CHINA TO-DAY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 84, 3 January 1935, Page 8

CHINA TO-DAY

Professor on Far Eastern Problem

“Even the best informed and most 1 cultivated of Westerners, when they turn their thoughts to China, are liable to imagine it as a country of legend and fancy, where the light has not’’ the same hue, the trees not the same shape, the flowers not the same scent, as elsewhere,” gays Professor IV. Martin, late foreign editor of the “Journal de Geneve,” in his book, published after his death in 1934, “Understand the Chinese” (Methuen, 7/6). Professor Afartln maintains that European prejudice renders the Far Eastern Problem even more difficult, and it is his endeavour to correct some of the mistaken notions current about China in the West./ Profesor Afartln combined the capacities of a journalist, an official at the League of Nations, and a UniversityProfessor. He visited China as recently as 1933, and having a bond of sympathy with the people, he was in close touch with leaders, both Chinese and foreign, in every department of the country’s life. On account of his accurate, lucid and impartial observations he was well qualified to convey a true impression of that vast and little-" known land. Attitude of Travellers. It is the Professor’s complaint-, that travellers describe only the high lights, the sensational aspects of what they see. Instead of-depicting the everydaylife of a cheerful and good-natured race, suffering, labouring, always on the verge of famine, but in spite of ages of poverty and oppression, always laughing,‘travellers prefer to tell amazing tales of violence and horror. In all his investigations, Professor Marfin, although he saw many things that were not in harmony with order and wellbeing, at no time witnessed a bandit’s attack, a kidnapping, or a public execution; he never saw heads stuck on posts, or children’s bodies in the 'streets. He had no encounters with opium dealers. As elsewhere, these manifestations of the underworld were the exception and not the rule. Although in the foreign colonies of China there are many Europeans ,of iiigb intellectual and moral calibre, says Professor Alartiu, there are on the other baud many more whose business interests and prejudices lead them to take the attitude that Japan has acted m a laudable way in the conquest of Jehol, the burning of Chapei. the establishment of the Manchukuan empire. Yet these were nets of pure piracy. The majority of Europeans in China do not understand this, for their privileges have set up between the foreigners and the Chinese a barrier more impassable than the Chinese wall. No Social Contact. There is no social contact between the races. The foreigners in Shanghai, who are so strongly p'-o-Japanese, have virtually never met Chinese of highsocial rank, and when they do there ! s : constant danger of such contretemps as M. Vandervelde uas recounted: A European invited a Chinese minister, representative of one of the world's most intellectual races, to dine, and -i friend said to him: “Since when have lou admitted coolies to your table?”

Chinese society falls into two classes: one is either a coolie or a gentleman. There is no difference In dress, and little in manners, between n prosperous peasant and an intellectual. a shop assistant and a rich banker. The long robe is Hit standardised dress of rich and poor When the coolie has something to say to his master lie is made to sit down and is given a cup of green tea. Nothing could be more cordial and friendly, but it is all the more difficult for the Westerner to understand China is neither worse nor better off than Europe, says Professor Martin. But she has resources, possibilities of development, and a vitality that Europe no longer possesses It would no doubt astonish the Europeans who condemn China as a political and fin ancial chaos to prophesy that China will again be one of the world’s .great centres of civilisation, yet according to Professor Martin all indications tend to that conclusion.