China and the Revolution

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7, 14 August 1912, Page 34

China and the Revolution

Effect on Foreign Trade —Record Stride in Commercial Progress Predicted—A Stupendous Buyer.

©NE of the almost certain features of the effect of the revolution will Im* China's increased foreign trade—probably 100 per cent, says Sun Yat Sen. The year 1913 should mark a stride in commercial progress in China such as the world has never before seen: 1912 will probably be a year of unrest and uncertainty. The formation of a permanent Government and the election of a Cabinet, the dispatch of competent officials to outlying places, and the putting down of outlawry in the provinces will Im* a big programme for this year - if it is accomplished. But 1913 and the following years will probably unfol I a remarkably rapid advance in exports and imports. China has held back from all things foreign centuries enough, but during the past two decades the seed has been sown for such a harvest of trade and commercial prosperity as shall keep the factories of the West hard at work to cope with the deman Is --that is. if the merchants of the West are quick to seize their chatices as they come. Even recent changes in dress wrougl by the revolution have shown the enormous demand there is for re-dressing the Chinese: with the passing of the queue they decided against the little Mattchu hat. an article made almost exclusively in China. Immediately there came a big cry for the foreign hat: at once a trade was created, into the country there came all kinds and conditions and shapes of foreign headgear—felts, cloth caps and all sorts: they sold in hundreds of thousands. and had to be supplied by socne one. China, at all events, could not make them: to her it was something quite new: they had to come from outside. Japan was watching. She collared the trade, and in two months she hi I practically re-hatted China. But this is merely an instance; many more might be given to show the rapidity with which commercial changes can come. In over seven thousand miles of travel in China, mostly far away inland where ' treat s st felt.

the writer some time ago made a study of the commercial aspect of tilings, and how far the modern spirit had penetrated the interior, with a view specially to ascertain how the British merchant stands in the business life of the native. In China, e'en in far interior places, one finds life, business prosperity a strange commingling of Western idea- with Eastern. Four hundred millions of people have to all intents and purposes bewine civilised. They are anxious to swing into line, and want the equipment. Their needs are making China the greate-t market in the world. They

" an t every t hing—-rail ways. machinery, tools, guns, ships and much else. Tha.' there is an unprecedentedly large trade to be done must at onee be granted. During the last decade, without thinking for the moment of the revolution, China's foreign trade has doubled: in the next decade, if peace prevails, it must now be trebled, and although one cannot dose his eyes to the fact that under rdinary conditions of progress China must ultimately become a serious rival to Western countries as an industrial nation, that dav is not vet at hand.

She must be a stupendous buyer befqre she can hope to become a serious competitor. But the point need not. I think, be pursued further. The country has merely to regain her normal condition, and we shall see trade increasing by leaps ami bounds. 1 say merely to regain its normal condition for this reason: whilst the prevailing uncertainty continues no permanent increase of trade can |>e expected. but lot there be some stable form of government and we shall see China recuperate and begin trade again in a wonderful manner. No people have such recuperative power. No people have such power of adaptation. And in the era of trade development upon whose threshold we are now standing we may confidently look to probably an uneelipsed season of foreign eommmereial enterprise in all parts of China. In the increased demand for woollen goods, for engineering equipment of all kinds, especially mining gear, for railroad supplies. for the thousands of household requirements of daily use. motor-boats and all the varied paraphernalia required to place an antiquated nation upon the footing of modern civilisation there will

be a demand suvh as will make even la pan's era of commercial progress pale into insignificance. Thus the question is summed up by Mr Edwin J. Dingle in his book on “China's Revolution."