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munistic unit with "Do what you can and take what you will as its guide. This accounts for the ability of the individual both in China and Hong Kong to survive periods of distress in the absence of poor relief, unemployment benefit or old age pension. Devotion to the family at the sacrifice of truth, justice, and loyalty to the state bred the vices of nepotism and corruption. China had many moral philosophers but no metaphysics. With the preservation and perpetuation of the family exalted as the supreme end of man, anything that appeared to be conducive thereto was inevitably regarded as virtue. The enrichment of one's self and one's relations was not only the perquisite but the duty of the ruler. It belonged to his status. In modern times union officials have frequently shown themselves suscepti- ble to the influence of tradition.
28. Agitation by the governed for reform was as improper and contrary to the nature of things as for the governors to interfere in the private life of the governed. The result was a static society where the virtues of toleration, compromise, and acceptance of the rightness of things as they are, throve as helpful to survival.
29. The family merged in the clan. There are to this day in Hong Kong associations of men with the same surname. And in China there were guilds and societies many of them secret, the most famous or notorious
notorious being the Triad Society or Heaven and Earth Association*. It was traditionally established in A D. 1674 and its object originally was to overthrow the Tsing Dynasty or Man- chus and restore the Ming Dynasty. It possessed an elaborate ritual based on the fabulous history of its founders, which is described in considerable detail in Stanton's book. It was concerned in most of the rebellions in China for over two hundred years, and has survived the overthrow of the Manchus, its professed raison d'être, and either substituted as its object the overthrow of imperialism or degenerated into simple racketeering. Gangs of bullies who sell "protection” frequently bind themselves together in a debased imitation of Triad forms.
30. The guilds divided society vertically not horizontally as do the modern trade unions. The apprentice in a handicraft guild might in time become a master and influential in the regulation of his trade. The guilds were supreme within their own respective trades but did not concern themselves with the Government of the country. Some of the powerful commercial associations had branches in all important towns to which their members when travelling might go as to a club.
31. Into this civilized and cultured but mediæval society with its clans and guilds and secret societies broke the western world of the nineteenth century Swollen with the industrial revolution. China resisted, accepted, and imitated. Before the end of the century cotton factories were erected in Shanghai and China came to be known as an employer's paradise with plentiful, cheap, and industrious labour. In these factories owned by Chinese, Japanese, and European companies child labour was common and the old arguments were resurrected in defence of the practice.
32. Dissatisfaction with the incapacity of the Manchu Government took the traditional form of the formation of more secret societies. The "Society for the Regeneration of China" or Hsin Chung Hui was founded by Dr. Sun Yat Sen in Honolulu in 1894 with the avowed object of driving out the Manchus and regen- erating China. The headquarters of the Society were later transferred to Hong Kong. In 1905 the Hsin Chung Hui combined with other revolutionary societies to form the Tung Meng Hui. The purpose of the new society was to expel the Manchus, regenerate China, establish a republic, and enforce land nationalization. The revolution, which was finally successful, started on 10th October (now Chinese National Day) 1911, and Sun Yat Sen became Provisional President on 1st January, 1912. In 1912 the headquarters of the Tung Meng Hui were moved from Tokyo to Nanking, and the party was re-organized with Sun Yat Sen as director. By this time the party have adopted state socialism and international equality among its professed objects. Later in the same year the Tung Meng Hui combined with certain other political parties to form the Kuomintang, from whose profession of policy state socialism was dropped. The Kuomintang developed into the political
* The Triad Society or Heaven and Earth Association by William Stanton, Kelly & Walsh Ltd., 1900.