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diff --git a/29546.txt b/29546.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a11a750 --- /dev/null +++ b/29546.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9666 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Where Half The World Is Waking Up, by Clarence Poe + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Where Half The World Is Waking Up + +Author: Clarence Poe + +Release Date: July 30, 2009 [EBook #29546] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE HALF THE WORLD IS WAKING UP *** + + + + +Produced by Don Kostuch + + + + + [Transcriber's note: + + Page numbers are enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They are + located where page breaks occurred in the original book. Paragraphs + are not broken. + + When a paragraph flows around illustrations the "next" page + immediately preceding or following the illustrations jumps to + account for the pages occupied by the illustrations. The location of + the paragraph following the illustration group is indicated as + {52 continued}. The material following {10}, up to the next {}, is on + page 10, even if the next page number is not 11. + + Italic are enclosed in underscores: _this is italicized_. + + End Transcriber's note] + + + +WHERE HALF THE WORLD IS WAKING UP + + + + [Illustration: COUNT SHIGE-NOBU OKUMA OF JAPAN] + (From a photograph and autograph given the author) + + Count Okuma, one of the Genro or Elder Statesmen of Japan and + ex-Premier of the Empire, is an opponent of his country's high + protective tariff and an earnest advocate of international + arbitration. + + + +WHERE HALF THE WORLD IS WAKING UP + + + +THE OLD AND THE NEW IN JAPAN, CHINA, THE +PHILIPPINES, AND INDIA, REPORTED +WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO +AMERICAN CONDITIONS + +BY +CLARENCE POE + +Author of "A Southerner in Europe," "Cotton: Its Cultivation and +Manufacture," Editor "The Progressive Farmer," Sec'y North Carolina +Historical Association, etc., etc. + + + +Garden City New York +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY +1911 + + + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN +LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY CLARENCE POE + + + +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS +GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + + +TO + +THE RIGHT HONORABLE JAMES BRYCE + + +IN WHOM ACHIEVEMENT, CHARACTER AND PERSONAL CHARM MEET IN RARE +SYMMETRY; WHO HAS WON THE WISDOM OF AGE WITHOUT LOSING THE DEW OP +YOUTH; AND WHOSE GENEROUS FRIENDSHIP HAD MADE ME HIS DEBTOR BEFORE IT +AIDED ME ANEW IN PLANNING AND EXECUTING MY ORIENTAL TOUR + + + +{vii} + + +PREFACE + +"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong," as Mr. +Gilbert Chesterton begins one of his books by saying, has half its +members in Asia. That Americans should know something about so +considerable a portion of our human race is manifestly worth while. +And really to know them at all we must know them as they are to-day. + +Vast changes are in progress, and even as I write this, the revolution +in China, foreshadowed in the chapters written by me from that +country, is remaking the political life of earth's oldest empire. From +Japan to India there is industrial, educational, political ferment. +The old order changes, yielding place to the new. + +"Where Half the World is Waking Up" is not inappropriate therefore as +the title of the book now offered to the public. The reader will +kindly observe here that I have written of where half the world is +waking up and not merely of the waking-up itself. My purpose has been +to set forth the old and the new in due proportion; to present the +play of new forces against and upon the ancient, the amazingly +ancient, forces that have dominated whole races for centuries. In most +places, in fact, the ancient force is still clearly the dominant one. +Observe, too, therefore, that I have written not of where half the +world has waked up, but only of where it is waking up. The significant +thing is that the waking is really taking place at all, and of this +there can be no doubt. + +It was, in short, with the hope of securing for myself and presenting +to others a photograph of the Orient as it is to-day that I made my +long trip through Japan, Korea, Manchuria, {viii} China, the +Philippines, and India during the past year. It was not a pleasure +trip nor yet a hurried "seaport trip." I travelled either entirely +across or well into the interior of each country visited, and all my +time was given to study and research to fit me for the preparation of +these articles. + +That despite of the care exercised the book contains some errors, is +doubtless true. The sources of information in the Orient are not +always easy to find, nor always in accord after one finds them. +Consider, for example, the population of Manchuria: it seems a simple +enough matter, yet it required the help of consuls of two or three +nations to enable me to sift out the truth from the conflicting +representations of several writers and so-called authorities. + +For my part I can only claim a laborious and painstaking effort to get +the facts. Letters of introduction to eminent Englishmen kindly +furnished me by Ambassador Bryce opened the doors of British +officialdom for me, and the friendship of Mr. Roosevelt and letters +from Mr. Bryan and our Department of State proved helpful in other +ways. I thus had the good fortune not only to get the ready fraternal +assistance of my brother newspaper men (of all races) everywhere, and +the help of English, German, and American consuls, but I was aided by +some of the most eminent authorities in each country visited--in +China, by H. E. Tang Shao-yi, Wu Ting Fang, Sir Robert Bredon, Dr. C. +D. Tenney, Dr. Timothy Richard; in Japan, by ex-Premier Okuma, +Viscount Kaneko, Baron Shibusawa, Dr. Juichi Soyeda; in Hong Kong, by +Governor-General Sir Frederick Lugard; in Manila by Governor-General +Forbes, Vice-Governor Gilbert; in India, the members of the Viceroy's +Cabinet, Hon. Krishnaswami Iyer, Dr. J. P. Jones, etc, etc. To all of +these and to scores of others, my grateful acknowledgments are +tendered. They helped me get information, but of course are in no case +to be held responsible for any opinions that I have expressed. + +To Mr. G. D. Adams, of Akron, Ohio, and Dr. Arthur {ix} Mez, of +Mannheim, Germany, two generous fellow-travellers, my thanks are due +for the use of many of their photographs, and I am also indebted to +_The World's Work_ and _The Review of Reviews_ for permission to +republish articles that have already appeared in these magazines. The +larger number of chapters included in this volume, however, were +originally prepared with a view to their use in my own paper, The +Progressive Farmer. They are, therefore, often more elementary in +character, let me say in the outset, than if they had been written +exclusively for bookbuyers, but it is my hope that their journalistic +flavor, even if it has this disadvantage, will also be found to have +certain compensating qualities. + +Perhaps just one other thing ought to be said: that practically every +article about any country was written while I was still in the country +described. In this way I hoped not only to write with greater +freshness and vividness, but I was enabled to have my articles revised +and criticised by friends well informed concerning the subjects +discussed. The reader will please bear in mind, therefore, that a +letter about Tokyo is also a letter from Tokyo, a letter about Korea +is a letter from Korea, etc., and shift his viewpoint accordingly. I +have also thought it best to be frank with the reader and let the +chapters on China remain exactly as they were written--presenting a +pen picture of the Dragon Empire as it appeared on the eve of the +outbreak, while the revolution was indeed definitely in prospect but +not yet a reality. + +----- + +"Give us as many anecdotes as you can," was old Samuel Johnson's +advice to Boswell, when that worthy proposed to write of Corsica; and +this wise suggestion I have sought to keep in mind in all my travel. +Moreover, another saying of the great lexicographer's comes quaintly +into my memory as I conclude this Foreword: "There are two things +which I am confident I could do very well," he once remarked to Sir +Joshua Reynolds; "one is an introduction to any literary work stating +{x} what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in the most +perfect manner: the other is a conclusion, showing from various causes +why the execution has not been equal to what the author promised to +himself and to the publick!" + +C. P. +Raleigh, N. C. +December 1, 1911. + + + +{xi} + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I. Japan: The Land of Upside Down 3 + + A Land of Contradictions + Music as an Example + Marriage and the Home Life + Patriarchal Ideas Still Dominant. + +II. Snapshots of Japanese Life and Philosophy 9 + + What a Japanese City Is Like + Strange Clothing of the Japanese + Who Ever Saw So Many Babies? + Alphonse and Gaston Outdone + The Grace of the Little Women + How the Old Japan and the Old South Were Alike + A "Moral Distinction" Between Producers and Non-Producers. + +III. Japanese Farming and Farmer Folk 17 + + Japanese Farm Children Getting More Schooling + than American Farm Children + No Illiteracy in the New Japan + Where Five Acres Is a Large Farm + How Iowa Might Feed the Whole United States + Farming Without Horses or Oxen + What the Japanese Farmers Raise + The Crime of Soil-waste + All Work Done by Hand + Cooperative Credit Societies a Success + Farm Houses Grouped in Villages + "A Seller of the Ancestral Land" + The Japanese Love of the Beautiful a Suggestion for America. + +IV. "Welfare Work" in Japanese Factories 29 + + Manufacturing Bound to Increase + Tariff Legislation Unfair to Agriculture + A Visit to a Progressive Japanese Factory + How the Factory Operatives Are Looked After + Stricter Factory Legislation Coming. + +V. Does Japanese Competition Menace the White Man's Trade 34 + + A Study of Japanese Industrial Conditions + Japanese Labor Cheap but Inefficient + Actual Cost of Output Little Cheaper than in America + Laborers in a State {xii} of Deplorable Inexperience + Illustrations of Japanese Inefficiency + Some Current Misconceptions Corrected + Labor Wage Has Increased 40 Per Cent, in Eight Years + The Burden of Taxation + High Tariff Will Decrease Japan's Export Trade + Subsidy Policy Destroying Individual Initiative + Japanese Competition Not a Serious Menace to the White Man. + +VI. Buddhism, Shintoism, and Christianity in Japan 48 + + The Artistic Touch of the Japanese + Religion Without Morals + Buddhism in Fact vs. Buddhism Idealized by Arnold + Official Notices Prohibiting Christianity + Christianity "Puts Too High an Estimate on Woman" + The Worth of the Individual Not Recognized + The Elemental Significance of Japan's Awakening + A New Type of Civilization. + +VII. Korea: "The Land of the Morning Calm" 60 + + I Have Become a Contemporary of David + The Fascination of a Primitive City + Some Odd Korean Customs-A True Romance and an Odd One + Many Faces Marked by Smallpox + A Typical Monarchy of Ancient Asia-The Honorable Mr. Yang-ban + Six Men to Carry Fifty Dollars' Worth of Money + Japanese Annexation + Splendid Work of Foreign Missionaries. + +VIII. Manchuria: Fair and Fertile 70 + + Some First-hand Stories of the Russo-Japanese War + A Bit of History with a Lesson + The Site of the World's Next Great War + Manchuria: Fair and Fertile + Fat Harvests of Food, Feed, and Fuel + A Land Where Everybody "Knows Beans" + Golden Opportunities for Stock-raising + Better Plows and Level Culture + Graves as Thick as Corn Shocks + +IX. Where Japan Is Absorbing an Empire 78 + + Manchuria the One Great Oriental Empire Not Yet Developed + Its Strategic Importance + Why the "Open Door" Concerns Us All + Japan's Shrewd Policies {xiii} + Contempt of Chinese Authority + Japan at Home vs. Japan in Manchuria + How the Open Door Policy Was Violated + Will Manchuria Go the Way of Korea? + A Bit of Chinese Wit and Wisdom + Truth Is in the Interest of Peace. + +X. Light from China on Problems at Home 93 + + A Chinese Martyr-Hero + The Most Tremendous Moral Achievement of Recent Times + A Lesson for America + Putting Officials on Salaries + Money Changers and Title Changers + Making Education Practical + The Parcels Post and Tariff Reform. + +XI. The New China: Awake and at Work 102 + + The Coming National Parliament + The Successful War Against Opium + China's Right-about-face in Education + Building Up an Army + Attacking the Graft System + Railroads, Posts, and Telegraphs + America's Relations with China. + +XII. A Trip into Rural China 116 + + The Camels from Mongolia + Strange Traffic and Travel in Nankou Pass + The Great Wall of China + Surprisingly Progressive Farming Methods. + +XIII. From Peking to the Yangtze-Kiang 123 + + Street Life in Peking + History That Is History + Martyrdoms That Have Enriched the World + Average Wages 15 to 18 Cents a Day + Homes Without Firesides + All China a Vast Cemetery + Keeping on Good Terms with Dragons + The Blessings of Our Alphabet + Confucius as a Moral Teacher + My Friendship with a Descendant of Confucius. + +XIV. Sidelights on Chinese Character and Industry 132 + + Healthy Public Sentiment + Slavery and Foot-binding Still Practised + "Big Feet No B'long Pretty" + The Popularity of a No. 2 Wife + The Virtue That Is Next to Godliness Largely Disregarded + Some Discredited Americans Discovered Abroad + A 600-Mile Trip on the Yangtze {xiv} River + An Interview with Wu Ting Fang + Farming on the Yangtze + Shanghai Factory Laborers Paid 12 Cents a Day. + +XV. Farewell to China 142 + + A City of 2,000,000 People Without a Vehicle + A Dead Chinaman More Important and Respected Than a Live One + Queer Features of Chinese Funerals + Cruelty of Chinese Punishments + A Sample of Chinese Humor: The Story of the Magic Jar + Amusing Trials of a Land Buyer + "Pidgin English" + Everything Is Saved + The Influence That Is Remaking China. + +XVI. What I Saw in the Philippines 153 + + In Manila + A Trip Through Five Provinces + What the Philippine Country Looks Like + Every Filipino Has Cigarette and a Clean Suit + A Mania for Cock-fighting + Snapshots of Philippine Life + Labor the One Thing Lacking. + +XVII. What the United States Is Doing in the Philippines 163 + + Thirty Thousand White People and 7,000,000 Filipinos + Rich Resources and Varied Products + Millions in Lumber + How the Islands Are Governed + Restricting the Suffrage + Education: Achievements of the American Government + Postal Savings Banks and the Torrens System + Public Health Work + Building Roads + And Then Keeping Them Up + "A George Junior Republic." + +XVIII. Asia's Greatest Lesson foe America . . 173 + + Where 10 Cents a Day Is a Laborer's Wage + The Savage Struggle for Existence in the East + Tasks Heart-sickening in Their Heaviness + Where Women Are Burden-bearers + $12 a Year for a Farm Hand + An Overcrowded Population Not the Chief Cause of Asia's Poverty + A Defective Organization of Industry Responsible + Foolish Opposition to Labor-saving Tools + Our Debt to Machinery + Knowledge Itself a Productive Agency + Ineffectiveness of Oriental Labor + Tools and Knowledge the Secret of Wealth + Importance of Our Racial Heritage + The Final Lesson. + +{xv} + +XIX. The Straits Settlements and Burma 186 + + The Amazing Industry of the Chinese + Easy Money in Cocoanuts + How Germany Is Capturing Oriental Trade + Rangoon the City of Gorgeous Colors + Burma's Buddhist Temples + Rangoon's Beasts of Burden + Where the Elephants Do the Work + Some First-hand Jungle Stories + My Lord the Elephant + Good-by to Burma. + +XX. Hinduism--and the Himalayas 198 + + Theoretical vs. Practical Hinduism + The Kalighat Temple, Calcutta + Human Sacrifices + Two Indian Places of Worship: A Contrast + A Visit to Benares + Burning the Bodies of the Dead + "Religion" as It Is in Benares + The Himalayas: A New and Happier Subject. + +XXI. "The Poor Benighted Hindus" 210 + + India's Enormous Population + "The Wealth of the Indies" a Romance + A Typical Indian Village + No Chairs, Mattresses, Knives, or Forks Used + Where It Is 105 at Midnight + "Gunga Din" in Evidence + The Lady of Banbury Cross Outdone. + +XXII. Hindu Farming and Farm Life 218 + + Primitive Tools Used by Farmers + What Crops Are Grown + Where Drought Means Death + Reducing the Ravages of Famine + Usury and a Remedy + Where America Is Behind + Landowner and Farm Laborer + Salaam, O Little Folk! + +XXIII. The Caste System in India 226 + + No Man May Rise Higher, but May Fall Lower + How Fatalism Sustains Caste + Contamination by Touch + A Bone Collector's Pride of Rank + The "Thief Caste" + Caste and the Banyan Tree + A Maharaja's Defence of Caste + Some Forces That Are Battering Down the System + Foreign Travel Weakening Caste. + +XXIV. The Plight of the Hindu Woman 236 + + "Woman Is Not to Be Trusted" + Twelve-year-old Brides and Bridegrooms + A Wedding Procession in Agra {xvi} + 5000 Rupees for a Wedding Feast + The Plight of the Child-wives + Cruel Treatment of Widows + The Picture Not Wholly Dark + One Worthy Tribute to the Grace of Woman. + +XXV. More Leaves from an India Notebook 246 + + Some Historic Indian Cities + India No More Homogeneous than Europe + English Rule: An Interview with Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer + Indian Wealth in a Few Hands + 16 Cents a Day an Incredibly High Wage + No Horses on Indian Farms + Bombay a Great Cotton Market + The Story of a Man-eater + A Snake Story to End With. + +XXVI. What the Orient May Teach Us 261 + + Conservation the Keynote + What Neglect of Her Forests Has Cost China + Forestry Lessons from Japan and Korea + Conserving Individual Wealth + The Essential Immorality of Waste + Avoiding the Wastes of War + Preserving Our Physical Stamina and Racial Strength + A Lesson from China + Patriotism as a Moral Force + The Coming "Conflict of Color" + Oriental vs. Occidental Ideals. + + +{xvii} + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +Count Shige-Nobu Okuma of Japan Frontispiece + + PAGE + +The Giant Avenue of Cryptomerias at Nikko 13 + +Typical Japanese Costumes and Temple Architecture 14 + +Japanese Farming Scenes 19 + +Japanese School Children 20 + +The Great Buddha (Diabutsu) at Kamakura 53 + +The Degenerate Koreans at Rest and at Work 54 + +Like Scenes from Our Western Prairies 81 + +Manchurian Women (showing peculiar head-dress) 82 + +Chinese Waste-paper Collector 82 + +Pu Yi the Son of Heaven and + Emperor of the Middle Kingdom 105 + +How China Is Dealing with Opium Intemperance 106 + +A Man-made Desert 117 + +Pumping Water for Irrigation 117 + +Transportation and Travel in China 118 + +Fashionable Chinese Dinner Party 137 + +How Lumber Is Sawed in the Orient 137 + +A Quotation from Confucius 138 + +The Great Wall of China 147 + +Chinese Woman's Ruined Feet 147 + +Chinese School Children 148 + +The American Consulate at Antung 148 + +A Filipino's Home 157 + +The Carabao, the Work-stock of the Filipinos 158 + +An Old Spanish Cathedral 158 + +Society Belles of Mindanao, Philippine Islands 181 + +A Street Scene in Manila 181 +{xviii} +Two Kinds of Workers in Burma 182 + +Types at Darjeeling, Northern India, + and at Delhi, Central India 205 + +Two Rangoon Types 206 + +A Hindu Faquir 213 + +Some Fashionable Hindus 213 + +Hindu Children 214 + +The Taj Mahal from the Entrance Gate 241 + +Gunga Din on Dress Parade 242 + +Bathing in the Sacred Ganges at Benares 249 + +The Battle-scarred and + World-famous Residency at Lucknow 250 + +Burning the Bodies of Dead Hindus 255 + +An Indian Camel Cart 255 + +Travel in India 256 + + +{xix} + +WHERE HALF THE WORLD IS WAKING UP + + + +{3} + + +I + +JAPAN: THE LAND OF UPSIDE DOWN + +"I cannot help thinking," said one of my friends to me when I left +home, "that when you get over on the other side of the world, in Japan +and China, you will have to walk upside down like the flies on the +ceiling!" + +While I find that this is not true in a physical sense, it is true, as +Mr. Percival Lowell has pointed out, that, with regard to the manners +and customs of the people, everything