356
A BIG SHIP.
(Daily Press, May 30th.)
It is a pity that all the stirrers up of strife in San Francisco, the rabid scribblers whom it is our shame to have to recognise as brother journalists, could not have been collected on board the "Tenyo Maru" yesterday to listen to the sane and sensible comments of the American Consul here. Their opportunity will doubtless come when the wonderful new steamer gains the other side of the Pacific, and we hope that it will make some difference to their attitude towards a phenomenon that foreigners are partly responsible for evoking. To walk over the
Tenyo Maru" yesterday was to marvel at the changes possible in so short a time as three or four decades. When each individual of the company assembled at tiffin was a puling infant or a whining sohoolboy, the Japanese dreamed of no ship larger than an ordinary sized junk. How a nation may wax as fast as an individual
6.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
"PAY, PAY, PAY"
[June 8, 1908.
than
we propose to deal with in these casual comments. The reflective reader, with this stimulus. may go on to think out for himself the bearing upon such subjecta
(Daily Press, 1st June.) It does not seem to us an unreasonable
the decadence of that fine race the should be asked to compensate the ratepayers Maori, under civilization, the virtual suggestion that the Imperial Government of this Colony for the loss of revenue caused extinction of the Australian aborigines, and by their order to close the opium divans, the process of acquired character devolution now being forced gradually upon the and a confortable and quite feasible way of doing so would be to forgive us the annual Papuans by the Australian Government, military contribution. The same Govern-Sticking to the generalities we had in mind ment that so hastily decided to deprive us at the outset, we may mention that Hongkong of a million and a half dollars a year would at this season is offering illustration of the possibly just as promptly decide to grant veneer-like nature of "civilization," and of a petition asking for such a simple method the strong tendency to renascence that there of restitution. The reformers at Home by is in the more ancient and stable habit, whose desire the instructions were sent to given suitable conditions. The cruising, Hongkong would possibly appreciate such camping, and picnic season is now on, and it an opportunity of proving their good faith, is to be noted to what an extent the and be glad, having chosen the tune, to pay "methods of barbarism" really contribute the piper. At any rate, they should be to the pleasure of these outings. Very few given the chance; it is not like sending them of the men seem to trouble to analyse their a scolding; there could be no possible harm emotions, to think why they enjoy them- in asking; and it is almost certain that if selves so much-and this in itself is we ask for nothing we will get it. There is
was illustrated by this wonderful steamer, little to be gained by going over the old symptomatic of the natural state, in which
the first turbine-propelled craft in local waters, with decks so numerous that the alphabet has had to be employed to identify
one
from another. The mere figures, enormous as they are, of displacement and tonnage, convey no adequate idea of this triumph of Japanese ambition, enterprise, and ship-building. The drawing-room by itself was impressive, and examples the
distinctive artistic taste of our allies in a
striking way. Panels of perfection, hang. ings of great price, furniture that would be congruous in a royal palace ashore, and the whole edifice and compilation--mirabile dictu-a mass of flotsam to be exposed to the mercy of the winds and waves. Our grandfathers went to sea in quite other fashion would have stared aghast to see such magnificence; to them any forecast indicating a bare half of the luxury and comfort aboard the Toyo
who
Kisen Kaisha's new leviathan would have
been ridiculed as Utopian and impossible. As the public of Hongkong is invited to inspect the steamer to-day, we gladly accept that excuse for not attempting to describe the wonders they will see for themselves.
It is like Barnum's Greatest Show on Earth, or a modern International Exhibi- tion, too big to take in at one visit. We prefer to dwell on the excellent tone im- parted to the proceedings yesterday by the intellectual and thoroughly Christian Consul who represents the United States in this Colony. The mere fact that an official representative of America should have blessed the ceremony with amicable wisher and human sympathy on such a concrete instance of Japanese competition is a great thing, worthy of special note, and we com- mend his utterances to the consideration of all who have been allowing the bases emotions of trade revalry to sway their judgment. As hosts our Japanese friends are unsurpassable; as business competitors they are far from being so intolerable as some people would have us believe. The Tenyo Maru" is a concrete illustration of the fact that they are our equals in more respects than we have been supposing. It is a triumph of shipbuilding, a banner of enterprise, and we can do no less than pay the usual courtesies of the knightly arena, and wish them the success they deserve.
