OBITUARY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1239, 22 September 1911, Page 5

OBITUARY.

SIR ROBERT EART.

By Telesraph-Pross Association-Copyright (Rec. September 21, 10.30 p.m.) • London, September 21. The death is announced of Sir.Robert Hart, Bt., G.C.M.G., M.A., LL.D., formerly Inspector-General of the Chinese Maritime Customs, aged 7G. ... FIFTY YEARS OF CHINA. A REMARKABLE CAREER. Fifty-seven years ago a lad of 19, named Robert Hart, the son of a Scoto-Irish millowner, of County Armagh, went out to China in the. British Consular service, and immediately began to organise a Customs Department for the Empire then just waking out of its long sleep. The story of his life is in every essential detail tho story of the open . door in China, and of a unique personality impressing itself on tho impersonal "power behind the Throne." One cannot escape the conviction tliat there was some peculiar Oriental charm about the young European who, at the age of twenty-six, aftor a mere seven years of work as a Consul in tho land of suspicion, had so won tho confidence of tho Chineso Government as to bo placed at the head of tho Customs system of the country. Two yoars later he was appointed InspectorGeneraly and from then until his retirement in 1908 tho 1.-G.—as every European at Peking called him—was the man to bo finally reckoned with in all matters concerning tho relations of China with tho outer world. When first he put his hand to tho plough, in. the year 1861, only three treaty ports were in existence. China had no international personality, being still, in tho estimation of tho rest of tho world, a laud of darkness and semi-barbarism. Ports were being forcibly opened, it was true, but the Government was so ignorant of European trading methods as to bo unable to collect its own Customs dues. When Sir Robert Hart, left China, tho number of employees controlled by tho Customs Inspectorate stood at 11,980, of whom 10,030 are Chinese and 1311 foreigners. Oddly enDiigh in European eyes the Inspectorate camo to control not only revenue and marine, but also educational and postal departments—in fact, all those departments of the Stato m which European knowledge and methods were felt to bo desirable. In manner of speech and methods of thought he was a Chinaman, or at all events an Oriental. Sir Harry Norman used to tell an excellent story about his Eastern manners. After much trouble and great uncertainty, Sir Robert, through his agent in Paris, had succeeded in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion negotiations for the signing of a treaty between Fraiue and China, the cypher telegrams alone, it is said, having cost .£IO,OOO. When ho was at. last assured by cable that the protocol had been signed, tho 1.-G. got into his cart and went to cj on tho Tsung-li-Yamen and take a cup of tea. By and by ho casually remarked, with the apparent indifferent of the Oriental diplomat. "It is exactly nine months to-day that you placed the negotiations with France in my hands." "And tho child is born!" instantly cried one of tho Ministers, seeing the point, and dolighted at tho truly Oriental way of conveying the news. Fi'oni v his earliest days Sir Robert was an accomplished Chinese courtier, and to this may doubtless be traced much of his extraordinary influence with the Dowager Empress and her advisers. Though the code of etiquette is highly complicated, he wns believed to have never made a mistake, so completely had tho Englishman been sunk in tho Oriental. Yet he never lost his charm for Europeans, and his weekly garden parties wero for many years the most- delightful feature of the alien colony's social life at Peking.