is reversed, and the surest way +to go right is to take pains to go dead wrong! "To speak backward, +write backward, read backward, is but the A B C of Oriental +contrariety." + +Alice need not have gone to Wonderland; she should have come to Japan. + +I cannot get used, for example, to seeing men start at what with us +would be the back of a book or paper and read toward the front; and it +is said that no European or American ever gets used to the +construction of a Japanese sentence, considered merely from the +standpoint of thought-arrangement. I had noticed that the Japanese +usually ended their sentences with an emphatic upward spurt before I +learned that with them the subject of a sentence usually comes last +(if at all), as for example, "By a rough road yesterday came John," +instead of, "John came by a rough road yesterday." + +And this, of course, is but one illustration of thousands that might +be given to justify my title, "The Land of Upside Down," the land of +contradictions to all our Occidental ideas. That {4} Japan is a land +"where the flowers have no odor and the birds no song" has passed into +a proverb that is almost literally true; and similarly, the far-famed +cherry blossoms bear no fruit. The typesetters I saw in the _Kokumin +Shimbum_ office were singing like birds, but the field-hands I saw at +Komaba were as silent as church-worshippers. The women carry children +on their backs and not in their arms. The girls dance with their +hands, not with their feet, and alone, not with partners. An ox is +worth more than a horse. The people bathe frequently, but in dirty +water. The people are exceptionally artistic, yet the stone "lions" at +Nikko Temple look as much like bulldogs as lions. A man's birthday is +not celebrated, but the anniversary of his death is. The people are +immeasurably polite, and yet often unendurably cocky and conceited. +Kissing or waltzing, even for man and wife, would be improper in +public, but the exposure of the human body excites no surprise. The +national government is supposed to be modern, and yet only 2 per cent, +of the people--the wealthiest--can vote. Famed for kindness though the +people are, war correspondents declared the brutality of Japanese +soldiers to the Chinese at Port Arthur such as "would damn the fairest +nation on earth." Though the nation is equally noted for simplicity of +living, it is a Japanese banker, coming to New York, who breaks even +America's record for extravagance, by giving a banquet costing $40 a +plate. The people are supposed to be singularly contented, and yet +Socialism has had a rapid growth. The Emperor is regarded as sacred +and almost infallible, and yet the Crown Prince is not a legitimate +son. Although the government is one of the most autocratic on earth, +it has nevertheless adopted many highly "paternalistic" +schemes-government ownership of railways and telegraphs, for example. +The people work all the time, but they refuse to work as strenuously +as Americans. The temples attract thousands of people, but usually +only in a spirit of frolic: in the first Shinto temple I visited the +priests offered me sake (the national liquor) {5} to drink. Labor per +day is amazingly cheap, but, in actual results, little cheaper than +American labor. + +It is amid such a maze of contradictions and surprises that one moves +in Japan. When I go into a Japanese home, for example, it is a hundred +times more important to take off my shoes than it is to take off my +hat--even though, as happened this week when I called on a celebrated +Japanese singer, there be holes in my left sock. (But I was comforted +later when I learned that on President Taft's visit to a famous Tokyo +teahouse his footwear was found to be in like plight.) + +Speaking of music, we run squarely against another oddity, in that +native Japanese (as well as Chinese) music usually consists merely of +monotonous twanging on one or two strings--so that I can now +understand the old story of Li Hung Chang's musical experiences in +America. His friends took him to hear grand opera singers, to listen +to famous violinists, but these moved him not; the most gifted +pianists failed equally to interest him. But one night the great +Chinaman went early to a theatre, and all at once his face beamed with +delight, and he turned to his friends in enthusiastic gratitude: "We +have found it at last!" he exclaimed. "That is genuine music!" . . . +And it was only the orchestra "tuning up" their instruments! + +I might as well say just here that this story, while good, always +struck me as a humorous exaggeration till I came to Japan, but the +music which I heard the other night in one of the most fashionable and +expensive Japanese restaurants in Tokyo was of exactly the same +character--like nothing else in all the world so much as an orchestra +tuning up! And yet by way of modification (as usual) it must be said +that appreciation of Western music is growing, and one seldom hears in +classical selections a sweeter combination of voice and piano than +Mrs. Tamaki Shibata's, while my Japanese student-friend has also +surprised me by singing "Suwanee River" and other old-time American +favorites like a genuine Southerner. + +Take the social relations of the Japanese people as another {6} +example of contrariety. Here the honorable sex is not the feminine but +the masculine. There is even a proverb, I believe, "Honor men, despise +women." Perhaps the translation "despise" is too strong, but certainly +it would be regarded as nothing but contemptible weakness for young +men to show any such regard for young women, or husbands for their +wives, as is common in America. The wives exist solely for their +husbands, nor must the wife object if the husband maintains other +favorites, or even brings these favorites into the home with her. And +although a man is with his wife a much greater part of his time than +is the case in America, he may have little or no voice in selecting +her; in fact, he may see her only once before marrying. + +After having seen probably half a million or more Japanese, Sundays +and week-days, I have not noticed a single young Japanese couple +walking together, and in the one case where I saw a husband and a wife +walking thus side by side I discovered on investigation that the man +was blind! + +"For a young couple to select each other as in America," said a young +Japanese gentleman to me, "would be considered immoral, and as for a +young man calling on a young woman, that never happens except +clandestinely." And when I asked if it was true that when husband and +wife go together the woman must follow the man instead of walking +beside him as his equal, he answered: "But it is very, very seldom +that the two go out together." + +My Japanese friend also told me that the young man often has +considerable influence in selecting his life-partner (in case it is +for life: there is one divorce to every three to five marriages), but +the young woman has no more voice in the matter than the commodity in +any other bargain-and-sale. When a young man or young woman gets of +marriageable age, which is rather early, the parents decide on some +satisfactory prospective partner, and a "middleman" interviews the +parents of the prospective partner aforesaid, and if they are willing, +and {7} financial and other considerations are satisfactory, it +doesn't matter what the girl thinks, nor does it matter much whether +young Barkis himself is "willin'." The Sir Anthony Absolutes in Japan +indeed brook no opposition. All of which, while not wholly commendable +(my young Japanese friend himself dislikes the plan, at least in his +own prospective case), has at least the advantage of leaving but +remarkably few bachelors and old maids in Japan. Here every man's +house may not be his castle, but it is certainly his nursery. Usually, +too, in the towns at least, his home is his shop; the front part full +of wares, with no hard and fast dividing line between merchandise +rooms and the living rooms, children being equally conspicuous and +numerous in both compartments. + +Japan is still governed largely on patriarchal lines. The Emperors +themselves depend largely on the patriarchal spirit for their power, +claiming direct descent in unbroken line from the Sun-Goddess, while +the people are supposed to be themselves descendants of Emperors or of +minor gods. In family life the patriarchal idea is still more +prominent, the father being the virtual ruler until he abdicates in +favor of the eldest son. + +Ancestor-worship is general, of course, and a typical case is that of +my young Nikko friend, who tells me that in his home are memorial +tablets to six of his most recently deceased ancestors, and that hot +rice is placed before these tablets each morning. Now the teaching is +that the spirits of the dead need the odor of the rice for +nourishment, and also require worship of other kinds. Consequently the +worst misfortune that can befall a man is to die without heirs to +honor his memory (the mere dying itself is not so bad); and if an +oldest son die unmarried such action amounts almost to treason to the +family. + +Moreover, if a man be without sons (daughters don't count), he may +adopt a son; and the cases of adoption are surprisingly frequent. +Count Okuma, ex-prime minister of the empire, whom I visited last +Sunday, adopted his son-in-law as his {8} legal son. A distinguished +banker I visited is also an adopted son; and in a comparatively brief +list of eminent Japanese, a sort of abbreviated national "Who's Who," +I find perhaps twenty cases in which these eminent officials and +leaders have been adopted and bear other family names than those with +which they were born. + +The willingness to give up one's name in adoption, viewed in the light +of the excessive devotion to one's own ancestors and family name, is +only another illustration of Japanese contrariety. It is a land of +surprises. + +Miyanoshita, Japan. + + +{9} + + +II + +SNAPSHOTS OF JAPANESE LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY + + +"What is a Japanese city like?" Well, let us "suppose," as the children +say. You know the American city nearest you, or the one you live in. +Suppose then you should wake up in this city to-morrow morning and +find in the first place that forty-nine people out of every fifty have +put on such unheard-of clothing as to make you rub your eyes in wonder +as to whether you are asleep or awake; next, that everybody has become +six inches shorter, and that all these hundred-thousand five-foot men +and four-foot women have unanimously developed most violent +sunburn--have become bronzed almost beyond recognition. + +Moreover, the high buildings you once knew have all disappeared, and a +wilderness chiefly of tiny one and two story houses has taken their +places, wherein the first story, even in two-story buildings, is so +low that all your new brown friends warn you by a gesture to duck your +head as you go through the doors, while the second story is usually +little more than a garret. + +Next, a wild jargon of unmeaning voices strikes your ear and you +discover that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have forgotten how +to speak English. More than this, the English signs are no more, and +on the billboards and before the business offices are marks that look +as if a thousand ostriches fresh from a thousand ink barrels had been +set to scratching new signs to take the places of the old. You pick up +a book {10} or the morning paper, and the same thing has happened--pig +tracks, chicken tracks, and double bowknots fantastically tied instead +of English type--and everybody begins at the back of the book and +reads toward him instead of reading the way you have grown used to! + +And the buggies, carriages, and automobiles: what on earth has become +of them? There's hardly a horse in sight, but dozens or scores of men +with bare legs and odd clothes, each flying around pulling a light +two-wheeled jinrikisha, a man or a woman seated in each man-drawn +"buggy"; and there are dozens of other bare-legged men laboriously +pulling heavy loads of vegetables, freight, and even lumber and giant +telegraph poles! You jump into one of the rickshaws and forget your +strange little Puck-like steed in the marvel of your surroundings till +a voice from the shafts makes you feel like Balaam when the ass spoke +to him! + +By this time you begin to get a hazy idea as to how the people are +dressed, and as nearly as you can make out, it is something like this: + +Evidently all the inhabitants of an ancient Roman city, a modern +American town, a half-dozen Hindoo villages, and several thousand +seashore bathers have all thrown their clothes--(or the lack of +them!)--into one tremendous pile, and everybody has rushed in +pell-mell and put on the first thing, or the first two or three +things, that came to hand. There is every conceivable type of +clothing, but perhaps the larger number have wound up with something +like a light bathing suit and a sort of gingham dressing-gown belted +over it; and if one has less than this, why, then, as the Japanese +say, "_Shikata na gai_" (All right; it can't be helped). In the shops +and stores one passes a few men clad only in their own integrity and a +loin-cloth, and both children and grown people dress with a hundred +times more disregard of convention than the negroes in America. + +Of shoes, there is an equally great variety as of clothing, {11} but +the majority of men, women, and children (in muddy weather at least) +have compromised on the "getas," a sort of wooden sole strapped on the +foot, with wooden pieces put fore and aft the instep, these pieces +throwing the foot and sole about three inches above ground. It looks +almost as difficult to walk in them as to walk on stilts, but away the +people go, young and old, and the muddy places marked by the strange +footwear look as if the corrugated wheels of a hundred mowing-machines +had passed along! In most cases the clatter of the "get as" is the +loudest noise on the streets, for the Japanese are remarkably quiet: +in Tokyo to-day I saw a thousand of them waiting to see the Empress, +and an American crowd would literally have made more noise in a minute +than they made in an hour. + +On entering their houses, as we have already noticed, the people take +off their getas, sandals, shoes or whatever outer footwear is +used--for the very good reason that the people sit on the floor (on +mats or on the floor itself), eat on the floor (very daintily, +however), and sleep on the floor, so that to walk over the floor here +with muddy feet would be the same as if an American should walk +roughshod over his chairs, table and bed. Even in the Japanese +department store I visited this morning cloth covers were put on my +shoes, and this afternoon at the Ni-no Go Reiya Shinto temple I had to +go in my stocking feet. + +Then the babies--who ever saw as many babies to the square inch? About +10 per cent of the male population seems to be hauling other men, but +50 per cent, of the female population seems hardly enough to carry the +wise and happy-looking little Jap babies--not in go-carts (a go-cart +or a hired nurse is almost never seen), but on the back. And these +little women who when standing are only about as tall as you are when +sitting--they seem hardly more than children themselves, so that you +recall Kipling's saying of Japan: "A four-foot child walks with a +three-foot child, who is holding the hand {12} of a two-foot child, +who carries on her back a one-foot child." + +Boys in their teens are also seen with babies strapped on their backs +in the same loose-fitting, sack-like baby-holders, and after work-time +the father takes a turn at the same business. You are reminded of the +negro who said to another: "'Fo Gawd, Bill, you's got the mos' chillun +any nigger I ever seed. Why, I passed yo' house yistiddy mornin' at +nine erclock and throwed a brick on top and hollered 'Fiah!' an' at +five erclock in the evenin' nigger chillun was still runnin' out!" It +seems sometimes as if such an incident, with Jap children substituted +for negroes (I doubt if there is a negro here), might actually happen +in Japan. + +And those two men bowing to each other as they meet--are they +rehearsing as Alphonse and Gaston for the comedy show to-night, or are +they serious? No, they are serious, for yonder is another pair meeting +in the same way, and yonder another couple separating with even more +violent "convulsions of politeness"--and nobody laughing but yourself. +No wonder the Japanese are strong: they only need to meet a few +friends a day to get exercise enough to keep them in trim! Look again: +those women meeting at the depot, for example (for there are +familiar-looking street cars and less familiar-looking passenger cars +amid all these strange surroundings). There is the woman with her hair +combed straight back, which, I am told, means that she is a widow; one +with an odd Japanese topknot, which means that she is married, and a +younger one whose hair is arranged in the style of unmarried girls; +and though they are evidently bosom friends, they do not embrace and +kiss at meeting--to kiss in public would be shocking to the +Japanese--and you can only guess the depth of their affection by the +greater warmth and emphasis of their bows to one another. + + +{13} + + [Illustration: THE GIANT AVENUE OF CRYPTOMERIAS AT NIKKO.] + This magnificent avenue, twenty-five miles in length, consists of + trees planted by daimyos, or small lords, as a memorial to the great + Japanese warrior and statesman, Iyeyasu. A spirit of simplicity and + love of nature has produced a nobler monument than extravagance + could possibly have done. + +{14} + + [Illustration: TYPICAL JAPANESE COSTUMES AND TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE.] + In the temple picture notice also how the limbs of the trees have + been trained. Many fantastic effects are often produced in this way. + + +{12 continued} + +They are trained in politeness from their youth up, are these +Japanese; and it is perhaps the greatest charm of both young and old. +I must have seen a full hundred thousand Japanese {15} by this time, +and I do not recall one in the attitude of scolding or abuse, while +authorities tell me that the Japanese language simply has no words to +enable one to swear or curse. I was also interested to have the +American Ambassador here tell me that in all his three years' stay in +Japan, and with all the freedom with which a million children run +about the streets and stores, he has never seen a man impatient with a +child. At the Imperial University yesterday morning I noticed two +college boys part with the same deep courtesy used by the older men, +and the little five-year-old girl near Chuzenji the other day thanked +me for my gift with the most graceful of Eastern salaams. + +I shall not say that the excessive ceremoniousness of the men does not +at times seem ludicrous, but when you come to your hotel dining-room, +and the inexpressibly dainty little Japanese girls, moving almost +noiselessly on their sandaled feet (no getas indoors) welcome each +guest with smiling bows, happy, refined and graceful, a very different +impression of Japanese courtesy comes over you. In America, +unfortunately, the like courteous attention under such circumstances +might be misinterpreted, but here you are only reminded of how a +thousand years of courtesy and gentle manners have given the women of +Japan--pretty though they are not, judged by our Western standards--an +unsurpassed grace of manner and happiness of disposition together with +Shakespeare's well-praised "voice, soft and low, an excellent thing in +woman." + +And here and everywhere, as in the old fable of the man with the +overcoat, must not such sun-like gentleness be more powerful in +compelling deference than all the stormy strength of the "new woman"? + +Which reminds me that however much the social, political, and economic +revolution of the last forty years may have changed the national +character (and upon this point I shall not speak till later), it is +certain that Old Japan and the Old South were distinguished for not a +few characteristics {16} in