Vol. XV, No. 12 



WASHINGTON 



December, 1904 



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CHINA* 



By Hon. John W. Foster 



Author of "American Diplomacy in the Orient," "A Century op 

 American Diplomacy," etc. 



A BRITISH Cabinet Minister, in 

 discussing the condition of 

 China in the House of Com- 

 mons about the time of the Boxer 

 troubles, used the following language : 



' ' History is full of accounts of the 

 weakness and decay of great empires, 

 but I do not think that history shows a 

 single case in which an empire number- 

 ing its inhabitants by hundreds of mil- 

 lions, which has never received any blow 

 directed against a vital part, whose in- 

 habitants have many of the qualities 

 which go to make up a great nation, 

 being thrifty, industrious, enterprising, 

 courageous — I do not think that history 

 shows a single case where an empire of 

 that kind had been apparently unable to 

 act against the feeblest form of attack." 



A. stud)- of this anomaly of history is 

 a task too vast for a single lecture, and 

 in which I can only touch the surface of 

 the subject. At the outset it presents 

 several interesting and distinctive char- 

 acteristics. China is the most ancient 

 of all the nations of the past or the 

 present. It is the most numerous peo- 



ple ever gathered under a single gov- 

 ernment. It is the most homogeneous 

 and durable race of all time. If we 

 combine literature, philosophy, science, 

 invention, the arts and industries, it will 

 probably stand in the lead of all the 

 nations. That such a people and gov- 

 ernment have reached the condition of 

 apparently utter helplessness described 

 by the British statesman is the marvel 

 of the day, and challenges the attention 

 of the student of history and politics. 



In any consideration of the Chinese 

 people, the fact which seems most 

 strongly to impress us is its great an- 

 tiquity. Fable and tradition carry the 

 origin of the race and the foundation of 

 the government far beyond our credi- 

 bility, but stable history begins at a 

 period anterior to the pyramids of Egypt, 

 the earliest existing monuments of social 

 order. The reign of the Emperor Yaou, 

 the model monarch, who brought to the 

 nation of antiquity its golden age, dates 

 back of the Christian era twenty-three 

 centuries ; and from that time there is 

 an almost unbroken historical record of 



* An address before the National Geographic Society, November 25, 1904. 



