主题：【文摘】《赫德的预言》 -- 黑岛人

This episode of to-day is not meaningless — ^it is the prelude to a century of change and the keynote of the future history of the Far East: the China of the year 2000 will be very different from the China of 1900 I National sentiment is a constant factor which must be recognized, and not eliminated, when dealing with national facts, and the one feeing that is universal in China is pride in Chinese institutions and contempt for foreign: treaty intercourse has not altered this — if anything, it has deepened it, and the future will not be uninfluenced by it.

The

Chinese, an intelligent, cultivated race, sober, industrious, and on its own lines civilized homogeneous in language, thought, and feeling, which numbers some four hundred millions, lives in its own ring-fence, and covers a country

made up of fertile land and teeming waters,with infinite variety of mountain and plain, hill and dale, and every kind of climate and condition, producing on its surface aU that a

people requires and hiding in its bosom untold virgin wealth that has never yet been disturbed, — this race, after thousands of years of haughty seclusion and exclusiveness, has been pushed by the force of circumstances and by the

superior strength of assailants into treaty relations with the rest of the world, but regards that as a humiliation, sees no benefit accruing from it, and is looking forward to the day when it in turn will be strong enough to revert to its old life again and do away with foreign intercourse, interference, and intrusion. It has slept long, as we count sleep, but it is awake at last, and its every member is tingling with Chinese feeling — " China for the Chinese and

out with the foreigners!" The Boxer movement is douhtless the product of official inspiration, but it has taken hold of the popular imagination, and will spread like wildfire all

over the length and breadth of the country ; it is, in short, a purely patriotic volunteer movement, and its object is to strengthen China — and for a Chinese programme. Its first experience has not been altogether a success as regards the attainment through strength of proposed ends, the rooting up of foreign cults and the ejection of foreigners ; but it is not a failure in respect of the feeler it put out — will

volunteering work? — or as an experiment that would test ways and means and guide future choice. It has proved how to a man the people will respond to the call, and it has further

demonstrated that the swords and spears to which the prudent official mind confined the initiated will not suffice, but must be supplemented or replaced by Mauser rifles and Erupp

guns. The Boxer patriot of the future will possess the best weapons money can buy, and then the "Yellow Peril" will be beyond ignoring.

The words "imperil the world's future" will doubtless provoke a laugh — well, let them do so, but let them stand ! Twenty millions or more of Boxers armed, drilled, disciplined, and animated by patriotic — if mistaken — motives, will make residence in China impossible for foreigners, will take back from foreigners everything foreigners have taken from China, will pay off old grudges with interest, and will carry the Chinese flag and

Chinese arms into many a place that even fancy will not suggest today, thus preparing for the future upheavals and disasters never even dreamt of. In fifty years' time there will be millions of Boxers in serried ranks and war's

panoply at the call of the Chinese Government : there is not the slightest doubt of that ! And if the Chinese Government continues to exist, it will encourage — and it will be quite

right to encourage — uphold, and develop this national Chinese movement : it bodes no good for the rest of the world, but China will be acting within its right and will carry through the national programme !