common. For example, we are reminded of +the South's ante-bellum civilization when we learn that in old Japan +"the business of money-making was held in contempt by the superior +classes," and of all forms of business, agriculture was held in +highest esteem. Next to the nobility stood the Samurai, or soldier +class, the social rank of all other persons then being as follows: (1) +farmers, (2) artisans, (3) merchants. And farming was thus not only +regarded as the most honorable of all occupations, but farmers in the +early ages were privileged to wear swords, the emblem of rank next to +the nobility. Below the farmers ranked the mechanic element, while as +Lafcadio Hearn tells us: + + "The commercial class (A kindo), including bankers, merchants, + shopkeepers, and traders of all kinds, was the lowest officially + recognized. The business of money-making was held in contempt by the + superior classes; and all methods of profiting by the purchase and + resale of the produce of labor were regarded as dishonorable. . . . + There is a generally, in militant society, small respect for the + common forms of labor. But in old Japan the occupation of the farmer + and artisan were not despised; trade alone appears to have been + considered degrading, and the distinction may have been partly a + moral one." + +I wonder if there is not really a great deal more than we have +realized in what Hearn here suggests as to the soundness and essential +"morality" of the Japanese plan of ranking farming and manufacturing +above trade as occupations? Morally and economically considered, it is +the men who actually produce wealth rather than those men who trade or +barter in the products of other men's labor who deserve most honor. +They serve the world best: The barterers are, in limited numbers, +necessary and useful servants of those who do produce, but the +strength of a state manifestly lies in the classes who are really +creators of values. + +Tokyo, Japan. + + +{17} + + +III + +JAPANESE FARMING AND FARMER FOLK + + +I went yesterday to the Agricultural College of the Imperial +University of Japan, situated at Komaba, near Tokyo, where I had an +appointment with Director Matsui. My purpose was to get further +information concerning the general condition of Japanese farmers and +Japanese farming, but the biggest fact my researches brought out was +not in regard to rice or barley or potatoes or taro, or any other +field product of the Mikado's empire. + +Rather it was a fact with regard to what is in every land the most +important of all crops--the crop of boys and girls. And the big fact I +discovered was simply this: + +These brown Mongolian farm children, whose land we opened to +civilization but fifty years ago, and whom we thought of but yesterday +as backward "heathen"--they are getting, as a general proposition, +just twice as much schooling as is furnished pupils in many of our +American rural districts: their parents are providing, in their zeal +for their children's welfare, just twice as good educational +facilities as we are giving many of our white farm boys and +girls--boys and girls who have in their veins the blood of a race +which has carried the flag of human progress for a thousand years, and +whom we are expecting to continue leaders in civilization and +enlightenment. + +In other words, so Doctor Matsui told me (and I went to-day to the +Japanese National Department of Education to verify the fact), the +Japanese farm boys and girls are getting ten months' schooling a year, +while the farm boy or girl {18} in my own state is getting only five +or six months--and when I was in a country school fifteen years ago, +not nearly so much as that! Do you wonder that I avoided telling the +Japanese educational officer just how our provision for farm boys and +girls compared with Japan's? Also that I neglected to tell him how we +compare in the matter of utilizing school advantages, when he showed +me that of all the children between six and fourteen in all the empire +of Japan the school attendance is 98 per cent.--98 out of every 100 +children of "school age" attending school, and in several provinces 99 +out of every 100! Thirty-five years ago the average school attendance +in Japan was only 28, and in 1893 only 59, but by the time of the war +with Russia it had passed 90, and since then has been climbing +straight and steadily toward the amazing maximum itself, the official +figures showing a gain of 1 per cent, a year--94 per cent., then 95, +then 96, then 97, and now 98, and the leaders are now ambitious for 99 +or 100, as they told me to-day. + +When this officer of an "inferior race" showed me, furthermore, that +Japan is so intent upon educating every boy and girl in her borders +that she compels attendance on the public schools for eight years, I +didn't tell him that in civilized America, in the great enlightened +nation so long held up to him as a model, demagogues and others in +many states on one pretext or another have defeated every effort for +effective compulsory education laws, so that if a boy's parents are +indifferent to his future, the state does not compel them to give him +a fighting chance in life--for the state's own sake and for the boy's. + + +{19} + + [Illustration: JAPANESE FARMING SCENES.] + The upper picture shows a rice field in the foreground, tea + alongside the buildings, and the graceful feathery bamboo in the + background; also, an unusual sight on a Japanese farm, a group of + cattle. The lower picture shows the work of transplanting rice. + + +{20} + + [Illustration: JAPANESE SCHOOL CHILDREN.] + Boys predominate in the upper picture, girls in the lower. A system + of compulsory education is enforced in Japan, and 98 per cent, of + the children of school age attend. Even the country schools run ten + months in the year--longer than in a majority of our states. + + +{18 continued} + +With these facts before me, as I have said, I did not make any +vainglorious boasts of the great educational progress of our own +states these last twenty years: However much progress we have made, +these brown Japanese "heathen" have beaten us. While there is no +official census on the question of illiteracy here, every Japanese man +in his twenties must serve {21} two years in the army (unless he is in +a normal school studying to be a teacher), and a record is made as to +the literacy or illiteracy of each recruit. That is to say, there is a +place where the fact of any recruit's inability to read would be +recorded, but the Department of Education informed me to-day that the +illiterate column is now absolutely blank. + +There are no illiterates among Japan's rising generation. + +More than this, we have to reflect that it is in their poverty that +the Japanese are thus doing more than we are doing in our plenty. We +waste more in a year than they make. Even with a hundred acres of land +the American farmer is likely to consider himself poor, but when I +asked my Japanese guide the other day if two _cho_ (five acres) would +be an average sized farm here he said: "No, not an average; such a man +would be regarded as a middle-class farmer--a rather large farmer." +And the figures which I have just obtained in a call on the national +Department of Agriculture and Commerce more than justify the reply. + +Forty-six farmers out of every 100 in Japan own less than one and one +quarter acres of land; 26 more out of every 100 own less than two and +one half acres, and only one man in a hundred owns as much as +twenty-five acres. (In the matter of cultivation also I find that 70 +per cent, cultivate less than two and one half acres, and nearly half +are tenants.) + +This year the situation is even worse than usual, for disastrous +floods have reduced the rice crop, which represents one half Japan's +crop values, 20 per cent, below last year's figures, and many people +will suffer. + +Ordinarily, however, these little handkerchief-sized farms yield +amazingly. It has been shown by Prof. F. H. King that the fields of +Japan are cultivated so intensively, fertilized so painstakingly, and +kept so continuously producing some crop, that they feed 2277 people +to the square mile--21,321 square miles of cultivated fields in the +main islands supporting a population of 48,542,376. If the tilled +fields of Iowa, for {22} example, supported an equal number of people per +square mile, the population so supported would be over 100,000,000. +That state alone could feed the entire population of the United States +and then have an excess product left for export to other countries! If +North Carolina did as well with her cultivated land she would support +30,000,000 people, and if Mississippi's 11,875 square miles of land +under cultivation supported each 2277 persons, then 27,041,375 people, +or thirteen times the present population of the state, could live off +their produce! + +And yet these Japanese lands have been in cultivation for unnumbered +centuries. Some of them may have been cleared when King Herod trembled +from his dream of a new-born rival in Judea, and certainly "the glory +that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome" had not faded from the +earth when some of these fields began their age-long ministry to human +need. And they have been kept fertile simply by each farmer putting +back on the ground every ounce of fertility taken from it, for +commercial fertilizers were absolutely unknown until our own +generation. + +Of course, with a population so dense and with each man cultivating an +area no larger than a garden-patch in America, the people are poor, +and the wonder is that they are able to produce food enough to keep +the country from actual want. Practically no animal meat is eaten; if +we except fish, the average American eats nearly twice as much meat in +a week as the average Japanese does in a year: to be exact, 150 pounds +of meat per capita is required per year for the average American +against 1.7 pounds for the average Japanese! Many of the farmers here +are too poor even to eat a good quality of rice. Consequently Japan +presents the odd phenomenon of being at once an exporter and a large +importer of rice. Poor farmers sell their good rice and buy a poorer +quality brought in from the mainland of Asia and mix it with barley +for grinding. + +Only about one farmer in three has a horse or an ox; in most cases all +the work must be done by hand and with crude tools. {23} It is +pitiful--or rather I should say, it would be pitiful if they did not +appear so contented--to see men breaking the ground not by plowing but +by digging with kuwas: long-handled tools with blades perhaps six +inches wide and two feet long. At the Agricultural College farm in +Komaba I saw about thirty Japanese weeding rice with the kama--a tool +much like an old-fashioned sickle except that the blade is straight: +the right hand quickly cut the roots of the weed or grass plant and +the left hand as quickly pulled it up. With the same sickle-like kamas +about thirty other Japanese were cutting and shocking corn: they are +at least too advanced to pull fodder, I was interested to notice! + +With land so scarce, it is of course necessary to keep something on +the ground every growing day from year's end to year's end. Truckers +and gardeners raise three crops a year. Rice, as a rule, is not sown +as with us, but the plants are transplanted as we transplant cabbage +or tomato plants (but so close together, of course, that the ripening +fields look as if they had been sown), in order that the farmer may +save the time the rice plants are getting to the transplanting stage. +That is to say, some other crop is maturing on the land while the rice +plants are growing large enough to transplant. Riding through the +country almost anywhere you will notice the tender young plants of +some new crop showing between the rows of some earlier-planted crop +now maturing or newly harvested. + +The crops in Japan are not very varied. Rice represents half the +agricultural values. Next to rice is the silkworm industry, and then +barley, wheat, vegetables, soy beans, sweet potatoes, and fruits. +There is especial interest in fruit growing just now. Sweet potatoes +grow more luxuriantly than in any other country I have ever seen, and +are much used for food. I have seen one or two little patches of +cotton, but evidently only for home spinning, although I hear it said +that in Korea, which has just been formally annexed as Japanese +territory, cotton can be profitably grown. A much {24} cultivated +plant, with leaves like those of the lotus or water-lily, is the taro, +which I also saw growing in Hawaii; its roots are used for food as +potatoes are. + +Every particle of fertility of every kind, as I have said, is +religiously saved, and in recent years a considerable demand for +commercial fertilizers has sprung up, $8 to $10 worth per acre being a +normal application. + +So much for the farming country as it has impressed me around Tokyo. A +few days ago I saw a somewhat different agricultural area--280 miles +of great rice-farming land between Miyanoshita and Kyoto. This country +is different from that around Yokahoma and north of Tokyo in that it +is so much more rolling and mountainous (majestic Mount Fuji, supreme +among peaks, was in sight several hours) and greater efforts are +therefore necessary to take care of the soil. + +But when such effort is necessary in Japan, it is sure to be made. The +population is so dense that every one realizes the essential +criminality of soil-waste, of the destruction of the one resource +which must support human life as long as the race shall last. + +Much of the land is in terraces, or, perhaps I should say, tiers. That +is to say, here will be a half-acre or an acre from eighteen inches to +six feet higher (all as level as a threshing-floor) than a similar +level piece adjoining. While the levelling is helpful in any case for +the preservation of fertility and the prevention of washing, the tier +system is necessary in many cases on account of the irrigation methods +used in rice growing. While the lower plot is flooded for rice, upland +crops may be growing on the adjacent elevated acre or half-acre. + +The hillside or mountain slopes are also cultivated to the last +available foot, and in dry seasons you may even see the men and women +carrying buckets uphill to water any suffering crop. In nearly all +cases the rows are on a level. Where there was once a slanting +hillside the Japanese here dig it down or grade it, and the +mountainsides are often enormous steps or {25} stairs; one level +terrace after another, each held in place by turf or rock wall. + +Rice growing, as it is conducted in Japan, certainly calls for much +bitter toil. The land must be broken by hand; into the muddy, miry, +water-covered rice fields the farmer-folk must wade, to plant the rice +laboriously, plant by plant; then the cultivation and harvesting is +also done by hand, and even the threshing, I understand. When we +recall that the net result of all this bitter toil is only a bare +existence made increasingly hard by the steady rise in land-taxes, and +that the Japanese people know practically none of the diversions which +give joy and color to American and English country life, it is no +wonder that thousands of farmers are leaving their two and three acre +plots, too small to produce a decent living for a family, to try their +fortunes in the factories and the towns. Specifically, it may be +mentioned that the boys from the farms who go into the army for the +compulsory two years' service are reported as seldom returning to the +country. + +True, the government is trying to help matters to some extent (though +this is indeed but little) by lending money to banks at low rates of +interest with the understanding that the farmers may then borrow from +these banks at rates but little higher; and there are also in most +communities, I learn, "cooperative credit societies" (corresponding +somewhat to the mutual building and loan societies in American towns), +by means of which the farmers escape the clutches of the Shylock +money-lenders who have heretofore charged as high as 20 to 30 per +cent. for advances. The Japanese farmers invest their surplus funds in +these "cooperative credit societies," just as they would in savings +banks, except that in their case their savings are used solely for +helping their immediate neighbors and neighborhoods. A judicious +committee passes upon each small loan, and while the interest rates +might seem high to us, we have to remember that money everywhere here +commands higher interest than in America. + +{26} + +I am the more interested in these "cooperative credit societies," +because they seem to me to embrace features which our American farmers +would do well to adopt. + +It is said that the farmers live on better food than they had twenty +years ago, but I should think that there has been little improvement +in the little thatch-roofed houses in which they live. These houses +are grouped into small villages, as are the farm houses in Europe, the +farmer going out from the settlement to his fields each working day, +much after the fashion of the workers on the largest American +plantations. Buildings corresponding to our American two-story houses +are almost never seen in towns here and absolutely never in farming +sections, the farm home, like the town home, usually consisting of a +story and a half, with sliding walls of paper-covered sash between the +rooms, a sort of box for the fire on which the meals are cooked, and +no chimney--little better, though much cleaner, than the negro cabins +in the South. In winter the people nearly freeze, or would but for the +fact that the men put on heavy woolens, and the women pile on cotton +padding until they look almost like walking feather beds. + +True as are the things that I have said in this article, I fear that +my average reader would get a very gloomy and false conception of +Japanese farm life if I should stop here. The truth is that, so far as +my observation goes, I have seen nothing to indicate that the rural +population of Japan is not now as happy as the rural population in +America. If their possessions are few, so are their wants. In fact. +Dr. Juichi Soyeda, one of the country's leading men, in talking to me, +expressed a doubt as to whether the new civilization of Japan will +really produce greater average happiness than the old rural seclusion +and isolation (a doubt, however, which I do not share). "Our farm +people," he said, "are hard-working, frugal, honest, cheerful, and +while their possessions are small, there is little actual want among +them. A greater {27} number than in most other countries are +home-owners, and, altogether, they form the backbone of an empire." + +Doctor Soyeda went on to give a noteworthy illustration of the +affection of the people for their home farms. "The Japanese," he said, +"have a term of contempt for the man who sells an old homestead." +There is no English word equivalent to it, but it means "a seller of +the ancestral land," and to say it of a man is almost equivalent to +reflecting upon his character or honor! I wish that we might develop +in America such a spirit of affection for our farm homes. + +I wish, too, that we might develop the Japanese love of the beautiful +in nature. No matter how small and cramped the yard about the tiny +home here, you are almost sure to find the beauty of shrub and tree +and neatly trimmed hedge, and in Tokyo the whole population looks +forward with connoisseur-like enthusiasm to the season for wistaria +blooms in earliest spring, to the cherry blossom season in April, to +lotus-time in mid-summer, and to the chrysanthemum shows in the fall. +The fame of Tokyo's cherry blossoms has already gone around the world, +and thus they not only add to the pleasure of its citizens, but give +the city a distinction of no small financial advantage as well. + +Why may not our civic improvement associations, women's clubs, etc., +get an idea here for our American towns? A long avenue of beautiful +trees along a road or street, even if trees without blossoms, would +give distinction to any small village or to any farm. Every one who +has been to Europe