The Daily News MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30. CHINA AND THE FUTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 288, 30 November 1908, Page 2

The Daily News MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30. CHINA AND THE FUTURE.

The Kast, Near uml Far, is in a state of ilux and change. By some iuscrut-; able means of temperamental communication, the aspirations of one country are quickly adopted by another, however different its intellectual and politico equipment may be; and the ell'erveseence spreads without clear reasons, just as a great democratic wave sw'ypt over nearly all the States of Europe in 18-IS. To-day the ideals of some Eastern countries are plain enough, evenj

though tlu- future is uncertain; we' know fairly well what the Turks want, what the Persian reformers, what tile Egyptian Nationalists, and what our Indian fellow-subjects. The greatest puzzle of all is China. We do not pretend to walk in tile light where othc s walk in the dark. The most striking thing iu the news from China nowadays is the conflict of evidence as to tho nature of the national ideals and their progress. The oldest foreign residents are mystified and disagree. It is certain that much has been accomplished—that to some extent the Westernising of China is a reality. Writing before the deaths of the Emperor and Dowager, the Loudon Spec-

tutor, in an article under the heading we nave used, pointed out that it is ] iiltle more than a year since the edict i was .published abolishing the Manchu garrisons throughout China. If this proves eventually to belong to the small class of Edicts which are tulfilled permanently and to the letter, its significance cannot well he exaggerated. For more than two and a half ccn-.j tui'ies China has accepted the rule o\. the Manchu dynasty so completely that she has perhaps forgotten that she hj) governed by a Tartar conqueror. The Manchus have remained a charge aim an incubus upon the country. They have been above the law, and they have) paid no taxes; they have had their own schools, and have been n peculiar and privileged caste; they have not traded, nor have they married with the Chinese. The raising of the money for their support i;i idleness has bvu/i the first obligation upon the country. fh"oretically, the Manchu soldiers, or Banner troops, as they are called, guarded! the country from attack. Hut probably there was not a single Chinese who believed in their ability to do il. Tim fact is that the Chinese succeeded in their traditional, if unconscious, function of transforming into their own. likeness all people who e»me into p-o----tracted contact with them.

There is some imperfectly defined at-1 traction, sonic permeating inllueiu-e, in I the Chinese which casts a spell upon* those who associate with them, Put a Chinese and a man of another country

together, and at the end of a given, period the Chinese influence will almo3t certainly have prevailed. This happened in the case of Scythians, Turks, Kitaus, and other conquerors in turn. And the influence is potent, it would appear, by a k-ind of vis inertiac, not. by enterprise and premeditation. Even normal Europeans have been known to confess the power of the spell. Tlie Manchus determined not to be mado effeminate, but to remain a figntingi race, yet they, too, have gone under in character;' the Chinese influence has been exercised on them in conditions all too pleasant, and even luxurious. The complaisance and intense amiability of the Chinese were just the reverse oil. the incentive required for the Manchu Baunernien, who drew their pensions, however slothful and incompetent they were. Tile Edict of September, 1!)07*,. meant that all this was to end; the 1 Mancuus were to become as other men, niarry Chinese women if they wished, and enter into trade; and the money set free by the dispersal of the Banner garrisons' was to establish them upon the laud. The legal division of ihe races had become ridiculous, and the sanction of their fusion was the first) step necessary to all large national reforms. ' .

In this -new age it may be that Pci king will become prince among the princes, and, indeed, "according to the statements of some competent observers, it has already become so and now nioulda the Chinese world. In the extraordinary changes' which have undoubtedly taken place in Peking itself, we must; ! not underrate the effect of the railway. . Till ten years ago. Peking was a diflV , cult city to reach and an unsavoury ono ~ to dwell in; now three railways have, : their stations under its walls, and tho : modern world thus brought to the : threshold has overflowed into the town, and practically made it a city of the . West. Another influence which waits , upon opportunity and wisdom is Chris- , tianily. If Lord William Cecil is nor. , mistaken, a tremendous event in the i history jif Christianity is possible - ■ nothing less than the conversion of the • major part of China. In the seven- ■■ teenth century (he Jesuits all but won ; -China for Christianity, and the refusal : ol Koine to consent to the recognition 1 of . nose ancestor-worship decided the ' dynasty against a „t.'p which would | have been comparable with the conj version of the Koman Empire under i Constantino. But such a wji01c.,,.. t conversion to-day may be only a dream. , A matter more certain to' turn the luture of China one wav or the other , is finance. In all tlie talk of reform we hear too little of finance—of a genuine native attempt to balance the nation's accounts year by year, and dispense with the fatal habit of borrowing foi' any and every purpose. When a Chinese undertakes this great task we shall know that the man whom China needs has come. The thing could unquestkriulily be done; only! a fragment of Ihe ; wealth of China has yet been developed. Such thoughts as these lend the mind straight- o;f to (he vision of a fully awakened and Constitutional China, it such a China as that rises put of the present vague and variably slrivi"ii"s ot course she will desire to govern herself. She may even say •' China for the Chinese,'' and act upon the motto in a more civilised, but probablv much more effectual, way than the "Boxers." This is the logical conclusjoji which we must face. It would lie quite unnatural for China to remain under foreign control it once she had confidence in herself. We dare say that the spectacle of seven foreign nations represented bv armed force within b ( 'r borders will more and more become an argument for freeing •herself of this humiliation, just ;i's the imminent intervention of htirope in Macedonia galvanised the young Turks into their revolution.- The Spectator! contemplates the possibility with sympathy, and certainly without the least, misgiving. There is nothing necessarily to fear 4'roin a prosperous and wellestablished State, it says, whereas there is always acute danger to the world when a country breaks up ami falls asunder, it is often said that, the competition of four hundred million Chinese with their industry and low standard of living, would overwhelm Huron--. Our contemporary bas „ 0 siu .i, f,,. u . rf China became rich by commerce, her

standard of living would f;,itJ.fuJlv n"Off Iler )-|„. through ;,|| ||ie 5t;,,,;,,. 0 f pro-pcrity. Th,, Spc-fato,- concludes: "Ami, 11 «■ l„„,g|,t |,,.,. .roods, WB should buy Llicm for tin- very plain reason lluil we wanted tlk-mi' and could alforrl llicm. We should |la y f,„. tllom [ wild <inr o.wn manufactures, and if we had net (let us suppose) enough mjuuilaclurcs for tilt' purpose, we should ei":ale manufactures, which would be a, very good thing for us, for money is not Hit; filial payment' for iinvtliiug. We must not run away with the iile:t, however, Unit China is likely to impress herself upon tire Western world pufptucly. It has never been her way

to evangelise. We are a propagandist •■latum, and unr faith makes us se. China is not. She is (J,e most eonscrvilive nation in the world, and it is -wonderful enough („ think that she k /ill last imbued with the idea of progress. Progress without propagamlisui inav well occupy her for some generations."