Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1915-08-17

IIldU VI u0dIlS ONOl1 AOlO1SHOl INV |
who had lived in China and really |
knew conditions there. He considered
that Britain was criminally negligent |
in not having done erdctly aohat Japan |
is doing nOto.
l couldn't help smiling to myself,
for this is what every Britisher in |
China has wanted and counseled for
years.
In Lord Charles Beresford's book f!
The Breakup Of China, written after
the mission confided to him by the
Associated Chambers of Commerce
and which is really an exhaustive re-
port of British commercial matters in
China, he quotes letter sent him by
one of the Commercial Associations OF
Britishers in China in which is said,
"The establishment in the interior OF
industrial enterprises, such as fila
lures, oil-mills, and iron works, would
lead to a great development of trade,
to the introduction of British machi-
merry and skilled labour, and to the
profitable employment of British
capital
"But an indispensable preliminary
is the right to acquire by purchase,
land in the interior, on which these
and other commercial enterprises can
be uninterruptedly carried on.
'sUnless we can hold land on these
terms, we are liable to have our ten
ure abruptly terminated owing to
pressure applied by an unfriendly or
timorous magistrate.
" We wish also to be al
lowed to mine under our own names,
and as matter of right, not of favour.
This is not small matter; the min
eral wealth of these provinces is great;
gold is worked in many parts in a
primitive manner: lead and silver
are also found, and iron abounds-in
some places close to coal.
"Most important however, are the
large deposits of coal of various des-
criptionS. - anthracite, semi-anthra-
cite, bituminous, &c, only requiring
machinery to develop a large export
trade, and compete in the Shanghai
market with Tientsin and Japan"
Again, in regard to Wei-Hai- Wei,
Lord Beresford says: 81 consider it an
immense acquisition to our naval
strength in the China Seas, as with
but comparatively small expenditure
of money it could be made most
efficient and powerful naval base.
The island is two thirds the size of
Gibralter. 1t is the best place in
China to build Sanatorium for the
fleet. In the event of the British
desiring to help the Chinese to organ
ize their defensive forces, this place
would be msOt suitable for commenc-
ing to train them, whether naval or
military"
Lord Beresford's book is a big vol
ume, packed full of reports, statistics,
letters, ETC., from prominent indi-
vidual Britishers in China as we'll as
from commercial associations, and no
one who wishes to get sid8 lights on
China, Chinese character, and condi-
tions in China las well as incidentally
the naive certainty that Chinese
civilization should be British affair
can afford to let it go unread.
When one remembers that the
Chinese customs are managed by the
British, the Salt Gabele is admins
tered by Sir Richard Dane and that
suggestions that the Chinese army
and police be "assisted'' by British
officers are made constantly by every
Britisher in China, it is difficult to
see the consistency in condemning
Japan for what she wants to do in
China.
Something has got to be done there
and beginning has to be made, but
the press of America will stand on
tiptoe and wiring its hands and
screech if Japan happens to be the
power to at last force civilization
upon the inert monster?
Everard Cotes in his Signs and Por-
tents IN the Far East says "The
Chinese troops have been organized
to bolster up the ambitions of particu-
lar Chinese viceroys. They are not
even suitable for police work. On
the other hand they constitute real
and ever-present menace to the
Europeans resident in China. They
are liable to be used at any time, at
the bidding of petty spite or imagined
grievance, to indulge the strong anti
foreign feeling which is always close
below the surface in the excitable
populace. Again and again
in the past the ornaments of China
have been turned against the Euro
pean. Nothing has occurred to rem
der the future immune from repeti-
tion of the events of the years 1899
1900 when white men were murdered
w OlllHSSS SOlQlCIS III OIlC SUI GUS VI
Peking and Chinese artillery was
turned upon white women and chill
dren in Mukden. The larger and
more efficient the ornaments, the
sooner may trouble be expected to re-
cur, and the more serious will it be-"
The foreign missionaries, in spite |
of their sickly-sentimental views of
the Chinese, will tell you some times |
if you can get them to talk, of ghast- |
ly things that have happened in many |
places in China of which the world |
has never heard one word, simply be-
cause the places are so remote that |
by the time the news dribbles through /
to the coast it is months old and only |
ca uses a local ripple.