AT THE CHINA CLUB.

Otago Witness, Issue 2427, 19 September 1900, Page 64

AT THE CHINA CLUB.

(Review of the Week.)

"What I want to know is this," said the •M.P., addressing himself particularly to the ex-Consul : ' What is to be done if China continues in this state of chaos for an. indefinite period — say, a couple of years. — and there is consequently no Government with (•whom the Powers will be able to^ negotiate 'I " The ex-Consul smiled. 1 "If is ridiculous," he replied, "to talk about there being no Government at Peking for siich a length of time. At the outride there may be chaos for ten days or a fortnight ; but certainly not for longer. Like most people here, you altogether overrate , and underrate the Chinese." . i "But how," objected the M.P., "can you expect people, even a.s intelligent as you declare the Chinese to be, to restore to order Avithin a few doys the complicated machinery of their administration when it has once been thrown out of gear?" ."That is exactly the kind of mistake I should have expected you and everybody else to make," the ex-Consul exclaimed, in an impatient tone. "We certainly need the services of the China League to correctly inform the people of this country upon these matters. You assume that the machinery of Government in the Chinese Empire is complicated. I tell you the reverse is the case. There is no political system more simple and easier of comprehension than that established by the Chinese."' " But surely," interrupted tlie Shanghai merchant, with an emphatic gesture of protest — " surely it is notorious enough that this system is absolutely effete, worn out, and corrupt to the core ! Look^ for example " "I am not speaking of the abuses that have crept into thc x systein, as, in fact, they find their way into, all systems, however admirable they may be in theory,"' broke in the ex-Consul. "I am speaking of the system itself. A more perfect theory of government than the Chinese has never, I believe, been invented. Europeans, in their Ignorance, speak of the Chinese as if they v/ere children just learning to walk. Why, sir, it if, we on the contrary who are beginning — or rather, I Ohould say, who ought to be beginning — tc imbibe political wisdom. Do you know that under the Sung dyna-stj' Socialism was officially established in China with the ,cinction of the Emperor ?■ This happened about the time of the Norman Conquest, when the political ideas of the inhabitants of this country were rude and what would now be called uncivilised. Yot a Chinese reformer persuaded the Son of Heaven, at that early date in our history, to give practicnl trial to a social experiment to which some of the greatest jnVleo'is in tho enlightened V.'c-t arc now turning their attention for the first

time. Abbe Hue, a great authority on China, wrote in 1854 : 'It is a curious fact that the greater part of those social theories 1 which have lately thrown the public mind ' of Prance into a_ ferment, and which are represented as the sublime results of the progress of human reason, are but exploded Chinese Utopias -w Inch agitated the Celesj tial Empire centuries ago.' " "In your opiivon, therefore," the M.P. observed, " the Chinese h^ve airived at a perfect form of government aiter passing through all the processes of political upheaval that have been, and are being, experienced in the communities of the West? " The ex-Consul shook his head. " That does not exaelly represent my argument," he said. "I do not say that the Chinese paused through our modern stages of political thought before arriving finally at their admirable theory of government. They deserve far moie credit than that. When we were painted savages running about the woods in a nude and nomadic stage of society, the Chinese were a highly civilised people living in prosperity and contentment under their present s3-scem of government. Twenty-six centuries before die Christian era the Chinese Emperor, Hwang-ti, organised the Quite into administrative departments ; and it was he who invented ships and built up road communications throughout the empire. Confucius, whoso philosophical teachings have continued to exsrdse over the Chinese people an influence, unparalleled iv history, lived before Socrates.'' He chec3:ed himself. " I might go on indefinitely," lie continued, after a moment's pause, " giving examples to show the antiquity of Chinese proju'es. It is a subject upon which one could become eloquent — and I fear tediou- — to the majority of peopls who care little about enlightenment wheie their own country, o- some personal hobby, is not concerned. "