there, but they lack moral courage. They, the intellectual liberals, are
almost as ignorant of the true facts as we are, and enough aware of them
to wish to keep themselves in ignorance. Then there is the great
patriotism, which of course easily justifies, by the predatory example
of the Europeans, the idea that this is all in self-defense.
SHANGHAI, May 13.
I closed up abruptly because there seemed a possibility of mail going
out and now it is a day after and more to tell, with a prospect of
little time to tell it. China is full of unused resources and there are
too many people. The factories begin to work at six or earlier in the
morning, with not enough for the poor to do, and they have the habit of
not wanting to work much. Two shifts work in factories for the
twenty-four hours. They get about twenty to thirty cents a day and the
little children get from nothing up to nine cents, or even eleven cents
after they get older. Iron mines are idle, coal and oil undeveloped, and
they cannot get railroads. They burn their wood everywhere and the
country is withering away because it is deforested. They made the
porcelain industry for the world and they buy their table dishes from
Japan. They raise a deteriorated cotton and buy cotton cloth from Japan.
They buy any quantity of small useful articles from Japan. Japanese are
in every town across China like a network closing in on fishes.
All the mineral resources of China are the prey of the Japanese, and
they have secured 80 per cent of them by bribery of the Peking
government. Talk to a Chinese and he will tell you that China cannot
develop because she has no transportation facilities. Talk to him about
building railroads and he tells you China ought to have railroads but
she cannot build them because she cannot get the material. Talk to him
about fuel when you see all the weeds being gathered from the roadsides
for burning in the cook stoves, and he tells you China cannot use her
mines because of the government's interference. There are large coal
mines within ten miles of this city with the coal lying near the surface
and only the Japanese are using them, though they are right on the bank
of the Yangste River. The iron mines referred to are near the river, a
whole mountain of iron being worked by the Japanese, who bring the ocean
ships up the river, load them directly from the mines, the ore being
carried down the hill, and take these ships directly to Japan, and they
pay four dollars a ton to the Chinese company which carries on all the
work.
The last hope of China for an effective government passed away with the
closing of the Peace Conference, which has been working hard here for
weeks. It seems the delegates from the south could act with plenary
power. The delegates from the north had to refer everything to the
military ministers from Peking, and so at last they gave up. Despair is
deeper than ever, and they all say that nothing can be done. We have
gone round recommending many ways of getting at the wrong impressions
that prevail in our country about them, such as propaganda, an
insistence upon the explanation of the differences between the people
and the government. But the reply is, "We can do nothing, we have no
money." Certainly the Chinese pride has been grounded now. An American
official here says there is no hope for China except through the
protection of the great powers, in which Japan must join. Without that
she is the prey of Japan. Japanese are buying best bits of land in this
city for business, and in other cities. Japan borrows money from other
nations and then loans it to China on bleeding terms. The cession of
Shantung has, of course, precipitated the whole mess and some Chinese
think that is their last hope to so reduce them to the last extremity
that rage will bring them to act. The boycott of Japanese goods and
money has begun, but many say it will not be persistently carried out.
The need for food and clothes in China keeps everybody bound by the
struggle for a livelihood, and everything else has to be forgotten in
the long run.
The protests of the Faculty on behalf of the students seem to have been
received by the government in good part. Students here are in trouble
also to some extent and there is a probability of a strike of students
in all the colleges and middle schools of the country. The story at St.
John's here is very interesting. It is the Episcopalian mission school,
and one of the best. Students walked to Shanghai, ten miles, on the
hottest day to parade, then ten miles back. Some of them fell by the way
with sunstroke. On their return in the evening they found some of the
younger students going in to a concert. The day was a holiday, called
the Day of Humiliation. It is the anniversary of the date of the
twenty-one demands of Japan, and is observed by all the schools. It is a
day of general meetings and speechmaking for China. These students stood
outside of the door where the concert was to be held and their principal
came out and told them they must go to the concert. They replied that
they were praying there, as it was not a time for celebrating by a
concert on the Day of Humiliation. Then they were ordered to go in first
by this principal and afterwards by the President of the whole college.
Considerable excitement was the result. Students said they were watching
there for the sake of China as the apostles prayed at the death of
Christ and this anniversary was like the anniversary of the death of
Christ. The President told them if they did not go in then he would shut
them out of the college. This he did. They stood there till morning and
then one of them who lived nearby took them into his house. Therefore
St. John's College is closed and the President has not given in.
