MORRISON OF PEKIN: TIMES CORRESPONDENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 94, 22 April 1911, Page 10

MORRISON OF PEKIN: TIMES CORRESPONDENT.

"Dr. G. E. Morrison, for thirteen years past has had his home in the Chinese capital, travelling largely from province to province. - He has helped to make as well as record history. Dr. Morrison's life has been full of adventure. Born forty-eight years ago at Geelong, the son of a famous Australian schoolmaster and 6prung from a noted family of athletes, he early showed his bent towards exploration. Leaving Melbourne University in his eighteenth year, he shipped as a common sailor in a South Sea "blackbirder," in order to expose the abuses ol the Kanaka labour traffic. After a trip to New Guinea and back, partly in a Chinese junk, he walked alone from Normanton to Geelong, across the whole j width of Australia, carrying his 'swag' and his 'billy,' and covering 2043 miles in 123 days. While conducting an expedition to New Guinea he received two ugly spear-wounds from the natives 5 and for a time was loft for dead. Nine months after, at Edinburgh^ Professor Cheine removed the second spearpoint from his body. At Edinburgh he completed his medical studies, started at Melbourne, and qualified. Emigrant to America, assistant purser on a fruit steamer, senior medical officer at the Rio Tinto copper mines in Spain, physician to the Sheeref of Wazan in Morocco, and surgeon-in-charge of the Ballarat Hospital — the years to come were a strange medley. A journey of 3000 miles from Shanghai to the Burmese frontier, across China, completed at tho cost of £18. resulted in a book. Tbo book had a totally unexpected outcome. Morrison, while on a visit to London, was asked to call at the office of The Times,' and was offered the post of travelling correspondent, with orders to proceed immediately to Siam. In 1897 he settled down in Pekin, an almost unknown man. Within two years his name was familiar in every Foreign Office in Europe; his, announcements had been more than once debated in Parliament; and officialism found that ifc had to deal with a man who&s prescience in getting at the fundamental facts was almost uncanny. On more than one occasion his cablegrams were denied from the .Treasury Bench, only to have their truth admitted soon after. Once Lord Curzon, ■then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, sought to excuse the official ignorance by describing Morrison's announcement as "the intelligent anticipation of events before they occur." When in 1900 news came that the Pekin Legations had fallen under the Boxer attacks, and that Morrison_ had died with the others^ his papier printed an eulogy on him such as it is given to few men to receive. A few weeks later he had the plea-sure of reading his own obituary notice! His position in the Far East is unique. Chinese and European alike admit his authority and knowledge. When he recently visited Japan with his colleague; Mr. Valentine Chirol, they were given a reception from tho Emperor downwards such as journalists, qua journalists, have never received before. The Chinese themselves have long had confidence in him as a friend of their nation, a friend genuine enough to criticise without fear or partiality. , Dr. Morrison looks tho explorer that he is. His sturdy frame, his air of great physical strength, tell of the open-air life. And yet after talking with him for a time one is apt to forget the traveller in the scholar. Here is a bookman. In his home iv Pekin he has the finest library of works on China in the 'world, numbering nine thousand volumes. His library is a model of order. Every volume is indexed; every cutting filed; every fact ready for immediate reference. Study' life' library "and you learn some-; fching^Df the cause of his success. He is the most exact man it has ever been my lot to meet. Accuracy with him amounts to a passion.— F. A. Mackenzie, in the London Magazine.