282 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



Has the threat of the Yellow Peril 

 lost its usefulness as a warning to the 

 West to amend its habits of meddle- 

 some interference? 



ARE MOSLEMS THE BETTER 



CHRISTIANS? 



How the East is teaching the West 

 appears in a study in Oriental justice 

 contributed to the Hibbert Journal by 

 Mr. A. Mitchell Innes, Councillor of 

 the British Embassy, Washington. Mr. 

 Innes tries to explain why our criminal 

 administration in the East is one of the 

 least satisfactory, and to show the true 

 attitude of the Oriental towards the vital 

 question of trial and punishment of 

 offenders. His experience has been 

 chiefly in Egypt. He s:iys the Eastern 

 and the Western take diametrical views 

 of penology. 



EASTERN AND WESTERN VIEWS OF 

 JUSTICE. 



The W^estern view is thoroughly 

 mechanical. It takes no account of the 

 mentality of the man dealt with, his 

 history, temptations and efforts, nor of 

 the probable effect of the sentence. " All 

 that has to be proved is that a man has 

 done a certain deed ; all that has to 

 be done is to perform on him a certain 

 operation, regardless of its conse- 

 quences." There is no such doctrine in 

 Mohammedan countries. Of the two 

 systems, Mr. Innes says: — 



The one is the outcome of the struggles of 

 the restless, fierce peoples of Europe against 

 each other, each striving for mastery, ruled 

 by the exigencies of a military organisation. 

 Crime tended to produce division in the 

 ranks; it was an offence against the State 

 to be punished as such by the military Chief, 

 summarily, cruelly, w-ithout regard to the 

 feelings or wishes of individuals, a thing to 

 be suppressed at any cost. 



The other was the growth of the life of a 

 free, pastoral people, coming together in 

 their villages for seed-time and harvest, or 

 gathering for markets ; ,at other times scat- 

 tered over the .scant pastures of Arabia or 

 Sinai or Egj-pt, following with their flocks 

 the tracks of the rainstorms, their life a 

 great solitude, filled with the two mysteries 

 of the hand of God and the mind of man, 

 both to be treated with deep reverence, not 

 rudely to be interfered with. 



THE WESTERN B.\1?B.\R0VS, THE E.\ST MERCIFIL. 



It is impossible that the East should ac- 

 cept our principles. The Mohammedan does 

 not believe in the propriety of punishment 

 following an offence mechanically, as a sound 



follows a blow on a bell. He does not believe 

 in the efficacy of human punishment. Our 

 stern sense of justice, meted out with equal 

 hand, never wavering, never forgiving, pay- 

 ing little heed to the complex questions of 

 temperament, environment, temptation, etc., 

 strikes the Eastern as s^^imply barbarous. The 

 man who, though having iust cause for anger, 

 yet refuses to punish and forgives time after 

 time, that is the man wlio is the most re- 

 spected. 



Then, b\' a vi\id feat of the historic 

 imagination, Mr. Tunes shows how much 

 more entirely Christian the Moslem 

 system is than that carried out by so- 

 called Christian nations. 



CHINA'S COHESION. 



Under this title Ho Heng-Wha writes 

 in the Repnblicnti Advocate of Clihta, 

 tracing the inception of China's national 

 sentiment. The inert mass was practi- 

 cally ignorant of Japan's victory until 

 the tax-collecior came to the door: — 



Wlieii tlie provinces h:ul to bear part of the 

 cost of the war and the people had to pay a 

 heavier tax for the Government's mismanagement 

 then tho disgrace and humili.ition of being 

 beaten by a smaller foe were realised. Then the 

 spark of nation.al sentiment began to glow. When 

 Japan, goadefl >)y Russia, turned, like the pro- 

 verbial worm, against the malevolent oppress >r 

 and laid him low, she not only did herself :• 

 great benefit, but rendered to China an immense 

 service. .Tapan was the rlever surgeon who per- 

 formed the operation of removing the catarart 

 from China's eyes. 



The wo'-k of reconstruction has gone 

 v.n from that moment, and Russia's in- 

 terference in Mongolia is resented with 

 all the indignation of a nation united 

 for the first time by the common bonds 

 of patriotism. 



The writer bears tribute to the sin- 

 cerity of this new-born force: — 



Our love for our country has tiow been pro- 

 claimed aa a real and powerful sentiment which 

 knits every one of us. whether he be a Cantonese, 

 a Pekingese, a Hunanese or a Yunnaneee. The 

 sacred f'ames of our cohesion are now blazing 

 fiercely, and serve as light for us to form a well- 

 welded country. 



Patriotism is based on self-sacrifice and self- 

 effacement, and in China such sentiment exists 

 not only among the leaders but among the fol- 

 lowers. It is not true now that the mass is 

 inert and lifeless, for whence come the soldiers 

 but from the mass. Who are readier to lay down 

 their lives against a common eneni.v than these 

 noble and brave defenders? In the olden days 

 what did the people care in keeping up an alien 

 dynasty. It is different to-day. It is not a 

 dynasty one has to fight for. but one's own 

 country, one's own land and one's own home. 



