THE AROUSING OF THE CHINESE GIANT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10848, 15 December 1906, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE AROUSING OF THE CHINESE GIANT.

SWEEPING CHANGES

FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY MILLIONS AWAKENING. (By Mr F. A. McKenzie m the Daily Mail.) China lias at last awakened from the sleep of centuries. The groat enipiie of tire East, the oldest, the most populous, and the must highly organised on earth, is about to modernise itself. For untold years the Land of the Dragon lived its own life, haughty, exclusive, and indifferent to the rest ot the world. England forced it many years ago to open_ some of its ports to commerce, with the liard persuasion of brown Bess and cold steel, but England could not compel it to open its mind to Western influence. The Chinaman, serene m his ancient civilisation, despised us. In his heart he mocked at our inventions. He scorned the idea that the mere contraction of distance by rapid transit and telegraph was any veal benefit to humanity, and lie had decided convictions that the substitution of machinery for hand labor was a cuiise. He doubted our morals, and lie regarded our family life, with its weak bonds between parents and cliildren, as disgraceful. Our lack of reverence for old age was to him as horrible as the cannibalism of the Pacific islander is to us. It eeeined no more thnn an odd jest to him thuitj English people, a nation of to-day, should i attempt to instruct him, whose ancestors hud great enipiie and good government! m the year when Abraliam led his flocks ( into Egypt. DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN. While Japan was as wax before Western teaching, China was marble. This state of affaire continued unchanged up : to as recently as the Boxer rising, six years ago. As a case m point, Eaiglish enterprise laid down a railway near Shanghai. The Chinese authorities paid heavy compensation, took over the line, ; and at once tore it up. Our aid was employed far such affairs as naval organisation, but for little more, In 1&98 « small party of officials fell under Western influences, and tliey won the Emperor over to their side. The officials lost their lieads, and the Emperor lost power. ; This was followed m 190(3 by a great up- j rising of the people against the West, j They did not want us, and they resolved to kill every Westerner m their borders. , How they tried and failed is a matter of history. j Now, as though by magic, all has changed. The hour 'of the apparent fail-! ure of Western influence was tlie dawii of ' the day of its success. The scorn anoV contempt for foreign ways and foreign 1 learning jure definitely over. Forced by hard experience, the dominant brains of the Empire have come to see that the upstart and parvenu West has something ! to teach them. The old style warrior, armed with bow and arrow, and drilled m making ugly faces to frighten his foe, is being swept away to make room for tlie khuki-clad soldier with magiizine rifle. The railway, the telegraph, and the newspaper are spreading nil over the Empire. Woman, long confined to her home, is now taking her place m public life. Foot-binding, the supreme device for the subjection of the weaker sex, is passing out of fashion. Schools are springing up as though by magic, and Western science and learning are taught m them. The idols are being removed from temples, and schoolmasters installed. Young Chinese are going to other, lands by the ten thou. sana. Au industrial revolution has begun, and factories have come to stay. Here we have a movement charged with greater issues for both East and West than were the conquests of Alexander or the campaigns of Napoleon. At first glance such language may sound notlung but crude exaggeration. A little consideration will show tliat it is a restrained statement of sober fact. The Land of the Dragon is so vast that nothing' which moves it can fail to affect the whole earth. HUMANITY IN FLOOD. How can one bring home to those who do not know the East the overwhelming numbers of the Chinese people? Statistics alone are significant enough. China is the most populous empire on earth. Her millions outnumber the accumulated total of uill the nations living under the Union Jack, and exceed the combined population of Europe. One person out of every four on the earth to-day is l Oltinese;"ahd"fot every ~niSn, ; wOtiian; or child m the United Kingdom, ten are living under tlie Government of Pekin. But it is only by residence among the Glunese people that one realises something of what these figures mean. You stand near the river-ways of Canton, and mark the unceasing procession of river boats, all packed with people who make them their homes; you pause near the Viceregal bridge at Tientsin, and note the dense crowds of busy, men and women hurrying by ; you travel through, the thousands of miles of well-built villages and thickly-planted towns. Everywhere there are the teeming 1 multitudes. You notice the men, strong-limbed, muscular, ready-bi'ained, and clever-fingered. There does not seem an ulltr among them. As the thousands grow to millions, and the millions to .scores of millions, the mind of the traveller becomes as incapable of realising the flood of humanity as is tlie astronomer of counting the stais spangling the heavens. If you visit the countries around, the same impression of an unlimited mass of people is renewed. In Singapore you find that, tlie Chinese have almost swallowed up the community by their numbers ; m Burma and tfiam you learn tluit practically the whole trade is m tlieir hands' ; m Hawaii they blandly await your orders; and alike m Sydney and 1 San Francisco and VancoUverY ancoUver the great topic of conversation is how to prevent them from coming along m such hosts that they will submerge all others. GROWING MILLIONS. The modernisation of their life will without question add materially to the numerical strength of the Chinese. At present China contains four hundred and thirty millions. Tlie natural increase is kept down by epidemics and by lack of medical treatment. The Chinese doctor learns his business by walking on the hill tops and communing with the spirits, instead of by walking the hospitals. Tire introduction of sanitation and the establishment of modern medical schools will alter botli birth and death rates, as the example of Japan shows. By introducing medical reform the birth-rate m Japan has risen from 1.71 m 1872 to 2.49 m 1862, and is now over 3 per 100. The population was thirty-six millions m. 1881, and is now forty-eight millions. If China accomplishes a similar result, her population will be over five hundred and fifty millions m 1930. Such an increase will alter the entire economic positipn. of the world.

