December 1, 1986. |
attention from the mote in China's eye to the beam in Great Britain's. It may be an Empire on which the sun pever sets, but nevertheless it has its shady corners; and Sir FRANK SWETTENHAM, in helping to turn the searchlight on Whiteball Gardens, has deserved well of his fellow Colonials.
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THAT BLESSED WORD
<< ́EDUCATION.”
(Daily Press, 28th November.) THE adage that every quarrel has two sides to it is inadequate, especially as it is often adapted to questions under debate, as well as to dispute. For general use in the debating seuse, it would be better to remember it as meaning that every subject, of debate has as many facets as a diamon; may be that it has more. We have been struck by an article in the Manila Cablenews | dealing with European and American objections to Chinese coolic labour, which article goes deeper than the average American writer in the neighbouring islands usually seems to venture. Yet we want to suggest, with all possible respect for our contemporary's analytical effort, that the subject of Chinese exclusion has still deeper depths it might have plumbed; or, returning to our opening platitude, that there are other facets deserving study. Noting preliminarily that the prejudice against Chinese cheap labour is not confined to American workmen, but that in Australia, South Africa, and in England itself the attitude towards it is much the same, our contemporary thinks to lay bare the real significance of all exclusion laws and ordinances by postulating that "the Western labourer is fighting to maintain his standard of living, his type of civilization against the standards of the Orient and the Asiatic manner of living". Here seems a sufficient text on which to issue the invita- tion, "Come, let us reason together", but we may as well quo'e the rest of the passage.
"In order to compete with the coolie in the
open market the Western labourer must be able to subsist on the same cheap food and live in the same human warrens that suffice for the Oriental. To compete on these conditions, means the surrender of the Western mauner of living and all that is most highly esteemed in Western civilization. So that the real struggle is broader than even national policies and economic con. veniences. It is as deep as civilization itself. It is the young against the old, the West against the East, the modern against the ancient. The struggle is inevitable, inexorable and will be without quarter. All the present exclusive acts are mere makeshifts and only postpone for a time the greatest crisis."
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Our contemporary goes on, retaining its not absolutely impregnable premiss that the standards and ideals of the twain are so far aunder, to argue that the West must not only conserve its own standards (as the Chinese wish to do) but that in militant, missionary ways it is its duty to foist them on the East. Before its eyes it sees death rates and birth rates, commercial prosperity and luxury, as objectives in themselves, rather thau as concomitants of a goal. The immediate question is whether good social shooting requires constant aiming at the "bull" or whether these other sections of the target will be sufficient when the scoring comes to be reckoned. It is here, of course, that the sparkle of many facets should attract attention. There is even some vagueness AS to the precise locality of the bull; or to suggest a quotation with which all Americans are familiar, there is an evident uncertainty which star we must hitch our waggou to, one comparatively low down and accessible, or the one highest in the zenith. Even
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REPORT.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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Not until the proletarist is better educated will it be able to participate directly in the consideration of its interests in government of the state and enforce the national agreements."
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So the civilized standard of living requires popular education, and even at the sacrifice of "the general interest of the state", including the match trade, we must go on giving it, free. Free! The blessing is compulsory--and we are intent on compel- lag the coolies of other lands to swallow it too. The Chinese and Japanese make matches, of a sort, without killing their proletariat with white phosphorus or Chicago canned chow, and we read that a match combine is being arranged to compete with them. The missionaries claim as one of their merits that they help to push foreigu trade. No doubt they will help to push this. Theu, when the coolie match- maker's occupation's gone, he will want to emigrate, and may be go to work where they make matches with white phosphorus. Happily they wim't let him in. He would live-and die-making matches far too cheaply and so cheat his teachers' nationals of their inalienable privilege.
Here we stop, having suggested the possibility of the many other facets of this Chinese coolie question. That is all we set out to do. We have no advice to offer. We leave to our coutemporary or to others, after reminding them of the complications, the task of unravelment.
