CHINA AWAKENING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 443, 15 December 1908, Page 2

CHINA AWAKENING.

Two Chinese market gardeners in Timaru who recently revisited their native land have been interviewed by a Timaru reporter concerning the present state of China and its possibilities in the future. They agreed that in ten years China would be “all right.’’ During the past three or four years, they said, there had been a great awakening, and the country was now progressing at such a rate that very soon it would be almost as up-to-date as the countries peopled by white races. The trouble in the past had been that China had been very badly governed, and it had remained undeveloped and unprogressive, principally because the late Emperor, Kwang Su, was really a Manchu, and had determined to do all in his power to keep the Chinese under. A few years ago ~ the people of China revolted against such treatment, and, defying the Emperor, freed themselves irom bondage, and ever since then China had gone ahead. Factories had been established for the manufacture of goods formerly imported from Japan, and gave a lot of work. Railways had been and were still being put down to serve the agricultural and fruit growing districts, a network of telegraph and telephone wires was now to be seen extending over all the centres of population (the telephone going well into the country districts), steamers are now being used on the rivers to carry cargo and pasisengers to and from the back country, and taking the place of the small and slow sailing boats, and in every way China was Being developed along lines similar to those followed in British colonies, j