THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1907. FAMINE IN CHINA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13390, 19 January 1907, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1907. FAMINE IN CHINA.

~o It is a remarkable indication of the social condition of China, as well as of the antipathy existing between the West, and the East, that we hear so little of the terrible famine which is to-day ravaging an area much larger limn New Zealand, and twice as "populous as all British Australasia. To famine has now been added small-pox, and from the joint visitation it is estimated by those entitled to speak with authority that anywhere between one and two millions of human beings must perish. ,\-quartcr of a, million in one district, 100,000 in another, half ; , million elsewhere, are numbers which come to us comparatively meaninglessly. though they convey i, very concise impression ot the stupendous mass of people in China. This is 'I"' only point which can be 1,,.1 steadily in view whim China and the Chinese arc being discussed by a Western people. In that country men exist, and perish, not merely in millions but in hundreds of millions ; nor does it appear to be possible to alleviate the miseries through which they periodically pass. For the famines from which China recurrently suffers, the civil wars which convulse iter, even the fearful pestilences which sweep over her, are but phases of that monstrous aggregation of human beings upon land which has become too small to cany them all. Over and over again Christian England lias made great efforts' to succour the Chinese famine -St and to help the Chinese plague-stricken, raising for such purposes vast sums of money, and expending in the work the most self-denying energy. And in pao .i.-use 4 at leasts that of

" Chinese" Gordon,' British assistance led to the suppression of a civil war in which millions of lives had been lost. But it has been long observed that the Chinese authorities themselves regard famine and plague, civil war and tumult, with what appears to the Western mind to bo cynical and callous indifference. When a famine ravages a district they wait, for a harvest to end it. When plague sweeps over the land they wait for it to exhaust its virulence, as plague usually does after taking its toll of lives. And when revolution appears they treat it by Machiavellian methods, watching for an opportunity to suppress it without trouble to themselves, and paying little heed to the burnings of great cities or to the utter annihilation of human life in once populous provinces. From the European point of view such an attitude, is infamous. For among civilised nations famine has been practically eliminated, and where it arises is immediately fought by special public and private organisations ; plague is similarly treated ; rebellion is not tolerated, and civil wars instantly excite the utmost strength of the rival parties in the determination to end them. But we have no right to condemn the Chinese authorities because their methods differ from ours, and because they appear to be utterly regardless of human life. For with them population perpetually presses upon the means of subsistence and it is only by famine, plague and war that the pressure finds occasional relief. The Chinese must either stop increasing, find an outlet in emigration, or suffer from the positive checks which Nature itself provides. Any relief afforded to them from these positive checks can only be temporary, and must to some extent aggravate the conditions which force them into action.

Upon an area of 1,500,000 square miles China proper maintains a population of ore? 400,000.000. North • America has less than 100,000.000; Western Europe, including Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and the Scandinavian States, has less than 250,000.000; the English-speaking nations, which cover the British Isles, most of North America, Australasia, and most of South Africa, number less than 135,000,000. The Western mind, therefore, cannot conceive the density of population in China. We can conceive crowded cities, " close settlement," and great manufacturing districts. But to conceive of a State which averages over 260 persons to the square mile, including mountains and barrens, is not within the power of our imaginations. Travellers do not pretend to be able to make others understand the settlement of China, They have compared it to one vast rabbit-warren, but this description dors not explain to us how the Chinese manage to live. All we know is that they live whore Europeans would din, and prosper where an Englishman would starve to death. By the slow selection of hundreds of generations, China has produced a breed of men which can toil harder while eating less than any other race ; consequently the Chinaman is able to extort subsistence from land which could not support any other type, and to multiply to a point which leaves beyond it not the slightest, margin wherewith to " come and go.'' In a civilised country the average man lives far away from the starvation point. His luxuries cost him more than his necessities. He is ceasing to regard food as very different to air and water. He can greatly reduce his expenditure without going hungry, and is a member of a, wealthy community, which need not and wil* not allow him to die of hunger. Hut in China, hundreds of millions barely keep body and soul together, even in ordinary times, and with the most exhausting labour. Their homes are kennels. Their food is below comparison. Their clothing barely covers their nakedness. Their virtues and their morals are the virtues and the morals that one might, expect. If a harvest fails and industry is disturbed they perish like flies before a frost ; and their places are eagerly seized upon by the myriads who struggle for the barest of livings in this over-popu-lated China. If relief works were undertaken by the Chinese Government whenever distress arose they would presumably break down through sheer inability of the country to sustain them ; and sanitary measures could but aggravate the population problem unless previous provision had been made for its solution. And the pressure which induces famine, feeds pestilence, and fosters civil war and tumult, also impels the Chinese forward in the blind attempt to over-run fresh lands. Accustomed to live on the verge of famine. European condilions are to them what a lamp is to the moth. If permitted to do so they would .swarm out and over-run our British colonies, to the utter ruction of our British character and with the ultimate result of re producing throughout, our colonies the inhuman conditions which now cause such frequent famines in China.