Must revolutions start from the bottom. This revolution has started from the top. It is not the mob that is urging reform on the rulers, but the rulers who are stirring up the mob. The changes have only begun after long hesitation and careful enquiry. The very delay is the best proof that tliey will be pushed to the end. What has brought about the new movement? One thing, and one thing only — the realisation by the Chinese that unless they do sometliing the future of their empire is doomed. Reform m this case is an outbreak of sincere patriotism. The Japanese war m 1894 brought home to Pekin as nothing else could the fact that modern weapons and modern training means power. The Chinese were as astounded by- the Japanese victories a» we would be if the Channel Islanders defeated England. They had regarded the men of Nippon as contemptible dwarfs. Now the dwarfs luid shown that they were the stronger. A DYING STRUGGLE.

The events that followed the war drove the lesson home. The wholesale theft of Chinese territory by European Powers cut deep into the national heart. Even the bureaucrats m the Forbidden City knev that they could not by open fighting get back their own. They made one final despairing effort. The Boxer ljiovement, a movement m the end controlled and encouraged by the Dowager Empress herself, was the dying struggle of stricken conservatism. The great burst of national passion was the flaming torch lighting the way to a new era. It only needed the Russo-Japanese war, with its proor of what a fully-equipped Asiatic race can do against Europeans, lo givo the final impetus to the change. Uuc of the most remarkable lealures of the ne.v movement is the use made of the press. The last few years have seen the rise of hundreds of daily papers, most of them with circulations running into many thousand, and iiixny with world cable services. Pekin alone has over a dozen of these journals, including one for women, written largely by Chinese women. These, be it noted, are not enterprises begun by foreigners to teach the Chinese, but they are started and run by the Chinese themselves. Foreigners are, it is true, trying to control the press for political reasons, the Japanese being particularly active m this direc-