will recall the long lines of Lombardy poplars that +make the fair vision of many French roads linger long in the memory, +and I can never forget the magnificent avenue of +cryptomerias--gigantic in size, straight as ship masts, fair as the +cedars of Lebanon--that line the road leading to the great Shogun +Iyeyasu's tomb in Nikko. + +Lastly, these people are fired by the thought that a better day is +coming. Their children are going to school, as the {28} older folk +could not, and as a Japanese editor said to me this week: + +"Every boy in the empire believes he may some day become Premier!" + + +What is the lesson of it all? Is it not just this: That we in America +should feel highly favored in that we have such magnificent resources, +and yet as sharply rebuked in that we are doing so little with them. + +And most of all, is there not need for us to emulate the broad +patriotism and the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice in which the Land +of the Rising Sun, in spite of dire poverty, is providing ten-months +schools for every boy and girl in all its borders? And, indeed, how +otherwise can we make sure, before it is too late, that our American +farm boys and girls will not be outdistanced in twentieth-century +achievement by the children of a people our fathers regarded only as +hopeless "heathen?" + +Tokyo, Japan. + + +{29} + + +IV + +"WELFARE WORK" IN JAPANESE FACTORIES + + +The obvious truth is that the agricultural population of Japan is too +congested. It is a physical impossibility for a people to live in +genuine comfort on such small pocket-handkerchief pieces of land, even +though their standards do not call for shoes or tables, beds or +chairs, Western houses or Western clothing. The almost exclusive use +of hand labor, too, is uneconomic, seen from a large standpoint, and +it would seem that in future farmers must combine, as they are already +beginning to do, in order to purchase horses and horse-power tools to +be used in common by a number of farmers. In the Tokyo Seed, Plant & +Implement Company store the other day I saw a number of widely +advertised American tools, and the manager told me the demand for them +is increasing. + +Thus with a smaller number of men required to produce the nation's +food, a larger number may engage in manufacturing, and gradually the +same principle of division of labor which has brought Western people +to high standards of living, comfort, and earning power will produce +much the same result in Japan. Already wages, astonishingly low as +they are to-day to an ordinary American, have increased 40 per cent, +in the last eight or ten years, this increase being partly due to the +general cheapening of money the world over, and partly also to the +increased efficiency of the average laborer. + +Unfortunately, however, Japan is not content to rely upon natural law +for the development of its manufactures. Adam {30} Smith said in his +"Wealth of Nations" (published the year of our American Declaration of +Independence), that the policy of all European nations since the +downfall of the Roman Empire had been to help manufacturing, the +industry of the towns, rather than agriculture, the industry of the +country--a policy in which America later imitated Europe. Japan now +follows suit. For a long time the government has paid enormous +subsidies to shipbuilding and manufacturing corporations, and now a +high tariff has been enacted, which will still further increase the +cost of living for the agricultural classes, comprising, as they do, +two thirds of the country's population. + +"'With your cheap labor and all the colossal Oriental market right at +your door," I said to Editor Shihotsu of the _Kokumin Shimbun_ a day +or two ago, "what excuse is there for further dependence on the +government? What can be the effect of your new tariff except to +increase the burdens of the farmer for the benefit of the +manufacturer?" And while defending the policy, he admitted that I had +stated the practical effect of the policy. "They are domestic +consumption duties," was his phrase; and Count Okuma, one of the +empire's ablest men, once Minister of Agriculture, has also pointed +out how injuriously the new law will affect the masses of the people. + +"Some would argue," he said in a speech at Osaka, "that the duties are +paid by the country from which the goods are imported. That this is +not the case is at once seen by the fact that an increase in duty +means a rise in the price of an article in the country imposing the +duty, and this to the actual consumer often amounts to more than the +rise in the duty. In these cases consumers pay the duty themselves; +and the customs revenues, so far from being a national asset, are +merely another form of taxation paid by the people." And the masses in +Japan, already staggering under the enormous burden of an average tax +amounting to 32 per cent, of their earnings (on account of their wars +with China and Russia and their enormous army and navy expenditure), +are ill-prepared to stand further {31} taxation for the benefit of +special interests. On the whole, there seems to have been much truth +in what a recent authority said on this subject: + + "The Japanese manufacturers are concerned only to make monopoly + profits out of the consumer. If they can do that, they will not + worry about foreign markets, from which, in fact, their policy is + bound more and more to exclude them." + +In any case, manufacturing in Japan is bound to increase, but it ought +not to increase through unjust oppression of agriculture or at the +expense of the physical stamina of the race. This fact is now winning +recognition not only from the nation at large, but from +public-spirited manufacturers as well. + +Some very notable evidence upon this point came to me Wednesday when +influential friends secured special permission, not often granted to +strangers, for me to visit the great Kanegafuchi Cotton Spinning +Company's plant near Tokyo--the great surprise being not that I +succeeded in getting permission to visit this famous factory, though +that was partly surprising, but in what I saw on the visit. + +Much has been said and written as to the utterly deplorable condition +of Japanese factory workers, and I was quite prepared for sights that +would outrage my feelings of humanity. Imagine my surprise, therefore, +when I found the manager making a hobby of "welfare work" for his +operatives and with a system of such work modelled after the Krupp +system in Germany, the best in the world! And as the Kanegafuchi +Company has seventeen factories in all, representing several cities +and aggregating over 300,000 spindles, being one of the most famous +industries of Japan, it will be seen that its example is by no means +without significance. + +The Kanegafuchi's Tokyo factories alone employ 3500 operatives, and +they are cleaner, I should say, than most of our stores and offices. +The same thing is true of their great hospital and boarding-house, and +the dining-room is also {32} surprisingly clean and well kept. Of the +welfare work proper a whole article could be written. Each operative +pays 3 per cent, of his or her wages (most operatives are women) into +a common insurance and pension fund, and the company, out of its +earnings, pays into the fund an equal amount. From this a pension is +given the family of any employee who dies, while if an operative gets +sick or is injured, a committee, assisted by Director Fuji, allows a +suitable pension until recovery. In the case, however, of +long-standing disease or disability, help is given, after ten years, +from still another fund. This employees' pension fund now amounts to +$143,000, while other funds given partly or wholly by the company +include $30,000 for operatives' sanitary fund, $112,000 in a fund "for +promoting operatives' welfare," and $15,000 for erecting an +operatives' sanatorium. The company also has a savings department, +paying 10 per cent, on long-time deposits made by employees. There is +an excellent theatre and dance hall at the Tokyo plant, and I suppose +at the other branches also, and five physicians are regularly employed +to look after the health of operatives. + +While the hours of labor in Japan generally are inexcusably long and, +as a rule, only two rest days a month are allowed, the Kanegafuchi +Company observes the Biblical seventh-day rest with profitable +results. The work hours are long yet, it is true, ten hours having +been the rule up to October 1, and now nine and one half hours. The +ten hours this summer embraced the time from 6 to 6, with a half +hour's rest from 9 to 9:30, one hour from 11:30 to 12:30, and another +half hour from 3 to 3:30; a system of halfway rests not common in +America, I believe. + +Conditions at Kanegafuchi, of course, are not ideal, nor would I hold +them up as a general model for American mills. Rather should America +ask: "If Japan in a primitive stage of industrial evolution is doing +so much, how much more ought we to do?" More noteworthy still is the +fact that the sentiment of the country is loudly and insistently +demanding a law {33} to stop the evils of child labor and night work for +women, which, on the whole, are undoubtedly bad--very bad. The +Kanegafuchi welfare work is exceptional, but it is in line with the +new spirit of the people. + +That Japan with its factory system not yet extensive, its people used +to a struggle for existence tenfold harder than ours, and with a +population comprising only the wealthy or capitalist class--that under +such conditions, these Buddhist Japanese should still make effective +demand for adequate factory labor legislation is enough to put to +shame many a Christian state in which our voters still permit +conditions that reproach our boasted chivalry and humanity. Perhaps +all the changes needed cannot be made at once without injury to +manufacturing interests, but in that case the law should at least +require a gradual and steady approach to model conditions--a distinct +step forward each six months until at the end of three years, or five +years at longest, every state should have a law as good as that of +Massachusetts. + +Tokyo, Japan. + + +{34} + + +V + +DOES JAPANESE COMPETITION MENACE THE WHITE MAN'S TRADE? + + +I + +With all the markets of the Orient right at Japan's doors and labor to +be had for a mere song--four fifths of her cotton-factory workers, +girls and women averaging 13-1/2 cents a day, and the male labor +averaging only 22 cents--it is simply useless for Europe and America +to attempt to compete with her in any line she chooses to monopolize. +Now that she has recovered from her wars, she will doubtless forge to +the front as dramatically as an industrial power as she has already +done as a military and maritime power, while other nations, helpless +in competition, must simply surrender to the Mikado-land the lion's +share of Asiatic trade--the richest prize of twentieth-century +commerce. + +In some such strain as this prophets of evil among English and +American manufacturers have talked for several years. For the last few +months, professing to see in Japan's adoption of a high protective +tariff partial confirmation of their predictions, they have assumed +added authority. Their arguments, too, are so plausible and the facts +as to Japan's low wage scale so patent that the world has become +acutely interested in the matter. I account myself especially +fortunate, therefore, in having been able to spend several weeks under +peculiarly favorable circumstances in a first-hand study of Japanese +industrial {35} conditions. I have been in great factories and +business offices; I have talked with both Japanese and foreign +manufacturers who employ laborers by the thousand; I have had the +views of the most distinguished financial leaders of the empire as +well as of the great captains of industry; I have talked with several +men who have served in the Emperor's cabinet, including one who has +stood next to the Mikado himself in power; and at the same time I have +taken pains to get the views of English and American consular +officials, commercial attaches and travelers, and of newspaper men +both foreign and native. + +And yet after having seen the big factories and the little +factory-workers in Tokyo and Osaka, after having listened to the most +ambitious of Japan's industrial leaders, I shall leave the country +convinced of the folly of the talk that white labor cannot compete +with Japanese labor. I believe indeed that the outlook is encouraging +for manufacturing in the Mikado's empire, but I do not believe that +this development is to be regarded as a menace to English or American +industry. Any view to the contrary, it seems to me, must be based upon +a radical misconception of conditions as they are. + +In the very outset, the assumed parallel between Japan's rise as a +military power and her predicted rise as an industrial power should be +branded as the groundless non sequitur that it is. "All our present +has its roots in the past," as my first Japanese acquaintance said to +me, and we ignore fundamental facts when we forget that for centuries +unnumbered Japan existed for the soldier, as the rosebush for the +blossom. The man of martial courage was the goal of all her striving, +the end of all her travail. Society was a military aristocracy, the +Samurai the privileged class. And at the same time commerce was +despised as dishonorable and industry merely tolerated as a necessary +evil. In the Japan of Yalu, Liao-yang, and Mukden we have no modern +Minerva springing full-armed from the head of Jove, but rather an +unrecognized Ulysses {36} of ancient skill surprising onlookers merely +ignorant of the long record of his prowess. Viewed from the same +historical standpoint, however, industrial Japan is a mere learner, +unskilled, with the long and weary price of victory yet to pay. + +In the race she has to run, moreover, the Mikado-land has no such +advantages as many of our people have been led to believe. In America +it has long been my conviction that cheap labor is never cheap; that +so-called "cheap labor" is a curse to any community--not because it is +cheap but because it is inefficient. The so-called cheap negro labor +in the South, for example, I have come to regard as perhaps the +dearest on the continent. Here in Japan, however, I was quite prepared +to find that this theory would not hold good. By reason of conditions +in a primitive stage of industrial organization, I thought that I +might find cheap labor with all the advantages, in so far as there are +any, and few of the disadvantages, encountered elsewhere. But it is +not so. An American factory owner in Osaka, summing up his Job's +trials with raw Japanese labor, used exactly my own phrase in a +newspaper article a few days ago, "Cheap labor is never cheap." And +all my investigations have convinced me that the remark is as +applicable in Japan as it is in America or England. + +The per capita wages of Japanese laborers here are, of course, +amazingly low. The latest 1910 statistics, as furnished by the +Department of Finance, indicate a daily wage (American money) of 40 +cents for carpenters, 31-1/2 cents for shoemakers, 34 cents for +blacksmiths, 25-1/2 cents for compositors, 19-1/2 cents for male farm +laborers, and 22 cents for male weavers, and 12 cents for female. In +the cotton factories I visited, those of the better sort, the wages +run from 5 cents a day for the youngest children to 25 cents a day for +good women workers. In a mousselaine mill I was told that the average +wages were 22-1/2 cents, ranging from 10 cents to a maximum of 50 +cents for the most skilled employees. And this, be it remembered, was +{37} for eleven hours' work and in a factory requiring a higher grade +of efficiency than the average. + +But in spite of the fact that such figures as these were well known to +him, it was my host in the first Japanese house to which I was +invited--one of the Emperor's privy councillors, and a man of much +travel and culture who had studied commercial conditions at home and +abroad rather profoundly--who expressed the conclusion that Japanese +factory labor when reduced to terms of efficiency is not greatly +cheaper than European, an opinion which has since grown rather trite +in view of the number of times that I have heard it. "In the old +handicrafts and family industries to which our people have been +accustomed," my host declared, "we can beat the world, but the moment +we turn to modern industrial machinery on a large scale the newness of +our endeavor tells against us in a hundred hindering ways. Numbers of +times I have sought to work out some industrial policy which had +succeeded, and could not but have succeeded, in England, Germany, or +America, only to meet general failure here because of the unconsidered +elements of a different environment, a totally different stage of +industrial evolution. Warriors from the beginning and with a record +for continuous government unsurpassed by any European country, our +political and military achievements are but the fruitage of our long +history, but in industry we must simply wait through patient +generations to reach the stage represented by the Englishman, +Irishman, or German, who takes to machinery as if by instinct." + +All my investigations since have confirmed the philosophy of this +distinguished Japanese whose name, if I should mention it, would be +familiar to many in America and England. In the Tokyo branch of the +Kanegafuchi Spinning Company (a company which controls 300,000 +spindles) the director, speaking from the experience of one of the +greatest and best conducted industries in Japan, declared: "Your +skilled factory laborers in America or England will work four sides of +a ring frame; our unskilled laborer may work only one." A young +Englishman in another factory declared: "It takes five men here to do +work that I and my mate would take care of at home." An American +vice-consul told me that it takes three or four times as much Japanese +as foreign labor to look after an equal number of looms. A Japanese +expert just back from Europe declared recently that "Lancashire labor +is more expensive than ours, but really cheaper." Similarly the Tokyo +correspondent of the London _Times_ summing up an eight-column review +of Japanese industry, observed: "If we go to the bottom of the +question and consider what is being paid as wages and what is being +obtained as the product of labor in Japan, we may find that Japanese +labor is not cheaper than in other countries." + + +{38} + + +II + +My own conviction is that in actual output the Japanese labor is +somewhat cheaper than American or European labor, but not greatly so, +and that even this margin of excess in comparative cheapness +represents mainly a blood-tax on the lives and energies of the +Japanese people, the result of having no legislation to restrain the +ruinous overwork of women and little children--a grievous debt which +the nation must pay at the expense of its own stamina and which the +manufacturers must also pay in part through the failure to develop +experienced and able-bodied laborers. The latest "Japan Year Book" +expresses the view that "in per capita output two or three skilled +Japanese workers correspond to one foreign," but under present +conditions the difficulty here is to find the skilled workers at all. +When Mr. Oka, of the Department of Commerce and Agriculture, told me +that the average Japanese factory hand remains in the business less +than two years, I was astonished, but inquiry from original sources +confirmed the view. With the best system of welfare work in the +empire, the Kanegafuchi Company keeps its laborers two and a half {39} +to three years, but in a mill in Osaka of the better sort, employing +2500 hands, I was told that only 20 per cent, had been at work as long +as three years. Under such conditions, the majority of the operatives +at any time must be in a stage of deplorable inexperience, and it is +no wonder that the "Year Book" just quoted goes on to confess that +"one serious defect of the production is lack of uniformity in +quality--attributed to unskilled labor and overwork of machinery." + +The explanation