2 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



few hundred men in a province as large as an European 

 kingdom. Competent investigators compute the total cost 

 of the central and local governments at not more than 

 ;^4o,ooo,ooo a year, say two shillings per head for the whole 

 population. Education is universal and voluntary. 



No wonder that such results, due to the universal 

 acceptance of the Confucian Ethics, should make the 

 people look askance at innovations coming from the West, 

 where, as the Chinese say, notwithstanding their marked 

 superiority in applied mechanics, nations live in a perma- 

 nent condition of armed peace, the monotonous pressure of 

 which is only relieved by the still worse calamity of frequent 

 wars, with their attendant burdens of debt and pauperism. 



Revolutions occur at long intervals in China, but the 

 normal state of the Empire is peace. Thus since the last 

 change of dynasty (a.d. 1644), the Chinese have enjoyed 

 the blessings of peace and prosperity uninterruptedly, with 

 the exception of the petty wars of this century with ourselves 

 and the French. Even the terrible Taiping rebellion (1848 

 to 1864) must be attributed to the unwanted presence of 

 the " foreigner " in the inner land. It was the aggressive 

 zeal of American missionaries in Canton fifty years ago 

 which resulted in the conversion of the fanatical leader, 

 Hung-hsiu-chuen, often cited as the most genuine although 

 misguided convert to Christianity, which the Empire has pro- 

 duced, and who modelled his action on that of the Jewish 

 leaders, his war-cry being " Sh(j. yao ! " " Slay the idolaters ! " 

 And slay he did ; it is calculated that over twenty millions 

 of people perished by the swords of the Taipings and the 

 attendant famines. It was the Thirty Years' War over 

 again, re-enacted on another stage. Had it succeeded, 

 China would undoubtedly have been Christian, though 

 possibly differing from us in form. The cruelties practised by 



