Page:The influence of commerce on civilization (IA influenceofcomme00ellerich).pdf/27

21 is the great impetus to research and learning given to the world, and consequently to its civilization, by the security ensured to all countries in research, in the East and Par East, under the Union Jack. The great and hitherto unknown (since the middle ages) classics of India and China were unlocked and again opened to the world by the scholarship of Sir William Jones, Colebrook, Burnouf, Pauthier, Langlois, Max Müller, and others. Also, in China especially commerce provided the sinews of war necessary to translate the sacred hooks of Confucius and other Chinese sages, works which even now proclaim the sublime thought and almost divine philosophy of a hoary antiquity. Morrison wrote his "Dictionary of the Chinese Language", and printed it in 1824 at the East India Company's press at Macao. The funds to publish it were provided by that great commercial institution, the East India Company. Legge translated Confucius and was enabled to publish his works and give them to the world through the munificent generosity of the princely house of the Jardines, one of the greatest commercial stars that has arisen over the Eastern horizon. Commerce also produced, in China especially, a race of men who bear the proud position of second to none in the attainments of civilization, and who, by keeping their fingers on the pulse of every event passing in this wondrous land, by being past-masters in knowledge of the people, have kept British commerce in the far forefront above all other nations. How many delicate questions have been settled in consultation by the Home Government with these able scholars and silent workers for Great Britain, in her intricate dealings with China, no one will ever probably know. State secrets are secrets, but the names of Sir Henry Parkes, Sir Robert Hart, Sir Ernest Satow, Sir John Macleavy Brown, and Sir Pelham Warren will ever live in the annals of the Par East as pillars of strength created by commerce and handed down to posterity as monuments of civilization. All these great men I am proud to say I have known. Even later, and quite lately, we have only to look at what has happened in Egypt under the gigantic