China's Latent Wealth.

Southland Times, Issue 14757, 28 September 1900, Page 3

China's Latent Wealth.

4» Wu Ting-Fang, the Chinese Minister to the United States, has an article in the North American Review on "China and Modern Progress," which will probably attract a good deal of attention. He tries to bring home to his readers the vastness of his country- In extent of territory and density of population it exceeds the whole of Europe, but all attempts to adequately realise its vastness end in failure. On the mineral wealth of China the Minister is no Jess eloquent. Nature has endowed China with every variety of soil and climate, but has, however, scattered her bounties over it with an uneven hand. Hundreds of generations of men have lived and died without exhausting its richness and fertility. There remains for generations to, come untold wealth of nature lying hidden within the bowels of the earth. The mines of Yunnan have for centuries supplied the Government mints with copper. The sands of Yangste, washed down from the highlands of Thibet, * contain so much gold that part of its course as it enters the province of Szechuen is Galled the River of Golden Sand. Much more important than these, however, are the deposits pi coal which underlie every province. According to the estimate of Baron Richtofen, thje geologist, the province of fihansi alone c*n supply the whole world at the present ratt <?T consumption for 3000 years ! Iv mqa* W* J&k #*« °f« li «

hence be easily worked and smelted. In short, the natural resources of China both in variety and quantity are so great that in potential wealth she stands second to no other nation. But to reduce this potential wealth to actual wealth labour is necessary, and here ■ again China has no rival. She has an unlimited supply of labour at her command. Every village can count its thousands of labourers, every city its tens of thousands. Experience proves that the Chinese as allround labourers can easily distance all competitors. They are industrious, intelligent, and orderly. They can work under conditions that would kill a man of a less hardy race ; in heat that would suit a salamander or in cold that would please a polar bear, sustaining their energies through long hours of unremitting toil with only a few bowls of rice. This glowing account of the Chinese coolie recalls to mind M. Blowitz's description of the fellahs who made tho Suez-Canal : "Men who worked like oxen and lived on an onion a day."