The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-05
TRICKERF OF CHINESE.
DR.. Mdcffdy Tells of ForntosG and the
Riots Ia, the Mainland.

hfOtS an the mUSnt01lQ.
VICTORIA, B. c., Oct. 4-Dr. G. L..
Mackay, whose missionary work in For
mosa has made him known throughout
the world, is here after an absence of two
years. He is a Canadian, native of Ford
County, Ontario. When he went to For
mosa in 1872 he was the first missionary in
that field.
The whole trouble in Formosa might
have been avoided says DR.. Mackay,
chad the japanese pursued different
course when they took possession of the
island. The indifference and contempt
shown by Japanese troops to all things
Chinese was taken advantage of by Chi
nese literary men, who wrote and circu-
lated slanders against the conquerors, and
so aroused in the minds Of the inhabitants
feeling that great injustice and indignity
would be heaped upon them.
Had the Japanese at once issued, as they
since have, proclamations that inhabitants
would not be interfered with in their
occupations and that no taxes would be
imposed for the year all would have been
well. Instead they assumed an arrogant
attitude and soldiers went about carelessly
in parties of ten and twelve, which were
often attacked and destroyed by the
Hakais, a warike tribe occupying the
country between Chinese settlements on
the coast and savages in the mountains.
"These Hakais, enormously supposed by
many to be aborigines of Formosa, origin
ally came from China and their name,
Hakais. means strangers. They are high
spirited, hardy and finely developed
mountaineers, well armed, as on the out
break of war between China and Japan
modern firearms were brought in from
outside places"
Mr.. Mackay says that to certain extent
they might be compared to the High
landers of Scotland. These people en-
rolled under the Black Flags to make
Formosa independent.
81 venture to say" remarked DR.. Mackay,
"that had the Japanese acted as Great
Britain would have done under like cir
cumstances Formosa could have been
occupied practically without firing shot.
The war in Formosa has done great harm
to missionary work. Native Christians
have necessarily suffered heavily.
Refusing to take arms with the Black
Flags, they. incurred the enmity of the
Hakais, while on the other hand it was
hard for the Japanese to distinguish be-
tween them and the hostile element.
There is only one missionary in Formosa
at present. He is at the treaty port, for
with hostilities going on no ones life is
safe away from the coast"
Respecting the massacre of missionaries
on the mainland of China, DR.. Mackay
says it is altogether wrong to suppose. as
many do, that it is enmity against the
missionaries and missionary work that has
actuated the Chinese. 1t is simply a
breaking out of the hostility felt against
all foreigners. That missionaries were
the men who suffered was because they
were on the spot unprotected and easily
reached by the Chinese.
The Chinese official system he describes
as simply mass of corruption, but it is
wonderful how the worst of them can
write like angels and send the most moral,
beautifully worded dispatches in explana-
ton. They are the greatest experts in the
world in auibbling and preparing dis
patches. Gladstone himself was no match
for the eloquence of Chinese official.