The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1900. CHINA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 196, 21 September 1900, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1900. CHINA.

The terrible happenings in China havi [directed a good deal of attention h that unhappy country, and, seeing thi wonderful transformation that ha taken place in Japan, people are every ?here asking what is to be the futuri of China? Considering her enormou population of four hundred millions her vast mineral and industrial wealth the subject is one that .commands th< earnest attention of every student o the history of our times. Wu Ting Fang, the. Chinese Minister to thi United States, has an article in thi North American Review on " China an< Modern Progress," which will probabl; attract a good deal of attention. Ii one portion of the article hetriss ti bring borne to his readers the vas L >nes; of his conntry. In extent of territor; and density of population it exceeds thi whole of Europe, but all attempts ti adequately realise its vastness end ii failure. On the mineral' wealth o China the Minister is no less eloquent Nature has endowed Cuina «vitl every variety of soil and climate, bu has, however, scattered her bountie over it with an "uneven hard. Hun drcds of generations of men have livei and died without exhausting its rich nessand fertili'y. There remains fo generations to come untold wealth o nature lying hidden within the bowel of tbe earth. The mines of YunDai have'for cen'.uriessupplied the Govern 1 meet mints with copper. The sand ; of Yangste, washed down from thi i highlands of Tibet, contain so mucl gold that part of its course os it enter the province of Szecbuec is called thi River of Golden Sand. Much raon important than these, however, are thi deposits cf coil which underlie thi > surface formation of every province i According to the careful estimate t 1 Bann ltichtofon, the geologist-, thi 1 province of Sbansi alone van tuppl; tbe whole world at tbe present rate o consumption for 3000 years! Then ii most fuses beds of iron ore lie in closi proximity to those of coal, and cai hepca be easily works d and smelted In short, I he natural lesourc s of Ohini \ both in var.ety and quantity are si great tint in potential wealth sh< ; stands second to no ctber nation. Bui . to reduce this potential wealth toactua . wealth labour is necessary, and here again China has no rival. She has an unlimited supply of labour at her command. Every village can count its thtusands of labouiere, every city its tet-s of thousands. Experience proves [ thit that the Chinese as all-round labourers can easily distance all competitors. They are industrious, intel- \ ligent, and orderly. They can work under conditions that would kill a man of a less hardy race; in heat that would suit a salamander or in cold that would please a polar bear, sustaining their energies through long hours of unre- . mitting toil with only a few bowls of rice. This glowing account of the Chinese ooolie recalls to mind M. Blowitz's description of the fellahs who made the Suez Canal: " Men who worked like oxen and lived on an onion a day,"