CHINA AND CIVILISATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 October 1930, Page 6

CHINA AND CIVILISATION.

The ghastly story of the torture and murder of two British women missionaries in China is a reminder of how thin is the veneer of western civilisation that- is covering the most progressive elements in that vast territory. When Europeans venture beyond the doubtful safety of what were at one time known as “treaty ports” or of localities to which succour can be sent without delay by any nation whose nationals are in danger they find themselves faced with primitive China; with a people whose virtues and crimes are the outcome of centuries of habit and thought quite outside those that have moulded European civilisation. It would be impossible to conceive of persons less likely to intervene in local politics than women missionaries in a district far removed from the centres of political upheaval, or where what its supporters claim as the new spirit of Chinese nationhood is being developed. In the hope of stimulating its growth Great Britain has given up many rights that were hers in China by virtue of the sword. Only last week saw the end of the British rule of Wei-Hai-Wei, for over thirty years a naval settlement, where the Chinese population enjoyed a prosperity and freedom from injustice unknown to many of their countrymen. Other special rights such as those in regard to trial by European judges for Europeans charged with offences jmder Chinese law have been surrendered by Great Britain in the hope that with the power of the Chinese national movement will p °me a sense of the responsibilities that attach to democratic government. Such happenings as the murder of women missionaries simply because sufficient ransom was not forthcoming for their release must create a doubt"’as to whether reliance by Europeans upon law and order in China is not premature, and must suggest that until further proof is available that effective control of lawlessness is in existence the rights of foreigners domiciled in Chinese territories must continue to be the direct care of their own .countries. If the martyrdom of the two missionaries leads to more eafety for their countrymen and women it will not have been in vain. The horror of their murder must be making British statesmen set themselves “furiously to think.”