LEADING ARTICLES. 



489 



of some doleful reflections by Earl. 

 Cromer in the Nineteenth Century. The 

 critic is unsparing of the ill-informed 

 sentiment which animates our public 

 opinion. He says : — 



We English are largely responsible for 

 creating the frame of mind which is even 

 now luring Young Turks, Chinamen, and 

 other Easterns into the political wilderness 

 by the display of false signals. We have, 

 indeed, our Blands in China, our Milners 

 in Egypt, our Miss Durhams in the Balkan 

 Peninsula, and our Miss Bells in Mesopo- 

 tamia, who wander far afield, gleaning valu- 

 able facts, and laying before their country- 

 men and countrywomen conclusions based on 

 acquired knowledge and wide experience. 

 But their efforts are only partially success- 

 ful. They are often shivered on the solid 

 rock of preconceived prejudices, aud genuine 

 but ill-informed sentimentalism. A large 

 section of the English public are, in fact, 

 singularly wanting in political imagination. 

 Although they would not, in so many words, 

 admit the truth of the statement, they none 

 the less act and speak as if sound national 

 development in whatsoever quarter of the 

 world must of necessity proceed along their 

 own conventional, insular, and time- 

 honoured lines, and along those lines alone. 



CHINA'S TROUBLES. 



Of the Chinese Republic he has his 

 doubts, and emphasises the difficulties 

 ahead : — 



The main disease is not political, and is 

 incapable of being cured by the 'most ap- 

 proved constitutional formulae. It is econo- 

 mic. Polygamy,! aided by excessive philo- 

 progenitiveness, the result of ancestor-wor- 

 ship, has produced a highly congested popu- 

 lation. Vast masses of people are living 

 in normal times on the verge of starvation. 

 Hence come famines and savage revolts of 

 the hungry. 



Earl Cromer insists on " strict super- 

 vision "of the expenditure of any funds 

 loaned to the infant Republic :- 



That Young China, partly on genuine 

 patriotic grounds, and also possibly in some 

 cases on grounds which are less worthy of 

 respect and sympathy, should resent the 

 exercise of this supervision, is natural 

 enough, but it can scarcely be doubted that 

 unless it be exercised a large portion of the 

 money advanced by European capitalists will 

 be wasted, and that no really effective step 

 forward will be taken in the solution of the 

 economic problem which constitutes the main 

 Chinese difficulty. 



The writer apparently agrees with 

 Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole's dictum that 

 ' The East has an extraordinary facility 

 for assimilating all the worst features 

 of any new civilisation with which it is 

 brought in contact." 



SUBMARINE VISION. 



Few people are aware, perhaps, that 

 the depths of the ocean are much more 

 clearly visible when seen from above, 

 than they are by the occupants of a 

 boat on the surface. This fact was 

 observed by the first balloonists who 

 happened to traverse deeo bodies of 

 water, and has been strikingly con- 

 firmed by the more recent experience 

 of aviators. 



When Bleriot made his famous cross- 

 rhannel flight on July 25th, 1909, he 

 was deeply impressed by the curious 

 spectacle afforded him at a point near 

 the town of Deal. He plainly saw the 

 long line of submarines which, deep 

 beneath the water, in fancied obscur- 

 ity, were following in the wake of two 

 " destroyers." 



Other aviators later made similar ob- 

 servations, and it was instantly appar- 

 ent that, in the case of a naval war, a 

 fleet of aeroplanes might be of abso- 

 lutely invaluable service in the detec- 

 tion of these dangerous and supposedly 

 invisible enemies. 



But it is equally apparent that the 

 securing of such clear vision of the 

 depths of seas and lakes, with their 

 flora and fauna and the conformation 

 of their beds, including permanent or 

 temporary shoals and shifting beds of 

 sand, may be of infinitely greater ser- 

 vice in the cause of science, to say noth- 

 ing of the location and recovery of lost 

 treasure and sunken ships. 



Such vision, for example, would 

 obviate much of the difficult and dan- 



