Directory_and_Chronicle_1902 — Page 666

CHINA

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Corporation has become associated with the American-China Development Company in this project, and the same corporation has obtained a concession for a line connect- ing Canton with Kowloon (Hongkong.) German concessionnaires have secured the right to construct two lines from the German Settlement at Kiaochau to Chinanfu and Ichou in the interior of the Shantung province, and an Anglo-German Syndicate has been authorised to make a line from Tientsin to Chinkiang, the Germans having charge of the northern portion of the undertaking and the British of the southern. A British syndicate has also secured the right to construct a line from Shanghai via Soochow to Nanking and north-westward to join the Lu-Han line (as the Hankow-Peking line is called), and also a line from Soochow via Hangchow to Ningpo. A line from Canton to Chengtu, the provincial capital of Szechuen, has also been mentioned. Surveys have been conducted with a view of finding a practicable route for a railway to connect Burmah with the Yangtsze region in Szechuen, and it is anticipated that a definite project for such a line will shortly be launched. The French have secured a concession for a line from Laokay, near the Tonkin frontier, to Yunnan, and tenders for the execution of the work have been called for. The French have also secured concessions for lines from Lungchow to Nanning and from Nanning to Pakhoi, but it is doubtful whether these will be carried out, as their tendency would be to divert trade from the French colony to the West River route. The Anglo-Italian Syndicate has been authorised to work coal and iron mines in the province of Honan and to build railways connecting the mines with navigable rivers ; under this contract a line from Taiyuen to Singanfu and a branch to Siangyang are projected. In Manchuria Russia is making a railway to connect Port Arthur and Tailienwan with the Trans-Siberian line, and branches in various directions built are projected; and unsuccessful attempts were made in 1899 to induce the Chinese Authorities to introduce the Russian guage on their northern lines from the Manchurian border to Peking. The paper inception of a new line from Peking to Katcha and thence to Irkutsk viâ Kalgan has also been made. A telegraph line between Tientsin and Shanghai was opened in December, 1882, and lines now connect all the impor- tant cities of the empire.

The year

1900 will ever be memorable in the history of China. It witnessed the last and a most determined attempt to break away from foreign influence and to revert to the exclusiveness of twenty centuries. The causes of the great social and political upheaval are not far to seek, though from their interaction and overlapping they are by no means casy to set forth in the sequence of their importance. The associations brought about by an expanding trade, by missionary effort, and by reciprocated diplomatic representation have not in any way lessened the hostile mental attitude engendered by alien civilizations, literatures, and moral standards: there are still gaps between the Western and Chinese mind that no sympathy can bridge. The whole trend of Chinese education is especially calculated to ensure a hostile bias towards change, towards reform of abuse, and towards the adaptation of environment to new conditions, on which depends the continued existence of men and governments alike. The governing and influential classes have an enormous vested interest in retaining things as they are in every phase of Chinese life. There can be but one issue to a policy like theirs in these days, though the Chinese, unliks their more nimble-minded neighbours in the East, are unable to see it. As in all countries where an enormous populaion lives on the narrow ledge that divides poverty from famine, there is ever a large element of social discontent ready to be moulded to whatever end crafty or plausible leaders may determine. In many places this has been directed against Missionary converts and the Christian propaganda, and has given rise to a wide-spread idea that the Christian religion is in itself hateful to the Chinese. It may be admitted that in cases the indiscretions of the Missionaries, and in a few more that of the converts in claiming special privilege and in using the aegis of their teachers for the advance of their private ends, gives some colour to the charge that Missionary enterprise is the main cause of anti- foregn feeling in China; but by anyone who knows the relatively small field of Misisionary influence, and the huge area over which the blind national enmity obtains, it must be dismissed as incommensurate to the phenomenon, though it undoubtedly assists in swelling the tide of anti-foreign hatred. A more just explanation may be found in Education and in the recent history of China. Shallow observers deny that there is patriotic sentiment in the Chinese but that is an error. Patriotism has not the fine edge that it has in Western countries, and is not so active in personal or national conduct, but to say that it is non-existent is absurd. The national conceit in their own ineffable superiority implies a strong feeling at least

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