I fancy the Chinese would be almost ready to treat the Japanese as they
did the treacherous minister if it were not for the reaction it would
have on the world at large. They do hate them and the Americans we have
met all seem to feel with them. Certainly the apparent lie of the
Japanese when they made their splurge in promising before the sitting of
the Peace Conference to give back the German concessions to China is
something America ought not to forget. All these, and the extreme
poverty of China is what I had no idea of before coming here.
A wonderfully solemn and intent old pedlar has made his appearance most
every day, and much the same ceremonies are gone through. For instance,
there was a bead necklace--the light hollowed silver enamel--he wanted
fourteen dollars for; he seemed rather glad finally to sell it for four,
though you can't say he seemed glad; on the contrary, he seemed
preternaturally gloomy and remarked that he and not we would eat
bitterness because of this purchase. The funniest thing was once when,
after getting sick of bargaining, we put the whole thing down and
started to walk away. His movements and gestures would have made an
actor celebrated--they are indescribable, but they said in effect,
"Rather than have any misunderstanding come between me and my close
personal friends I would give you free anything in my possession." The
blood rushed to his face and a smile of heavenly benignity came over it
as he handed us the things at the price we had offered him.
The students' committees met yesterday and voted to inform the
government by telegraph that they would strike next Monday if their four
famous demands were not granted--or else five--including of course
refusal to sign the peace treaty, punishment of traitors who made the
secret treaties with Japan because they were bribed, etc. But the
committee seemed to me more conservative than the students, for the
rumor this A.M. is that they are going to strike to-day anyway. They are
especially angered because the police have forbidden them to hold
open-air meetings--that's now the subject of one of their demands--and
because the provincial legislature, after promising to help on
education, raised their own salaries and took the money to do it with
out of the small educational fund. In another district the students
rioted and rough-housed the legislative hall when this happened. Here
there was a protest committee, but the students are mad and want action.
Some of the teachers, so far as I can judge, quite sympathize with the
boys, not only in their ends but in their methods; some think it their
moral duty to urge deliberate action and try to make the students as
organized and systematic as possible, and some take the good old Chinese
ground that there is no certainty that any good will come of it. To the
outsider it looks as if the babes and sucklings who have no experience
and no precedents would have to save China--if. And it's an awful if.
It's not surprising that the Japanese with their energy and positiveness
feel that they are predestined to govern China.
I didn't ever expect to be a jingo, but either the United States ought
to wash its hands entirely of the Eastern question, and say "it's none
of our business, fix it up yourself any way you like," or else it ought
to be as positive and aggressive in calling Japan to account for every
aggressive move she makes, as Japan is in doing them. It is sickening
that we allow Japan to keep us on the defensive and the explanatory, and
talk about the open door, when Japan has locked most of the doors in
China already and got the keys in her pocket. I understand and believe
what all Americans say here--the military party that controls Japan's
foreign policy in China regards everything but positive action, prepared
to back itself by force, as fear and weakness, and is only emboldened to
go still further. Met by force, she would back down. I don't mean
military force, but definite positive statements about what she couldn't
do that she knew meant business. At the present time the Japanese are
trying to stir up anti-foreign feeling and make the Chinese believe the
Americans and English are responsible for China not getting Shantung
back, and also talking race discrimination for the same purpose. I don't
know what effect their emissaries are having among the ignorant, but the
merchant class has about got to the point of asking foreign intervention
to straighten things out--first to loosen the clutch of Japan, and then,
or at the same time, for it's the two sides of the same thing, overthrow
the corrupt military clique that now governs China and sells it out.
It's a wonderful job for a League of Nations--if only by any chance
there is a league, which looks most dubious at this distance.
The question which is asked oftenest by the students is in effect this:
"All of our hopes of permanent peace and internationalism having been
disappointed at Paris, which has shown that might still makes right, and
that the strong nations get what they want at the expense of the weak,
should not China adopt militarism as part of her educational system?"
NANKING, May 18.