of this situation, of course, is largely to be found +in the fact that Japanese industries are women's industries--there +being seven times as large a proportion of women to men, the +Department of Commerce informs me, as in European and American +manufacturing. These women workers are mostly from the country. Their +purpose is only to work two or three years before getting married, and +thousands of them, called home to marry the husbands their parents +have selected, or else giving way physically under strain, quit work +before their contracts expire. "We have almost no factory laborers who +look on the work as a life business," was an expression often repeated +to me. + +Not only in the mills, but in numerous other lines of work, have I +seen illustrations of the primitive stage of Japan's industrial +efficiency. As a concrete illustration I wish I might pass to each +reader the box of Kobe-made matches on the table before me (for +match-making of this sort is an important industry here, as well as +the sort conducted through matrimonial middlemen without waiting for +the aid or consent of either of the parties involved). I have never in +my life seen such a box of matches in America. Not in a hundred boxes +at home would you find so many splinters without heads, so many +defective matches. And in turning out the boxes themselves, I am told +that it takes five or six hands to equal the product of one skilled +foreign laborer. "It takes two or three Japanese servants to do the +work of one white servant" is the general verdict of housekeepers, +while it has also been brought to my {40} attention that in shops two +or three clerks are required to do the work of one at home. A Japanese +newspaper man (his paper is printed in English) tells me that linotype +compositors set only half as many ems per hour as in America. In +short, the general verdict as I have found it is indicated by what I +have written, and the most enthusiastic advocate of Japanese cheap +labor, the captain of the steamer on which I came from America, rather +spoiled his enthusiasm for getting his ship coaled at Nagasaki for +7-1/2 cents a ton, by acknowledging that if it rained he should have +to keep his ship waiting a day to get sufficient hands. + +Moreover, while the Japanese factory workers are forced into longer +hours than labor anywhere else--eleven hours at night this week, +eleven hours in the day next week--I am convinced that the people as a +whole are more than ordinarily averse to steady, hard, uninterrupted +toil. "We have a streak of the Malay in us," as a Japanese professor +said to me, "and we like to idle now and then. The truth is our people +are not workers; they are artists, and artists must not be hurried." +Certainly in the hurried production of the factory the Japanese +artistic taste seems to break down almost beyond redemption, and the +people seem unable to carry their habits of neatness and carefulness +into the new environment of European machinery. "Take the Tokyo street +cars," said an ex-cabinet officer to me; "the wheels are seldom or +never cleaned or oiled, and are half eaten by rust." The railroads are +but poorly kept up; the telephones exhaust your patience; while in the +case of telegraphing, your exasperation is likely to lose itself in +amazed amusement. A few days ago, for example, I sent a telegram from +Osaka to Kobe, took my rickshaw across town, waited for a slow train +to start, and then reached Kobe and the street destination of my +message before it did. + +In considering the failure of Japanese labor to bring forth a +satisfactory output, however, one thing more should be said, and that +is that we should not put the blame wholly on the {41} wage-earner. +Not a small proportion of the responsibility lies at the door of +inexpert managers. The family system of production has not only been +the rule for generations with that minority of the people not engaged +in farming, but it is still the dominant type of Japanese industry, +and it will take time even to provide opportunities for training a +sufficient corps of superintendents in the larger lines of production. + +In further illustration of my argument that cheap labor is not proving +so abnormally profitable, I may question whether Japanese factories +have paid as good dividends, in proportion to prevailing rates of +interest on money, as factories in England and America. Baron +Shibusawa, the dean of Japanese financiers and one of the pioneers in +cotton manufacturing, is my authority for the statement that 12 per +cent, would be a rather high estimate of the average rate of dividend, +while figures furnished by the Department of Finance show that for ten +years the average rate of interest on loans has been 11.25 per cent. + +The fact that Western ideas as to Japan's recent industrial advance +have been greatly exaggerated may also be demonstrated just here. +While the latest government figures show that in twelve years the +number of female factory operatives increased from 261,218 to 400,925 +and male factory operatives from 173,614 to 248,251, it is plain that +a manufacturing population of 649,000 in a country of 50,000,000 souls +is small, and the actual progress has not been so great as the +relative figures would indicate. Moreover, many so-called "factories" +employ less than ten persons and would not be called factories at all +in England or America. The absence of iron deposits is a great +handicap, the one steel foundry being operated by the government at a +heavy loss, and in cotton manufacturing, where "cheap labor" is +supposed to be most advantageous, no very remarkable advance has been +made in the last decade. From 1899 to 1909 English manufacturers so +increased their trade that in the latter year they imported $222 worth +of raw {42} cotton for every $100 worth imported ten years before, while +Japan in 1909 imported only $177 worth for each $100 worth a decade +previous--though of course she made this cotton into higher grade +products. + + +III + +It must also be remembered that the wages of labor in Japan are +steadily increasing and will continue to increase. More significant +than the fact of the low cost per day, to which I have already given +attention, is the fact that these wages represent an average increase +per trade of 40 per cent, above the wages eight years previous. The +new 1910 "Financial and Economic Annual" shows the rate of wages of +forty-six classes of labor for a period of eight years. For not one +line of labor is a decrease of wages shown, and for only two an +increase of less than 30 per cent.; sixteen show increases between 30 +and 40 per cent., seventeen between 40 and 50 per cent., eight from 50 +to 60 per cent., three from 60 to 70 per cent., while significantly +enough the greatest increase, 81 per cent., is for female servants, a +fact largely due to factory competition. In Osaka the British +vice-consul gave me the figures for the latest three-year period for +which figures have been published, indicating in these thirty-six +months a 30 per cent. gain in the wages of men in the factories and a +25 per cent, gain in the wages of women. + +Of no small significance in any study of Japanese industry must also +be the fact that there are in Japan proper a full half million fewer +women than men (1910 figures: men, 25,639,581; women, 25,112,338)--a +condition the reverse of that obtaining in almost every other country. +Now the young Japanese are a very home-loving folk, and even if they +were not, almost all Shinto parents, realizing the paramount +importance of having descendants to worship their spirits, favor and +arrange early marriages for their sons. And what with this competition +for {43} wives, the undiminished demand for female servants, and a +half million fewer women than men to draw from, the outlook for any +great expansion of manufacturing based on woman labor is not very +bright. Moreover, with Mrs. Housekeeper increasing her frantic bids +for servants 81 per cent, in eight years, and still mourning that they +are not to be had, it is plain that the manufacturer has serious +competition from this quarter, to say nothing of the further fact that +the Japanese girls are for the first time becoming well educated and +are therefore likely to be in steadily increasing demand as +office-workers. Upon this general subject the head of one of Osaka's +leading factories said to me: "I am now employing 2500 women, but if I +wished to enlarge my mill at once and employ 5000, it would be +impossible for me to get the labor, though I might increase to this +figure by adding a few hundred each year for several years." + +Unquestionably, too, shorter hours, less night work, weekly holidays, +and better sanitary conditions must be adopted by most manufacturers +if they are to continue to get labor. The Kobe _Chronicle_ quotes Mr. +Kudota, of the Sanitary Bureau, as saying that "most of the women +workers are compelled to leave the factories on account of their +constitutions being wrecked" after two or three years of night work, +consumption numbering its victims among them by the thousands. Either +the mills must give better food and lodging than they now provide or +else they must pay higher wages directly which will enable the +laborers to make better provision for themselves. + +Yet another reason why wages must continue to advance is the steady +increase in cost of living, due partly to the higher standard +developed through education and contact with Western civilization, but +perhaps even more largely to the fearful burden of taxation under +which the people are staggering. A usual estimate of the tax rate is +30 per cent. of one's income, while Mr. Wakatsuki, late Japanese +Financial Commissioner to London, is quoted as authority for the +statement {44} that the people now pay in direct and indirect taxes, +35 per cent, of their incomes. And I doubt whether even this estimate +includes the increased amounts that citizens are forced to pay for +salt and tobacco as a result of the government monopoly in these +products, or the greatly increased prices of sugar resulting from the +government's paternalistic efforts to guarantee prosperity to sugar +manufacturers in Formosa. + + +IV + +Higher still, and higher far than anything the nation has ever yet +known, must go the cost of living under the new tariff law. From a +British textile representative I learned the other day that a grade of +English woollens largely used by the Japanese for underwear will cost +over one third more under the new tariff, while the increased duty on +certain other lines of goods is indicated by the table herewith: + + PERCENTAGE OF DUTY TO COST OF ARTICLE + + Old Tariff New Tariff + + Printed goods 3 22 + + White lawns 10 47 + + Shirtings 10 39 + + Cotton Italians 3 35 + + Poplins 8 19 + + Brocades 10 22 + +Neither a nation nor an individual can lift itself by its bootstraps. +The majority of the thoughtful people in the empire seem to me to +realize even now that through the new tariff Japanese industry, as a +whole, is likely to lose much more by lessened ability to compete in +foreign markets than it will gain by shackled competition in the home +markets. Farseeing old Count Okuma, once Premier, and one of the +empire's Elder Statesmen, seemed to realize this more fully than any +other man I have seen. "Within two or three years from the time the +new law goes into force," he declared, "I am {45} confident that its +injurious effects will be so apparent that the people will force its +repeal. With our heavy taxes the margin of wages left for comfort is +already small, and with the cost of living further increased by the +new tariff, wages must inevitably advance. This will increase the cost +of our manufactured products, now exported mostly to China, India, and +other countries requiring cheap or low-grade goods, and where we must +face the competition of the foremost industrial nations of the world. +As our cost of production increases, our competition with Europe will +become steadily more difficult and a decrease in our exports will +surely follow. It is folly for one small island to try to produce +everything it needs. The tariff on iron, for example, can only hamper +every new industry by increasing the cost of machinery, and must +especially hinder navigation and shipbuilding, in which we have made +such progress." Not a few of the country's foremost vernacular dailies +are as outspoken as Count Okuma on this point, and the Kobe +_Chronicle_ declares that, with diminished exports to Japan, "British +manufacturers will find compensation in the lessened ability of the +Japanese to compete in China; and Japan will find that she has raised +prices against herself and damaged her own efficiency." + +That such will be the net result of Japan's new policy seems to me to +admit of no question. Unfortunately, certain special lines of British +and American manufacture may suffer, but, on the whole, what the white +man's trade loses in Japan will be recompensed for in China and India. +Even after Japan's adoption of the moderately protective tariff of +1899 her export of yarns to China--in the much discussed "market right +at her doors"--dropped from a product of 340,000 bales to a recent +average of 250,000 bales. From 1899 to 1908, according to the latest +published government figures, the number of employees in Japanese +cotton factories increased only 240--one third of 1 per cent.--or from +73,985 to 74,225, to be exact, while I have already alluded to the +figures showing the {46} comparative English and Japanese imports of +raw cotton from 1890 to 1909 as furnished me by Mr. Robert Young, of +Kobe, Japan in this period going from $30,000,000 to $54,000,000, or +77 per cent., while England's advance was from $135,000,000 to +$300,000,000, or 122 per cent. The increase in England's case, of +course, was largely, and in Japan's case almost wholly, due to the +increased price of the cotton itself, but the figures are none the +less useful for the purposes of comparison. + +In the frequent attempts of the Japanese Government to stimulate +special industries by subsidies and special privileges there is, it +seems to me, equally as little danger to the trade of Europe and +America in general (though here, too, special industries may suffer +now and then), because Japan is in this way simply handicapping +herself for effective industrial growth. Just at this writing we have +an illustration in the case of the Formosan sugar subsidy which seems +to have developed into a veritable Frankenstein; or, to use a homelier +figure, the government seems to be in the position of the man who had +the bear by the tail, with equal danger in holding on or letting go. +Already, as a result of the system of subsidies, bounties and special +privileges, individual initiative has been discouraged, a dangerous +and corrupting alliance of government with business developed, public +morals debased (as was strikingly brought out in the Dai Nippon sugar +scandal), and the people, as Mr. Sasano, of the Foreign Department, +complains, now "rely on the help of the government on all occasions." +On the same point the Tokyo _Keizai_ declares that "the habit of +looking to the government for assistance in all and everything, +oblivious of independent enterprise . . . has now grown to the chronic +stage, and unless it is cured the health and vitality of the nation +will ultimately be sapped and undermined." + +As for increasing complaints of "low commercial morality" brought +against Japanese merchants, that is not a matter of concern in this +discussion, except in so far as it may prove a form of Japanese +commercial suicide. But to one who holds {47} the view, as I do, that +the community of nations is enriched by every worthy industrial and +moral advance on the part of any nation, it is gratifying to find the +general alarm over the present undoubtedly serious conditions, and it +is to be hoped that the efforts of the authorities will result in an +early change to better methods. + + +V + + +Such is a brief review of the salient features of present-day Japanese +industry, and in no point do I find any material menace to the general +well-being of American and European trade. It is my opinion that the +Japanese will steadily develop industrial efficiency, but that in the +future no more than in the present will Japan menace European and +American industry (unless she is permitted to take unfair advantages +in Manchuria, Korea, etc.), for just in proportion as efficiency +increases, just in the same proportion, broadly speaking, wages and +standards of living will advance. The three--efficiency, wages, cost +of living--seem destined to go hand in hand, and this has certainly +been the experience thus far. And whatever loss we may suffer by +reason of Japan gradually supplanting us in certain cruder forms of +production should be abundantly compensated for in the better market +for our own higher-grade goods that we shall find among a people of +increasing wealth and steadily advancing standards of living. + +In any fair contest for the world's trade there seems little reason to +fear any disastrous competition from Japan. Perhaps she has been +allowed to make the contest unfair in Manchuria or elsewhere, but +that, as Mr. Kipling would say, is another story. + +Kobe, Japan. + + +{48} + + +VI + +BUDDHISM, SHINTOISM, AND CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN + + +One of the most fascinating places in all Japan is Kyoto, the old +capital of the empire, and one of its most picturesque and historic +cities. Without great factories such as Osaka boasts of, without the +political importance of Tokyo, and without shipping advantages such as +have made Kobe and Yokahoma famous, Kyoto is noted rather for +conserving the life of old Japan. Here are the family industries, the +handicrafts, and a hundred little arts in which the Land of the Rising +Sun excels. + +Little themselves in stature, the people of Japan are best in dealing +with little things requiring daintiness, finish, and artistic taste. +Some one has said that their art is "great in little things and little +in great things," and unlike many epigrams, it is as true as it is +terse. + +A traveler gets the impression that most of their shops, or "stores," +as we say in America, are for selling bric-a-brac, toys, lacquer ware, +bronzes, or ornamental things of one kind or another; but perhaps this +is largely because they give an artistic or ornamental appearance to a +thousand utensils and household articles which in America would be raw +and plain in their obvious practicality. The room in which I write is +a fine illustration of this: finished in natural, unpainted woods, +entirely without "fussiness" or show, and yet with certain touches and +bits of wood carving that make it a work of art. Upon this point I +must again quote Lafcadio Hearn, whose {49} books, although often more +poetic and laudatory than accurate, are nevertheless too valuable to +be neglected by any student of Japan: + + "It has been said that in a Greek city of the fourth century before + Christ every household utensil, even the most trifling object, was + in respect of design an object of art; and the same fact is true, + though in another and stranger way, of all things in a Japanese + home; even such articles of common use as a bronze candlestick, a + brass lamp, an iron kettle, a paper lantern, a bamboo curtain, a + wooden tray, will reveal to educated eyes a sense of beauty and + fitness entirely unknown to Western cheap production." + +Like most old Japanese cities, Kyoto is proud of its temples, Buddhist +and Shinto. And perhaps I should explain just here the difference +between these two faiths that were long merged into one, but have been +dissociated since the restoration of the Emperor to his old-time +powers forty years ago. Shinto is the ancient Japanese system of +ancestor-worship, with its doctrine of the divine descent of the +Mikado from the Sun-goddess and its requirement that every faithful +adherent make daily offerings to the spirits of the family's +ancestors. With the future life or with moral precepts for this life +it does not concern itself. "Obey the Emperor and follow your own +instincts," is the gist of the Shinto religion, in so far as it may be +called a religion at all: the tendency is to consider it only a form +of patriotism and not a religion. + +Buddhism, on the other hand, is an elaborate system of theology +comprising a great variety of creeds, and insisting upon much +ecclesiastical form and ceremony, however little it may have to do +with practical morals. "The fact is, we Japanese have never gotten our +morals from our religion," said one quasi-Buddhist newspaper man to me +in Tokyo. "What moral ideas we have came neither from Shintoism nor +Buddhism, but largely from Confucius and the Chinese classics." + +Buddhism as it left India may have been a rather exalted religious +theory, but if so, then in Japan it has certainly {50} degenerated +into a shameless mockery of its former self. To read Sir Edwin +Arnold's glorification of theoretical Buddhism in his "Light of Asia," +and then see practical Buddhism in Japan with all its superstitions +and idolatries, is very much like hearing bewitched Titania's praise +of her lover's beauty and then turning to see the long ears and hairy +features of the ass that he has become. + +Nor is it without significance that Sir Edwin Arnold himself coming to +Buddhist Japan dropped into open and flagrant immoralities such as a +Christian community would never have tolerated, while the foremost +American-bred apologists for Buddhism here have been but little +better. One of the greatest and wealthiest temples in Kyoto is more +notorious right now for the vices of its sacred (?) officials than for +any virtues in its creed, and one of the high priests, like the +Emperor himself, has a dozen or more women in his household. Some +Buddhists are making an earnest effort to bring about at least an +outward reformation of their organization, but the difficulties are +such as to make the success of the undertaking very improbable. With +the usual Japanese quality of imitativeness they have started "Young +Men's Buddhist Associations," "Sunday schools," etc., and are also +beginning to follow the example set by the Christians of participating +in philanthropic and charitable work. In the Buddhist service I +attended last Sunday the gorgeously robed priest sat on a raised altar +in the centre of the room, with other priests ranged about him, and +the general service, as usual, was much as if they had copied the +Catholic ritual. + +After the Buddhist ceremonies, I went to the Christian service at the +Congregational School, or Doshisha, where the sound of the +American-born minister's voice was punctuated by the street sounds of +whirring rickshaw wheels and the noisy getas of passing Buddhists, +while outside the window I could see the bamboo trees and the now +familiar red disk and white border of the Mikado's flag. Prayer was +offered for {51} "the President of the United States, the King of +Great Britain, the Emperor of Germany, and the Emperor of Japan." + +At night I was even more interested, even though I could not +understand a word, in a native Japanese service I attended for half an +hour. Although there was a downpour of rain the chapel was comfortably +filled and the faces of the worshippers, I thought, were of more than +ordinary intelligence and promise, while their sincerity is +illustrated by the fact that numbers of the women Christians are +actually depriving themselves of suitable food in order to give money +for erecting a larger church building. + +The next evening I took tea with a missionary who has in his home one +of the public notices (dated March, 1868,) and common throughout the +empire forty odd years ago, prohibiting Christianity, the ancient +penalty being nothing less than death itself. The explanation of this +notice is found in a bit of history. Three hundred and sixty years ago +the Catholics came here, started missions, and made many converts +among the lords or daimyios, who ordered their followers also to +become Catholics, with the result that by the time of the first +English settlement at Jamestown, in 1607, there were from 600,000 to +1,000,000 Christians, nominal and actual, away over here in Japan. +Seven years later, however, government persecution began, Christianity +was put under the ban, and so remained until eight years after our +Civil War ended. Many Christians suffered martyrdom for their faith in +this long period; and a few who escaped detection even secretly handed +their faith down from father to son through all the long generations +until tolerance came again. + +Dr. A. D. Hail, of Osaka, tells me that even as late as 1885 an old +man from the "backwoods," as we should say, came to a village where +Dr. Hail's brother was a missionary, discovered for the first time +that a man might be a Christian without being punished, and then +confessed that each day he had worshipped secretly at a little +Catholic shrine hidden in {52} his wall, as his father and his father's +father had done before him. + +As another illustration of the changed attitude toward Christianity, I +may mention that a Japanese Buddhist once came to Doctor Hail's +services armed with a dagger to kill the preacher, but had his +attention caught by the sermon while waiting his chance and is now a +missionary himself! + +Perhaps in no other respect is Christianity working a greater change +than in the general estimate of woman, although this is an objection +the natives openly urge against Christianity. Just as in any conflict +of interest the family in Japan has been everything and the individual +nothing, so in every disagreement between husband and wife his +opinions count for everything, hers for nothing. The orthodox and +traditional Japanese view as to a woman's place has been very +accurately and none too strongly set forth by the celebrated Japanese +moralist, Kaibarra, writing on "The Whole Duty of Woman": + + "The great lifelong duty of a woman is obedience. . . . Should her + husband be roused at any time to anger, she must obey him with fear + and trembling, and never set herself up against him in anger and + forwardness. A woman should look on her husband as if he were Heaven + itself and never weary of thinking how she may yield to her husband, + and thus escape celestial castigation." + +Similarly, in the "Greater Learning for Women" it is declared: + + "The five worst maladies that afflict the female mind are + indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy and silliness. These five + maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is + from these that arises the inferiority of women to men." + + +{53} + + [Illustration: THE GREAT BUDDHA (DIABUTSU) AT KAMAKURA.] + This gigantic figure of Buddha (a man's head would barely reach the + statue's feet) singularly expresses the spirit of serene + contemplation for which the Buddhist religion stands; is indeed, + hauntingly suggestive of that dreamy Nirvana which it teaches is the + goal of existence. There is perhaps no finer piece of statuary in + the East than this. + +{54} + + [Illustration: THE DEGENERATE KOREANS AT REST AND AT WORK.] + The favorite occupation is smoking, but in the lower picture three + men together are managing to operate one spade. One man rams it into + the ground, and the other two (by means of ropes attached) jerk out + the shovelful of earth! + + +{52 continued} + +The wife of the missionary I visited in Osaka told me one or two +amusing incidents--amusing in one aspect and pathetic in another--that +are of interest in this connection. A Japanese member of her church +declared: No, no, Mrs. {55} "Hail, you can't ever make me believe that +my wife is as good as I am!" On another occasion she was teaching a +Sunday-school class concerning the woman of Samaria, and asked: "Why +did Jesus ask the woman to call her husband?" And the Japanese answer +was: "Because he was going to talk on intellectual things and she +needed some man to help her understand!" + +Dr. Sidney Gulick, with whom I had tea in Kyoto, tells of tying his +wife's shoes on the street, on one occasion, only to find the Japanese +amazed that a man should so humble himself. His wife's taking his arm +in walking was also regarded as the height of impropriety! + +No religion of the Far East has ever recognized the dignity of woman, +probably because no religion has ever recognized the worth of the +individual. Just as I have said, that in the old days, and almost as +largely to-day, in the relations of the home, it was the family that +counted and not the individual, so in his relations to the larger +world beyond the individual formerly counted for nothing when weighed +against the wishes of the superior classes. In the earliest days, when +the lord died, a number of his subjects were buried with him to wait +upon his spirit in the Beyond. Later, with the same object in view, +wives and servants committed suicide on the death of the master. Even +now it is regarded as honorable for a girl to sell herself into shame +to save the family from want. + +The same antipodal difference between East and West--here "the family +is the social unit" and with us the individual himself--explains the +system of adoption: a younger son not being essential to the +maintenance of the family cult may be adopted into another family, +while the eldest son may not. On the same principle the father rules, +not because of what he represents as an Individual, but because he +represents the Family. Whenever he chooses, he abdicates, and must +then join his other children in obeying the eldest son. + +In the relations of citizenship the same disregard of {56} individual +rights was the ancient rule, not merely in the fact that for centuries +the smallest details of everyday life were regulated by law, but more +seriously in that the Samurai, or privileged class, might "cut down in +cold blood a beggar, a merchant, or a farmer on the slightest +provocation, or simply for the purpose of testing his sword," while in +case of the ruin of their cause it was the honorable and natural thing +for soldiers to commit "hari-kiri"--that is to say, commit suicide by +disemboweling themselves. A Japanese writer recently declared that +"the value of the individual life is an illustration of the Christian +spirit" that is profoundly influencing Japan, and he mentioned as an +example that formerly suicide, in such circumstances as I have +mentioned, "was regarded as an honorable act; now it is regarded as a +sin." + +Without professing the religion of fatalism which so influences the +peoples of the Nearer East, the Japanese soldiers behave like +fatalists because the fundamental basis of the social order for +centuries has been the necessity of the Individual to sacrifice +pleasure, comfort, or life itself when required either by the Family +or by the Social Order. And this partially explains why it is said in +sober earnest that the highest ambition of most Japanese schoolboys +to-day is to die for their Emperor. + +--- + +This is my last letter from Japan, and my next letter will be from +Korea--if the cholera doesn't get me. It has been raging in Osaka and +in Kobe, both of which cities I have thought it necessary to visit in +order to get first-hand information about industrial conditions. +Ordinarily, the cholera victim lives only a few hours. The first day's +record here in Kobe, I believe, showed six cases and five deaths. +Gradually, however, cholera is being stamped out, just as we have +eradicated yellow fever in Cuba and the South, and just as we shall +eventually come to recognize the prevalence of typhoid in any town as +a disgrace--an evidence of primitive and uncivilized {57} sanitary +conditions. A friend of mine who came to Osaka in 1879 tells me that +there were 10,000 cholera victims in that one city that year--the +yellow flag on almost every street, and all through the night the +sound of men hurrying past with new victims for the hospitals or with +new corpses for the burning. In the thirteen years 1878-91 more than +313,000 Japanese died of the scourge. + +I regret to say good-by to Japan. It is a tremendously interesting +country. For just as America represents the ultimate type of +Occidental civilization, so does Japan represent the ultimate type of +Oriental civilization. + +More than this, it is here that the full tides of Oriental and +Occidental life are now meeting for the first time in human history. +For centuries uncounted the yellow man advanced across the plains and +peaks of Asia, finding at last in these outlying islands his +farthermost outpost, and so tarried here in the Farthest East, "the +Land of the Rising Sun." He hardly thought of the existence of a West, +but if his Buddha-like composure had been ruffled by such a thought, +he might have droned monotonously: + + "Oh, East is East, and West is West, + and never the twain shall meet." + +But while the yellow man had thus moved steadily eastward, the white +man, starting from the land of the Euphrates, had pitched his camp, +with each succeeding generation, nearer and nearer the setting sun. +Greece--Rome--Spain--France--England--then four hundred years ago, +more restless than the Mongolian, the white man dared the seas that +hemmed him in and found a new continent to people. Westward still the +course of empire then continued until in our time the white man +planted his civilization on the Pacific Coast. + +There was no more West. + +Then it was, as if in obedience to a cosmic, racial instinct deeper +than reason, the white man sent his messengers across the new-found +ocean and awakened the Sleepy World {58} of the Yellow Man by the +booming of Perry's guns off Yokahoma. + +The Kingdom of Heaven, we are told, cometh not with observation, and +the deeper meaning of the greatest events in human history may often +escape the attention of contemporaries. My father and yours, perhaps, +heard little and thought less of Perry's exploit, and yet it marked +not merely a new historical epoch, but a new act in the long drama of +human evolution itself. Curious, too, it is to observe how the strange +world-destiny that shapes our ends gave to it a stage-setting in +keeping with its dramatic significance. Not to England, nor to any +other great naval and commercial Power of the time, but to the young +United States--the nation that had found the ultimate West--came the +unlikely but strangely fitting task of opening the Farthest East to +Western trade and thought. + +When at last the world has grown old and nations and empires not yet +formed shall themselves have gone the mortal way common alike to human +creatures and human creations, I think the far historian will record +few events either more dramatic or more pregnant with undreamed-of +meaning than Perry's entrance into Japanese waters just five years +after the discovery of gold in California had ended the world-old +drama of our westward march. + +So to-day, as I have said, the full tides of Orient and Occident have +rushed together in Japan, and it is not merely a land of curious +customs and strange phenomena, but a land in which the contrasts exist +side by side, and most interesting of all, a land of strangely +mingling social and industrial currents. East and West have met, and +we wait to see what forces in each shall prevail when the shock of +their fierce encounter shall have passed. For it is not merely Japan, +but all Asia, whose future may be affected by the outcome of the new, +tense struggle here between the ideals of West and East. + +As on the streets of Tokyo and Yokahoma the Japanese {59} in European +dress jostles his brother in native garb, as streams of men in coats +and trousers and shoes mingle with men wearing kimonas, hikamas, and +getas, so in the minds of the people the teachings of modern science +and Confucian classic meet; the faith of the Christian grapples with +the faith of the Buddhist; the masterful aspirations of Western +civilization surge against the old placidity of the East. + +What shall be the outcome? Upon nothing else, it seems to me, depends +so much as upon the religious foundation upon which Japan seeks to +build the structure of her newer and richer life. Many of her people, +if I may change the figure, are seeking to put the new wine of +Christian civilization into the old bottles of Shinto and Buddhist +ritualism. That this must fail is, I think, self-evident. Many others, +like the iconoclasts of the French Revolution, would sweep away all +religion, but they will find that they are fighting against an +ineradicable instinct of human nature, the innate craving of the +divine in man. + +In my own brief stay in Japan I have seen enough to convince me of the +truth of both the foregoing observations. I confess that I came to the +country with a distinct doubt as to the wisdom of stressing mission +work here--came thinking the field less promising then elsewhere. But +I go away with no such feeling. What I have seen and heard has +dispelled my doubts. Speaking simply as a journalist and a student of +social and industrial conditions, I believe that to-day Japan needs +nothing more than Christian missionaries--men who are willing to +forget dogma and tradition and creedal differences in emphasizing the +fundamental teachings of Christ Himself, and who have education, +sympathy, and vision to fit them for the stupendous task of helping +mold a new and composite type of human civilization, a type which may +ultimately make conquest of the whole Oriental half of our human race. + +Kobe, Japan. + + +{60} + + +VII + +KOREA: "THE LAND OF THE MORNING CALM" + + +I have become a contemporary of David and the patriarchs of Israel. In +the civilization into which I have come science and invention are in +swaddling clothes, the Pyramids are yet young, the great nations of +Western Europe still in the womb of Time. + +This at least is how I have felt now that, having left Japan, I am +travelling through Korea, "the Land of the Morning Calm"--or "Chosen," +as the Japanese will call it hereafter--whose authentic recorded +history runs back into the twelfth century before the Christian era, +and whose general features must have changed but little in all this +time. A typical Korean view of the present year might well be +photographed to illustrate a Sunday-school lesson from the Old +Testament. + +The men in the fields I have seen plow with bullocks harnessed in the +primitive fashion of the earliest civilization. Their plow stocks are +of wood rough-hewn from their native forest trees, the plowman here +never standing between the "plow-handles," as we say, because there is +only one handle and that little better than a stick of firewood. With +sickles equally primitive I have seen men cutting the ripe rice in the +fields; with flails, beating out their grain. Their houses, hardly +high enough to stand up in, are little more than four square rock +walls with roofs of straw, over which pumpkin vines clamber or on +which immense quantities of red pepper are drying in the autumn sun. +Nor would the dress of the people--everybody {61} in white (or what +was once white) garments--have seemed strange in ancient Judea. + +There is also the same mixture of plains and peaks as Bible pictures +of the Holy Land have made familiar, and at night, as October's +hunters' moon glorifies all the landscape, a faint light gleaming here +and there from an opening in the rock huts, and with Arcturus and the +Pleiades of Job in the sky, it has seemed almost sacrilege to mar the +ancient environment by such an anachronism as a modern railway +locomotive. Rather, in looking out over the picturesque mountains and +valleys and sniffing the cool, dry air, you feel "the call of the +wild" in your blood. Across long centuries the life of your far-gone +nomadic ancestors calls to you. Almost irresistibly you are moved to +take a human friend and a friendly horse or pony and pitch your camp +out under the great stars--larger and brighter indeed do they seem to +burn here in the Orient--and feel the dew on your face as you awaken +in the "morning calm" of the ancient Hermit Kingdom, whose feeble life +was snuffed out, like the flame of a burnt-down candle, but a few +short months ago. + +As I came into Seoul three nights ago I found it hardly less +fascinating than the country