Civilising China.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 173, 2 August 1901, Page 3

Civilising China.

RUSSIAN BARBARITIES. The desolation and destruction that marks the occupation of 'Thina by the allies, the petty pelf, the brutal massacres, that should make Christian civilised : Europe blnsh with shame, are vividly i depicted by the special correspondent of The Times, in an article entitled “ Pekin Revisited.” The region traversed by the railway between the mouth of the Peiho and Pekin presents a scene of desolation far worse than any presented by the devastated country in the Franco-Prus-sian war or in the Russian campaign in the Balkans. At the mouth of the river the wreck of the Solidar recalls the first of many ’instances of Russia's wanton cruelty. The j Solidar was a lighter in which 300 unarmed coolies, scared by the bombardment from their homes, were crossing the river to return to their peaceful avocations. ! From the fort they occupied the Russians turned a heavy gun on to the lighter, sank it, and then as the unfortunate Chinamen struggled in the water subjected them to a murderous fusilade from the adjoining rampart. No one is believed to have escaped. It was a brutal deed and a stupid deed. These were some of the coolies employed for years by foreign shipping companies loading and unloading vessels in the river, and their labor would have been invaluable to the expeditionary forces when on their way north. This was no isolated incident. Here is

another typical of Russian methods: “A few days after the occupation of Pekin, a Chinese woman with two small children, one a baby in arms, was crossing the Beggar’s Bridge, when a party of Russian soldiers came along. The woman was not quick enough apparently in getting out of the way, so they prodded the mother and the baby with their bayonets, a'nd threw them over the parapet of the bridge into the canal below, and as the other child, a boy of about five or six, lay screaming on the ground, one of the Russians seized him by the heels, dashed his brains out on the marble flags, and flung the body headlong after the others. When such things have happened in

Chi-li, under the eyes, as it were, of the other allied powers, one can hardly affect to hope that there has been much exaggeration in the ghastly story of Blagovestchensk, and other episodes of the Russian campaign in Manchuria.”

From the worst horrors the writer turns to the excessive wanton destruction and pillage which has laid waste the fertile agricultural country from the mouth of the Pciho to Tientsin, and

from Tientsin half way to Pekin. “In normal times it would at this season have been covered with winter crops ready to burst forth into fruit at’the first approach of spring. To-day it is a wilderness. Not a furrow breaks the monotony of the drab-colored waste. The once busy roads over which long strings of heavy Chinese carts and beasts of burden ploughed their way unceasingly from market to market aro deserted, the once crowded villages are empty. The whole population seems to have disappeared save the coolies actually impressed into the service of the allied forces.”

The writer goes on to show how the restoration of the railway to British control is helping to restore confidence, and then passes on to Pekin, where as you alight from the railway carriage opposite the Temple of Heaven, you see that a contractor has boarded up the central archway of the adjoining gate into the great sacred park, and turned it into a coffee and liqueur stall. The “ black patches of ruin ” in Pekin are forcibly described, and then the wholesale pillage and official looting, the petty vandalism, the potty pelf and piecemeal destruction is scathingly condemned. “ Muchas the Russians have carried off, they have left behind them in one of the rooms of the Emperor a piece of silver plate, which should have been of peculiar interest to them. It represents ‘ Russia the Liberator restoring freedom to the Bulgarian people.’ It was originally made by ox-der of the Tsar Alexander 111. for presentation to the Sobranye of Sofia, but before its completioiyPrince Alexander

of Battonburg had lost favor in the eyes of his Imperial kinsman, and the gift was never forwarded to its contemplated destination. In 1897 an opportunity was at last given for putting it to a new use, when Prince Ukhtomasky was sent with presents from the Czar to the Son of Heaven. The date and inscription were altered, and although many of tho Bulgarian accessories still betrayed its identity, it was passed on to the Emperor of China as a symbolical representation of Bussia the Liberator restoring to him the Leao-tong peninsular ! If the Emperor Itwang Hsu has any sense of humor, he must bavo appreciated tho grimnoss of the joke when Bussia the Liberator relieved him a few months later of all

further anxiety about the future destinies

of Leao-tong. The squalor of Pekin has been brought to the surface by recent events. The Germans govern with a heavy hand, and the inhabitants make a brave spread of bunting, but in the British quarter where the Chinese appear to be relatively friendly and contented, not a single Union Jack is to be seen. But though the people are temporarily cowed, “ the old spirit still lurks beneath the surface,” and of late especially the belief has been reported to be rife amongst the populace that the heroes of the Boxer movement are not dead but only asleep, and will wake up again to smite the foreigners as soon as the sap arises in the trees. It is satisfactory to learn that in the worst excesses neither the British nor the Anglo-Indian soldier nor our American

cousins had any hand. A comparison of Anglo-Saxon methods with those of other European nations in China should show the latter why tho Anglo-Saxon

race can colonise successfully where other nations fail.