On Wednesday news was published of a serious outbreak of
anti-foreign feeling in China. At Nan-chang-fn last Sunday sit French Roman Catholic priests were murdered by the mob, and an English missionary, Mr. Kingham, his wife and child shared the same fate. The Cathedral and the Roman Catholic mission were burned, and some Protestant buildings. The cause of the Outbreak appeals to have been a quarrel between the Roman Catholics and the Chinese Magistrate, the former having interfered in local politics for the protection of their native converts. The English missionaries bad no part in the quarrel, and suffered from the anti-foreign fury of the mob which had been roused by their colleagues. The Chinese Government has expressed its deepest regret at the occurrence, for which it seems to have been in no way responsible, all its efforts for the moment being directed to keeping on good terms with the foreign population. But the incident shows the deep-seated hostility of which the American boycott and the Shanghai riots were other proofs. The French Roman Catholic missions in China have always tended to be a centre of, disturbance, owing to their extravagant claims to the protection of their converts and their political activity. Missionary work on these terms becomes a dangerous and unauthorised form of political exploitation.
