OCR Text |
Show RAILWAYS IN CHINA. There is said to be just now a keen rivalry between England and Germany in the effort to obtain Chinese railway concessions. This is but another development devel-opment of the jealousy of England of Germany. England has been the great colonizer of the world, and to her the world owes much. Liberty has always found its home in England and her colonies, colo-nies, and lovers of liberty will wish to see the country in which ideas of freedom have ever found greatest encouragement maintain its prestige among the nations. In English India liberty has had no place, and it is this fact that makes the tie between England and India so loose, and gives to ambitious military governments govern-ments like Germany the hope of success in intrigue. Germany may very' well I hope to gain the ascendancy in Chinese influence over England, for Germany is burdened with no memories of cruel and unjust opium wars. The Chinese remember remem-ber those wars with bitterness, notwithstanding notwith-standing the fact that English influence is .the dominant foreign influence at Pe-kin. Pe-kin. If China has decided to permit the construction of railways through her vast . and densely-populated country, she has ; changed most wonderfully. Attempts have been made in former years to construct railways there, but the prejudice of the people was bo great that such construction became impossible. China is one of the oldest of nations, and so dense is her population that almost every foot of her soil is ea- cred ground where the people of the past lie buried. Such being the case, is it any wonder that the Chinese are averse to the construction of railways through their country? Itia said that the? conservatism con-servatism of China in this respect amounts to bigotry. Is it any more bigoted for a Chinaman to wish the bones of his ancestors an-cestors to lie in the ground undisturbed than for a Christian? Is not a reverence and a respect for the dead a noble thing in the living? If the people of the United States and the Dominion of Canada Can-ada enact laws to exclude Chinamen from entering their country, are they not as bigoted and narrow as the Chinese who refuse to introduce in-troduce the customs and ways of the United States and Dominion of Canada? These things are too frequently lost sight of, and the light of Christian civilization civiliza-tion is oft as dim as the light of the civilization civil-ization of Confucius. The custom of the churches of our land protest against the disposal of the dead-by cremation, and the custom of the religion of China protests pro-tests against the construction of railways over Jhe graves of the dead ; yet, wherein is the one more bigoted than the other? The existence of prejudices in other countries, coun-tries, which we so plainly see, should cause us to recognize them in our own. |