should be addressed to law-abiding citizens which they cannot obey without trepidation."
The solemn spectacle of a member of Parliament speaking with "immense and exceptional authority on these questions" inviting a member of the British Government to enter into a serious discussion as to the merits or demerits of a formal phrase commonly attached to official proclamations in China, would be distinctly humorous if it was not so pathetic. What was merely pathetic became deplorable when it was asserted in the House of Commons a few days later that, as a result of the above discussion, the Secretary of State for the Colonies had given instructions for the issue of an amended proclamation for the benefit of the Chinese coolies in South Africa, in which "all minatory and hortatory sentences would be omitted"! Displays of this kind do not tend to heighten the respect in which Governments whose responsibilities are world-wide are, or ought to be, held.
This, however, is a digression, though it serves to show the extent of the ignorance
