Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



213 



CHINA AND INDIA. 



THE SECRET OF CHINESE 

 UNREST. ■ 



Ln the Edinburgh Review Mr. J. 0. P. Bland discusses 

 the causes of Chinese unrest. Kast and West have 

 proved themselves^ he says, to be no longer disparate 

 and mutually incomprehensible. They form part of 

 one great human brotherhood. The real explanation 

 of the present disorder he finds in a survey of Chinese 

 history : — 



If we look back through ihe Chinese annals since the end of 

 the Tang dynasty (or, roughly speaking, since the Norman 

 conquest of Liigland), we find history persistently repeating 

 ilscll in violent rulicllions ; in the ejection, with great slaughter, 

 •of dynasties that had exhausted the mandate of Heaven ; in 

 regularly alternating periods of upheaval and recuperation, all 

 traceable, in almost rhythmical series, to a social system which 

 has inculcated principles of passive resistance together with a 

 chronic tendency towards over-population. Intervals of relief 

 fro:n economic pressure have lieen bought at the price of 

 cataclysms which have depopulated vast regions. Within the 

 memory of living men the whole process has been witnessed — 

 provinces that « ere laid waste by the Mahomedan and Taiping 

 rebellions have Ijeen rcpeopled in one generation by the surplus 

 'jf their neighbours, and in the next have once more been faced 

 by the grim spectre of famine. Even when the needs of the 

 I'.mpire's population as a whole have not exceeded the food 

 supply, there have always been congested districts and over- 

 grown cities, a large percentage of whose inhabitants live 

 literally from hand to mouth. It is from these, the predestined 

 hungry ones, the hopelessly submerged tenth, that are drawn 

 the salt smugglers, beggars, bandits, vagrants and looters who 

 maintain incessant uarlare against the rights of properly — 

 carrion crows that hover overall fields of fruitful industry — " /i;s 

 tHiii'rables" to whom a revolution means the looting of cities 

 and unearned increment. These, in a land where the functions 

 of government are practically confined to tax-gathering, are the 

 inevitable result ol economic pressure on the one hand, and 

 administrative disorganisation on the other. They are the 

 J'rolli and foam of gr.at waves of humanity eternally breaking 

 on the grim rocks ol starvation. 



" I'ROCREATIVE RECKLESSNESS." 



Only u slow educational process can remove the 

 causes, of which 



the chief is the procrealive recklessness of the race, that 

 Mind freiiiv of man-making, born of ancestor-worship and Con- 

 fucianism, uhich, despite phaguc, pestilence and famine, battle, 

 murder an<t sudden ileath, persistently swells the numbers of 

 the population up to, and beyond, the visible means of suljsis- 



liy mi'ans ol polygamy, early marriages and the inter- 



dence of clans, llie Chinese people struggle to fuUil, at all 

 , the inexorable deman<ls of their patriaichal system ; 

 t>ringin(; their predestined victims of hunger and disease into a 

 world liiat has no room for them ; breeding up to a food-limit 

 which, amidst toil and penury incredible, has long since reached 

 llie breaking point. 



WEAKNESS AND STRENGTH. 



l!ut while ri-ali.sin),' that profession, if not the prac- 

 tice, of altruism constitutes a necessary passjxirt to 

 the Ik'sI society, Young China has hardly raised a voice 

 against marriages of minors or against polygamy and 

 reckless overbrceding. .\nothcr cause lies in the ab.sence 

 of any living faith or inspiration of religion among the 

 masses. 01 religion as a steadying force to guide the 

 nut ion through its grievous perils of change there is 



practically none. The absence of purposeful will-power 

 is a characteristic of China's self-appointed leaders. 

 \'et China's recuperative strength and its wealth have 

 e\er lain in the people's unconquerable energy of labour, 

 in the passive resistance of an instinctively democratic 

 race-spirit, and in atavistic resistance to change : — 

 '■ The Chinese national consciousness, indeed, resembles 

 in many respects that of the Jewish people in its pride 

 of race, its intellectual and philosophic aristocracy, its 

 powers of cohesion and passive resistance, its collective 

 economic superiority." 



NO SALV.^TION FROM YOUNG CHINA, 



Vet if it should come to a choice between Young 

 China and chaos, and foreign administration with law 

 and order, the masses will choose the latter. Appa- 

 rently Mr. Bland also leans in this direction, for he 

 says : — 



Remembering the ancestry and genesis of Voung China, 

 being personally acquainted with many of its leading spirits, 

 having followed its opinions and activities in every province 

 from ihe beginning of the present revolution, I am compelled 

 to the conviction that salvation from this quarter is impossible : 

 not only because Voung China itself is unregenerate and un- 

 disciplined, but because its ideals and projects of government 

 involve the creation of a new social and political structure, 

 utterly unsuited to the character and traditions of the race ; 

 because it is coptrary to all experience that a people cut ofl 

 from its deep-rooted beliefs and habits of life, should develop 

 and retain a vigorous national consciousness. 



YUAN SI II K.VI: 

 Sketch by an Old Acijuaintance. 



In the North American Review for [uly Mr. Horace 

 N. Allen, late United Stales Minister to Korea, describes 

 his acquaintance with Y'uan Shi Kai. He says : — 



The writer was present in Korea in an important capacity 

 during all the periotl of twenty-one years covered by these three 

 coi.llicts, when China defeated Japan in 18S4, only to be herself 

 defeated and driven from Korea in 1894, which event was so 

 greatly eclipsed by J.ipan's defeat of Kussia in 1904-5. The 

 decade of V nan's residence in Korea he enjoyed more or less 

 intimate relations with him. 



Yuan ilid not impress me .as an unkind man ; in fact, I later 

 saw evidences, in matters too intimate for narration, to indicate 

 quite the contrary. Vet when he refused me permission to 

 amputate the arm of one of his soldiers with the amused remark, 

 " ( )f what good would a one-armed soldier l>e ? " he seemed 

 cruel, especially as I nssurc<l him that otherwise the man would 

 die in Ihtce days— as he did. Still, in the case of a hoiribly 

 inulilaled soldier, half of whose neck was lorn away by a 

 J ip.inesc saw-toolhed sword-bayonet, after recovery he took the 

 helpless man on as a supernumerary or pensioner at his Legation. 

 In the ciise of the other man, he seemed only to see the practical 

 side of the case from his own military standpoint, and the per- 

 sonal factor doubtless counteil for little, in view of the v.ast 

 iiuLsscs to be drawn upon for military service. 



It was in Seoul that one of the most intelligent of the 

 Chinese students returned from ,\meri(a, Tang Shiao 

 \'ui, who. being of wealthy southern family and 

 unusually inlelligcnt. impressed \'uan favourably, and 

 was taken into his service, 'i'his illustrated that " Yuan 

 has shown marked skill in his choit e of associates ami 



