PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2437, 28 November 1900, Page 67

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

RUSSIAN ARROGANCE. In three instances during the past fortnight Russia has carried on with a high hand. . The insult offered our Flag at Shanhaikwan, the commandeering of railway material on the Shanhalkwan-Newchang line, and the peremptory orders issued to other foreigners vacate houses occupied by them at Tongku on the Pekin-Tientsin railway appear to be the. acts rather of a savage or^semi-civilised nation than of one to' be admitted, on terms of equality to -the company of the nations of' the West. " The whole, object has been, as usual, to go as, far as possible without provoking an acvtual war.;' and in this instance while avoiding hostilities," to gain as complete control of the railways of Northern China— the only railways indeed in China — as we woxild allow them to ; and in so doing to occupy a good strategical position for future aggression. The Shanhaikwan line especially concerns us as Britishers. Joseph Walton, M.P., who ran up the coast of China W few months ago, and had all facilities given him by naval, military, and consular authorities to acquire any information available, says that in the construction , of this line Russia' has thwarted us on every hand. You will remember that about a month ago it was announced in effect that Russia was to have a free hand north of the Great Wall. Now the Great Wall strikes the cokst just about Shanhaikwan, and the extension to Newchang under construction •with British money lies within the sphere Russia is allowed to exercise a protectorate over. When the terms of constructionwere being discussed Lord Salisbury practically allowed Russia to dictate the articles of agreement, with the result that China, otherwise Russia, can pay out British bond- . holders at any time by handing over a premium, of 20 per cent. Mr Walton says that, if Russia gets control of this line she will throttle the whole of our North China trade, which at present, or at least before war broke out, amounts to about three "millions a-year. When the railway is extended, "and when trade is" organised, this amount will, of course", be capable of indefinite' expansion. , A" little of this I -wrote three or four weeks ago, but I repeat it," because. I think the time is opportune. ' It is probable that for a month or two Very little activity will be displayed in the 'north. As the weathei is intensely coM, and the watercourses pretty well frozen, ,and as the harbours ' from Taku aix>imd to "Port Arthur., will, for all practical purposes, be frozen over also, many movements will be almost an impossibility. • , ASIA. Lord Ciirzon in lfis opening chapter of " Problems of the Fax- East " has a desciiption of Asia, which, now that Asiatic affairs are so prominently before us, is worth epitomising, so Ishall try my 'prentice hand at a little bit of condensing, at the same time using as 'nearly as possible Curzon's own words. It has been the cradle of our race, the ■birthplace of our language [this refers to the theory that the Aryans live somewhere about the Himalayas, though that is not the prevailing idea now — Pater], the hearth- ■ stone of our religion, the fountain-head of the best of our ideas. Of Asian parentage is that" force which, more than any other influence, has transformed and glorified mankind—viz., the belief in a single N Deity. Five of the six greatest moral teachers that "the world has seen — Moses, .Buddha, Confu- " civs, Jesus, and Mohammed — were born of ' Asian parents, and lived upon t Asian 'soil. "'Houghly speaking, , their creeds may besa'id, 'to have divided the conquest of the uni- * verse. The most famous or the wisest -of "kings — Solomon, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Timur, Baber, Akbar — have sat upon Asian thrones.' Thither the greatest conqueror of the Old -World turned aside- for the sole theatre befitting so enormous an ambition. From Asia also has sprung the most terrible phenomena by which humanity has ever been scourged. The three most populous existing Empires — Great Britain, Russia, and China — are Asian Empires. We owe to her the noblest product of all literature, in the Old Testament of the Hebrew ' Scriptures ; the sweetest of lyrics in the ' epithalamium of a Jewish king ; the embryos of modern knowledge in the empiricism of Arabian geometers, and metaphysicians. There, too, the mariner's compass first guided men" over the pathless ■waters. [Lord Curzon might have added a note on printing being an Asiatic invention, but he hasn't. — Pater,]. From Asia we liave received ' the architecture of the Moslem — that most spiritual and refined of human conceptions; the porcelain of China, the faience of Persia, Rhodes,^and Damascus, the infinitely ingenious art of Japan. On her soil were reared the most astoniiiaing of all cities, Babylon; the most pri'nily of palaces, Persepolis; the stateliest of temples, Angkor Wat; the loveliest of tombs, the Taj Mahal. T,here, "too, may - tie found- the" most wonderful of Nature's productions : the loftiest mountains on the • surface of the earth; the most renowned, if not the largest, of rivers ; the most- en- . trancing of landscapes. In the heart of .' Asia lies to this day the one mystery 1 which the nineteenth' century has. still left for the twentieth to explore — viz., the Thibetan oracle ( of Lhassa. Such, in brief, is the present Viceroy of j India's of Asia, as written a j year or two ago. But he also deduces certain moral lessons from his Eastern tour, reflections thereon; and, lie writes

somewhat in this strain — again, -where possible I use his words : — When the traveller meets with "a civilisation as old as, nayolder than, his own ; when, he encounters a history whose heroes have been among the great men 'of all time; religions whose prophets hav.e altered the course of the world's progress; codes of morals which have endured for centuries, and still hold within their adamantine grip; a learning which anticipated many of the proudest discoveries of modern science ; and a social organism which has in places solved the very problem of reconciling individual liberty with collective force, -whereupon the new-fledged democracies of the West are expending their virgin energies — he feels that it is absurd for him to censure, and impertinent in him to condemn. The East has not yet exhausted 'its lessons for us, and Europe may s>till sit at the feet of her elder sister.