"
At the shipbuilding yard of Messrs. W Bailey & Co. on May 31 the steamer Hanping" was launched for the Hanyang Iron and Steel Works, Hankow. Miss Queenie Lambert performed the christening ceremony. The vessel, a steel screw steamer, is the largest yet launched by the company.
arguments to show that we have been paying far too much in the shape of military con tribution, and we do not think the argument of our correspondent, that we ought not to have been paying it at all, will impress the Government very much, though it may elicit ejaculatory approval from the rate payers. The position is so much altered now by the loss of the revenue from opium that it can fairly be represented to the authorities at Home that we can no longer afford to make such contribution. To go on paying it, and to have to increase the heavy burden already being borne by the Hongkong ratepayer, would seem sufficiently hard to warrant a comparison of our situation with that of the groaning rate- of Macao. We sympathise when we read of the exactions made there, for Timor, and for the rapacious officials of Lisbon, and we say such injustice would never be tolerated in an English colony. Yet if the Imperial Government does not excuse us from further military contribution after making such a big hole in our income, we shall not be in much better case than the Macaonose, and the irony of the situation will be patent in the fact that Hongkong's ratepayers have been unjustly treated in the name and cause of moral reform.
payers
BRED IN THE BONE.
man is more of a day-dreamer than a thinker, and probably never an introspective thinker. When subjected to a series of searching questions, however, they are mostly willing to admit that the possibility of reverting to a minimum of clothing, a minimum of furniture, and a vanishing point of etiquette, is an appreciable factor in the sum of their happiness. It is an interesting study to contemplate two or three men in a yacht for a week-end, and to watch their conduct as we have repeatedly done of late. The man who when in Victoria
"}
is noted for his immaculate collars, and who would be rendered miser- able if au office colleague were to point out a grease-spot on his carefully pressed clothes, cheerfully exists for two days in some far away creek or bay in a filthy pair of duck inexpressibles and old coat, with two days' beard and unbrushed hair. At his " mess he would earnestly berate the boy over a glass not carefully wiped, a hair in his soup, or a serviette showing traces of previous use. Beyond Fu-tau-mun, or even in some more easily accessible bay, he will uncritically devour "chow" that has been inexpertly cooked on a
$4 chattie," and cavil never an instant because the spoon that turned the eggs and sliced potatoes in the frying pan is the only one available with which to dig out the condensed milk. His bed at night is a spinnaker sail spread on the floor of (Daily Press, 2nd June.)
the boat, and his "chota hazri" on waking The human nervous system is more liable
is just what he feels energetic enough to to disease than the rest of the body, and such disease appears to be more readily Hongkong he is care-free and aglow with for himself. All the way back to prepare transmissible by the myterious precesses of the happiness he has found, and immediate- heredity. The chief reason is supposed to ly he steps ashore, be is once more a prey be this, that the nervous organs are pre- to convention and a victim to the petty eminently intricate and complex; as the worries that civilization imposes. How is biologist puts it, "nerve cells are the most it these should be so important in the
Broadly speaking, street, and so easily disregarded by him in. highly differentiated. this is an intimation that complexity the wilds? The suggestion is that the implies weakness, or greater susceptibility to is a phenomenon of reversion, and
voyager disturbance. Thus a ladys watch is more
that the magnet of civilization only pulis when one comes within its limited radius of easily injured than a large clock, and a modern free-wheel bicycle of varied gear attraction. is less enduring than an old-fashioned "ordinary. admirable the mechanism, the greater the more excellent and
possibility of" something going wrong." It
The
is also stated that "characters of recent origin tend to be more unstable than those of ancient date; and the differentiation of man's brain is relatively recent compared with that of his food canal. Civilization is more recent than barbarism, and therefore
is more unstable. This is a highly interesting point for consideration, and suggests more numerous considerations
THE REAL ISSUE.
(Paily Press, 3rd Jone.) Those who give any coherent thought to the broad subject of government are not long in coming to the conclusion that it is not one for dogmatism. They discover that there is not and canto. be any finality about any canon of the art of ruling a nation. The perfect State notoply never was in being but also it never was in dream. The ideal. of the greatest happiness of the greatest
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