Li Hung's Patriotism.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 9835, 7 August 1900, Page 2

Li Hung's Patriotism.

The Japanese Minister in Paris has not a high opinion of Li Hung Chang. Speaking of him lately his Excellency remarked :—" Ho is not by a long way the .orcat statesman he is taken for in Europe.

The consideration he enjoys in China is to be attributed loss to his diplomatic talents than to his wealth. He is perhaps the richest man in China. He is at the head of several banks and owns a vast silk industry. Li Hung Chang thinks only of his pocket, and has never thought of anything else. He is not a patriot. Indeed, there can be no question of patriotism in the European sense of the word in speaking of any Chinaman. The fact is that China itself covers too vast an area and its population is too numerous. The only patriotic link which unites the Chinese is their aversion to | all innovations and their hatred of the foreigner. Li Hung Chang hates strangers as cordially as does any Boxer. That does not prevent him, however, from taking foreign money. He is said to have played a singular pirt in the cession of Port Arthur to Russia, and to have pocketed quite a considerable sum of hush money. ri6 is at present Viceroy of Nanking. The Empress Mother sent him there in order that she might be sole mistress at Pekin."