Taranaki Herald. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1910. MODERN CHINA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 14331, 8 October 1910, Page 2

Taranaki Herald. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1910. MODERN CHINA.

When the Regent, Prince Chun, opened the Chinese Imperial Assembly a few days ago, he stated that the Assembly was on emblem of hope which showed that China was in harmony with the world’s progress. A progressive China is a new factor which the Western world'cannot afford to disregard. The country has such a huge population, the bulk of whom have for generations been content to live an animal kind of existence. that an awakening of these masses to some degree of intelligence is likely to add a new force to the world., Already the awakening is taking place. Young China is being educated and is looking for Government appointments, or positions such as the youth „of western nations, after obtaining more or less education, aspire to, in offices or other occupations where it is not necessary for them to soil (heir hands. Already it is being found that the ranks of those seeking official positions are overcrowded. A Shanghai contemporary recently stated that there are not enough posts for the men “selected,” while for every “selected” candidate there are hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of other applicants. Those applicants, having acquired a certain education, have unfitted themselves for, or at any rate have learned to despise, manual labour. They “cannot dig, to heg they are ashamed.” There is some secretarial work, some teaching, some journalism—a new departure—and a little in original work, if ability point that way. But no westerner unacquainted with China has any idea of the cheap rale at which such work as this is paid. A casual labourer in England would turn up his nose at it. What are they to do? The journal we have quoted rather evades tho problem with the remark that the Chinese cradle is too full. But what Are these educated young Chinese going to do when they find the occupations for which they have been trained overcrowded. Let us see what is occurring in India under somewhat similar circumstances. Tho Bombay correspondent of The Times recently wrote that the sacrifices made by many Bengalese in humble circumstances to procure for their sons the. advantages of what is called higher

education are often pathetic, but tile results of this mania for higher education, however laudable in itself, have been disastrous. Every year large batches of youths with a mere smattering of knowledge are turned out into a world that has little or no use for them. Soured on the one hand by their own failure, or by the failure of such examinations as they may have succeeded in passing to secure them the employment to which they aspire, and scorning tho work to which they would otherwise have been trained, they are ripe for every revolt. That is the material upon which the leaders of unrest have most successfully worked, and it is only recently that some of the most sober-minded Bengalese of the older generation have begun to realise the dangers inherent in the system. We all know that in giving the native youth of India the opportunity of acquiring education the British Government has bred a class in that country which is a constant source of anxiety to the Government. What then is likely to be the position in China presently, when there are thrown loose upon the country every year thousands of halfeducated young men unable to find the employment they want and seeking to overturn society in the hope of making opportunities for themselves? It is possibles nay, probable, that many of them will leave their country and seek congenial employment among the western nations, competing, not in the market gardens and the laundries, but in the commercial and manufacturing ’■ industries. " A modern and progressive China may indeed he a very great menace to the western world.