WHAT CHINA MEANS TO THE WORLD
The day is past when any one in Europe, whether Christian or
non-Christian, can be indifferent to what is happening in China. The
Christian has indeed been for a long time alive to the importance of
these developments, but the ordinary citizen with no strong religious
views has usually neither displayed nor felt any interest in a country
separated from us by so many miles and by such an untraversable gulf in
thought and language. If the Christian has urged the importance of
Chinese missions, his neighbours have answered by asking him why he
cannot leave the Chinese to themselves and to their own religion.
Whatever justice the opponent of missions in times past may have
thought he had for this view, he cannot now maintain that the Chinese
question is one which may be put on one side by any thoughtful man.
The movements of this vast mass of humanity, amounting to a quarter of
the population of the world, cannot but fail to have a very real and
vital effect on the whole civilised world.
The revolution that is affecting China brings Europe and America into
close contact with a {21} country equal to Europe in size, and not far
inferior in productive power. A few years ago China was so far away
that except as an outlet for trade it had little interest for people
here. The voyage occupied many months and was esteemed a hazardous
journey, owing to the dangerous coasts and typhoons of the China seas.
Now a train-de-luxe conveys the traveller in a fortnight across Asia to
Peking, and if the accommodation on the Chinese part of the railway is
not altogether luxurious, the traveller remembers that it is far
superior to that on the first railways opened in our own land. The
journey is of course tedious, but the fact that business men in the
north of China are talking of always spending their summer holidays in
England, will show how close China is now to Europe. It is no
exaggeration to say that in reckoning distance by the time it takes to
complete the journey, China is nearer to England than London was to
Scotland in the days of Dr. Johnson, while in point of comfort and
convenience there is no comparison. The journey from London to Peking
is far easier at the present day than the journey from London to
Edinburgh in the days of Johnson's famous trip to the Hebrides.
If in this way we are getting closer to China, we are still more
growing closer in thought. No longer can we speak of a gulf that
separates us from China. Every year English is becoming more and more
the language of educated men in {22} East; even though we cannot read
their books, they are reading ours either in translations or in the
original. Japan has set the example of having English taught
universally in her high schools, and now China is following her
example. A foreigner, talking about Esperanto, remarked: "What would
be the use of making an universal language? English, at any rate in
the East, is the universal language." That barbarous patois, "pidgin"
or business English, lives still in China. It consists of English
roots, enlarged by the addition of Portuguese words, put into Chinese
idiom and pronounced Chinese fashion. But "pidgin" English is fast
giving way to pure English, spoken most commonly with a marked American
accent.
If this growing proximity of China compels the attention of the
civilised world, the virgin wealth of her mineral resources and the
cheapness of her labour have excited the cupidity of the Western
capitalist, and it is daily more obvious that China must become the
centre of international politics, therefore the extent to which she
will affect the rest of the world should be a matter for careful
consideration. India, it will be urged, has long been in contact with
Europe, and the effect on Europe is small. Why should there be any
difference when another Oriental race comes in close proximity with
Europe? Putting on one side the fact that India has, both in trade and
in politics, had a very great effect on England, it can be answered
that there is an essential difference between the {23} brown
inhabitants of India and the yellow race. The former are, through
religion or custom, unable to accommodate themselves to the conditions
of Western civilisation; the latter have shown themselves such adepts
at accepting Western life that they have excelled the white man, to his
great annoyance, in his own civilisation. The Chinaman, who is
forbidden to enter America, Australia, and South Africa, is refused
admittance, not because he has been untried or because he has been
tried and found wanting, but because he has been tried in the three
continents and found by all who have tried him eminently efficient--so
efficient that if he were allowed to continue in those countries, he
would soon render the presence of the white settler unnecessary. He
has been tried in three just balances and been found of such value that
the white voter is unanimous in demanding his exclusion. But even the
most aggressive Chinese exclusionist can scarcely hope to exclude him
from his own country, and the Chinaman who stays at home is probably a
better man than the Chinaman who goes abroad.
Western civilisation may be expected to grow with equal rapidity in
China as it has in Japan. Obviously Japan is the precedent that China
will follow rather than India, whether Hindu or Mohammedan.
A few years ago a man would have been classed as an eccentric who dared
foretell that Russia would be defeated by Japan. When Japan talked
about going to war with Russia, Russia laughed. Who {24} can tell how
we shall speak of China a few years hence? For Japan after all is only
the same size in population as Great Britain, but China is eight times
as large.
