Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 363 (Color Image)

0363	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

CHAPTER XXII

A TENTATIVE PROPOSAL 1

THE Shantung Railway outrage has at last roused

people on the China coast to the state of China,

as it happened in their midst, whilst the far worse

state of some of the internal provinces was too

distant to cause any interest. Some of the

optimists at home also seem to have had a shock,

and are now realising among other things that

the curse of the poppy in China is now far worse

than it has ever been before.

China is the country of anomalies, and whilst

the foreigner is more likely to be kidnapped and

held up to ransom at the present time, yet there

are fewer cases of foreigners (generally mission-

aries, as they form the greater number of white

men living in the interior) being killed, and of

foreign buildings and mission stations being

looted. So far one bright spot, in the constant

pillaging of cities and towns, has been that

mission stations and foreign property have either

always or generally been spared. This is a point

that I have not seen noticed in the papers, and

may perhaps show that in many respects the

anti-foreign feeling is not so strong as it used to

1 Written by General Pereira in July 1923.

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