THE FOREIGNER IN CHINA : OUGHT HE TO BE ATTACKED
P PTO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:9 Sra,—In your editorial comment on " The Foreigner in China : Ought he to be Attacked P" in the issue of April 23rd you very rightly speak of the cultivation of the manly virtues as an absolute necessity and essential political antiseptic. All friends of China welcome every project calculated to promote this end, and the " Mansion House Meetings," " Emergency Funds," " China Committees " of these days, to say nothing of less brilliant missionary effort, give us some cause for hope, though the dawn is cloudy enough sometimes. But of the teeming masses composing the Empire, away from the ports, not one in a hundred thousand has ever heard, or perhaps ever will hear, of those great magnani- mous philanthropies on behalf of China's renaissance. What the Chinese in the provinces sees of that strange being " the foreigner," just now, gives a very different impression. Free distribution and lavish advertising of the most inferior brands of cigarettes are being carried on on a colossal scale, and in the remotest parts of the Empire where few other imports have yet penetrated this enterprise forms the sole tangible representation of foreign commercial activity. We have not found the cheap cigarette an aid to the cultivation of manly virtues in England! Brands of cigarettes sold at ten a penny after a preliminary free dis- tribution five hundred miles away from a port are not likely to be a blessing to the individual nor the community. Unfortunately, the worst aspect of this trade is that these flaming posters displayed everywhere in the interior use characters which convey to the Chinese mind the idea that this is a national concern. You, as a patriot, Sir, can picture a Britisher's indignation when Englishmen are now to be seen in these miserable inland cities, around us here, publicly scrambling "British " (!) cigarettes and handbills as a bid for the patronage of the poverty-stricken and already sufficiently depraved Chinese coolies. The populace of China are forming their views of foreign prestige from these daily scenes in their streets. In China words conceal thoughts and actions express them. Hence the next anti-foreign outburst will be undoubtedly affected by views formed of this cigarette hydra.—I am, Sir, &c., ROBERT GILLIES. Ho-tsin, Shansi Province, North China.
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