THE NEW CHINA

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8679, 12 March 1914, Page 6

THE NEW CHINA

WONDERFUL CHANGES

TELEPHONE, ELECTRIC LIGHT AND TRAMS. There arrived in Wellington by the Manuka yesterday a visitor from China who was able to give first-hand the story of the evolution of things in that troubled Eastern land. He was Mr William E. Souter, who has represented the National Bible Society of Scotland at Chungking, West China, for the last five years, and who has come out to the Dominion on holiday. One has often read that China is progressing into 'a country more like those of Europe every day; that she is copying Western ideas; that her people are breaking away from those Eastern customs and habits which to Western civilisation are sordid and backward and unclean. Mr Souter confirms all this. But it will still surprise many people to learn, as Mr Souter assures us, that many of China’s inland towns are quite as up to date as towns in New Zealand or Australia. Indeed, he goes further, and says that some of the cities in the interior of China are even more up to date than towns upon which New Zealanders sometimes look with pride. Mr Souter says there is'now a good postal service throughout the whole of China, and last year 421 millions of letters and parcels were dealt with. One missionary, residing at Siningfu, on the western border of Kansu, now has his daily mail, whereas, when he first went into the province, there were only four deliveries a year. The telegraph service has now more than 87,0C0 miles of line, and just before Mr Souter left, Lhasa, the capital of Thibet,' had been linked up with Pekin, and so with the rest of the world. At present China has 6000 miles of railways id constant use, with more than 2000 miles under construction. Telephone systems in the cities are common, and a large number of towns were now electrically lit. In all the coastal cities, as far up as Tien Tsin, there are tramway systems of modern construction.

But perhaps the most remarkable thing which Air Souter has to tell of the new China is what may be termed the personal Europeanising of the Chinaman. All the students at the universities dress in English fashion, and the old style of wide-brimmed, ta-pering-crowned Chinese hat is rarely seen anywhere. Felt and straw hats are the vogue, and in some instances, not rare by any means, the Chinese have developed a penchant for the tweed cap and the bowler, Mr Souter says a thing about the modernising of China which will touch the quick of the Australasians’ pride. Four or five years ago. before the Hammonds and the Hawkers and the Scotlands were here, China was having her own aeroplane flights. At Cheng-tu, the capital of Western ■China, a Chinese ■ constructed a machine himself and made a flight in itl That was four years ago, and there was a decided interest in aviation in the country, which was growing as the Western developments in flying took place. ;