There are three ways in which China may affect Europe. Militarily, she
may menace her by her enormous armies enlisted from her vast
population. Commercially, she may afford an outlet for our trade far
greater than we possess at the present time, and perhaps be a
competitor in trade and a place where the capital of Europe will be
invested. Morally, she may either depress or elevate our social
morals. Perhaps the reader may be inclined to smile at the idea of
China being in a higher moral condition than Europe, so as to be able
to react on her beneficially, but stranger things have happened; and if
Europe follows the example of France in deterioration, and China
continues to advance with the same rapidity, China might easily excel
Europe in morals.
Let us first deal with the question from the military point of view.
The military authorities who know the Chinese seem to be equally
divided in opinion; many are confident that they are an unwarlike race,
others maintain and bring evidence to prove that under competent
officers they have great military qualities.
A few years ago, for instance, the development of the military power of
China was regarded as a possible danger to the world, and especially to
England or Russia. It was pointed out that China might easily {25}
descend with a huge army on to India in the distant future, or she
might turn her arms northward and conquer the wide districts of
Siberia. Now the popular view is the reverse, and the military power
of China is regarded as a thing incapable of great development. A
Japanese diplomatist with whom we discussed the question ridiculed the
idea of the yellow peril and smiled at the suggestion that China could
ever be a nation great in war. Certainly her present military power
can be safely ignored except in Manchuria; whether that power is
capable of development is a moot point. Believers in the war-like
possibilities of China point out that as a matter of fact China is by
right of conquest suzerain to such warlike races as the Tibetans and
the Ghurkas, and that her empire reaches as far as Turkestan. In
answer it is urged that the victors were not the Chinese, but the
conquerors and present rulers of the Chinese, the northern Manchus;
who, till they were absorbed by Chinese civilisation, spoke a different
language and wrote a different character.
The Manchus are far from being extinct, though through years of sensual
indulgence they have lost their virility; but the discipline of
religion or the call of a national emergency might restore the war-like
qualities of the race. It was only in 1792 that the Chinese, under
Sund Fo, defeated the Ghurkas, and we must allow that a race who could
defeat these gallant soldiers must be skilled and brave in war. On the
other hand I was assured that the Manchus, {26} so far from showing any
courage in the war with Japan, were the first to flee, and that they
differ in nothing from the Chinese except that they are pensioners and
ride horses. Those who disbelieve in the courage of the Chinese say
the Chinese never had any courage except of a passive order; that they
would endure suffering against any race on earth, and that their whole
history tells that tale; that they have been subject in turn to the
Mongols, the Kins, and the Manchus; and that the period of the Ming
dynasty when they were free, was only because the Mongols had reduced
every nation within many thousands of miles to subjection, and then
they themselves had fallen a prey, not to the Chinese arms directly,
but to the enervating and destructive effects of Chinese civilisation
which rendered them absolutely unable to fight.
Those who argue in this way point to that great feature of Chinese
scenery, the fortified wall. That Great Wall of China, climbing hill
and dale, was built to keep the northern and warlike tribes from
harrying the peace-loving and industrious Chinaman. Behind that wall
lie nothing but fortress after fortress; every city is walled, and
those walls tell their own tale. A warlike race never dwells in walled
cities. When the traveller enters Japan after visiting China, the
first thing which strikes him is the absence of walled cities. The
villages and towns lie along the roads as they do in our own country
instead of clustering behind the tall and gloomy walls of China. {27}
Again, those who say the Chinese will never fight, point out that they
have never been able to reduce two savage races right in their midst,
the Maios and Lolos. One devoted missionary who had spent many years
of his life in the thankless task of attempting to approach these
savage Lolos, gave us an interesting account of the relation between
the Lolos and the Chinese which certainly does not show that the
Chinese have much military skill. The Lolos are a sort of Highland
caterans who live in the mountains in the west of China, and from time
to time raid the peace-loving Chinese villages. The Chinese then
retaliate by organising a large force, who advance on the Lolo country
and burn their villages. The Lolos rarely offer any direct resistance,
as they realise they are hopelessly outnumbered, but take an
opportunity to raid another village and to slaughter hundreds of
defenceless Chinese. If the forces are anything like equal, the Lolos
will fight, and even sometimes when the forces are wholly unequal. On
one occasion seven Lolos and two women put to flight three hundred
Chinese soldiers, killing forty and wounding many more. The Chinese
consequently live in considerable fear of those Highland barbarians,
whose fierce yells and savage onslaught produce absolute panic in their
troops.
