PROGRESS IN CHINA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 241, 8 September 1927, Page 7

PROGRESS IN CHINA.

GREAT MARKET OFFERING.

WESTERN GOODS WANTED. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) AUCKLAND, 7. That China is rapidly becoming the greatest market in the world for the manufactures and luxuries of the West is the conviction of Rev. G. W. Shepherd who has spent the last nine years in mission work in the southern province of Frikien. Mr Shepherd is a Dunedin man and is a member of the American Board of Commissioners for foreign missions. His experience is that the Chinese prejudice against foreigners has not prevented them from eagerly seeking after the products of modern civilisation.

Mr Shepherd quoted an instance in point. A missionary friend of his when visiting a Chinese who had suffered loss by fire _ mentioned the value of fire extinguishers and gave a demonstration with one. The immediate result that the interested Chinese clubbed together and sent away an order for 60 of these extinguishers. The present revolution, he said, had created a great demand for Western goods. Every. Chinese hoy now wanted a fountain pen and a watch. Clocks were in great demand and so were foreign shoes and hats and overcoats. All the Chinese boys wanted worsted or woollen overcoats in place of silk, and therein was a great opportunity for New Zealand. Tooth brushes and tooth paste and foreign cutlery were among the articles much sought after and the up-to-date Chinese housewife now demanded aluminium cooking utensils.

Until about a year ago the Chinese women wore no hats; _ now woollen knitted hats to cover their bobbed hair are all tho craze. “As. modern as you could make them,” said Mr Shepherd referring to the fashion in short hair. The missionary shook his head over the sinister Russian influences evident. “Monkeying with the morals of the young people,” he called it, “and setting up Bohemian, standards that threaten to bring ruin. Chinese parents to-day have every reason to be anxious for their children.”