There is no doubt we are in China. Hangchow, we are told, was one of the
most prosperous of the strictly Chinese cities, and after seeing this
town we can believe it. It has a big wall around it, said to be 21 miles
and also 33--my guess is the latter; nonetheless there are hundreds of
acres of farm within it. This afternoon we were taken up on the wall; it
varies from 15 to 79 feet in height, according to the lay of the ground,
and from 12 to 30 feet or so wide; hard baked brick, about as large as
three of ours. They always had a smaller walled city inside the big one,
variously called the Imperial and Manchu city. But since the revolution
they are tearing down these inner walls, partly I suppose to show their
contempt for the Manchus, and partly to use the brick. These are sold
for three or four cents apiece and carted all around on the big Chinese
wheelbarrow, by man power, of course. The compound wall of this house is
made of them, and they have several thousand of them stored at the
University grounds. They scrape them off by hand; you can get some idea
of the relative value of material and human beings. I started out to
speak of the view--typical China, deforested hills close by, all
pockmarked at the bottom with graves, like animal burrows and golf
bunkers; peasants' stone houses with thatched roofs, looking like
Ireland or France; orchards of pomegranates with lovely scarlet blossoms
and other fruits; some rice fields already growing, others being set
out, ten or a dozen people at work in one patch; garden patches, largely
melons; in the distance the wall stretching out for miles, a hill with a
pagoda, a lotus lake, and in the far distance the blue mountains--also
the city, not so much of which was visible, however.
One of the interesting things in moving about is the fact that only once
in a while do I see a face typically Chinese. I forget they are Chinese
a great deal of the time. They just seem like dirty, poor miserable
people anywhere. They are cheerful but not playful. I should like to
give a few millions for playgrounds and toys and play leaders. I can't
but think that a great deal of the lack of initiative and the
let-George-do-it, which is the curse of China, is connected with the
fact that the children are grown up so soon. There are less than a
hundred schools for children in this city of a third of a million, and
the schools only have a few hundred--two or three at most. The children
on the street are always just looking and watching, wise, human looking,
and reasonably cheerful, but old and serious beyond bearing. Of course
many are working at the loom, or when they are younger at reeling. This
is a good deal of a silk place, and we visited one government factory
with several hundred people at work; this one at least makes out to be
self-supporting. There isn't a power reeler or loom in the town, nor yet
a loom of the Jacquard type. Sometimes a boy sits up top and shifts
things, sometimes they have six or eight foot treadles. A lot of the
reeling isn't even foot power--just hand, though their hand reeler is
much more ingenious than the Japanese one. There seem so many places to
take hold and improve things and yet all of these are so tied together,
and change is so hard that it isn't much wonder everybody who stays here
gets more or less Chinafied and takes it out in liking the Chinese
personally for their amiable qualities.
Just now the students are forming a patriotic league because of the
present political situation, Japanese boycott, etc. But the teachers of
the Nanking University here say that instead of contenting themselves
with the two or three things they might well do, they are laying out an
ambitious scheme covering everything, and their energy will be exhausted
when they get their elaborate constitution formed, or they will meet so
many difficulties that they will get discouraged even with the things
they might do. I don't know whether I told you about the clerk in the
tailor shop in Shanghai; after taking the usual fatalistic attitude that
nothing could be done with the present situation, he said the boycott
was a good thing but "Chinaman he got weak mind; pretty soon he forget."
In various places there are lots of straw hats hung up painted in
Chinese characters where they have stopped passersby and taken their
hats away because they were Japanese made. It is all good natured and
nobody objects. There are policemen in front of Japanese stores, and
they allow no one to enter; they are "protecting" the Japanese. This is
characteristic of China. The policemen all carry guns with bayonets
attached; they are very numerous and slouch around looking bored to
death. The only other class as bored looking is the dogs, which are even
more numerous, and lie stretched out at full length, never curled up,
and never by any chance doing anything.
We visited the old examination halls which are now being torn down.
These are the cells, about 25,000 in number, where the candidates for
degrees used to be shut up during the examination period. Said cells are
built in long rows, under a lean-to roof, mostly opening face to face on
an open corridor, which is uncovered. Some of them face against a wall
which is the back of the next row of cells. Cells are two and one-half
feet wide by four long. In them are two ridges along the wall on each
side, one at the height of a seat, the other at the height of a table.
On these they laid two boards, two and a half feet long, and this was
their furniture. They sat and wrote and cooked and ate and slept in
these cells. In case it did not rain, their feet could stick out into
the corridor so they might stretch out on the hard floor. The exams
lasted eight days, divided into three divisions. They went in on the
eighth day of the eighth moon in the evening. They wrote the first
subject until the afternoon of the tenth. Then they left for the night.
On the afternoon of the eleventh they came in for the second subject and
wrote till the afternoon of the thirteenth, when there was another day
off. On the evening of the fourteenth they re-entered the cell for the
third period and that ended on the evening of the sixteenth. They had
free communication with each other in the corridors, which were closed
and locked. No one could approach them from the outside for any reason.
