AWAKENING OF CHINA.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 71, 13 March 1914, Page 6

AWAKENING OF CHINA.

WELLINGTON, March 11. Thorn arrived at Wellington by the Manuka to-day a visitor from China, who was able to give first hand a story of the. evolution of things in that troubled Eastern land. He is Mr William E. Souter, who has represented the Na_ tional Bible Society of Scotland at Chungking, West China, for the last five years, and who has come out to the Dominion on a. holiday. It will surprise many people to learn, as Mr Souter assures us, that many of China's inland towns are quite as up todate .as towns in New Zealand or Australia. Indeed, he goes further, and says that some of the cities in the interior of China are even more up to date than towns upon which- New Zealanders sometimes look wjth pride. Mr Souter says there is now a good postal service throughout the whole of China, and last year 421 millions of letters and parcels wero dealt with. One missionary residing at Singai-fu, on the western border of Kansu, now has bis daily mail, whereas when he first went into the province there were only four deliveries a year. The telegraph service has now more than 87,000 miles of line, and just before Mr Souter left, Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, had been linked up with Pekin, and so with the rest of the world. At present China has 600 miles of railways in constant use, with more than 2000 miles under construction. Telephone systems in the cities are common, and a large number of towns are now electrically lighted. In all coastal cities, as far up as TieiiTsin, there are tramway systems of modern construction. But perhaps the most remarkable thing which Mr Souter has to tell of the new China is what may he termed the personal Europeanising of the Chinaman. All the students at the Universities dres? in English faslron, and the old style of the wide-brimmed, tapering crowned Chinese hat is rarely seen anywhere. Mr Souter says one thing about the modernising- of-China which wiU touch the quick of the Australians' pride is that four or five years ago, before Hammonds and Hawkers and Scotlands were here, China was having hor own aeroplane flights at Cheng-Tu, the capital of Western China. A Chinese constructed a machine himself and made a flight in it. That was four vears ago, and there was a decided interest in aviation in the country, wlrch was growing as Western developments in flying took place.