464 .THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the improvement of anything by the elimination of its bad features 

 and increasing of its excellences has never characterized Chinese indus- 

 trial activity in recent times. I think it unquestionable that the people 

 of China can be better fed and made correspondingly more vigorous 

 simply by government aid to agriculture and the allowing of the free 

 transit of the products of one part of the empire to any other part. 

 The productive energy of the nation as a whole can thus be immensely 

 increased. The human body is an engine for the conversion of food 

 into useful work. Like any other engine, if it is supplied with only 

 enough power to keep it going the useful output is small, since nearly 

 all is used up in driving the machine. But give it all the power it can 

 economically use and the useful output is many-fold greater. The 

 simile is a crude one, but none the less accurate. 



It will be noticed that no provision is made for the taxing of 

 incomes, or of industrial enterprises. Under the old system either the 

 tax on land or the tax on trade reached nearly all of these. This is no 

 longer the case and such companies as Standard Oil, British-American 

 Tobacco, Singer Sewing Machine, and numerous native enterprises 

 carry on a large trade without being subject to any tax. This will con- 

 stantly increase, and by the imposition of a just tax on these new 

 forms of industry considerable sums can be derived. Every means 

 should be taken to encourage the development of such enterprises. The 

 mineral resources of China should be studied and mapped by qualified 

 engineers, the country should be mapped topographically as an aid to 

 the development of railway, irrigation and industrial enterprises, and 

 every effort should be made to increase the agricultural and mineral 

 productivity. A well-fed people with material to work with can upbuild 

 China into a nation of solid wealth and substance. But if the proceeds 

 of the new loan are expended unwisely and unprofitably then China 

 must inevitably within a few years become another Persia. Business 

 principles, rather than political considerations, must be preeminent in 

 the conduct of the new government. 



