CHINA AND THE CHINESE.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 155, 28 May 1901, Page 4

CHINA AND THE CHINESE.

Chatting with a representative of The Press, Mr Arthur H. Adams, the wellknown Maoriland poet, who acted correspondent tor The Press and several other newspapers during the acute period of the crisis in China, and who related some of his experience* iu a lecture at the Theatre Koyal, gave some impressions of things he had seen. Mr Adams looks b ck With horror u\ the baibarity committed by some of the European tToops, and by the Japanese, which he witnessed When he saw lb. m being enacted, however, they were ol such common occurrence, and were such matters of every-day oocuneiice, thit they called forth no feelings of repugnance. " Dead Chinamen were so common, * said Mr Adams, " that they were really regarded in much the eime way as we look upon dead dogs. The rivers wore full of dead CI in-se, dead b dks were washed ashore on the sa>id spit ." O i one occasion, when Mr Adams, tifier staving a v/eek Pckin with Dr M rn'son, the famous authority on Chinese matter-, and the corresp indcib of the London Times, moved to a hou e . with oi-her s, an.l hid ;o i remove the b dy of «. de-id Chiuaman before th>:y could occupy it. N> fc infrequently when pas-ing a house a d g would come ou', bark the passers-by. and then go iu again to resun.e his intenupted meal—a meal thit consisted 'of the bo iy of his lat<; master. In Mr Adams' opinion st ictling articles l>y Dr Dillon, which have appeared in an ' English magiziie, respecting the b ui I treatment of the Chinese, arc n.it greatly exaggerated, despite the fa.fc that Dr Dil • n who .-a Mr Adams s a pessimist of the de-pest dyu."

j Mr A lams ■icp"inpan:ed tho Pa ting-fi expedition, travelled 130 miles into the interior through Bi-xer The Vioto'ian Naval Contingent w«.a included n the force. Although lb. rj was no prop, rly so called, there was plenty of killing, pill.-iging and looti'ig. Aboat fifty villages we.'3 destroyed, three or four walled cit/iei detnoli-dv-d, nd al! st c'c and provend.-ir was either appropriated 'or destroyed, so that the country in which the column operated was left desolate and tamin-- j stricken. On one occasion lie a<'C' ni- j p»nied a stu ,11 British punitive force, I which had instructions to kill every j able-bodied mm in a cerr/iin villi"', b i to spare the women and children. Mru £ of the villages ..had fired on a British foraging p-rty and had wounded tw > meD, and the expedition was sent cm to punish the offenders. On arrival at the ; village the truotions were eari ied out to the letter, about eighty una' raed | " peasants being killed "It was horribly " 8 said Mr Adams, " to see the women a id § 1 childr'-n ail huddled up iu a crowd 1 1 watching their husb>nd3 and fa ; iers | ) being slaughtered and their village being | burnt." I Iu explanation of the ind'scrimin te 8 slaying of Chines', Mr Adams soys it 1 was simply impossible to fi~d > i | whether a man was a B«xer or not. Al 1 he had to do was to remove his unifn m | to b; come, to all outward appearance." a $ simple, harmless peisant. o'>e of the | interesting exhibits shown at Mr Adams' |j lecture is a B xer uniform. %

From personal observation, Mr Adams .1 endorses all that has been *aid regaroi: g ;i the marvellous organisation, i quipmenl, 1| and scientific knowl-dga of warfare of % the Japanese, and from a military stand ,'| point, he expresses the opinion that the v' British might learu much from the up-to> jj date military methods of the Japanese* jjs Mr Adams has witnessed unmentionable fj brualities committed by French, ji German, Bussian and Jipanese troops, || and states the British contingent (com- m posed of Indian troops) held the best H reccd, although their Indian camp'S followers took their fall sharo in the n brutalities. H

Of the Chinese themselvus Mr Adarrs 1 haa a good opinion They are a fine> | sturdy, patient, hard-wo-kicg, peaceable 1 race; the farmers ot the norf.ht rn | districts being a distinct sype from the | Chinese one m f e"s in the colonies. | Mr Adams does not hold with 'hil opinion t<iab has been expressed that the I missionaries in China are chit-fly respon- & sible for the Boxer outbreak. From aj| medical and educational point, of vi^w,<w g well as from the standpoint of the § diffusion ot Western knowledge amougs; k China's millions, the missionaries are 1 undoubtedly doing a large amount of i good. The Boxer movement was a 1 patriotic one, inaugurated with the in* 8 tention of securing China for the Chinese, es Objection was taken to the presence o J all foreigners, and the missionaries, 83 M missionaries were nob singled out as 1 especial objec's of hatred; they were 1 foreigners, aud in many cases were the m most accessible foreigners that the Bo"er|| could lay his hand on. "We in Netf|| Zealand put £IOO poll tax on the undesir-g able Chinese, but the Chinese, when they M wish to get rid of the foreigner, simply|| murder bim. Our's is, perhaps, the ,no3 '« polite way of attaining the desired object, m but their's is undcubte Uy the mort|| effective." m