OUR NEW CHINESE CONSUL.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1706, 25 March 1913, Page 5

OUR NEW CHINESE CONSUL.

MR. KWEI CHIH.

SOME INTERESTING OPINIONS. i

Mr. Kwei Chili', Who Is travelling to Wellington for tho purpose of undertak- i ing' a position at tho Chinese Consulate. .. in New Zealand, reached Fremantlo on March 18. Seven years ago lie was Professor of History at tho "University of Tientsin,' then ho joined tho diplomatic service, and for seven years he'was with the' Chinese Embassy at Washiiigton. Ho then joined the Chinese Legation a-; London as secretary, and now ho has Iweii promoted to New Zealand. It did not tako. him long to plunge into a consideration of the "White Australia" policy.

'"Arc you not a bit previous in your, protection?" ho asked. ."Yours is such a big, fertile country, and so sparsely populated. How am you going to get it |)opulated if you insist upon these restrictions ? Consider' tho state of the Australian aborigine. Ho has been rendered almost -•> extinct by a philosophical idea of isolation. There lias ten no intercourse with other nations, and ho is dying out for want of it. Australia, must not restrict herself if slio wants to become a great ''. nation. Look what America has become '. through tho absorption of all nationalities. Man is like Water;'iio must find his own :level."' ' "But we aro busily getting out of our own levels, and importing new blood from tho Old Country," remarked the inter- - viewer. Mr. Kwoi Chili nodded his head sagely. "F'know,"")i6 iaid,""you are getting out people nt-the'ralo'of-'lOOO'a year, but what of that?.. Why {lie \vholo population of Australia 1 and New Zealand does not amount to that of Louden at tho last census. My own country -was degenerating until we opened the doors about 50 years ago. Now. we aro glad to get ideas of Western civilisation. In p our higher i educational institutions' English is almost wholly adopted in teaching. That is lie-' cause our languago is incomplete in tcr-' -urinologies. 11l view of .the fact that tho.'. : ., English methods hold tho middle course • between the too technical type of German and the illtrapractical methods of the American, thero is a-strong disposition .among.tile advanced Chinese educationists to follow tho English schools. Where would we b? had we continued to isolate , ourselves to ourselves?" - _ . - "Are the new conditions in China likely to'bo of'only transitory duration?" "They aro likely to 1 o permanent, for these reasons: There is'no- doubt that a... strong intellectual movelacnt prccedkl tlio ' revolution, quite as important in its effect upon tho national character as .was the movement which contributed to tho great Trench Devolution, yet. - with no-. thing of the hysteria of the i'pencil doctrinaires, whose radicalism precipitated-; the horrors of the Robespierre epoch. 1 ' Our revolution'was largely -the outcome of; > national common eonse."

"Is there any chance of 111© Mancliiis returning to power again?" "Not in tlio least. vTho Manchus linvo no voice in tlio political affairs of tho ■country, l for they-have'been definitely and finally excluded from taking any part in tlio government of China, and added to that a dccreo has been passed flfrantiiisj tho Jlanchu chicfs pensions,. with;which' they will doubtless bo content to reimiln quiet." , Mr..lCwei Chili is accompanied by his wife and son.