SIR R. HART RETURNS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 146, 14 March 1908, Page 11

SIR R. HART RETURNS.

: "FIFTY YEARS OF EXILE. 'An' imperial edict was gazetted in Pekin oil January 28 granting Sir Robert Hart, in-spcctor-General of tho Chinese Maritime Customs, leave of abseuco on the ground'of, ill-health. Tho edict is couched in very flattering torms, and, as a spccial mark of imperial favour, the rank of President of the Board is conferred upon him. , Sir' Robert Bredon takes over Sir Robert .Hart's duties as Acting Inspector-General, and has been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Governor and Provincial Treasurer. ■ It is'unlikely that Sir Robert Hart, who is now seventy-three, will ever return to China. He made his first ijoUrney there in 1854, and in all the years siuco then has only twice revisited his home—in 1866 and in 1879. Lady Hart and his children havo been awaiting his return for twenty years. Sir Robert is ' perhaps tho' greatest of Britons, who, like Kaid Maclean in Morocco, have elected to givo their lives to devoted service of weakly nations. He left the British Consular Service for tho Chinese Maritime Customs in 1859. Four years lator lie bccamo . Inspector-General,. and sinco that time has been the trustee of all European interests in China. Ho refused/to become British Minister'in Pekin. He elected instead to bo one of tho chief forces for progress in the Celestial Empire. With Oriental ingratitude, tho Pekin Government two years ago unsuccessfully attempted to placo 'Chinese officials in supremo control of tho Customs, on which European loans to China aro : secured. V For many years past 8600 employees havo worked , under tho direction of tho little grey autocrat of Pekin. No foreigner knows so much of the mysterious inner workings of Chinese life. Sinco his arrival in tho East nearly fifty-four years ago Sir Robert has kept a diary, which will form an inexhaustible) mino of information for tho first halfcentury of China's slow awakening. Writing to a friend in England, Sir Robert said: "I was photographed myself tho other day; allow mo to send you a copy. Is it at all recognisable? I"am still alone; Lady Hart and tho young people—l havo now- three grandchildren—are at homo, where they have been waiting for . ray return over twenty years. What a slice to bo cut out of a domestic life! Howevor, the Fates would havo it : so. . . . The months and years are slipping away, and both youth and middle age are things of the past. I am now an old—a very old—man. I hopo to bo. freed from harness next year (1907)."