FIFTY YEARS OF CHINA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 81, 26 September 1911, Page 8

FIFTY YEARS OF CHINA

-A RICMAIiKARLE CAREER.' THE LATE SIR ROBERT HART. Fifty-seven vcars ago a lad of 19, named Robert Hurt, tlie son of a ScotoIrish millowner, of County Armagh, went out to China in tlie British Consular .service, and immed ; .ilely begun to organist; a Customs Dcpa'rrment for the Empire then just waking out of its long sleep. The story of his life is in every essential detail tlie story of the open door in China, and of a, unique personality impressing itself on the impersonal "power behind the Throne." One cannot escape the conviction that there was some peculiar Oriental charm about the young European who, at the age of 28, after a mere seven years of work as a Consul in the land of suspicion, had so won the conlidcuce of the Chinese Government as to be placed at the head of the Customs system of the country. Two years later he was appointed InspectorGeneral, and from then until his retirement in UluS the !.-(!.—as everv European at Pokin called liim—was the man to be linally reckoned with in all matters concerning tho relations of China with the oilier world.

■When Jie first put his hand to the plough, in the year ISM. only three treaty ports were in existence.' China had no international personality, being still, in the estimation of the rest of the world, a laud of, darkness and semibarbarism. Ports were being forcibly opened, it was true, but the Government was so ignorant of European trading methods as to be unable to collect its" own Customs dues.

When Sir Robert Hart left China, the number of employees controlled by the Customs Inspectorate stood at ll,f)80. of whom 10,030 are Chinese and 1344 foreigner.,, oddly enough, in European eyes, the Inspectorate came to control not only revenue and marine, but also educational and postal departments—in fact, all those departments of State in which European knowledge and methods were felt so desirable.

.In maimer of speech ami methods nf thought lie. was a Chinaman, or at all events Oriental. ..Sir Harry Norman used to tell an excellent story about his pastern manners. After much trouble and great uncertainty, Sir Robert, through his agent in Pa'ris, had succeeded in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion negotiations for the. signing of a treaty between France and' China, the cypher telegrams alone, it is said, having eost ,CI(i,(HKi. When he was at last assured by cable that the protocol had been signed, the L-G. got into his cart and went to call on the Tsmig-li-Yamen and take a cup of tea. By and b\- he casually remarked, with" the apparent indifference of the Oriental diplomat. "It is exactly nine months to-day that you placed the negotiations with' France in my hands." "And the child is bom!"' instantly cried one of the Ministers, seeing the point, and delighted at the truly Oriental way of conveying the news. Prom his earliest days ,Sir llobert was an accomplished Chinese courtier, and to this may doubtless be traced much of his extraordinary iniluence with the Dowager Empress and her advisers. Though the code of etiquette is highly complicated, he was believed to have never made a mistake, so completely had the Englishman been sunk in the' OrientaJ. Yet he never lost his charm for Europeans, and his weekly garden parties were for many years the most delightful feat lire of the alien colony's social life at Pekin.