Often they died. But if they could only get put into a corridor with a
friend who knew, the biggest fool in China could get his paper written
for him, and he could pass and become an M. A., or something
corresponding to that degree. Thus were the famous literati of China
produced. Preparation for the exam was not the affair of the government,
and might be acquired in any possible way. The houses of the examiners
are still in good condition and might be made into a school very easily.
But do you think they will do that? Not at all. The government has not
ordered a school there, and so they will be torn down or else used for
some official work. You can have no conception of how far the
officialism goes till you see it. We also visited a Confucian Temple,
big and used twice each year. It is like all temples in that it is
covered with the dust of many years' accumulation. If you were to be
dropped in any Chinese temple you would think you had landed in a
deserted and forgotten ruin out of reach of man. We went to the Temple
of Hell on Sunday, and the gentleman who accompanied us suggested to the
priest that the images ought to be dusted off. "Yes," said the priest,
"it would be better if they were."
NANKING, Thursday, May 22.
The returned students from Japan hate Japan, but they are all at loggers
with the returned students from America, and their separate
organizations cannot get together. Many returned students have no jobs,
apparently because they will not go into business or begin at the bottom
anywhere, and there is strong hostility against them on the part of the
officials.
As a sample of the way business is done here, we have just had an
express letter from Shanghai which took four days to arrive. It should
arrive in twelve hours. People use express letters rather than the
telegraph because they are quicker. You may spend as much time as you
like or don't like, wondering why your express letter did not reach you
on time; you do it at your own risk and expense. The Chinese do not
juggle with foreigners as the Japanese do, in the conscious sense, they
simply drift, they juggle with themselves and with each other all the
time.
This house is four miles from the railroad station. There is no street
car here; there are many 'rickshas, a few carriages, still fewer autos.
There are no sedan chairs, at least I don't remember seeing any, but at
Chienkiang, where we went the other day, the streets are so narrow that
chairs are the main means of conveyance. The 'ricksha men here pay forty
cents a day to the city for their vehicles, which are all alike and very
poor ones. They make a little more than that sum for themselves. In
Shanghai they pay ninety cents a day for their right to work, and earn
from one dollar to a possible dollar and a half for themselves.
I said to a young professor, the other day, that China was still
supporting three idle classes of people. He looked surprised, though a
student and critic of social conditions, and asked me who they were.
When I asked him if that couldn't be said of the officials, the priests,
and the army, he said yes, it could. Thus far and no further, seems to
be their motto, both in thinking and acting, especially in acting.
NANKING, May 23.
I don't believe anybody knows what the political prospects are; this
students' movement has introduced a new and uncalculable factor--and all
in the three weeks we have been here. You heard nothing but gloom about
political China at first, corrupt and traitorous officials, soldiers
only paid banditti, the officers getting the money from Japan to pay
them with, no organizing power or cohesion among the Chinese; and then
the students take things into their hands, and there is animation and a
sudden buzz. There are a hundred students being coached here to go out
and make speeches, they will have a hundred different stations scattered
through the city. It is also said the soldiers are responding to the
patriotic propaganda; a man told us that the soldiers wept when some
students talked to them about the troubles of China, and the soldiers of
Shantung, the province turned over to Japan, have taken the lead in
telegraphing the soldiers in the other provinces to resist the corrupt
traitors. Of course, what they all are afraid of is that this is a flash
in the pan, but they are already planning to make the student movement
permanent and to find something for them to do after this is settled.
Their idea here is to reorganize them for popular propaganda for
education, more schools, teaching adults, social service, etc.
It is very interesting to compare the men who have been abroad with
those who haven't--I mean students and teachers. Those who haven't are
sort of helpless, practically; the height of literary and academic
minds. Those who have studied abroad, even in Japan, have much more go
to them. Certainly the classicists in education have a noble example
here in China of what their style of education can do if only kept up
long enough. On the other hand, there must be something esthetically
very fine in the old Chinese literature; even many of the modern young
men have a sentimental attachment to it, precisely like that which they
have to the fine writing of their characters. They talk about them with
all the art jargon: "Notice the strength of this down stroke, and the
spirituality of the cross stroke and elegant rhythm of the composition."
When we visited a temple the other day, one of the chief Buddhist
shrines in China, we were presented with a rubbing of the writing of the
man who is said to be the finest writer ever known in China--these
characters were engraved in the rock from his writing some centuries
ago--I don't know how many. It is very easy to see how cultivated people
take refuge in art and spirituality when politics are corrupt and the
general state of social life is discouraging; you see it here, and how
in the end it increases the decadence.