(Contributed)
July 2, "I don't care a button." That was how we juveniles used to express our contempt for danger. But buttons have sudden ly created a sensation on their own account. On June 26 there was an all-night sitting of the House of Commons to discus: the Chancellor of the Exjchequer's proposal to put a duty on imported buttons and so protect the British manufacturer of these artivies of wearing apparel. The members of our august "House" evidently car a good many buttons about the proposal for it was only carried after a discussion lasting for 16 hours, The Opposition, evidently, left their mark on the bill for the clause "for fastening purposes" was added. What about the coster's pearlies? We used read of a Pearly King and Pearly Queen on Hampstead Heath, Are the rows and rows buttons decorating majesties' garments there "for, }fastening: purposes?" We hope! this innocent practice, which goes a little way towards making 'a brighter London, will not! be extinguished. The humble button serves decorative—purpose economy of clothing. We definition of timist as a man who gaily forth to a function with certain garments suspended by, one button as was the sword of Damocles by a single hair. We have recollections ourselves of certain times, in our boyhood days, when a nail, or even a was pressed into service.
Thet added clause "for fasten-out the 1 of different value in every province and an apparently unlimited number of banks all issuing their own paper. Still, the reform propoged by the bankers must take place sooner or later if China's commerce and industry are to' flourish, and private prejudice will have to make way for public good. The institution of a single tax at the source in place of likin has already been com-ameneed, we believe with success, in the case of kerosine and tobacco, to which machine-made flour is now to be added. The scheme is to be. welcomed although obviously it can only succeed on general lines when complete understanding has been reached as to the allocation of national and provincial revenues. Ju the main, what the bankers have done is to lay down a charter.of reforms by which every Government, whatever changes in administration may arise from time to time, should shape its course. On one point, however, there need be no waiting, namely, the recognition all China's obligations, on which the bankers laid so much em-knowing, as well they that the whole of China's.
There is no old China hand who does not look back regretfully on the quaint ceremony of those gu: days that have already faded into the. past. We remember hearing a member of the diplomatic service des-[cribing the ritual of approaching Jo Mandarin of high rank. The wait atthe door, while your card was taken in. The thrown open to visitor. The Mandar Ihat with the peacock feather and his, button, red or blue. The snd ants' standing by ined attention waiting on lightest indication of the grest man's will. He said, "It made you feel like twopence ha'penny". And beyond doubt that was the end the ceremonial twas designed for. Not, indeed ito impress the foreigner. He was a privileged individual and, though impressed, was still outside the ambit of Mandarin's authority. To understand the influence of that button, with fall its dread implications, one Iliad to see the criminal kneeling in the presence.of the judge with the lictors standing by. Or the man with the crystal button jgrovelling in the presence of him:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.