A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 249, 17 July 1937, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Boxer Rising The Japanese arc said to be apprehensive of something like the Boxer outbreak, owing to intensified antiJapanese feeling throughout China. Throughout the Chinese Empire the closing years of the nineteenth century had been years of “distress and com motion. In some district risings were anti-dynastic; iu others, anti-foreign : in others especially directed against the missionaries.” Owing to the lease to Germany of Tsingtao iu IS9B, ostensibly by way of reparation for the murder of two German missionaries in November, 1897, but iu fact in pursuance of her defined policy, those feelings came to a head in the province of Shantung. The medium of their expression was a secret society of which the Chinese name was I Ho Ch’uan, meaning “Fists of Righteous Harmony,” from which term “Boxers” was in due course derived. The movement, could have been controlled. but a reactionary Manchu, Yu Hsien, was appointed Governor of the Province in 1899. The society was then allowed to develop on anti-foreign lines.

In June, 1900, the Boxers besieged the foreign settlements'in Tientsin. Iu Peking the Dowager Empress not only took no steps to suppress the movement, but became virtually the leader. Tung Fu-Hsiang, fierce antiforeign leader of savage troops from the far-away western province of Kansu, who had been summoned to Peking to resist foreign aggression, offered to drive the foreigners into the sea. Meanwhile nearly 50 missionaries were barbarously put to death in Tientsin. Thereupon the various foreign Powers made concerted action and suppressed the rebellion, enacted conditions against future outbreaks, and compelled payment of an indemnity. Formosa

Formosa has an area of 13,683 square miles and a population in excess of 5,000,000, of whom less than 300,000 are Japanese. It is an island lying between the Philippines on the soutn and Japan on the north, with the China Sea on the west and the Pacific Ocean on the east. A range of mountains runs from north to south, forming a Backbone; the eastern half is exceedingly steep and craggy, but the western slope is flat, fertile and well-cultivated, yielding two rice crops a year. The temperature rarely falls below 96 degrees Fahrenheit. Rain is abundant

Formosa, besides growing enormosu quantities of rice and sugar, and producing quantities of coal, is the world’s chief source of camphor, which, since 1899, has been a monopoly of the Government, as also is the production of opium. Formosa was ceded to Japan by China in 1895 after the China-Japanese War, and Japan has made it a source of profit. The Orthodox Church Referring to the .christening of the infant son of King Boris of Bulgaria, a cable from Sofia mentions that Bulgarian public opinion is strongly opposed to Royal children belonging to other than the Orthodox Church. The full name of this church is the Holy Orthodox Catholic Oriental Church. It is also known as the Greek Church, because it was Greek in origin, and most of its eccelesiastical liturgies and literature were composed in that language. This Church is to-day the third largest section of Christendom, its adherents being scattered in Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Egypt and Western Asia.

In primitive times the Eastern and Western divisions of Christendom formed a single church, and it was only gradually that the separation took place. Many causes contributed to this result. When Constantine transferred the capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople, it was inevitable that the Roman Empire would split into two divisions, and that the political rivalry between these two divisions would be reflected in the church. The Eastern Church maintained the absolute equality of the different patriarchates and refused to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope of Rome; it refused to adopt the rule of celibacy for the mass of the clergy, and allowed all except the bishops and monks to marry; it allowed the use of the vernacular in its liturgies and public worship; it does not accept the Apostles’ or the Athanasian Creed, both of which are of Western origin; but regards the Nicene creed, without one of the clauses, as the basis of its faith. As the result of its belief iu the equality of the patriarchates the different national sections of the Eastern Church maintain a considerable amount of independence. Ben Tillett , Three New Zealand nurses who arc going to Spain were tendered a luncheon in London at the National Trades Union Club, where Mr. Ben Tillett, of the Transport and General Wvrkers’ Union, was a speaker.

Benjamin Tillett was born at Bristol in 1860. He left school at the age of eight years to go to work. He went on a fishing smack at the age of 12 as ship’s boy. He afterward joined the Royal Navy, and subsequently went on several voyages in the merchant service, finally settling down at the docks. In ISB7 he founded the Sea Operatives’ and General Labourers’ Union, with 300 members, who made him secretary. In 1889 this union became the Lock, Wharf, Riverside and General Workers’ Union (the Dockers’ Union) The small beginning in 1887 led directly to the historic dock strike of ISS9, which founded the whole movement for the organisation of the unskilled workers. and led to very far-reaching changes in the trade union movement itself.

A speaker of immense natural power, and a style reminiscent of the pulpit from which he thundered as a youth. Tillett from the first believed in political allied with industrial action. Several times he tried to get into Parliament as a Labour representative, but did not succeed until 1917, and he held the seat of North Salford until 1921. He served for many years on the London County Council, of which he was an aiderman. In 1921 he became secretary of the Political and International Department of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. He was one of the originators of the General Federation of Trades Unions, formed in 1899.