WORLD'S TRADE.
those ideals or standards of living referred ↑ representing the interests of ustional juda to by our contemporary are less immutably `which are not always in accordance with defined than it appears to assume. What is ¦ of the workers.” the standard of the American or British
And it goes on to say, attrite! as usual labourer, especially of those labourers who by the Mesopotamian fascination of a thrice subscribe to send missionaries to induce the
blessed word: Orient to change its standards? Hive they not more thau one? When they study and admire the Simple Life of THOREAU and of pure Christianity, and elect to send mis- sionaries to educate the Chinese or Japanese, they forget that simplicity and contentment are inevitable commonplaces for the masses they would instruct. When they pass laws to exclude those who would come amongst them as living and practising exponents of simplicity and meekness, do they not set up auother standard, vastly different and more sincerely striven for, than the nominal one which inspires their proselytizing zeal ? A standard is essentially something unique. No man can live up to two standards; none can cut his one coat by two patterus. Yet that is what christendom seeing to be attempting. With the formula of one standard in mind, simplicity, contentment, happiness. they invade China with their programme of education, having first, it must be admitted, fasted their own me livine. Our contemporary aimits that the colis's tastes are too simple, his food too cheap, to vlmit him to compete with white workmen. Then the standard of living of the white workman cannot be that under which he sends forth missionaries to the heathen. It must be one involving extras." We know too well that it is so. The European education of the masses has run to imitation luxuries, to artificial needs, such as chea blouses and tinned pineapple. The standard of living of the civilized pro- letariat requires that the appearance of plutocratic refinement must be maintained. This involves cheapness, which in turn in- volves sweating, and so at the last, after all our wellineant efforts to lift the masses, we find a submerged tenth living practically on the same bare level as the coolie, so far as simple essentials are concerned, but with standard of living, one that cannot be lived the supererogatory embarassment of a false Yet we continue to send emissaries up to. to preach the blessings of civilization to the Oriental colie, and our own state is 87 perlous that when he talks of stepping in to see how we do it, we hire to bar him out. It is impossible in a few words to demou- strate the hideous tangle we are in, the muddle we have made of our reform work, We have come to regard the word education as blessed, like the word Mesopotamnia", but we are not educating the masses to be happy. As a recent wit has it, we look to education to euable us, to beat Germany in business. It has led us so far away from our nominal ideal, our pseudo-standard of living, that we have recently been trying to divorce our schools from our ethics. But both America and Britain still believe in simplicity and con- tentment for others, at the stream of missionary teachers flows on to China. The coolie missionary who would come to them to live it, as well as teach it, has to be driven off. There is an International Society for the Protection of Workmen, which wants, inter alia, to abolish the use of white phosphorus in the uanufacture of matches. Both Great Britain and Sweden, represented at the conference, declined to bind themselves to forbid it, whereupon another contemporary lucidly remarks: interest of the state does not entirely coincide
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Unfortunately in this cas the general
this conflict, as generally happens, the weakest goes to the wall. The workman will for the time being still be sacrificed to the state as
with that of the individuıl—the workman; and
(Daily Press, 29th November.) Freetraders and Protectionists will be easily alarmed by statistics, not under- given furiously to think "those who are standing their elasticity, may shudder-and others, blessed with a temperament to see the hidden bright side of things, will probably remain unperturbed, interesting "History of the World's Trade
by the recently issued by Dr. M. SCHMIDT at Berlin. Dr. SCHMIDT has been lumping facts and figures, adding deductious, and probably colouring the resultant product with his natural sympathies, but none-the- less he seems to offer a clear and fairly trustworthy idea of the modern tendency of the development of the chief commercial nations. Frenchmen will probably be divided into two parties of critics, for the erudite author names France as the country which has relatively advanced least in the race for the world's trade. Dr. SCHMIDT
attributes thus comparative business stand- still to the purely protective policy of the French Government, which has rendered the nation, he says, a vast community supplying ite own needs mainly by the work of its own population. The trade and commerce of Great Britain is admittedly still at a point far beyond that of all other competitors, and it is gratifying to have Dr. SCHMIDT'S testimony that during the past century it showed a remarkable development. Both in volume of trade and in size of her mørebant fleet, Britain
continues to remain on a pinnacle unattained by any other Power", as his trauslator puts it. But the optimism of a German critic varies from the optimism of a British patriot in ratio with the mileage dividing London and Berlin, as is natural. Dr. SCHMIDT holds, and he cites official returns to prove it, that that foremost position is not to be Britain's in perpetuity; the period for its enjoyment can almost be
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