally unaccept- born, not of long standing and untorgotten able and showel conclusively that the racial hatred, but of comparatively recent Chinese had not deemed the foreign sugges- jealousies and resentments concerning the tious worthy of consideration. The foreig granting of appointments and emoluments, Powers are insisting on the adopti›a of was promptly negarivel. Well, as we have regulations in re in accord with those pointed out before, i is certainly signidcant recommended, a id there, diplum tica:ly, the that in spite of well meant permissory matter stands. An intelligent l'autai at Edicts there should have been so lit ie Shanghai, however, by the procl nation intermarriage bet we n the two people. repro uced in another column, has got Chinese have been lat-ly almost ostent-considerably in advance of the Central ationsly thrust into positions formerly Government, and his action may possibly monopolis d by Manchus, but as yet those lead to a settlement of the question ou have been to few to convey conviction of broader lines. Peking has not s.emed to Peking's good faith, and have been regarded realize the importance and urge.cy of the as sops thrown to Cerberus-therein lucking business, but they will piruaps n waddress a pleasing recoguilion of the fact that the enquiries to the Shanghai official, wh se Manchu have begun to take the Chinese answers should make then wiser. more seriously, to regard their possible Tantai unders auds the issues involved for prote-ts with more re-pect. The arrival the simple reason that some of his cɔa- of this state of affairs ja not hard stituents have been suffering owing to the to be understood. It iz not that the lack of legislation bearing on the practice Chinese have changed so much, as that of copyright intringements. Missionary the hitherto dominant race has deteriorate·1. publishers in Shanghai have been publisuing The Chinese are probably as averse 10 Chiuese books and undersell ng the Cniuese fighting, as prone to follow the line of least publishers. They have beau doing nothing resistance, as they have ever been, and as illegal, and as the class of books en- their wise men have encouraged them to be. cerned are suped to be beneficial to But the bold Manchu who, by sheer self the prole, they can plead that they are confidence and warlike training, ha carri-d mora ly justified in giving them wider eir- all before him, and asserted his mastery, culation. We believe that it was a pro what of him? It is notorious that such bono publico reason of this nature which success has spoiled him. He has slacked prompted toe Japanese & verament to sold off. He is neither a good soldier nor a god aloof from the couyright proposals of the atatesman. He is in he position of a cock other Powers. It admits educational books of the walk, of a school bully who has aud indeed books of all kinds and of all allowed himself to get out of coalition. The languages in free of duty, and we have seɔn
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