25th November.
Tar welcome accorded by the officials yesterday morning to H.E. Chou Fa, the New Viceroy of the Liang Kiang, will find an echo in the hearts of all foreigners who know the record of the late Governor of Shantung. We have suggested that the Censors might raise some difficulty about his Hixcelleney's filling the post, on the ground that he isa native of Anhui, that Anhui is one of the three rich provinces that muke u the Liang Kiang Viceroyalty, and that custom does not permit any man to hold high office in his own province. But, as Shakespeare says, "nice customs curtsey to great Kings," and though Anhui is under the jurisdiction of the Viceroy at Nanking, the Liang Kiang, as the name implies, are really Kiangsu and Kiangsi. The independence of the Censors, too, has.become in course of time a fiction "The Censors," said Wong Tuog-ho, "are only a pack of hounds; if we want to destroy anyone, we set them on him." "The Censors!" said Li Hung-chang, in his well-known tone of contemptuous sarcasm; "Why, I can buy any one of them with a hundred taels!" It is a happy sign of the great change that has come over China in the last few years, that a man who has made himself so thoroughly esteemed and liked by foreigners as HE. Chou Fu, should at the same time hold so high fa place in the confidence of his sovereign. It is not so very long "go that the great qualification for the Taotaiship of Shanghai or the Viceroyally was a reputation for knowing how to keep the foreign devil" in his place.
Chen Fu, having the literary rank of a Licentiate, came into prominence first as Customs Taotai at Tientsin in 1882, He was Acting Salt Commiss'oner at-Changlu in 1886, Provincial Judge of Cuihli in 1888, retired in consequence of illness in 1895, and was made Provincial Treasurer of Szechuan in 1899, and transferred to Chihli in 1901, being honoured in the same year with the rank of Governor. On the promotion of H. E. Yuan Shih-kai from the Governorship of Shantung to the Viceroyalty of Chihli, Chou Fu succeeded him at Chinanfu. While he was in Chiali, the settlement of the missionary troubles there was entrusted to him and he performed the task in such a way as to earn the approval and gratitude of the mission bodies as well as his own Government. In Chinanfu he had another difficult task before him, but he succeeded so well in keeping on terms with the British at Weihaiwei and the Germans at Tsingtao, and with the numerous missionary bodies throughout Shantung, and showed such energy in maintaining and expanding the educational movement inaugurated by H. E, Yuxn Shih-kai, that as our correspondent told us in his last letter, he had such a "send-off" from natives and foreigners alike as few Governors receive. "Nearly all the foreigners in the city were at the station to see him off, and as he appeared at the door of the private car of Mr. Hildetrand, in which he is travelling, to say a Inst good-bye to those outside, he was greeted with cheers from the foreigners, led by the German Consul, I fancy there has never been a more universally popular Governor Shantung than H. E. the quiet, unassuming, yet most progressive, hou Fu, whom everybody seems sorry to lose." It is a great thing for Shanghai that so good an official, and so enlightened and liberal-winded a man should be sent as Viceroy to Nanking, and we trust that it will be very many years before the Liang Kiang will have to say good-bye to him.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.