Evening Post. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1898. CHINA'S AWAKENING.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 72, 22 September 1898, Page 4

Evening Post. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1898. CHINA'S AWAKENING.

From the cablegrams published yesterday it would appear that the Imperial Government at Pekin has taken another and yet more decisive step towards awakening China from her sleep of centuries. The contrast between the China of the first European war — a land whose officials refused to meet any " outer barbarians "on terms of equality — | and the China of to-day, with an Emperor : auuounciug far and wide in his dominions that he intends to copy the best points of Western civilisation, is so great that it is hard to believe only a short 60 years separates them. Japan, has, it is true, rushed at break-neck speed into civilisation since the storms- days of the sixties, hut the character of her people, the comparatively small extent of her territory, and. the fact that what civilisation she formerly possessed was borrowed from her greater neighbour, combine to make this sudden development less startling than a far slower advance would be on the part of China. Fur years and years both foreigners and natives in China have been talking about the opening up of the country and the spread of Western ideas among the people, but until the Japanese war this had ended in very little more than talk. Iron works, it is true, had been started on a small scale in one place and a few cotton mills and arsenals in others, while a short strategic railway connected some of the northern coalmines with Tientsin. A few stray centres of Western knowledge had arisen, such as the Tung Men Kwan Collego at Pekin, and a fringe of the vast population had with more or less doubtful advantage been brought under European influences. No real impression, however, seemed to have been made on the country as U whole, and the Mandarinate, with its dependent literary class, was, generally speaking, distrustful of and hostile to Western ideas. The greed and mutual recriminations of European Powers were not calculated to disarm suspicions nursed by the British absorption of India, French annexations in Indo-China, and Russian aggressions upon the Middle Kingdom itself. Only a few of the more enlightened native merchants understood the advantages of foreign trade, while the missionaries, sometimes by their own blunder.", only too often roused the antipathy of Mandarins, native priests, and gentry. It seemed at one time that of her own initiative China could not or would not embark upon the work of reform, and it is not unlikely that the great change in this respect observed during recent years owes its existence to the lessons driven home to the governing classes by the Japanese war. The disastrous defeat of a nation of some 400,000,000 people by one numbering less than 50,000,000 proved there was something very wrong with the condition of the vanquished. The Pekin officials began to realise as they had never realised before that their country was disorganised, their Mandarinate largely incapable and almost wholly corrupt, their industries miserably disproportionate to their natural resources, their means of communication imperfect, and their whole political, social, and military systems antiquated and iueffecitive. Since that time efforts have been made seriously to follow the example of Japan in assimilating Western civilisation, but the old conservative instincts of the people and the vested interests of the Maudarinate have prevented these efforts from bearing much fruit. At the same time, the pressure brought to bear upon the country by foreign nations, and the land-grabbing propensities of the European, have forced numerous new breaches in the tottering wall of China's isolation. Railway and other concessions have been granted with an almost lavish hand, aud the need of consolidation is apparent if this new exotic expansion is not to spell disintegration. Consolidation can only be arrived at through drastic reforms, and the Imperial authorities give evidence by their latest actions of their desire to effect these reforms. There can be little doubt that the real progress of China is considerably handicapped by the plots and counter-plots of rival diplomatists and commercial touts. If the Government desires to build a railway and contemplates a loan for that purpose, the elaborate machinery of financial and international intrigue is at once put in motion, and until the Pavloffs, the Mac Donalds, and the various Bank agents have settled their mutual differences the loan has to wait, and the railway is at a standstill. AVithout undue flattery to our race it is safe to assert that the fault lies at the door of the foreign Powers jealous of Great Britain's commercial supremacy rather than that of Britain itself, but it must be remembered that the foolish Jingo policy of hampering Russia at every step, even when she is doing good to her own people and the Chinese, would, if given effect to, prove disastrous to China's progress and hurtful to British commercial interests. So long as Great Britain has a general ascendency no nation need fear territorial aggression or restrictive monopolies, but should the supremacy over the Chinese Empire pass to Russian, French, or German hands, it is more than doubtful whether the country would he realty advanced very far. Russia is certainly bringing the northern districts into a higher state of civilisation, and if Great Britain can, as she seems from the recent dismissal of Li Hung Chang and the conclusion of the last railway loan to be able to do, still retain her influence in keeping the commercial development of the Empire as far as possible apart from international politics, there are not wanting grounds for, hoping that China may before long commence to work out her apprenticeship for the comity of nations.