CHINA'S PART IN THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 February 1918, Page 6

CHINA'S PART IN THE WAR.

TRAINED WORKMEN AND RAW MATERIALS. WILL MEN BE SENT TO FRANCE? China's declaration of war against Germany has hardly been taken seriously by the Allies as yet, but her help may prove vital before peace is iinally restored, according to Gardner L. Harding, a close student of oriental affairs and author of ''Present Day China." In an article published in a current issue of Asia, the official publication of the Asiatic Association, Mr. Harding declares that for five important reasons the Entente Powers will be glad China fights on their side.

He first points to the number of trained industrial workmen China will be able to send over to Europe; second, to raw materials, metals, and minerals, of use. in munition making, which can be obtained from the celestial kingdom. Then there are troops; the Chinese make superb soldiers, writes Mr. Harding; fourth, the food supplies should not be ignored. Lastly, and in some ways most important of all, China friendly to the Allies means a stable Far East, and an 'absence of an Eastern Question, a vital factor in any permanent peace. "China realises that we must get through this war before we commence the task of averting another," declares the writer. "Accordingly, before she asked from the Allies a single guarantee, before she even broke off relations with German}', she had an expeditionary force in France. A hundred thousand Chinese workmen, a contingent that matched in size Sir John French's first 'contemptible little British Army,' by February 1 was busy plugging up vital holes in France's industrial army, and freeing many thousand French soldiers for service at the front. 200,000 MEN FOR FRANCE. "Immediate plans call for the expansion of this Chinese labor army to two hundred thousand; and it is rapidly reaching that figure. I have just heard from an old friend who left St. John's College in charge of a typical battalion of what he calls the Chinese Expeditionary Labor Corps, of the actual conditions under which these Chinose workmen proceed to the industrial front. They were enlisted, 1100 strong, at Wcihaiwei, the British naval base on the coast of Shantung. They obtained upon embarkation, by agreement between the British and Chinese Governments, two new suits of clothing, bedding, a rucksack, native eating utensils (with their own cook and complete Chinese paraphernalia), new shoes, raincoat, hat, etc., and ten dollars pocket money. A foreign doctor, three foreign officers, and corps commander, all Chinese speakers and long residents in the country, go with them; and their nou commissioned foreman and oflicers are all Chinese. All wear'civilian dress, as the enterprise is strictly nonmilitary. They cany with them an absolute guarantee that their work will be non-combatant, and that they will be returned to their homes with a substantial bonus at the end of the war.

•'.Men :ive by all odds the outstanding feature- of China's contribution to the Allies' campaigns of the present and the immediate future But from now on—and this, we may depend on, the German General Stall' has charted, too—the Allies «:ay count more and more for war purposes the vast storehouse of minerals and coal which lies practically beneath the virgin earth iu China. BIG DEPOSITS OF IRON. '■Everybody in the Far East knows of the great JV.yeh mine in the Hupeh province, iiejir ihc Yaugt.se river, where there are workable deposits of the highest grade iron ore, amounting, on von Riehtevcn's estimate, to more than IOUOX'OO ton-. The surface of this vast deposit is being barely scratched to-day to the extent of something like 1500 tons :: day, half of which goes to thy ostensibly Chinese Hanyehting Coal ami Iron Company's huge foundries and smelting works on the Hanyang, qpposite Mankow, on the Yangt'se, and the other half to .Japan, where it is divided between the Japanese Iron Works at Wakamatsu and the Muroran Steel Works. The half that goes to Japan is iiioFt of it booked through to the Allied front via Russia, leaving, of course, .1 substantial Japanese profit on the way

"China needs only the right kind of co-operation to make'a, substantial port of her huge potentialities in industrial raw material cash in with greatly increased exports. Last year she exported over half a million tons of first-rate iron ore and manufactured iron combined, out of not more than three-quarter:? of a million tons which she produced. So it is not the (low l 0 the ports, hut the production, which needs to be stimulated. Once the Allien take an interest, once the Allied Commission on utilising China's mineral resources rocs actually to Peking, they will find a very lively Chinese initiative all along the line, and they can get immediate results in iron by simply co-ordinating this initiative. "The energetic Minister Ku Chunhsiu a non-party young Chinaman of the best type, has had his experts out for six months in Chinas six chief iron producing provinces getting data on the possibility of immediate production His estimate is that if the Allies want it China can produce next vear twice as much iron, and, with real'lv substantial loans and advisory co-operation, four times as much.

10,000,000 TONS OP COAL. "China also produces over 10,000 000 tons of coal a year, including the famous ttnghsiang and Kalian products, rated among the best in Asia. Pinglisian* is tied up with the Japanese; and the Kalian Company, being of joint British and Chinese management, is already working for the Allies to its utmost" capacity". Still, China managed to export last year well over 2,000,000 «ms; and she can do more. "At the last strategical point, if we accept the matter of soldiers as too largely speculative, that of helping feed the Allies, China is a large potential reservoir. The hitler road of famine she has intermittently trod for the last fifty years—you might say for the last fifty centuries—has obliged the modern Chinese Government to put serious obstacles in the way of export of grains. Wheat is grown and exported, as is also the famous Manchurian soya bean. If we could only find it palatable it would feed Europeans in vast numbers. China as she is, however, is a vast exporting trafficker in frozen meats, nuts, sugar, macaroni and vermicelli, dried fruits and vegetables, canned fish, and preserved egg products, and, last but not least, wheat. "If Cliir.a encourages wheat the present annual shipments, valued at about 3,000.000 dollars, will he doubled or tripled next vear. Tt will take ten years nf river hanking and draina-re and manv more of forestation to put China's agricultural possibilities on the h%h road

of pure development Tin I the selfscrutiny that comes \n war lime will do much for China towards that i'nd; a l:ttle solid experience with food control might at once increase Chinas food services to Europe and America many limes.' 1