“THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHINESE REPUBLIC"

Shannon News, 23 March 1926, Page 4

“THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHINESE REPUBLIC"

(By Raymond Radclyffe) Mr. H. G. W. Woodhead, as the editor of one of the most important English newspapers in China and the compiler of that portentous volume, "The China Year Book," should know everything that goes on in the Chinese Empire (I call it an empire although its proper title is a republic). But he looks at facts from a different angle from those who love the Chinese and believe that they will get through their troubles, and from an entirely different angle from that of the returned student or the Russian Soviet or, indeed, the Chinese aristocrat or the Chinese peasant. Mr. Woodhead takes the Legation viey.'. and one can hardly expect him to take any other because although it 1b the fashion to curse the Legation under your breath when only English people are about, it is the worst possible taste to say a word against it in the streets of Peking or in the cosmopolitan bar of the Peking Club. In China there are only a few'hundred foreigners of any importance, and they must hang together or disappear altogether. Now the foreigner in China makes money all the time, not because he understands the Chinese nation or even because he does her any good, but simply for the reason that he employs a Chinese man to ,do his business and the Chinese man takes half the profits as a rule. The foreigner provides the capital, is a great drinker of cocktails, usually keeps a team of polo ponies and always belongs to the various clubs in the town in which he resides. Some foreigners have a nodding acquaintance with the Chinese language, but the bulk of them find it a tiresome tongue to learn and believe that they can make just as much money by remaining ignorant. If China were to pass a law making it impossible for any foreigner to reside within the Empire, the four hundred odd millions of inhabitants would go on just the same, and the only people who would suffer would be those who have lent money on the security, of the customs and salt revenues. It is quite a mistake to think that the Chinese are incapable of building and running railways, erecting spinning mills and weaving cloth, building ships and making iron and steel or indeed doing any of the numberless things we pretend they are almost ignorant of. Chinese do it Better.

I think that there is nothing that the Westerner ,does that the Chinese cannot do or do even better. ,We have only to look at the marvellous brocades made 150 years ago, at the superb silks that have been for nearly a thousand years, and at the furniture they have always made and which we have i often copied. The best managed railway in China is purely Chinese, and I think that some of the best ships employed in the coast trade are, Chinese built and Chinese manned. At the moment the whole of China is in a state of chaos due partly to the fact that the Chinese race is strongly individualistic and partly because the devotion to money has made them despite war and thus put them at the mercy of a rabble with guns in their hands. Mr. Woodhead does not think that extra territoriality is possible, and he gives as reasons facts which I will not pretend to deny, but they are facts which would apply equally well to the Japanese who have long ruled their country under their own laws, and compel, foreigners to keep those laws. It is true that Eastern ideas Of government are different from those of the West, but because they are different it does not follow that they are wrong. There is no nation that has more sound common-sense than the Chinese and, after all, law Is only a question of common-sense. No doubt just at first there might be friction, but if it appeai-ed to the Chinese magistrates that their method.of dispensing justice was unpopular, they would' readily change, for there is no more reasonable person in,the world than a well educated Chinese man. Great play has been made with the' fact that the bulk of the nation is illiterate, but no one who has had any dealings with the Chinese coolie has ever had any cause to complain of his stupidity or. his incapacity to understand ordinary matters of business. Mr. Woodhead declares, and perhaps truthfully, that although the Chinese were 'once famed' for their honesty they have deteriorated since the war. The whole world lost its honesty in the war, but I have sufficient confidence in humanity to believe that we shall gradually get back to normal. .The one aim and object of 'a Chinese: person is to make money, and he knows quite well that he cannot do this unless he keeps his bargains. Therefore, he will one day be as hon< est as he was in the past Mr. Woodhead very rightly declares that the "salvation of China must be worked out from within; it cannot be wrought from withouT 7 ' I have continually pointed out how impossible it is for any one power or even any consortium pf powers to force China to do as they wish, Any ;such attempt would at once rouse the national feeling in China which is i growing every day. But it will not be attempted. The utmost tliAt the powers can do is to delay everything ; until matters have reached such a horrible position that the intelligent Chi- , nese politicians will come to terms with the foreigner and perhaps delay the question of extra-territoriality. i, Trade Unionism There is a very interesting chapter about labour. Just before I left China I attended a debate at the British Legation, in which a Chinese gentleman stated that there was no such thing as a trade union in the whole of China. It is quite clear, however, that to-day the Chinese are abandoning the oldfashioned Guild and substituting for it the more modern Unitin. Whether ' the change will last 1 cannot say. The

Guild was a combination, of employers and workmen in which every question was discussed and usually settled Without any difficulty. There was no antagonism between the employer and the employed. The European system of treating the employer as an enemy would have appeared ridiculous to a Chinese labourer, and strikes a few years ago were unheard of. But the building of large factories has compelled an alteration in the attitude of labour, and the strike is a weapon that young China finds, effective. But will young China continue to influence the Nation? I do not think so. ''

What of the'Future? What is going to be the future of China? Will she make friends with Japan and sweep the foreigner out of , the Far East altogether, or will. she make friends with Russia and attempt to fight Japan? It seems to me that the Russian is quite out of sympathy with the main ideas of the Chinese Nation, whereas there is little difference between the Chinese and the Japanese. The Russian is not progressive, lacks the power of organisation, is improvident and dishonest. On the other hand, the Japanese, more perhaps than any other nation on earth, have a power of organisation. They know how to rule, and it is quite possible to believe that the Japanese Imperial Family may one day sit on the dragon throne of China and rule the four hundred millions of people just . as in the same way the Manchus conquered China and installed their own dynasty. This race is now absorbed into China, and the Japanese Nat Ton might also be absorbed in a like_man ner. But this is looking a long way ahead, and at the moment the Chinese consider the Japanese just as much foreigners as the British. One thing, however, is certain, and certain in spite of all that Mr. Woodhead may say, and that is that the present troubles can only end in the placing of all foreigners in tJhina upon the same basis as the. Chinese themselves. Chinese nationalism will grow and gradually become sane. It will see that it pays better to be on friendly terms with Europe and America than be forever squabbling.

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