THE AWAKENING OF CHINA.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 62, 23 February 1911, Page 11

THE AWAKENING OF CHINA.

LET THE WEARY SLEEP. The awakening of China’s millions is no longer an alarming prospect to those people who observed < to-day the Chinese crew on the I steamer Knight of the Garter. The! seafaring Chinamen may be fairly regarded as amongst those of their countrymen who have already ‘awakened.” but the result is far from impressive, lending itself as itdoes rather to humour than to concern. At the Knight of the Garter’s gangway was stationed an “• awakened ” Chinese quartermaster. He seemed only partially awake, and possessed of no desire to become more wakefid. His fea.Itures depicted a gloomy indiffer[ence to all things, and existence was an effort he evidently regretted. He moved wearily in the vicinity of the gangway, down which he peered occasionally when it banged noisily against the vessel’s side> aS persons jumped on to it from the wharf in the ordinary course of getting on board. Work which Britishers would lighten with the dash and devil-may-care of the sea, the Chinamen, performed with a lack of interest and an air of hopelessness that was reflected in the tone of their communications to each other. The tone of these communications, a landsman said, reminded him of the “pleeping of wet chicks as they gathered under

(the mother’s wing, only the chick’s note of pheerfulness. of appreciation, was absent. The awakening of China’s millions has not been a bright success from a seafaring point of view, although ousted British sailors no doubt regard it less happily than do certain British shipowners on dividend day. Let the weary sleep.—Dunedin Star.”