Nelson Evening Mail MONDAY, JULY 15, 1912. THE YELLOW PERIL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVII, 15 July 1912, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail MONDAY, JULY 15, 1912. THE YELLOW PERIL.

| ACCORDING to Mr J. O. P. Bland, part author of that very informative work, "China Under the Dowager Empress," the course of the recent Chinese revolution ought to dispel the "Yellow Peril" bogey, at least so far as any danger fro'm military aggression on the part of a rejuvenated China is concerned. Writing in the May "Nineteenth Century," he exarrincs the fighting achievements of the Imperialist and Revolutionary soldiery, and comes to the conclusion that there has been a tendency of late years to exaggerate , greatly the military efficiency, both actual and potential, of China. He asserts that every day's experience of the revolutionary movement justified the conclusion that the Chinese as a race have still an instinctive aversion from fighting for fighting's sake ; although, given good leaders and stern discipline, the iiv habitants of certain regions, notably the hill country, are capable of making good troops. There is abundant evi-

dcrice also to show that the nation cannot fo'r many a long year produce the leaders or the spirit of discipline to make the Chinese army the formidable host of the yellow peril prophets. "A new spirit has," he says, "been aroused, beyond all question, amongst the educated classes of China ; a spirit of vigorous, almost defiant, nationalism, which chafes under China's humiliations; which seeks through social and political reforms to put fron: her the reproach of weakness; but, in the absence of an organised, self-respecting, and productive middle class, there can be no immediate prospect of attaining the height of their ambitions, or the fulfilment of their dreams* >" Thet'e is rlo lack of intellectual activity irt tile Cliiriese people, but the moving spirts of the present unrest have failed to displdy the discipline, constructive ability, and personal integrity requisite for a thorough reorganisation of the body politic. The real yellow petil fot- the moiiielit—i'rdm the strategic poiiit of view : —lies iii that ferment of lawlessness which causes chronic unrest in the Far East so iong as China is weak and disoTganised. Mr Bland believes, too, iii the reality of non-military yellow peril, arising out of the pressure which millions of thrifty toilers, inured to the sernest privations, threaten sooner or later to bring to bear upon the economic ancPindustrial equilibrium o'f the Western world. He points to the lessorTs of Chinese history, which go to show that, though the riatioil has seldom been obsessed by dreanrs of expansion, it has repeatedly denationalised and overcome its conquerors. Lih.e processes seem to be at work wherever the Chinese settle. "The hopeless inferiority of white man against yellow in the grim, economic struggle for life may," this writer tells us, "be seen today in the Straits Settlements, the l)utch Indies, and the islands of the South Seas, in the treaty ports of China, and the Russian railway towns of Manchuria. Where white men and yellow live and work side by side, the balance of economic power passes slowly but surely into the hands of the Asiatic. Within the memory of man, the wealth the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong have gravitated to the Chinese; already, at Harbin and Tsitsihar, in Chinese territory, Russian railway porters are cheerfully carrying the baggage of first-class Chinese passengers. ,If there t.c any ir.cnaoe to in' Cathay, it lies in the fierce struggle for life of three hundred million men, who are ready to labour, unceasingly for wages on which the white races nrust inevitably starve."