We have read with much satisfaction in the Times letters
from Sir Valentine Chirol and others protesting against the speech in which Lord Inchcape at the recent meeting of the P. & O. Company said that anti-foreign feeling in China was due to the work of the missionaries. As Sir Valentine Chirol says, missionary work is practically the only agency through which the influence of Western civilization reaches the Chinese masses. The life of exile, self-denial and danger quietly endured by the typical missionary in China is generally the one object lesson accessible to the Chinese of the highest spirit of Christian ethics. Christian missionaries do not denounce other faiths ; they try to recommend their own by its virtues, and by their personal examples. It is astonishing that Lord Inchcape should have thought a mixed company meeting an appropriate occasion for attacking mission- aries. Besides, the moment was exceptionally inoppor- tune. The speech was open to precisely the same objection which was raised last week to Mr. Lloyd George's speech ; it provided anti-foreign fanatics in China with material for mischievous propaganda, and by so doing it has no doubt increased the danger to which foreigners are exposed.
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