To the Editor of the Norta-Cuisa Datty News."
Sir,—Readers of the leading article in your issue of to-day, entitled "Native Christians and Lawsuits," will many of them have enjoyed the genial air of didaotic omniscience which pervades it. Consequently it may surprise them to learn that an organisation which is twice quoted in it—as the Shanghai Missionary Alliance and the Shanghai Alliance—has no existence in fact. It is the China Missionary Alliance to which reference is intended, a body formed in 1900 and representative of a majority of Protestant mission in China, which, for convenience, has its headquarters and executive in Shanghai. Since accuracy is as desirable as it is generally conspicuous in the editorial columns of the "North-China Daily News" you will doubtless welcome this correction.
The "Statement Regarding Litigation" recently issued by the China Missionary Alliance has not yet been handed to the public Press. Deeming the question discussed one in which missionaries wore primarily interested, the Executive Committee of the Alliance desired to first circulate the statement amongst missionaries in China and afterwards to pro-sent it to the Press for public judgment. Since, however, the action of your Han-Kow correspondent in reporting so fully the proceed of the Hoakow meeting, where the sion "'aS consequent upon the statement circulated by the China Missionary Alliance, has drawn public attention to it, it seems now do-sirable that your readers should have it placed before them. It is the more necessary since an abbreviated quotation mis-'Mivance document. By a reference to resents, doubtless unintentionally, the
Article Six your readers can make their own comparison, and judge the effect of the omitted clause on the whole sentence. Curiously enough your Hankow ce: pondent, in reporting the speeches Hankow, also misnames the China Missionary Alliance the Shanghai Missionary Alliance. Even the Bods nod, however, and correspondents and writers of leading articles are alike but mortal Some doubt is cast by the able writer of the article under consideration as to the necessity for such a statement as this. He classes those who have made it with the anti-missionary Chinese Treaty Commissioners. " But certain of the missionary body are as warm as the Chinese themselves about it. The Shanghai Missionary Alliance officially says—ete. ote." Now this "certain of the missionary body" is lamentable and unfair. Upwards of six hundred missionaries, who have been resident in China for more than two years, have endorsed in writing the "state ment" of the China Missionary Alliance. They do not deem it unnecessary. Moreover it may not be implied that the is (a) directed against Chi-us. Far from that. preventive in its intention rather than remedial, and deals with abuses that are more threatening the church than existent within it, though they do exist, and in some places have caused considerable difficulty. Reports from all quarters show that it is "enquirers" assuming the role of native Christians, rather than the church members, from whom the chief trouble comes. The heading of your article is therefore so: newhat to be deplored as misleading, although it is not easy to coin a better. Again (b) it should not be suggested that there is any idea of handing the native Christians over to the tender mercies of the official. A reference to Article Five of the appended
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.