The record-union., 1899-03-13
MISSIONARIES BARRED.
ENGLAND'S POLICY AS ILLUS
TRATED In THE SoUDAN.
Ruling Eastern Nations in Accord
ance With Their Own Religious
and Social Ideas-Dihicultiesi in
the Way Of Missionary Work.

General Lord Kitchener has begun
his term of office as Dictator of the
Soudan by closing that vast dependency
of Great Britain and of Egypt to mis-
sionary enterprises for some time 10
come Both the Roman Catholic and
the Protestant missionary societies had
made preparations to resume without
delay their operations in that portion
OF Central Africa which they were
forced to abandon some fifteen years
ago by the Dervish insurrection. But
Lord Kitchener has now announced
that he cannot for the present permit
any missionary work in the Soudan,
and that he is determined to have time
to organize the administration of his
vast satrapy upon a solid basis before
allowing missionaries to re-enter the
country.
Not only has his action in the mat
ter received the full approval of the
British Government, but the clatter has
likewise, through the agency of Lord
Cromer, its plenipotentiary in Egypt,
assured the native chiefs and sheiks at
Omdurman, at Berber and at other i'm
portant cities on the Upper Nile that
there will be no interference by the
English with their Mahometan faith
and religious customs, which will be
strictly respected. Lord Cromer even
went So far as Ito promise the people of
the Soudan that these pledges. which
ne was making to them in the name of
Queen Victoria whom he justly de-
cribed as ruling over larger number
of Moslem subjects than any other
monarch in the world, comprised the
application of Mahometan sacred law
and as guarantee of England's good
faith in the matter informed them that
the money which the British people,
from the Queen downward, had con-
tributed toward the foundation and en-
dowment Of the great college which is
TO constitute the most appropriate and
worthy memorial of General Gordon at
khartoum had been subscribed on the
express understanding that it would be
devoted exclusively to the technical ed
ucation of the natives, and that there
should be nothing in the course of it's
instruction that might be calculated to
Wean them from the faith of their
fathers In one word, England, hav-
ing undertaken the gigantic, task of
evolving law, order and prosperity out
OF the chaos and anarchy that have
devastated the Soudan for the last fif-
teen years, has resolved to set up in
that portion of Central Africa which is
Watered by the Nile not a Christian
form OF government, but Mahometan
one, as being best suited to meet the
requirements of the situation and to re-
store peace and happiness to that great
territory which has been so rightly de-
Scribed as THE Sad Soudan."
Th1s may be said to indicate an en-
tirely new departure in the policy of
Great Britain. 1t is the inevitable out
come, and the result of nearly three
centuries OF experience on the part OF
England in dealing with the Asiatic
ana African races, and, inasmuch as
John Bull is admittedly pre-eminent
ana past master in the most difficult
art OF governing non-Christian cum
tries, since of all the Oriental and
African colonies of the other European
Powers his alone are prosperous, Hour
fishing and contented, it is step which
must commend itself with particular
interest to the people of the United
States at the moment when they are
about to undertake the task of admin
istering the Government of the Philip
pine Islands, inhabited for the greater
part by the most fanatical of Mes
lens
TWO WAYS OF GOVERNING.
Broadly speaking, there are two
methods of dealing with dependencies
either colonial or vassal-that are
populated by Asiatic or African races
The one is by means of the imposition
OF the purely Western laws of the i'm
perial power, which have as their basis
Occidental civilization and the Chris
tan faith, and that involve the more
or less compulsory conversion of the
natives to Christianity; the alternative
is to endeavor to rule the people by
means of their own laws, ecclesias-
teal as well as civil, manifestinG re-
spect and consideration for their reli-
gious beliefs and prejudces, carefully
avoiding all attempts to impair their
regard either for their own laws or for
their own faith, and trusting to time
and to association with the white races
ultimately to bring about the necessary
degree Of enlightenment TO enable them
to distinguish between the respective
merits of Christianity and the faith in
which they may have happened TO have
been reared, be it Buddhist, Mahom
etan, Shintoist. Brahmin or Confucian.
1t is the first of these two methods
that has constituted for the last 400
years the keynote of the colonial pol
icy Of the Latin races. They endeav-
ored to force upon the Asiatic and At
rican races that populated their trans