through which I had travelled during the +day. Through ancient streets, unlit by any electric glare, strangely +robed, almost spirit-like white figures were gliding here and there in +the moonlight, singly or in groups, and but a few minutes' ride in our +rickshaws brought us to the old South Gate. Great monument of a dead +era is it, relic of the days when Seoul trusted to its ten miles of +massive stone walls (already a century old when Columbus set sail from +Palos) to keep out the war-like Mongol and Tartar. + +In Japan I found a different world from that which I had known, but a +world in which East and West were strangely mingled: much of the +familiar with the unfamiliar. Here in Korea, on the contrary, I have +found the real East, the Asia of romance, of tradition and of fable, +almost untouched by {62} Western influences--dirty, squalid, +unprogressive, and yet with a fascination all its own. Great bare +mountains look down on the capital city, the old city-wall climbing +their steep sides, and the historic Han flows through an adjacent +valley. The thatched or tiled roofs of the houses are but little +higher than one's head, and I shall never forget what a towering +skyscraper effect is produced by a photographer's little two-story +studio building on the main street of the city. Practically every +other building is but little higher and not greatly larger as a rule, +than the pens in which our American farmers fatten hogs in the fall. +Most American merchants would expect to make more in a day than the +average white-robed, easy-going Seoul merchant has in stock, but he +smokes his long-stemmed pipe in peaceful contemplation of the world +and doesn't worry. There are no sidewalks in Seoul, of course, +although it has been for five centuries (until now) the capital of a +kingdom, and a quarter of a million people call the city their home; +no carriages or buggies, no sewerage, and but few horses. There are +miserable little overloaded ponies that the average farmer would feel +that he could pitch single-handed into his barn-loft, but the +burden-carriers are mostly bulls that are really magnificent in +appearance, both oxen and ponies carrying loads on their backs that an +American would expect to crush them. + +The customs are odd indeed. Men wear enormous straw hats as a badge of +mourning, but the usual style of head-dress is to shave the extreme +summit of the head, while the rest of the hair grows long and is +braided up in a sort of topknot with a little bird-cage hat above it. +This hat is then tied under the chin as an American woman would tie +hers. + +Girls are but little seen on the streets, custom requiring them to +stay indoors before marriage, and the married women, when on the +street are likely to wear a sort of green wrap thrown over their heads +and shoulders that leaves only their eyes and contiguous facial +territory exposed. The tourist is at first {63} inclined to think that +there are many young girls on the streets, but this is because the +boys dress as we have grown used to seeing girls dress in America. +Take the young boy who waits on my table: fair of feature in his neat +white dress, and with a long glossy hair-plait hanging down his back, +you would think him some fair Korean maiden. When he gets married a +little later, probably at seventeen or eighteen, he will shave his +head (not necessarily as a sign of mourning!) and wear his hair +thereafter in the manner described in the preceding paragraph. An +English missionary-doctor's pretty daughter here yesterday (and how +pretty an English or American girl does look in this far land!) told +me that a Korean girl of twenty or twenty-one is regarded as a rather +desperate old maid, and the go-betweens, who arrange the marriages +here as they do in Japan, are likely to charge a rather steep sum for +getting a husband for one so far advanced in spinsterhood! The chances +are that the groom doesn't see his bride until the ceremony, and she +doesn't even see him then, for according to the curious custom here +the bride's eyes are sealed up until late afternoon of her wedding +day. More than this, custom requires that the bride must keep +absolutely unbroken silence all the day long, and for a varying length +of time thereafter. Mrs. Bishop in her book on Korea asserts that "it +may be a week or several months before the husband knows the sound of +his wife's voice,"--and the nature of the dear creatures in America +will of course insure the ready acceptance of her statement! + +The go-betweens are often not very scrupulous, and for good fees +sometimes manage to palm off damsels of unsatisfactory features on +unsuspecting swains, or match undesirable young fellows with girls +vastly superior to them. A rather amusing instance was reported to me +by the young lady from whom I have just quoted. One of the officials +or noblemen in Seoul had a daughter whom the go-between was preparing +to marry off into a family of rank in another city. A few days before +the wedding-day-set-to-be, some one came to {64} the father of the +bride and said: "Did you know that your prospective son-in-law has a +hare-lip?" Now a hare-lip in Korea is not merely such an undesirable +addition to one's countenance as to make a Mrs. Wiggs happy because of +being without it, but under the old dispensation no one with a +harelip, or other like facial blemish, could be presented at court and +thereby introduced into the Four Hundred of this capital city. +Therefore the father waxed thoughtful from his topknot to the end of +his long-stem pipe. "I tell you what I'll do," he finally said to his +wife. "We'll go ahead with the ceremony, but instead of my daughter +I'll substitute my orphan niece." And he did, and the young fellow +didn't know any better for a week. + +Fortunately, however, my story doesn't end here. I am extremely glad +to add the usual "lived-happily-ever-after" peroration, for that was +really what happened in this case. The father of my young lady +informant, who is a doctor, sewed up the young fellow's lip, he was +presented at court, and the real daughter who so narrowly escaped +marrying may be an old maid, for all I know. + +In such a high, dry climate as this one would expect to find little +tuberculosis, but I am told that there is really a great deal of it, +due to the carelessness of the families where there are victims, and +to the generally unsanitary conditions. A daughter of one of the +Southern missionaries here, having contracted the malady, has just +gone to Arizona in search of cure. Everywhere on the streets I +encounter faces marked by smallpox, and formerly to have had the +disease was the rule rather than the exception. In fact, instead of +alluding to a man's inexperience by saying "He hasn't cut his eye +teeth," as we do, a Korean would say: "He hasn't had smallpox." Since +vaccination became the rule, however, there are very few cases. + +Infant mortality here, as in America, is one of the greatest factors +in the high death-rate, but conditions are improving. {65} And so long +as authorities declare that in America half the infant death-rate is +due to ignorance or neglect, we haven't much right to point a scornful +finger at Korea, anyhow. + +I have already alluded to the fact that the old monarchial government +of Korea ended its inglorious career but a few short months ago. While +the records of the nation run back more than three thousand +years--probably to a period when Job was so superbly reproaching his +comforters in the Land of Uz--the late dynasty runs back only 500 +years. We Americans, I may say in passing, are accustomed to think of +men of five hundred years ago, or even of John Smith and Pocahontas, +as very ancient, but a pedigree of only five hundred years wouldn't +entitle a family to enter good society over here. But though only five +hundred years in power, this recent dynasty succeeded in doing about +as much devilment and as little good as many dynasties much older in +years. One of the missionaries explained to me yesterday that it was +only when the King got very mad that he would order heads cut off +without reason--but then the Koreans are very lazy and his inactivity +at other periods may have been due to sloth. + +The truth is, that most of these Oriental monarchies have been corrupt +beyond the belief of the average American. When I was a boy I used to +hear the old men in country churches thank God for the blessings of +orderly government and for the privilege of worshipping as they chose, +"with no one to molest us or make us afraid." As a rule, we take such +things as matters of course, but when one comes over here into Asia +and into countries where the people have been cursed by corrupt +governments, where innocent lives have been taken upon the mere whim +of the government, where property has been confiscated with no better +reason, and where men have had to die for their faiths:--when he, in +short, comes into lands where the rights of neither life, property nor +conscience have been respected, he is likely to prize his American +privileges somewhat more highly. + +{66} + +The old Korean dynasty was not only corrupt, but unspeakably stupid. +Like the people, the King relied on sorcerers or fortune-tellers to +find a lucky day or a lucky time of the moon to do whatever he wished, +and in case of sickness consulted the mutang, or conjurer, instead of +a doctor. Thus when the prince had smallpox some years ago, the mutang +declared that the Smallpox Spirit or devil (who must always be +referred to with great respect as "His Excellency") would not leave +unless allowed to ride horseback clear to the Korean boundary, three +hundred miles away; and a gayly caparisoned horse was accordingly led +the entire distance for His Excellency, the Smallpox Spirit, to ride +away on! + +The government was also unfeignedly corrupt. Offices were given, just +as lives were taken merely at the whim of the Throne. Taxes were +farmed out, the grafting collectors taking from the people probably +five or six times as much as finally reached the public treasury. More +than this, the nobility robbed the people at will, and there was no +authority from whom they could get redress. Woe unto the man who +became energetic and industrious under the old dispensation! First, +the tax-gatherers would relieve him of the bulk of his swollen +fortune, and what was left the noble or "Yang-ban," as a noble was +called, would take the trouble to borrow but never take the trouble to +repay. For the Yang-ban was a "gentleman," he was. It was beneath his +dignity to work--even to guide the reins of the horse he rode--but it +was not beneath his dignity to sponge on his friends (I think the verb +"to sponge" is too expressive to remain slang) or to borrow without +repaying. Moreover, in case of extremity, it is said that Mother +Yang-ban and Sister Ann might take in washing, as is recorded in the +classic lays of our own land, but Father never defiled himself by +doing anything so dishonorable as an honest day's work. + +But alas and alack! for the degeneracy of our times. The Yang-bans in +Korea have been deprived of their ancient {67} privileges, and I fear +that even their fellows in America are by no means treated with the +ancient deference and respect due to persons of such exalted merit and +blue-blood. + +What with the arbitrary and oppressive system of tax-robbery and the +extortions of the Yang-bans it is not surprising that the Koreans here +became disinclined to labor, while those who went to Manchuria, where +there has been "proper security for the gains of industry" are said to +be quite a different folk--energetic because there has been +encouragement to be energetic. The old Korean system of taxation being +arbitrary, the only way to escape a raid by the tax-gatherer was to +appear not to have anything worth raiding, and with the coinage +confined usually to the copper "cash" (each "cash" worth a small +fraction of a cent), it was difficult for a man to have much money +without everybody knowing it. If a man had much he needed a warehouse +to store it in. Mrs. Bishop in her book, already referred to, speaks +of a time when it took 3200 "cash" to equal a dollar in our money, +making each coin worth 1-32 of a cent, and it took six men or one pony +to carry $50 worth of coin! Another instance is mentioned in the +Japanese official Year Book on Korea. The Japanese army bought $5000 +worth of timber in the interior, where the people were not used to any +other currency, with the result that "the army had to charter a small +steamer and fill her completely with this copper cash to finance the +transaction!" I bought a few long, necklace-like strings of this old +Korean money at ten cents a string, and even then probably paid too +much. + +When I bought my ticket for Korea it was nominally an independent +monarchy under a Japanese "protectorate," but the day before I sailed +from San Francisco, Japanese aggression took another step and the +country was formally annexed as a part of the Japanese Empire. There +is little doubt, I suppose, that the Japanese will give the Koreans +better government than the old monarchy gave them, but one {68} cannot +excuse all the methods by which Japan fastened her rule on the island. +Yesterday morning I went out to the Old North Palace, a deserted and +melancholy memorial of vanished power, stood on the throne where +Korean kings once held audience, and saw the royal dwelling in which +the Japanese and their aids killed the Queen in 1895, and also saw the +place where they burned her body. The Japanese minister at that time +was recalled and placed on trial for the offence, and, though he +escaped conviction, the evidence of his guilt was undoubted. It has +been estimated that in about eighteen months in 1907-'08, "12,916 +Koreans, called 'insurgents' by the Japanese and patriots by their +fellow countrymen, were killed by the Mikado's soldiers and gendarmes, +only 160 of whom lost their lives." This looks more like butchery than +war. Moreover, the Japanese themselves have to admit that there were +inexcusable delays in paying for land seized from Koreans, and in view +of all the circumstances it is questionable whether the Korean hatred +or dislike of Japan will become very much less cordial than it is +to-day. + +Perhaps in no country in the world has missionary work been more +successful than in Korea (there are probably 125,000 Protestants now, +while there were only 777 thirteen years ago), and I have been +interested to learn that there is absolutely no truth in the Japanese +newspaper reports that immense numbers of native Christians are +leaving the church since annexation. On the contrary, reports from all +over the country are good, and Seoul itself is just now in the midst +of a most thoroughgoing and successful Christian revival, with 1800 +conversions reported during the first ten days. At a Methodist mission +school I visited this morning I found that a hundred of the native +pupils had been canvassing the town a part of three successive +afternoons with the result that they had brought in the names of 697 +Koreans expressing a desire to become Christians. + +Here in Korea there is no waste of energy or money through {69} +denominational divisions. Each denomination has its own sphere of +activity, preventing duplication of effort, and my general observation +has convinced me that the criticisms of foreign mission work sometimes +heard in America are based on a radical misconception of conditions. +Even the non-Christians, in the great majority of cases, speak in high +praise of the splendid work of the missionaries. A typical expression +is that found in the latest issue of the Shanghai _National Review_, +now before me, which may be expected to speak impartially. Referring +to an address by Doctor Morrison, the Peking correspondent of the +London _Times_, it says: + + "Doctor Morrison eulogized the work of the missionaries and we + cannot conceive that anybody who really knows of their work at first + hand, not as it is to be found in extreme cases, but as ordinarily + carried on, should do otherwise than eulogize it." + +Seoul, Korea. + + +{70} + + +VIII + +MANCHURIA--FAIR AND FERTILE + + +"Uneasily sleeps Mukden to-night"--I remember yet how one of the +dispatches began which brought so vividly to my mind the meaning of +the great death-grapple here between the Japanese and Russian hosts in +1905. + + [Footnote: "Uneasily sleeps Mukden to-night. In the main street + lamps burn dimly. Along dark roads in heavy dust are marching + columns. The cool night is full of the low rustle of movement. Near + the station, in over-filled hospitals, are heard low groans. The + wounded arrive in a never-ceasing stream of carts, and another + stream of ambulances moves northward, for the place must be cleared + for to-day's victims. The eternal pines whisper above the Tombs of + Chinese Emperors. In the fields watch fires are burning stores and + evacuated villages----" And the correspondent goes on to tell of the + wearied forces gathering for further fighting with the coming of + dawn--men footsore and weak for want of food and water and rest. For + forty-eight hours the Japanese had not eaten.] + +The story in a nutshell is this: + + "After the capitulation of Port Arthur, Oyama pressed toward Mukden, + where Kuropatkin had established his headquarters, and there from + February 24 to March 12 occurred probably the most desperate battle + in modern history, if not in all history. About eight hundred + thousand men were engaged. Again Oyama won, and Kuropatkin retreated + in fairly good order about a hundred miles north of Mukden." + +So runs the historian's brief record of the titanic struggle five +years ago in the ancient Manchurian city to which I have come. What +Gettysburg was in our Civil War, that Mukden was in the first great +contest between the white race and the Mongolian. Here covetous Death +for once was satisfied, his gruesome garnering seen at each wintry +nightfall in the {71} windrows of bloody and mangled bodies strewn along +miles of snowy trenches. + +I have heard all sorts of war traditions in Mukden: that at one time +the Japanese thought themselves beaten in the battle and had ordered a +retreat, when, a Russian force giving way, they turned quickly to +press the advantage and snatched victory from what they had thought +was ruin. There are many stories, too, of the inefficiency of the +Russian officers, stories made all the more probable in the light of +the Russian Commander Kuropatkin's memoirs to the same general effect. +"Why, the English would put one of their admirals against the wall and +shoot him like a common seaman for such gross neglect of duty as went +entirely unpunished among Russian generals," was one man's comment as +he talked with me. "The Rooshians were good fighters--fought 'and to +'and with the butt of their muskets--and if they 'ad 'ad good +commanders the Japs would never have won," said an Englishman who had +seen service in India. A railway man also told me of the debauchery +and profligacy of the Russian officers, disreputable women travelling +regularly with them to and fro, drunkenness being also common. About +the same charges were reported to me by a Japanese officer. In fact, +it is said that the Japanese contrived to get a very considerable +quantity of champagne to the Russian headquarters one day, and the +next day made a slaughter-pen of the Russian camp while the Cossack +commanders were still hopelessly befuddled from too much drinking! + +The truth is that the Japanese, from camp-followers to +commander-in-chief, were prepared for war and the Russians were not. +From the day that Russia, aided by France and Germany, forced Japan to +cede back to China some of the fruits of her victory over the Chinese, +from that hour Japan nursed and fed fat her rankling grudge and bided +her time as deliberately as a tiger waiting to spring. While I was in +Japan an Englishman told me that immediately after Russia forced Japan +{72} to give up her spoils of victory he was amazed to see the +tremendous interest in the military drills in all the Japanese +schools. When he asked what it meant, there was one frank answer: "We +are getting ready