HOW EUROPE CHRISTIANISES IN CHINA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12570, 3 August 1901, Page 9

HOW EUROPE CHRISTIANISES IN CHINA.

RUSSIAN BARBARITIES AND BLACK PATCHES OF RUIN. [From Our Correspondent.] LONDON, May 31. , Tho desolation and destruction that mark the occupation of China by the Allies, tho petty pelf, the brutal massacres, that should make- Christian civilised Europe blush with shame, arc vividly depicted by the Special Correspondent of the “Times” in an article entitled “Pekin Revisited.” The region traversed by the railway between the mouth of tho Pei-ho and Pekm presents a scene of -desolation far worse than any presented by the devastated country in the Franco-Pnissia.n war or in the. Russian campaign, in the Balkans. At the mouth of the river the wreck of the Solidav recalls the first -of many instances of Russia’s wanton brutality, the Solidar was a lighter, in which three hundred unarmed coolies, scared by the bombardment from their homes, were crossing the river to'return to their peaceful avocations. From the fort they occupied, the Russians turned a heavy gun. on to the lighter, sank it, and then, as the unfortunate Chinamen struggled in the water, subjected them to a murderous fusilade from the adjoining rampart. Not one is believed to have escaped'. ■ It was a brutal deed and a stupid deed. There w-ere ®ome_ o-i the coolies employed for years by foreign shipping. companies, loading and uploading vessels in the river, and their labour would have been invaluable to the expeditionary forces then,on their .way north. ■ This was po isolated incident. Here is another, typical of Russian methods. “ A few days after the occupation of Pekin a Chinese woman with two small children, one a baby in arms, was crossing the Beggars Bridge, when a party of Russian soldiers came along. The woman was not quick enough, apparently, in getting out of the way, so they prodded the mother and the baby with their bayonets and threw them over the parapet of the bridge into the canal below, and as the clner child, a boy -of about five -or six, lay screaming on tho ground, one of tho Russians seized him by the heels, dashed his brains out on the marble flags and then flunn- the body headlong after the others. When such things, have happened in Chi-li, under the eyes, as'ib were, of the other Allied Powers, one can hardly affect to hope that there has been much exaggeration in the. ghastly story of ' Blagovcstohensk and other episodes of the Russian campaign in Manchuria.” From the worst horrors tho writer turns to the excessive wanton destruction -and pillage which has laid waste the fertile aoricultural country from the mouth of the Pei-ho to Tientsin, and from Tientsin halfway to Pekin. “In normal times it would at this season have been covered with winter' crops, ready to burst forth into fruit at the first approach of spring. To-day it is a wilderness. Not a furrow breaks the .monotony of the drab-coloured waste. The once busy- roads, over which long strings of heavy Chinese carts and beasts of burden ploughed their way unceasingly from market to market,, are diserted, the once crowded villages are empty. The whore population gems to have disappeared, save the coolies actually impressed into service of the Allied forces.” Tho writer goes on to show how the restoration of the.,railway to British control is helping to restore confidence, and then passes on to Pekin, where, as you alight from the railway .carriage opposite the Temple of Heaven, you see that a contractor has boarded up the central archway of the adjoining gate into the great sacred park, and turned it into a coffee and liqueur stall. . The “blade patches of ruin” in Pekin are forcibly described, and than the wholesale pillage and official looting, the petty vandalism, the petty pdf and piecemeal destruction is scathingly condemned. “ Much as the Russians have carried off, they have left behind them in one of _ the rooms ,of the Emperor a piece of silver plate which should have been -of peculiar interest for them. It represents * Russia, , the Liberator, restoring freedom to the Buigarian people.’ It was originally made by order of the Czar Alexander 111., for presentation to the Sobranje at Sofia, but before its completion Prince Alexander of Battenburg had lost favour in the eyes of his Imperial kinsman, and the gift was never forwarded to its contemplated destination. But in 1897 an opportunity was at last found of putting it to a new use, when Prince Ukhtomsky was sent out with presents from the Czar to the Son of Heaven, Tire date and inscription were altered, and although many: of the Bulgarian accessories still betrayed its identity, it was passed on to the Emperor of China as a symbolical representation of Russia the Liberator restoring to him the Le'ao-tong Pefc-insuia! If tho Emperor Kwang Hsu has any sense, of humour, he must have appreciated the grimness of the joke when Russia the .Liberator relieved him, a few months biter, of all further anxiety about the future destinies of Leao-tong.” The squalor of Pekin has been brought to the surface,-by recent events. The Gerufans govern with a heavy hand, and theinhabitants make a brave spread of bunting, but in the British quarter, where the Chinese appear to be relatively friendly and contented; not a single Union Jack is to be seen.

But though the pecpld are temporarily cowed, “the old spirit” still Juries beneath the surface, and of late especially the belief has been reported to be rife amongst the populace that the heroes of the Boxer movement are not dead, but only asleep, and will wake up again to smite the foreigners as soon as the sap rises in the trees.

It is satisfactory to learn , that in the worst excesses neither the British nor the Anglo-Indian soldier, nor our American cousins had any hand'. A comparison of Anglo-Saxon methods with those of other European nations in China should show the latter why the Anglo-Saxon race ban colonise successfully where other nations fail-.