THE CHINESE CONTEMPT FOR FOREIGNERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11798, 30 July 1900, Page 2

THE CHINESE CONTEMPT FOR FOREIGNERS.

Writing on .Tune 7 a Hongkong correspondent says, referring to tho inactivity of tho Powers in the face of the growing- danger from the Boxer movement: —" Tl; is bpenusn'of this do-nothingness that Chinese have a contempt for us. This is well exemplified by tho words of a high Chinese official. ' Those foreigners.' he said, ' may ride in carriages and live delicately,- but they cannot be rich.

Were they so they would not come here implore us to buy their goods. Neither can tnoy be powerful, for whenever any of their countrymen are killed they merely talk a lot, and the matter can always be settled for ThSoforP vl 'h? b? ilding °f a nCW ? hY, rti b force and so long as U:-y are allow«l to pay for the lives of foreigners they think that we are too powerless to take the law into our own hands and enforce, justice. 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth 'is the only law understood by ' the Chinese, and the sooner that wo resolve to go upon that rule the sooner will British prestige be ro-estab-lished and trade will be permitted to'flourish. What, I would ask, is the value of all the concessions that we have been granted at the present moment? They are so much waste paper, for the concessionaries know full well that the country is in too disturbed a state for them to make use of the rights that have been granted to them, and the Chinese beHove that we fear to enforce our rights and compel them to carry out their contracts. We show a great deal too much diplomacy and a great deal too little common."sense in our dealings with China. Russia alone knows how the Celestial can be dealt with, and the result is that Russia .is fast securing a footing from which it will be well-n^h. impossible to oust her." .