The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1. THIS STIRRING OF CHINA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 253, 1 December 1909, Page 2

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1. THIS STIRRING OF CHINA

A very remarkable and iuionnatiu suiius of ai'Licles luis boon m the Loudon 'limes entitled '.I ne ° ar East lievisited" by its "Special oorres'p'ondent lately in the h'ar Jiast." ims was Mr. C'hirol, the distinguisn;:u I'oieign Editor of the paper, lien are some facts from his article oa "UniimThe Stirring of the Water*-None oi tho outward manifestations of the 'remarkable change that lias taken place since 1000 in the attitude oi the Cuiue<imind towards Western ineihous am, Western intercourse,'' he says, "is nai, bo striking, none holds out such promiit! of permanency, a, the marvellous. development within the last few vears oi public education on Wesicin lines. >,u more striking illustration of the revolution that, has taken plate in the attitude ot the governing class towards ui* question tan lie found than the opening 111 Pekin itself of a public school, under the highest auspices, for the sons ot officials of the three highest glades in the Chinese bureaucracy. The 'Nobles School,' as it is called; is auended at present by ninety-six pupils, ami new premises arc being built which will en able the number to be doubled, .idjoining the Nobles' but wuiiui the same compound, is a separate Dunning of even greater significance, it consists of two large lecture rooms, m which lectures are delivered every aiternoon, on the 'one hand to ufrLy-two young scions of the princely Alaiichi; houses, and, on tiie other, to sixteen youthful members of the iimperial House 'of China. The Prince liegeiu iiimseii from time to time attends lliese natures, and the influence which siivli e.v ailed patronage must evert can sea reel* be exaggerated.

intimately connected with the educational movement are one or two social movements' which also undoubtedly indicate a very profound change in Unmoral, as well as the intellectual, oiulook of Chinese society. One is the antiopium movement. The measures iukcu by the bureaucracy to carry out tin imperial edicts limiting the "cultivating of the poppy and the sale of the dru» may not be everywhere equally ellecthe -Many ollicials may .still by recalcitrant, many may connive for corrupt motivo at evasion of the regulations which the;, have themselves promulgated. But then can be no doubt that a large and in ! iluential body of public opinion is in favor of the suppression of opium. \\ na. can be done by the energy oi one »ing.i (official has been shown this year in im province of Shansi, one ol' the elnei poppy-growing provinces of China, wneu an official of the British Legation, seni specially to investigate the present positron, was able to report Hie eompleU disappearance of the noxious pjani though in an immediately adjoining pro vinee its cultivation still continues U flourish. Jiven if every other provjj; cial governor were to emulate the example set by the overnor of Shansi, tin proulcm would a'till .present grave dulie ul ties.

'%ually healthy is the growth of tfi anti-loot-binding movement. Mrs. Archibald Little's name will not be forgotten in China as one of the most active pioneers of that movement, but it couiu make but little Headway so long as publie opinion, especially amongsi Chinese women themselves, was against it. A \ou that same public opinion is veering rapidly round, and for the same reasons which formerly prompted opposition. Chinese mothers insisteu upon subjecting their daughters to Hie torture of footbinding because small leet were then the badge of respectability, and no Chinese girl with large feet could hope to iind a Uecent husband, is'ow with the growth of education and the change in the altitude of the Chinese mind towards ioreign habits, the value of small feci 111 the matrimonial market is falling rapidly, and Chinese mothers' arc shrewd enough to foresee that within a few years the demand will be exclusively for large feet. Amongst MaJichu women 11 must be remembered, foot-binding lias never been practised, but the example 01 the Pekin Court throughout the three centuries of tho present dynasty ixau failed to break down this cruel lashion, which, a*s old as the cult 'of the Clinese classics, is like them being s'wept aw a} 1 by the inrush of Western education.

"Jioth these movements have no been helped forward by the growth of a more tolerant and appreciative spirit towards b'oth the science and the religion of the West. Much of the best missionary work has been done for a long time past by the medical missions in tne interior of China, and it is at leng'.ji bearing fruit. When 1 visited tlic I'timn .Medical College of l J ekin, :»i.c m tin most admirable of these institutions, . found in the sick wards attached to n three lamas from the famous Volln u Temple, undergoing medical treatment When one remembers what a hotbed <i fanatical obscurantism that grou lamasery has always been, such a fiu-i speaks volumes. Nor is this' grown; recognition confined to the mcdica work of foreign inissi'ous. The generou spirit displayed at the great missionary conference in Shanghai, where points n sectarian difl'erence were reduced to minimum in order to make room 'u c'o-operation on the broadest possm basis, has raised missionary effort on t a higher plane. Christianity edntitiiu' to spread chieily among the lowe classes, .but it is spreading with it creased rapidity, and the emotional hoi which some preachers have establisiic over their audiences in 'open-air nt • sions has' demonstrated a new recej tivity among the Chinese to tli.c mm-.i if not to the theological, aspects n Christianity. Amongst the upper class tlie task is more ardu'ous, and most < all amongst the bureaucracy, but tli old feeling of bitter hostility is dyin down, and the sudden demand fo Western education has brought into rc lief the immense educational servuwhich , the mission scho'ols all over th country have .been rendering during tli long years of official obstruction an not infrequently even of persecution.