THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8160, 15 June 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1906.

Dr. Morrison, the very able Pekin correspondent of the London Times, who has returned to nia post after an absence of nine months, sends to his journal an interesting review of the present oondition of China. After making exhaustive inquiries, he has arrived at the conclusion that there is no foundation for the alarming acoounts of the situation in China, which have found their way into American and European newspapers. But while the attitude of the Govern ment shows no sympathy with any anti-foreign movement, it would be idle, he says, to deny that some features of the present situation are most unsatisfactory. Foremost is the unbridled nature of the newborn native press, the journals of which are mostly published,ln the treaty ports and guided largely by students with

a smattering of education .from Japan, assisted by irresponsible Japanese. <, Several of the worst ioflammatory papers, are registered under Japanese protection. There is an argent necessity that England should concert with Japan to assist China to draft and enforce press laws, Not all the papers, however, are bad. Some are good, and have a benefioial effect in contributing to the growth of a reasonable public opinion, but the general tone is anti-foreign, and even the best are remarkably inaccurate. The publication in tne native papers of the anti-slavery South African election charges has had a deplorable effect, while the publication of English cartoons, showing Chinese driven with whips in chains to labour, Englishmen shooting runaway Chinese in sport, and Flnglishmen torturing Chinese at the mines, can only make Englishmen living in China wonder why retaliation is so infrequent. Another unsatisfactory feature due to the weakness of the central Government is its failure to forbid the holding of inflammatory meetings in the central and southern provinces. Yet another, says Dr. Morrison, is the frequent interference of Oatholio missionaries in the interior in native lawsuits, leading sooner or later to breaches of the peaoe and attacks upon the innocent. Some of these unsatisfactory conditions are counterpoised by the spread of Western knowledge, accompanying which is an extraordinary desire throughout the Empire for a knowledge of English. Since the abolition of the old methods of examination the demands for Western literature has increased enormously. Literature, modern, healthy and instructive, is being brought into China by the ton. There is immense activity in the publishing houses in Shanghai and Japan, and altogether great ohanges are in operation. The movement is often misdirected, and many evils are attendant unon it, but the general tendency—a striving towards greater national efficiency, however impossible of attainment that may seem in China —is one that all nations interested in modern progress should regard with some measure of sympathy and encouragement.