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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 67, 6 August 1912, Page 4

ADVISER TO CIUNA. Dr. G. E...Morrison,' the Times correspondent' at Pekin, who has been appointed .political adviser to the President of China for a period of live years, is a very remarkable man, of -whom some most interesting details were recently given in a striking interview by Mr. F. A. Mackenzie, in the London Magazine. "Dr. G. E. Morrison, for thirteen years past, has had his home in the Chinese capital! travelling largely from province to province. I-Ie ha 9 helped to make as well as record history," says Mr. Mackenzie. "Dr. Morrison's life has .been full of adventure. Born forty-eight years ago at Geelong, the son of a famous Australian schoolmaster and sprung 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 %lackbirder,' in order to expose the abuses of the Kanaka-labor traffic. After a trip to Xew Guinea and back, partly in a Chinese junk, he walked alone from Xormanton to Geeloii<r, across the whole width of Australia, carrying his 'swa<»' and his 'billy,' and covering 2043 milea in 123 days. While conducting an expedition to Xew Guinea he received two ugly spear-wounds from the natives, and for a time was left for dead. Nine months after, at Edinburgh, Professor Cheine removed the second spear-point from his body. At Edinburgh he completed, his medical studies, started at Melbourne, and qualified. Emigrant to America, asisiatant purser on a fruit steamer, senior medisal oflicer at the Rio Tinto copper mines in Spain, physician to the Shereef of Wizan 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 the cost of £lB, resulted in a book. .That book liad a totally unexpected outcome. MoiJrison,' 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 1597 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 it had to deal with a man whose prescience in getting at, the fundamental j facts was almost uncanny." j