Who's Who in China (3rd edition)/Hu Lin

Mr. Hu Lin

胡霖学政之

Mr. Hu Lin was born in Szechuan in 1893. He took his early education in his home province and while still in his early twenties received the degree of Chujen (Master of Arts). Proceeding to Japan, Mr. Hu studied in the Tokyo University from which he graduated in 1911, taking the general college course and special course in law and politics. Returning to China, Mr. Hu made application for admission to the Bar and successfully passed the examinations. He came to Shanghai and became editor of the Ta Kung Ho Pao, resigning to become judge of the Chinkiang branch of the Provincial Court of Kiangsu. Mr. Hu later proceeded to Peking as special correspondent for a number of Shanghai newspapers, acting at the same time as professor in the Government College of Law and of several other educational institutions. In 1915, Mr. Hu went to Kirin in connection with the Sino-Japanese negotiations about the time the Twenty-One Demands were presented to China with an ultimatum. He was there appointed chief Secretary of the provincial government attending especially to the administration of foreign affairs and finances. He resigned from Kirin and went to Peking as Counsellor to the Ministry of Interior which post he gave up again to enter into journalistic work, becoming editor of l’Impartial in Tientsin. In 1918 he went abroad, visiting more than twenty countries and was the only Chinese newspaper correspondent in Paris during the Peace Conference at Versailles. He returned in 1920 and organized and edited the newspaper New Society in Peking and Tientsin. In 1921 Mr. Hu came to Shanghai and organized the Kuo Wen News Agency, one of the few independent news and advertising service organizations in China. He is an excellent linguist who speaks and reads half a dozen languages.