Page:Europe in China.djvu/13

Rh head of civilization, Great Britain has commenced her individual mission in Asia by the occupation of India and Burma, the Straits Settlements and Hongkong. By fifty years' handling of Hongkong's Chinese population, Great Britain has shewn how readily the Chinese people (apart from Mandarindom) fall in with a firm European regime, and the rapid conversion of a barren rock into one of the wonders and commercial emporiums of the world, has demonstrated what Chinese labour, industry and commerce can achieve under British rule. Moreover, located on the western border of the Pacific, in line with Canada in the North-East, with Her Majesty's Indian and African Possessions in the South-West, and with the Australian Colonies in the South, Hongkong occupies a specially important position, not only with regard to the problems gathering round China and Japan (In their mutual relations to Great Britain, Russia and France), but especially also with regard to the greater rôle which the Pacific Ocean is destined to play in the closing scenes of the world's history. What the Mediterranean and Atlantic were while civilization moved from East to West, the Pacific is bound to become now since the tide of progress runs from West to East. Africa is even now being brought into the sphere of modern civilization by the combined powers of Europe. The turn of South-America will come next. There is not a first-class