-EAST IS EAST

Southland Times, Issue 19575, 12 June 1925, Page 5

-EAST IS EAST

THE CASE FOR CHINA. AN INTERESTING SURVEY. “Let the Western nations leave China to herself,” remarked Mr Long Tack Sam, that much-travelled son of the Orient, to a Southland Times reporter last evening, “and she will find her feet, sure thing. The Civil War was bound to have come. It is simply the clash of Old China and the new. The Boxer uprising was the parting of the ways. From that time forward, the young men of China began to turn their eyes westward. They went abroad in their most impressionable years intellectually, and imbibed Western ideas from the universities of America, England and the Continent. They have come to see that if China is to progress as she should, she must throw overboard the old conventions that have left her stagnating for hundreds of years. Customs that have been ingrained into the race by what your great scientists call the processes of evolution, are not easily rooted out. The older Chinese were up io arms against the introduction of new ideas, and although the Republic is now in the fourteenth year of its existence, the struggle is still going on. You cannot expect to change customs and principles which were in existence before your Western civilisation was born.” The foregoing in terms of cold print may not do justice to the extraordinarily vivid and searching commentary on Chinese affairs which was given to the newspaper man as he sat somewhat doubtfully eyeing an exceedingly capable looking bulldog who had constituted himself his master’s bodyguard while grease paint was Ix’ing applied with a practised hand to the speaker. It was the dressing rooms of theh Municipal Theatre whither the reporter had gone, “acting on information received,” as the guardians of the law and order would say. The reporter’s informant had indicated that the Chinese King of Vaudeville, as he is known professionally, was apparently a keen observer of affairs in his native land, and actual acquaintance with Mr Long Tack Sam confirmed this impression. JAPANESE ASPIRATIONS. “Japan has had 50 years’ start on us,” he observed, as he selected a fresh make-up stick, “and much of her present-day system of government and development is based on what the younger Japanese learnt from a study of British methods. Japan has become the Germany of the Pacific. She has tasted power, and she is keen to use

“Do you think the earthquake a couple of years ago would have much effect on her?” asked the reporter. “Back 50 years,” was the reply. “You people don’t realise what a setback it was. But she is so far in advance of the rest of the Far East that she is still by far the dominating influence.” “I have great faith in my country,” he went on. “Don’t you know that she is the richest in the world in undeveloped resources? Here you have a million people; we have four hundred times as many. China is poor to-day, but she will be rich someday.” MISSIONARIES IN CHINA. “How do the Missionaries get on in China?” asked the reporter. “Well, it may be all right to send Missionaries to China,” was the reply, “but with all these different religions of Christianity, it is not very convincing to my countrymen. One missionary comes along and teaches the faith of his church. Another follows him, and tells my countrymen that his teachings are all wrong; that his is the true Christian faith. I myself belong to the Catholic Church. Once a missionary came up to me on board ship, and asked me in a very friendly manner if I read the Bible. I replied: ‘Not much, but I read the prayer book.’ This told him that I was not of his faith, and he became very distant in his manner towards me. So, what would you?” observed the calm-eyed visitor, with an expressive shrug of the shoulders. A call came from the wings, and he bade the reporter a courteous farewell.