CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 196, 28 November 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

AWAKENING CHINA. New Zealand has lately been asked to believe that China is waking up because the Chinese are to be allowed to cut off their pigtails. Mr. F. S. A. Bourne, C.M.G., a Shanghai banker ana an authority on China, has lately said that the people who believe that China, will reform as quickly as Japan know nothing about the matter. The features which marked China in the middle oi last century were: Selection of the whole governing class by public examination, next to no preparation for war abroad or at home, the intellect worshipped, the training of the body neglected, no written civil law so that civil rights could be judicially determined, weakness of Central Government against public opinion, government by philosophy. Mr. Bourne referred to the movements against opium and foot-binding, and that in favor of physical training. There had been railways, electric light at Canton, and so on, also a genuine attempt jto reform the civil administration and the army. There had been an immense increase in the number of students. These men would be useful under good leaders, but in the meantime there was scarcely room for them and they would be apt to become dangerous, On the other hand, in national finance no progress has been made; there was no budget; no one knew how the national accounts stood, nothing had been done to train a staff of judges, and justice was being administered just as always. There had been in the last ten years no general organic reform, nor was there any sign of the appearancu of leaders or the formation of a sound public opinion and character such as were needed to make administration efficient and to raise the country to take its place on the lines of the Great Powers. There was rather the tendency to be satisfied with words and to shelve officials willing to take the lead in reform. Change was only welcome to oust the foreigner. If we left the country to-morrow, he believed the Chinese would revert to their own ways. The mass of the people desired to keep and not change the institutions which their forefathers had so long lived under. On the other hand, the merits.of the Chinese were many—intelligence, cheerfulness, industry, frugality, patience, devotion to parents and children, and courage against physical difficulties on the part of the peasantry; intellect, sense of fairness in private life, morality, loyalty

to friends on the part of the cultured class. He believed the cultured .Japanese would acknowledge that the Chinese were cleverer and more industrious than his own people. What then, were we to expect in the next ten or twenty years? Their best hope would seem to be in a strong man, supported by the throne, clear-sighted enough to see necessity ot employing in the way the Japanese did foreign brains and capital. If no such man arose, organic change in the direction of Western methods could only come very slowly, sporadically, as the new ideas germinated in the minds ot the masses. Considering that the masses mean something under four hundred million folk, it may be some time before the whole trend of Chinese thought changed. CORAL BREAKWATERS.

In the course of a series of interesting articles on China (which are being published in this paper), Mr. James Thorpe, the well-known railway' engineer, digresses in order to make a suggestion. At the time of writing he was west of the Barrier reef, and says: "The sea, notwithstanding a high wind, is remarkably smooth, while the ship .steps from wavelet to wavelet with scarcely the suspicion of a pitch or roll. All this is due to the Barrier reef to the east of our course for the next four days, so that this part of the ocean may truly be called an inland sea. Now it occurs to me to suggest that New Plymouth, Wanganui, Gisborne, and many other places should cultivate the coral insect, place colonies of it in position and let them build breakwaters. Why not! It may be the means of saving scores of ports in New Zealand; what scores of others could be ports. And what breakwaters! vStrong and indestructible, no matter how the storms might storm, the typhoons rage, the • willys will, the simooms sigh, and the 100-mile hurricane hurry at a 200-mile bat, but the coral guardians would still stand sentry undisturbed by the whole combination. There have been worse suggestions than this. Whisper it to your Harbor Board!"

A VETERAN'S OPTIMISM. General Booth lias now passed his eighty-second birthday, but he is still working with the tireless energy of a, young man of thirty. Five days in every week he spends in London, controlling and directing the manifold interests of the Salvation Army. ,On Saturdays he goes out into the country and becomes the central figure at religious meetings in some centre not fax from the metropolis. A few weeks ago, when speaking ait Scarborough, he made reference to some of the accusations that have been levelled against him ol late'. "I am charged sometimes with selfishness," he said, "with having made money out of the Salvation Army, ana with having fine motor-cars and houses of my own. To these I can answer that I have never taken a shilling out of the Salvation Army's coffers, that no fine house of mine can be mentioned because none exists, and that I have never ridden in a motor-car that was not hired or lent, and even then only for the purpose of saving souls. Then some people have said that our finances are not made public, and that no balance-sheets are issued. This is a lie. Our accounts are audited by one of the most respected firms in the land, and balance-sheets have been issued every year since the Salvation Army began." The aged General proceeded to discuss the future, and repeated a previous statement that the message which told the world of his death would name his successor. But! people who ivanted to know what would happen when he died "needn't worry," he added, because he was still alive and had made up his mind to live as long as he possibly could. "Not only is the old man all right, but the young man is all right too," he said in coir elusion, "and my successor will be as heartily received and as lovallv and faithfully followed as the old General himself. »Don't worry; God will not desert His great work." The splendid old leader rejoices in the fact that he has had no holiday for twenty years.