Dec. 27.
Once again, and again it must be confessed too often, hopeful~ ness must be the chief basis of our Christmas wishes to all readers. Many, no doubt, will retort that it is that kind of hopefulness which rsaketh the heart sick. Yet we would not altogether think so. In the long ne of recent years' dejection, there are signs of a turning st. While we wait for publication of the British Government's new proposals for China, we have been told that these are, in general, such as to constitute! a truly friendly gesture. And) this is to the good in two ways:) it marks the end of the protract-|. ed policy of drift and inaction which was of all things most fatal; and it is bound to strengthen the hands of all Chinese who would be friendly and reasonable, The latter result in! practical form is actually seen! in the frenzied efforts of the!
"red" party at Hankow to create fresh trouble before the ground is cut from under them by publication of the British proposals. Even while the latter are still! withheld, it cannot by this time} fail to be understood by all! Chinese, except a passion-blinded minority, that the British people seek only to be on good terms with them and to meet their wishes as far as possible. 'That there is any limit in the} latter direction is due only to the present divided state of China herself and we cannot express a more ardent Christmas wish than that that division may' speedily be mended. At no time in the world's history were men! of all races more prone to be! stirred to excess by catchwords than they are to-day; and how often, when the causes of dissension are soberly examined, can any reality be found in' them? In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred not the system of government is at fault but those who administer it; and countries are miserable, not because their: political constitution is bad, but because they are governed by bad men, Here is the true hopefulness for China's outlook. The new forces recently let loose, like all such forces in their first manifestation, are wild, ill-controlled, extravagant and unreasonable, We will not speak of those others, transient we trust, which decent men neid in contempt. But at the core of all there lies a genuine ideal, fa sincere wish to make China a better place than she has been and to secure a better living for her children, This is an ideal which foreigners have as little cause to fear as they have for not sympathizing with it, and it will triumph,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.