I tion. Some of the most bitterly antiEuropean newspapers m China to-day are under Japanese editorship. But the greater part of Chinese periodical publication to-day is genuinely native, and is a response to the newly-aroused passion for news among the people. The various Viceroys and Governors have plunged into journalism. The Post Office collects subscriptions for and distributes freely three great official organs.. Throughout China newspapers are posted on the walls for all to read. Those who formerly cared for nothing outside their own villages are now athirst with unquenchable curiosity about the affairs of the world. In walking through the back streets of Pekin or other cities you will often notice men with papers m their hands reading to asrembled crowds. These are news circulators, proclaiming the intelligence to the whole people. The dominant note of these new journals may be summed up m a phrase, "Wake up, China." Six years ago the maesage was "Awake and slay the foreigner." Now the cry is, "Awake, and make yourselves as good as the foreigner." "Are you dead men? Have you no heart?" the chief magistrate of Haicheng demands of his people m a journal which he issues and largely writes himself. "Would you sleep if a man had ft sword at your throat of your father? Do you not realise that unless you stir yourselves and refoim, Western nations will come m and take, our land from us." THE USE OF THE PRESS. Myriad books and pamphlets of every kind are pouring from the press, and are being bought m wholesale fashion, ri.-h men giving their money freely to help. Here again *he only nation that is awake to the importance of this use of the press —apart from the missionaries — is Japan, Japanese agents are circulating on a very large scale works calculated to influence China m their nations favor. But the majority of the publications are purely Chinese. One of the more widely- circu lated of them, "A Plea for Patriotism," shows tha nature of the dominant appeal. The Westerner assumes an attitude of overbearing superiority towards us," it says. "America shuts out our laborer. South Africa invites thorn, and thiiii treats them as though they were criuii-i-als. The reason for all this is to he found partly m ourselves. Our opium habit and out petty dishonesties havvi brought contempt upon as. But it is high Uitio to :efonii. ' The abolition of classical examinations for Civil Service appointments is perhaps the premier change. China, is one of the most highly organised bureaucracies on earth, and its highest official appointments 1 are open to the humblest youth. The only road lo office — save m exceptional cases — was, until a few months ago, a minute knowledge of Confucian classics. To acquire this, a young man had to devote the best years of his life to unceasing study of old books. No surer means could have been devised for putting him out. of touch with actuality. With a stroke of the pen, all this has gone. The first requirement for office now is not that a man shall know Confucius, but that he shall have been abroad. Thousands of youths ai-3 dropping their books and hurrying to Japan A smaller number of the young men of higher grade have come to England, and are m London to-day. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION. One of the greatest difficulties m moving China was m the past the difficulty of communication, P-oads are bad and distances are great. All this is being changed by splendid railways, some finished, some m course of construction, some awaiting commencement. Pekin is now not more than two days' journey from Hankow, the commercial centre ol the Empire. Hankow will soon be only two days from Canton. Within a few years a series of lines will branch out iron. Hankow which will make China as easily traversed as Ameri:a is to-day. The railways ars largely used by all classes,

As a result of this easier locomotion the chief rulers, the Viceroys and Governors, now see for themselves instead of listening to rumors. Thus the reforms m Chi-li, the centre of the reform movement, are leading to changes m every part of the Empire, the other Viceroys having visited the province and beheld the advantages of the new departures. Before many years, when the contemplated railway between Pekin and Irkutsk is completed, Pekin will be within fourteen days' journey of London. -The gulf btotween-^iSast and West -"wiito then be bridged over. The Chinaman'; will be an actuality m Europe as he has never been before.

The Chinese official long regarded soldiering as the most contemptible of all callings. The rank and file m the army were not much better than outcasts, while the officers were men who could get nothing better to do. Now everyihing that can be done is being done to make the profession of arms honorable. The highest officials are giving their own sons as officers Rich men are serving m the ranks as private soldiers, as examples of patriotism. The least military of all nations is plunging into warlike preparations m order to defend itself. The seventy thousand modernarmed men behind the Viceroy of Chi-li to-day will soon be a quarter of a million. Other armies m other provinces will follow before long. Here, then, we have China at the beginning of renaissance. The change has only begun. There are admittedly great regions yet untouched by the new movement. But the growth within the last eighteen months has been so rapid that even the transfiguration of Japan bids fair to be left behind for speed and for completeness. A new patriotism has sprung up m the hearts of the people. This great nation, with its enormous uuworked resources, with its merchant princes whose wealth and enterprise can compare with the greatest of our own, with its vast supplies of cheap and capable labor, is stepping out of darkness into light.

How ••vill it affect us? How will it touch that civilisation which Europe has built up with tears and prayers and high endeavour m the course of many centuries? Is it the coming of the Chinaman for weal, or is it for. woe? Will he be the sinister shadow clouding, and darkening our future ? Are the * old dreams of the Yellow Peril, of the millions of armed men to be flung against us as Goths were flung against ancient Rome, likely to become actual facts? Or is He to be .». new factor m bringing to this old larth of ours that beatific age of which seers and poets have ever dreamt? On the answer to these qneslions largely depend the future of the world. • .f'