Directory_and_Chronicle_1910 — Page 715

CHINA

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sure to prove a constant patron. Passenger rates on the German railways in Shantung are 0'05 Mexican dol. per mile 2nd class, 0025 Mexican dol. 3rd class and 00125 Mexican dol. 4th class. Freight on the stretch from Wei-hsien to Ts'ing-tao, 120 miles, is carried for 0'40 Mexican dol. per 15 kilos. per kilom. (17. per ton per mile). Rates on the 132 miles of the Pei-han line, open to regular traffic, are slightly higher as regards freight (14d. per ton per mile), and lower as regards passengers-2nd class 0032 Mexican dol., 3rd class 0016 Mexican dol. The most highly organised system of cartage in the Empire is carried on in Manchuria, where the rate is 24. per ton per mile, and in South-Western China pack animals carry at the rate of 23. per ton per mile. In order to secure the bulk of the freight traffic, railways must be prepared consider- ably to underbid native modes of conveyance, or the latter will be used in preference.'

A Chinese syndicate has built a short line connecting Swatow with Chaochowfu, a distance of 32 miles. This first railway built by Chinese private enterprise was opened in November, 1906. In nearly every province of China railways are projected, and the total mileage of railways already constructed in China must now be close upon 3,000, for the Imperial railways of North China alone have a mileage of 720, and the Peking Hankow railway measures 750 miles. The Chinese Eastern Railway in Chinese territory has a mileage of 1,072; the line from K'uan-cli-eng-tsu to Harbin and east and west to the Russian frontier remains in Russian hands. A telegraph line between Tientsin and Shanghai was opened in December, 1882, and lines now connect all the important 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 easy 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, unlike their more nimble-minded neighbours in the East, are unable to see it. As in all countries where an enormous population 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 widespread 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 privileges and in using the agis 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- foreign feeling in China; but by anyone who knows the relatively small field of missionary 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 akin to love of country. This conceit had, among the educated classes, received severe and deadly wounds from the issues of the Japanese war, the seizure of Kiau-chou, Port Arthur and Wei-hai-wei, from French aggression in the South and ill-concealed designs of Italy in Chekiang, The degradation of high officials at the call of foreign ministers, the overbearing attitude of strong men like von Heyking and Pavilov in Peking, even the extension of the foreign Settlements in Shanghai and other places, and the utter insouciance with which the partition and general treatment of China is usually discussed in the foreign Press, have all contributed

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