THE CHINESE BOYCOTT. STUDENTS CONTROL THE SITUATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 12 August 1905, Page 5

THE CHINESE BOYCOTT. STUDENTS CONTROL THE SITUATION.

CHINESE OFFICIALS INACTIVE. [press association.] (Received August 12, 8.37 a.m.) NEW YORK, 11th August. The American Consul-General reports that the Chambers of Commerce at Shanghai are unable to stop the boycott of American goods. Students control the situation, and the Chinese officials aro inactive. The Consul-General fears that the boycott will extend to other foreign goods. Mr. Harold Bolco contributes a iemarkably interesting article to the July number of the Booklovers' Magazine on "Tho Opportunity of the Orient," in which he deals witn the Chinese boycott question. Inter alia, Mr. Bplce says :—: — "A sustained anti- American propaganda in tho Chinese Empire has finally convinced tho Mongolian leaders and masses that we have employed illegal methods in enforcing the Exclusion Act, that we have denied admission oven to the exempt classes, and that, looking upon all Chinese arrivals as coolies, we have subjected eminent merchants and intelligent students to indignities, and, without warrant of law, shipped them back to China. Because, therefore, of the Chineso belief that race prejudice in the United States, crystalised into official action, has led us to violate the provisions of the law which wo framed ourselves, a retaliatory movement has been directed against all American merchandise entering the Chinese Empire. "If all the other nations of the earth, combined, should enter into a coalition to bar American manufactures, huch a world- wide movement would, in some respects, bo less significant than this formidable boycott in China. An effective Chinoso embargo upon our merchandise would almost annihilate our total export trado in cotton manufactures, as China now buys two-thirds of all the cotton goods we sell abroad. It is, howover, our exclusion from the portentous China of to-morrow that calls for all the American statesmanship. If we fail to arrest this anti-American movement in Asia, all our pioneer diplomacy in keeping tho door to tho Orient open will be nullified, and Japan will complete tho exploitation of the richest field now open to maritime nations. "Hero is the greatest empire of Asia, with a population of nearly half a billion, preparing to shut out American cargoes. At the present rate of China's development, it is conservatively estimated that within twenty-five years it will havo a foreign trade valued at 2,000,000,000 dollars. Should the seven thousand miles of railway now projected uecomo realities, and the great coalbeds and gold and silver mines bo operated, and millions of agricultural acres bo brought^ under up-to-date cultivation, China would probably become tho greatest importer among nations. Exporters make it clear that if wo lose China we loso the Orient. Japan is not our market, but our competitor."