Officers who have commanded Chinese troops seem generally to believe in
their capabilities. Gordon, for instance, spoke in the highest terms
of the soldiers who formed his "ever victorious army," and the {28}
English officers who commanded the Weihaiwei regiment and those who
commanded the Chinese volunteers at the siege of Peking spoke equally
well of their men. It is reported that the Chinese soldiers at the
siege of Tientsin would carry the wounded back out of the range of fire
when no European soldiers could be found ready to perform this
dangerous task, but of this story I could find no first-hand
confirmation. But whether the Chinese in times to come will develop an
efficient army or whether they do not, the most competent judges affirm
that Chinese military greatness will always make for peace; that they
will never wage a war of aggression; and that, so far from being a
menace to the world, they will prove to be a security for the world's
peace in the Far East. In fact it is the continuance of China's
military weakness rather than the growth of her military power which is
most likely to disturb the political atmosphere. China is far too rich
a prize to be safe if unguarded, and the acquisition of her wealth will
always prove a temptation to her needy neighbours.
The integrity of the Chinese empire is for many reasons a most
desirable thing, and that integrity can best be maintained by an
increase of China's military power.
One of the reasons why this is so much to be desired is from the
commercial effect which China may have on the rest of the world. If
the vast masses of her singularly excellent workmen are to be exploited
by powers who have no thought for either {29} hers or the world's
welfare; if the sweated den of the alien is a menace to the healthy
conditions of the working man in London; if the policy of such
philanthropists as Lord Shaftesbury has been at all beneficial to the
world at large, the sudden introduction of hundreds of thousands of
ill-paid but efficient working men to the great Western market will
have a deleterious effect on the social conditions of the civilised
world. It is obviously far more simple to bring the factories to China
than to bring the Chinaman to the factories, and this will be freely
done if ever the flag of the foreigner waves over China. The great
advantages that China can offer of cheap labour, cheap coal and cheap
carriage, coupled with the security of a European flag, will have the
effect of attracting to China a very large number of the world's
industries. If this is done gradually, so that the internal market in
China increases proportionally, this will not result in any evil to
other nations. China will share in the wealth of the world, and will
be at once a large producer and a large consumer; but if before Western
civilisation has been assimilated by the working classes Western
factories are extensively started in China the result will be one of
those dislocations of social conditions which we include under the name
of sweating.
Western conditions of labour in Western countries may be deemed by some
to be hard, but no one can doubt that if Western conditions of labour
were forced on a population which did not understand them, they {30}
would have a tendency to become definitely oppressive. The Chinese
coolie will, I fear, be as little able to maintain his ground against
the foreign contractor supported by the arms of a foreign power, as the
Congo native is to maintain his rights against his Belgian oppressor;
and unless Western powers have the humanity and wisdom to resist those
of their own nations who will clamour to make money out of Chinese
labour, Western dominance in China is not to be desired by Western
wage-earners.
[Illustration: HANKOW, THE CHICAGO OF CHINA. RIVER AT LOW WATER, 600
MILES FROM THE SEA. HAN-YANG IRONWORKS]
One of the most impressive sights in China is the Han-yang Ironworks.
They employ three thousand men, and are owned by a body of Chinese
capitalists. They have found it worth while to triple their plant
within the last two or three years, and one can hardly wonder when one
realises that, though the labourers are paid a very high rate according
to Chinese scale, they only get sixpence a day, and even allowing that
it requires three Chinamen to do the work of one Englishman, which is a
higher proportion than is generally claimed, obviously there is a very
large margin of profit to be made by the owners of the works. It is
worthy of note that the Chinese have been unable at present to produce
any native engineers; sixteen Europeans of various nationalities manage
and control the works, though they are owned by Chinese, but the
skilled work is all done by Chinese. For instance, we saw a man
straightening the rails with a steam hammer; it was very skilled work,
and I was told he was making 7d. or {31} 8d. a day. If any social
reformer, if any one interested in the condition of the working
classes, has time to consider this question and to escape from that
parochial mind which so distorts the importance of things, he will see
that the conditions of the working classes in Europe will depend to a
greater degree on the proper development of the social conditions of
China than on any factor at home. To put it briefly, if the fourth of
the labour of this world is living under sweating conditions, the other
three-fourths may consider themselves lucky if their income is not cut
down by 25 per cent.
On the other hand, if the development of China is allowed to pursue its
normal course, and education and enlightenment are encouraged to
proceed by equal steps with material well-being, the commercial
conditions of China, so far from being injurious, will prove beneficial
to the world at large. The internal market, for one thing, will tend
to keep pace with China's productions. If China exports, she will also
import; the volume of trade will no doubt be enormously increased, and
that trade will bring prosperity to China and to those other countries
who are trading with her. Her people will gradually grow accustomed to
Western conditions, and, if China maintains her independence, those
conditions will not be allowed to become too onerous to the poorer
classes. The wealth of another country does not injure her neighbours;
it is rather her poverty which injures them. There is always the
danger that the poorer country {32} will drain the capital from the
richer country, and that a rich country becomes harsh to a poor country
in the same way that the creditor is harsh to the debtor; certainly it
would be most undesirable if a sudden industrial expansion in China
paralysed many industrial undertakings in England by depriving them of
the capital they needed for enlargement, and it would be equally
undesirable to have any industrial undertaking in China controlled by a
Board of Directors in London, whose one object was to increase their
dividends, and who were ignorant of and therefore indifferent to the
injury that might be incidentally done to the welfare of thousands of
Chinese who fell under their power.
