THE BRITISH N CHINA,

North Otago Times, Volume CVII, Issue 17170, 29 March 1927, Page 4

THE BRITISH N CHINA,

! ' j i Professor Soothill, who is professor ! - of Chinese at lOxford University, ! i and was a member of the British | I Boxer Indemnity Delegation which j visited China last year, under the : chairmanship of Lord Willingdon, | draws attention in an article in the : Sunday Times to sorae of the ser- ! vjces rendered to China by Britain. ! It is due chiefly to British traders ■ I and their enterprise that China has j i developed her large and valuable | | foreign commerce, which Has bene- j lited Britain, but has been far more valuable to thousands ^ of ; workers and merchants in China. Tnnumerable Chinese to-day obtain their livelihood in consequence of British ventures, and venturers and i men of courage they have had to be. If the reader could only com- ; pare the Maritime Customs return i of the present day with those of I the sixties, when the service was | founded under a British Director, i he would be 'astonished at the tre- ; mendous amount of employment : which has been made possible j through British leadership. In the [ matter of communications, it is venj turers from this country who have I led and developed the way both in | modern shipping and in railway ! construction. Without these, the l civilisation of. China remained "ancient," and communication throughout the Empire was extremely slow, diflxcult and costly. The customs lighted and lights a coast which had lain in age-long darkness, save for the lures of wreckers. It charted the same uncharted coast, partly aided by the British Admiralty, and buoyed the channels and rivers, and introduced and developed valuable conservancy works. Among a number of other benefits, it conferred the wonderful service of the posts, which have since extended their ramifications, under tlie control of a French director, to the farthest village in the land. As regards the concessions and settlements, so unjustly inveighed against j the British were* granted leases of ! half a-score mud flats, in every j case "without the pale." On these, j with amazing diligence and years of ! toil, they have succeeded in doing • the impossible by the • transforma- ! tion of these unattractive sites into ! su'ch remarkahle towns as Shang;hai, Hankow, Tientsin, the Shameen ! at Ganton In all these places, it is the British who have also established somethipg of which the Chinese had no previous conception, a form of representative municipal government. Such has been the fine development, for instance, of the Shanghai Municipal Council that Marshal Sun Chuan-fang last year publicly said that he was ashamed to go from the cleanliness and order of the Shanghai concession to the disorder and squalor of the larger area under Chinese control. In the sphere of education. Hongkong has encouraged and made provision for schools, colleges, and a fine university, wholly for the Chinese. Lately, the Shanghai British community subscribed a large sum of money to assist in the education of Chinese, and it was carefully and wisely expended. The Shansi Government University was founded and developed by British piissionaries. and that large province of Shansi has stood alone, "the Model Province," through the years of anarchy, because 60 per cent. of the chief advisers and administrators uitder Governor Yen were students trained by British professors.