Random Recollections

IN THE SUMMER of 1910 I took my first home leave just before Corea ‘voluntarily’ signed away her independence. Returning to the Far East in the autumn of 1911, I was appointed Acting Vice-Consul at Yokohama, a post which I filled until the spring of 1913.

I find that I recollect little of the work of these years. No doubt the more stirring events of the years to come – 1914 onwards – drove the events of those years out of mind and, since I have never kept a diary, I cannot fill the gap. I take the opportunity however, to indulge in a few random observations on matters of interest to the Consular Service, particularly the Service in Japan.

Age of Retirement

My father-in-law, Mr Hall, was still Consul-General in 1911 and did not retire till 1914 when he was seventy. Nowadays the retiring age is sixty and many ‘wangle’ their retirement earlier on the plea of ill-health. It is recorded of one Consul-General at Shanghai that his medical certificate stated that his health had suffered from long residence in a paludal atmosphere. A hundred years ago Shanghai was a swamp: so were most of the treaty-ports, the truth being that the Chinese Government set apart areas which they had never had the energy to make habitable but which the enterprising foreigner proceeded to drain and build-up until they were ten times healthier than the surrounding areas. This, however, is beside the point, but I mention it because the fact is often lost sight of when the Chinese, and the Japanese too, accuse the foreigner of seizing the best sites and stealing their country's birthright.

To return to the question of early retirement on the score of ill-health, the tendency to retire round about the age of fiftyfive is one which has the cordial support of juniors in the service. Promotion by seniority is a matter of luck. Hobart-Hampden had to wait many years for promotion to Vice-Consul and this was only one of many similar cases. I myself was helped by deaths and early retirements and became Vice-Consul in nineand- a-half years, Consul in rather more than sixteen and Consul-General in twenty-four years.