And this brings me to the third point of how China may affect the rest
of the world. She may, and most probably will, degrade the moral tone
of Europe. On the other hand, it will be quite possible that she may
act as a moral tonic. We scarcely realise the nature of the chains
that bind one part of our civilisation to another. To hear men talk,
one would suppose that the great factors in the government of mankind
are the laws and regulations made by kings and popular assemblies; but
a deeper inquiry must show that it is only the smaller part of a man's
life that is controlled by law, the greater part is controlled by
custom or fashion which is enforced, to use the technical term, by the
sanction of public opinion. Consider, for instance, the customs of
dress, or of manners, or the hours we keep, or the way we {33} refer to
things, or even our very thoughts--they are all subject to this power;
the State does not generally command any particular dress, yet there is
a large and increasing measure of uniformity in dress. You may go from
Asia to America, from Vancouver to Vladivostock, and you will see
uniformity in the rules of dress. This uniformity is all the more
remarkable, because its laws, instead of being fixed and stationary,
are constantly altered; indeed, in comparison with the power of
fashion, the powers of the greatest autocrat or of the most efficient
public office are as nothing. The autocrat may give an order; the
public office, with its endless clerks and forms, with its miles of
red-tape, may try to see that order carried out; but may quite possibly
fail. But fashion, issuing her capricious orders, has no office, no
clerks, no printed forms that have to be filled up to secure obedience,
yet her subjects yield such willing service that they seek for
information from every quarter as to the nature of her commands, and
when they know them, they count neither money nor comfort to be of
importance compared with obedience to their mistress. The world, while
it wonders at its own submission, enlarges or reduces its clothes,
alters its head-gear, and further, will even change its manners, its
speech, and its thoughts. The latest fashion-book is but the
exaggeration of a world-power; the same power that compels women to
tighten their skirts and widen their hats, makes their husbands talk
about socialism and observe Empire Day. The power of fashion lies in
{34} this, that while every one obeys, no one is conscious of any
difficulty in obeying; the chains with which fashion binds this world
may be so strong that the strongest nature cannot break them, yet they
are so light that the most sensitive natures are not conscious of their
restraint.
But this great power of fashion has its limits, and those are the
limits of our civilisation. The mandate of the dressmaker may reach
from Siberia to Peru, but it has no power in Mohammedan, Hindu, or
Confucian lands; the Turkish lady still veils her face, the Hindu still
adheres to his caste, the Confucian up to this moment still preserves
his queue and his blue robe, but if China accepts our civilisation this
must change. The modern Chinaman dresses in Western fashion; the loose
flowing garment of China acts as a sort of barometer by which the
extent of European pressure can be tested; up-country they are as loose
as ever, but in Shanghai, wherever Chinese dress is still preserved, it
has grown tight. A change typical of what may happen if the union
between the civilisations takes place without any guidance may now be
seen in the streets of Shanghai; the dress of the women is shaped in
the Chinese fashion, they wear the traditional coat and trousers, but
the cut of those garments offends both East and West alike by their
great exiguity.
Every one would allow that Western fashions, or, at any rate, men's
fashions, must to a great extent affect China, but there is a deeper
thought beyond; {35} Western fashions will not merely affect Chinese
dress, but they will also affect Chinese thought, and when they have
incorporated Chinese thought into Western civilisation, when the
conquest is complete and China and the West are one, a reaction will
take place, and that which has subdued China to the yoke of Western
fashion will give in its turn power to China to control the Western
world. Without suggesting for a moment that Peking fashions will take
the place of Paris fashions, or that the Englishman will grow a queue,
I do suggest that there are many precedents in history for expecting
that such a moral force as the Chinese reverence for parents, or such
an immoral position as the Chinese contempt for the working-man, will
not be without its effect on the Western world. Again and again it has
been pointed out by both missionary and Government official, that so
great is the power of China, that she brings into subjugation to her
thought any one who is long resident in her country. If it should
happen that the Western world should neglect the Chinaman when it has
the opportunity of teaching and directing him, longing as he is to
learn about Western civilisation, the punishment of the West will be
that she will, in years to come, be influenced for evil by the power of
the great Celestial Empire. If, on the other hand, the East should
turn towards Christianity, and, taught by Christianity, should learn to
live a higher life, the example of her faith and of her morality will
in years to come react beneficially on the Western world.
{36}