RACE PREJUDICE IN THE FAR EAST 



975 



ooo of natives? How lon^ will the 

 75,000 English soldiers in India be able 

 to maintain British sovereignty over 

 300,000,000 of Asians? Believe me, 

 these are not idle questions. They are 

 up to us for an answer, whether we will 

 or no, and upon our ability to make 

 answer will depend the future of what 

 we are pleased to call our Western civili- 

 zation. I would not be an alarmist, and 

 yet I would have you feel that Macau- 

 ley's suggestion of the New Zealander 

 on a broken arch of London Bridge, 

 sketching the ruins of St. Paul, has come 

 to be more than an extravagant figure 

 of speech. 



And I am convinced that there is real 

 danger awaiting us unless we mend our 

 ways. It is not the Asian who needs 

 educating ; it is the European. I am not 

 worrying half so much about the heathen 

 in his blindness as I am about the Chris- 

 tian in his blindness. 



Asia is awake and preparing for the 

 coming struggle, and we are doing very 

 much to force the issue and to prepare 

 her for the contest. For a century we 

 have been sending at enormous cost our 

 missionaries to all parts of the hemi- 

 sphere to civilize. There may be doubt 

 as to the amount of proselyting we have 

 been able to accomplish : there can be 

 no possible doubt of the work we have 

 done to strengthen the Asian people 

 politically and commercially. 



A statesman of Japan said recently, 

 in a conversation I had with him : "Your 

 missionaries undoubtedly have done good 

 for the morals of our people, but they 

 have done far more for our health and 

 strength as a nation. They come to us 

 with doctors, and nurses, and hospitals, 

 and schools. Before Perry's arrival 

 2,000,000 infants were born every year 

 in Japan, and for lack of proper sani- 

 tary measures they died. Now, with the 

 hospitals and sanitary and hygienic 

 methods introduced by the missionaries, 

 the 2,000,000 children are born, but they 

 •do not die." This is true of every other 

 Oriental country. Meanwhile, in the 

 countries of Europe the increase of 

 population is slow, and, in some coun- 



tries, as in France, it is hardly increasing 

 at all. In America race suicide is be- 

 coming alarmingly prevalent. 



In the recent war between Russia and 

 Japan, Dr. Louis Seaman, who visited 

 their field hospitals and talked freely 

 with their army surgeons, found that the 

 Japanese had outstripped us in almost 

 every department of military surgery. 

 The foreign colonies of Tokio and other 

 Japanese cities employ native physicians 

 in preference to Europeans. 



Asia is coming into her own again. It 

 was Asia through Arabia which gave 

 Europe the literature, the arts, and the 

 sciences, which we have developed and 

 of which we now boast. Gunpowder was 

 probably invented in China ; it was cer- 

 tainly introduced into Europe from 

 Arabia. The finely-tempered steel of 

 Damascus w^ent over from Arabia at the 

 time of the Aloorish invasion of Spain, 

 and its manufacture was continued at 

 Toledo. The coppersmiths of Bagdad 

 supplied the world's market with their 

 wonderful productions centuries before 

 there wxre any industries in Europe. 

 Weaving of silk and cotton had its birth 

 as an industry in Arabia, and the weav- 

 ing of wool was learned by the Cru- 

 saders in the same wonderful country. 

 Astronomy, mathematics, the mariner's 

 compass — all came to us from the Arabs. 



One cannot have forgotten that the 

 Psalms, the Gospels, and the Koran are 

 all of Arabian origin. The inhabitants 

 of central Arabia have today the oldest 

 liberal government — practically a repub- 

 lic — on earth. And, if you go farther 

 afield, to India, and China, and Japan,, 

 you shall find a civilization older than 

 history and marvelous in its character. 

 One cannot read that great library of 

 Eastern Sacred Writings, edited by Dr. 

 Max Muller, without being tremendously 

 impressed. 



It will not do for us to assume that 

 ours is the only civilization. What are 

 the basic virtues, the sum of which we 

 call our Christian civilization? I hope 

 we are all agreed that they are not pri- 

 marily beliefs in certain theological dog- 

 mas, or certain forms of church polity^ 



