18th Sept. Suvce the so-called rebellion in Formosa began this summer, we have published a series of letters, some from 'T'ainanfu showing the indiscriminate way in which the Japanese have retaliated on the hapless Chinese settlers in the island for outrages committed by the bandits, and the provocation which the Japanese soldiery have in too many cases given to the country people to become bandits themselves, and some giving the japanese side of the story. We were loath at first to believe the stories of Japanese barbarity that reached us, thoroughly trustworthy as the sources of those stories were; but there is no question now about their truth, The Japanese soldier has not come out in a good light in Formosa, Proper control has been wanting, as the climate has had a disastrous effect on the superior officers, whom no-one accuses of participation in the excesses of the soldiery, if they even knew what was going on; while the Governor-General himself remains in Tokio, working to secure the large appropriations without which the government of the island cannot carried on, On Wednesday morning we published another long communication from South Formosa, from the unimpeachable source' already referred to. The writer says in it: "It is no pleasure to expose these butchering, plundering Japanese soldiers. I am convinced the higher officials know nothing about it. My sole object is to bring these facts before these higher officials, in the hope that such treatment of the Chinese may be stopped."
Recent issues of the Hongkong journals contain a long letter from Mr. James W. Davidson, the special correspondent, who has lately returned to Formosa, giving his experiences of a [recent trip in the disturbed districts, He was with the Japanese army when it took possession of the island, and is naturally disposed to make the beat of the Japanese side of the shield, but even he has to allow much which confirms what has been written us from Tainanfu, He mentions several: instances in which the Chinese settlers assisted the Japanese against the rebels, and no doubt this was in places where they had been fairly treated by the Japanese officials and soldiers; for it is not pretended that all the Japanese petty officials and soldiery acted with the tyranny and barbarity that disgraced some of their number. In reference to the city of Hoonlim he says "'Phe city was easily recaptured by the Japanese, but as I have mentioned above, regardless of the proclamations that have been issued calling the good people to return, but very few have come back, either because they have no confidence in the promises of the Japanese or because they were all so much mixed up with the rebellion that they fear punishment. In fact, when one looks over the number of other villages, in some of which the Japanese loss was much greater, and note how the townspeople returned at once and settled down with seemingly perfect confidence in their new masters, it would appear that perhaps the latter explanation would more properly account for their long-continued absence."
We know that the real reason was that they had no confidence in the promises of the Japanese.. What inducement is there to farmers and townspeople who are well treated to become rebels? It is ill-treatment that drives respectable people who have everything to lose and nothing to gain, into rebellion. Mr. Davidson himself. recognises that in towns and villages where the Chinese had perfect confidence in their new masters, they returned peacefully to their ordinary vocations when the rebels were driven out, These rebels, as Mr. Davidson tells tus, were encouraged by the bad management of the Japanese commander, As to the capture of Hoonlim, he seys "That Major Sato with his two hundred and fifty soldiers was unable to hold it and ordered a retreat seems to me to have been very weak judgment on his part. The largest firearms the rebels possessed were muskets and the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.