to lick Russia." + +It should also be observed that when the war came on the Japanese were +not only in a state of preparedness so far as battleships and army +drill and munitions of war were concerned, but they were also prepared +in the vital matter of proper medical attendance. + +"When your American soldiers went with Shafter into Cuba the army was +utterly without proper medical corps and equipment, and the death-rate +was disgracefully high. But the first Japanese who fell in crossing +the Yalu were taken at once to the best of Japanese surgeons and cared +for in the most approved of modern military hospitals." So said a +frank Scotchman to me yesterday, and in the light of the official +statistics I could say nothing in palliation of the unpleasant +allusion to America. When the war with Russia ended, Baron Takaki, +Surgeon-General of the Japanese Army, boasted that whereas in the +Spanish-America War "fourteen men died from preventable diseases to +one man killed on the field of battle," the Japanese had lost only one +man from disease to every four from bullets. Now the Japanese, as +usual, had not worked out any of the principles of medical science, +sanitation, and hygiene which enabled them to make this remarkable +record, but they showed their characteristic facility in taking the +white man's inventions and getting as much or more--more in this +case--out of them than the white man himself. + +The Japanese record, showing in such amazing fashion what a wisely +directed health organization may accomplish, is worth remembering not +only in connection with plans for military efficiency, but also in +connection with plans for general public health activities at home. +Every State should spend five times as much for this public health +work as at present. + +In 1910 the forgetful Manchurian earth bears but few traces {73} of +the fierce contest that only five or six years ago scarred its bosom, +and the serried shocks of newly harvested corn, _kaoliang_ (sorghum) +and millet--in some infrequent instances fertilized by the dead men's +bones--are seen on fields where contending armies struggled. Let it be +so for a little while; let the Manchurian peasant sow and garner in +peace while he may; for still the war cloud hangs heavy above China's +Three Eastern Provinces, and in the next struggle the peasant's blood +may redden his own fields. For that the fighting has not ended is to +me perfectly clear. By reason of the Japanese railroad monopoly +through the very heart of Southern Manchuria, and her leased territory +on the coast, Japan has obtained power bordering on control, and +everything goes to show that she has fully made up her mind to +complete and retain that control. + +Moreover, when one has seen the great Manchurian empire, it is easy to +understand how it has now roused the covetousness of Japan just as the +temptation a few years ago proved too strong for Russia. Immense +farming areas are only thinly settled; some of the richest of the +world's mineral resources have only been touched. + +A day or two ago I went out to see Mr. Edward C. Parker, in charge of +the agricultural experiment farm here (he is a Minnesota man, I +believe), and found him enthusiastic over his corn crop just +harvested. "I have been so surprised by the growth of corn this year," +he declared, "that I could hardly believe my own eyes. I have never +seen finer seed ears anywhere." Among American states, only Iowa, he +declares, is probably more fertile than Manchuria; with stock-raising +to prevent land-deterioration, all the vast southern section could +beat Illinois growing crops, and the same thing could be said of the +northern country but for its colder climate. About Harbin, where the +South Manchuria Railway joins the Trans-Siberian Line, one may see +cuts thirty feet deep and the soil rich to the bottom. Most of +Manchuria is level--strikingly like our Western Corn Belt and Wheat +Belt--and the {74} soil is of wind-drift origin "like a great +snow-blanket," very easily tilled. The plowing is done with a +steel-tipped wooden beam such as I have already written of seeing in +Korea, and only the favoring physical texture of the soil explains the +fat harvests of food, feed, and fuel achieved under such methods. + +It has been a positive joy to me in traveling through the country here +in late October to see the great shocks of kaoliang, millet and corn +(even with labor at 20 cents a day out here, the people don't pull +fodder!), quaint-looking farmhouses almost surrounded by well-stuffed +barns, and corn cribs packed until the overflowing yellow ears spill +out the ampler cracks. The kaoliang is a sort of sorghum, the grain +being used for food, while the stalks, which contain but little sugar, +are used for fuel. Consequently the barnyards packed to the limit and +running over with + + "The garnered largess of the fruitful year" + +not only mean feed for all the variegated animals that are used in +Manchurian agriculture, but fuel for the long Manchurian winters as +well. I even find the peasants digging up the roots and stubble to be +dried and burned in the houses. + +One sees but a small proportion of good horses here, and practically +no four-wheeled farm wagons. Unlike Japan, however, Manchuria does +have its farm vehicles: great heavy two-wheeled carts drawn by from +two to eight horses, donkeys, and asses. Sometimes there is a big +horse or two, then one or two donkeys half the size of the horses, and +a couple of little asses or burros half the size of the donkeys--and +maybe a bull thrown in for good measure. It looks as if the Whole +Blamed Family of work-stock had been hitched to pull the cart. The +Whole Blamed Family is often needed, too, for the roads in China are +ample proof that we needn't expect ours in America or anywhere else to +get any better by letting them alone three thousand years. The Chinese +have tried it, and it doesn't work. The October roads are so bad in +many places that if {75} the carts had four wheels instead of two not +even the combined aggregation in the team could pull them out of the +mud. A little later, however, the roads freeze over solidly and stay +so for five or six months--and then the Manchurian farmers go on long, +slow pilgrimages carrying their products to the larger +markets--sometimes two or three hundred miles from home. + +The pride and glory of Manchuria, the talk of its citizens, the +foundation of its prosperity, the backbone of its commerce, the symbol +of its wealth, is the bean--the common soja, or soy bean as we know +it. What corn is to our Corn Belt and what cotton is to our Southern +States, that the bean is to Manchuria: supreme among products. There +is no class of people not affected by the prosperity or the adversity +of his Majesty the Bean. Bankers, merchants, farmers, even the ladies +one meets in the drawing-rooms in the foreign concessions, not only +"know beans," but can talk beans too. If the present rate of progress +is maintained, it will not be long until no one will enumerate the +world's great crops--wheat, corn, oats, rice, rye, barley, cotton, +etc.--without including beans. The first beans were shipped to Europe +only about four years ago, and the London _Times_ correspondent +estimates that next year Europe will take $35,000,000 worth. In a very +great measure the beans have the same properties as cottonseed, an oil +being extracted that is used for much the same purposes as cottonseed +oil, while the residue called "bean cake" is about the equivalent of +cottonseed meal. It is somewhat superior, Mr. Parker says, to +cottonseed meal or linseed meal as a stock feed, but is now chiefly +used for fertilizing purposes. My first acquaintance with the bean +cake was in Japan, where I found it enriching the earth for +vegetable-growing, Japan importing an average of half a million tons a +year to put under its crops. Manchuria also uses not a little for the +same purpose. The more intelligent Manchurian farmers, however, are +learning that it is a waste to rot one of the best cattle feeds in the +{76} world and get its fertilizing value only--just as our American +farmers, it is gratifying to see, are at last waking up to the +disgraceful folly of using cottonseed meal as a crop-producer without +first getting its other value as a meat-producer. + +I find out, furthermore, that what old Maury's Geography led me to +believe was a vast Desert of Gobi here in North China or Mongolia +alongside Manchuria is not a genuine desert at all, but chiefly a +great grass plain with golden possibilities as a cattle country. Mr. +Parker declares that if cattle were grown on these immense ranges and +brought to Manchuria in the fall to be fattened off on bean cake, +millet, etc., Harbin, Chang-chun, Mukden, and other Manchurian cities +might soon build packing plants that would rival Chicago's in bigness. +This system of stock-raising would also solve the problem of +maintaining soil fertility, just as it would bring relief to those +sections of America where the policy of selling everything off the +land and putting nothing back threatens disaster. + +The old ridge system of growing crops, the rows thrown up as high as +the little plows will permit and the crops planted on top, is the +general practice here, and Mr. Parker is making an effort through the +experiment farm to convince the people of the advantages of level +cultivation. He also wishes to introduce better plows. "The truth is," +he says, "that we never had any real plows until James Oliver and John +Deere invented theirs. All the plowing before that was merely +scratch-work, and here in Manchuria the plows are hardly better than +those the Egyptians used. But for the extremely light, ash-like, +wind-drift soil the people with such crude tools could hardly make +enough to subsist on." + +In Korea I noticed some moderately fair cotton fields, and in +Manchuria I have also found a few patches, though the climate here is +obviously too cold for its profitable production. I find that the +Japanese have great faith in the future of the industry in Korea. + +This notice of Manchurian farming would not be complete {77} without +some mention of the queer aspect of many of the cultivated fields-- +thick-dotted with earth mounds, around which the rows are curved and +twisted, these mounds resembling medium-sized potato hills. They +contain not vegetables, however, but bones. Each cone-shaped mound is +a Chinaman's grave. I first noticed this method of burying in Korea, +but the mounds are quite low there--all that I saw, at least, except +the Queen's Tomb at Seoul. Here in Manchuria they are about three or +four feet high in most cases, and sometimes six. One of the famous +sights of Mukden is the Peilang, or Northern Tomb, where old Taitsun, +the first great Manchu Emperor of China, lies buried, and the grave +proper (reached after a long approach of temple buildings, magnificent +gates, images, and monuments) is a huge earth mound, probably an acre +in extent. The base is thrown up twenty-five or thirty feet high and +surrounded by a rock wall, while the cone-shaped summit runs up about +twenty feet higher. The Chinese have a deep-rooted superstition as to +the existence of a sort of devil or "fung-shui" in the ground, and to +disturb this fung-shui may prove the direful spring of more "woes +unnumbered" than the Iliad records. Such a fung-shui is supposed to +exist under the surface of the earth about the Mukden royal tombs, +and, accordingly, the railroad between Mukden and Peking had to run +twenty-five miles out of its proper course in order not to disturb it. + +Mukden, Manchuria. + + +{78} + + +IX + +WHERE JAPAN IS ABSORBING AN EMPIRE + + +"The Open Door in Manchuria--of what concern is it to me any more than +the revolution in Portugal or the Young Turks movement in +Constantinople?" With some such expression the average American is +likely to dismiss the question--a question whose determination may +prove the pivot on which will swing the greatest world-movements of +our time as well as the prosperity of many European and American +industries, and that of the labor dependent upon them. + + +I + +Concerning Manchuria and all the issues involved in the present +struggle for its possession, all kinds of misconceptions are rife. +That it is a small country; that it is an infertile country; that it +must be already well developed in point of population and consumption +of goods: this is only the ABC of Manchurian misinformation. + +In answer, it need only be said that Manchuria is larger than all our +New England, Middle, and South Atlantic States from Maine to Georgia +inclusive, and that into its borders all of Great Britain (England, +Scotland and Wales), together with all of the German Empire, could be +crowded, and still leave a gap so big that Holland, Belgium, and +Switzerland would lack thousands of square miles of filling it: while +as to population Manchuria has only 18,000,000 people as compared with +{79} 118,000,000 in the European countries just mentioned. And after +having travelled in all of them as well as in Manchuria I should say +that the Asiatic area is the more fertile. + +The possibilities of such an empire situated in the fairest portion of +Asia's temperate zone are simply illimitable. No one who has been +through the fruitful lands of the American Corn Belt and Wheat Belt +and goes later through Manchuria can fail to note the similarity +between them in physical appearance and natural resources, and it may +well be that what the settlement of the West has meant in America +these last fifty years the development of Manchuria will mean in Asia +these next fifty. + +In itself the sheer creation of such a country--larger far than Great +Britain and Germany, as rich as Illinois and Manitoba--would appeal +at once to American commerce and industry, but you have only begun to +grasp the significance of Manchuria when you compare it to the +creation of such an empire in some favored portion of the sea. + +Manchuria means all this, but it means more: Its possession would give +such vastly increased influence to any Power possessing it as to make +that Power a menace to the commercial rights of all other nations in +Asia--rights of almost vital importance both to Europe and America. +England and Germany, of course, are already dependent upon foreign +trade for their prosperity, and President McKinley was never so +seerlike as when, in his last speech at Buffalo, he reminded the +American people that their own future greatness depends upon the +development of trade beyond the seas. And it was to Asia, the greatest +of continents, and especially to China, the greatest of countries on +this greatest of continents, that he looked, as we must also look +to-day. In Secretary Hay's memorial address on McKinley, which I had +the good fortune to hear, the dead President's determined efforts to +maintain the ancient integrity of the Dragon Empire were fittingly +mentioned as one of his most distinguished services to his people and +his time. {80} To keep the immense area of China from spoliation by +other nations and to preserve to all peoples equal commercial rights +within boundaries are absolutely essential to the proper future +development of both European and American commerce and industry. + + +II + +This is why the Open Door in Manchuria is a matter of very real +concern to every Occidental citizen; this is why the other nations +after the ending of the Russo-Japanese War were careful to see that +these belligerents guaranteed a continuance of the Open Door policy; +this is why it is of importance to us to know whether this pledge is +being kept. + +In centering my attention upon Japan in this article let me say in the +outset, I am not to be understood as being one whit more tolerant of +Russian than of Japanese aggression in Manchuria--I am not. In the +Russo-Japanese War my sympathies were all with Japan, my present +friendships with numbers of her sons I prize very highly, but I cannot +blind myself to the fact that she is apparently "drunk with sight of +power" in the Orient. + +As conditions are to-day, the reason for giving primary attention to +Japan's position in Manchuria rather than Russia's must be +self-evident. In the first place, the territory embraced in her sphere +of influence is more important and contains two thirds the population. +Then again: Northern Manchuria being cold and inhospitable, Japan's +sphere not only covers the fairer and more favored section +agriculturally, but from the standpoint of military strategy (as a +mighty war taught all the world) Japan is vastly better placed. With +Port Arthur in her possession, and the new broad-gauge line from +Antung and Mukden enabling her to rush troops across the Sea of Japan +and through Korea to Manchuria without once getting into foreign +waters or on foreign soil, she could ask nothing better. And finally +and most significant of all, Russia has {83} suffered perhaps the greatest +humiliation in her history by reason of Manchurian aggression; she has +learned Japan's point of vantage; and whatever advance she makes in +the near future will be only by Japanese sufferance and connivance. + +{81} + + [Illustration: LIKE SCENES FROM OUR WESTERN PRAIRIES.] + Manchuria is a vast empire--one of the most fertile portions of the + earth's surface. The great money crop is the soy bean, and the lower + picture shows miles of beans and bean-cake awaiting shipment at + Changchun. + + +{82} + + [Illustration: MANCHURIAN WOMEN (SHOWING PECULIAR HEAD-DRESS),] + + + [Illustration: CHINESE WASTE-PAPER COLLECTOR.] + Everything in China is scrupulously saved--except human labor. That + is wasted on a colossal scale through the failure to use improved + machinery or scientific knowledge. + + +{83 continued} + +Whatever may be the meaning of the alleged secret treaty between Japan +and Russia, the great truth which all nations need to remember is +this: Whatever scotches Japanese aggression in Manchuria scotches +Russian aggression at the same time--automatically and simultaneously. +To the Open Door in Manchuria Japan carries the key. + + +III + +Japan's primary commercial advantage over all other nations in South +Manchuria, her railway monopoly, together with the use she is making +of this monopoly and her plans to maintain it, we must now consider +more in detail. + +When the war with Russia ended, Japan succeeded Russia in the control +of what is now the South Manchurian Railway, running from Dairen +(formerly Dalny) to Chang-chun, 438 miles, through the very heart of +the country, and she also obtained from China the right "to maintain +and work the military line constructed between Antung and Mukden +_and_"--as if of secondary importance--"to improve the said line so as +to make it fit for the conveyance of commercial and industrial goods +of all nations." The stipulation with regard to the South Manchurian +Railway was that China should have the right to buy it back in 1938, +and with regard to the Antung-Mukden line, in 1932, by paying the +total cost--"all capital and all moneys owed on account of the line +and interest." And just here Japan is playing a wily game. + +Consider, for example, the Antung-Mukden line just referred to, now +regarded as a part of the South Manchurian system. Although running +through a very mountainous and sparsely settled area, it is of immense +importance to Japan {84} from a strategic standpoint, connecting Mukden as +it does with the Japanese railway in Korea leading directly to Fusan, +and thus enabling Japan to transport troops across her own territory +to Manchuria without taking any of the risks involved in getting out +of her own waters and boundaries. The paramount military importance of +the line is further indicated by the fact that no one had thought of a +commercial line here at all. Simply as a matter of war-time necessity +Japan stretched a 2-1/2-foot narrow-gauge line across these mountain +barrens to transport her troops in 1905. It is interesting to see, +therefore, how she has now interpreted her right to "work, maintain +and improve"--especially "improve"--this line. In October I spent two +days travelling over its entire length (188 miles), most of the time +on the narrow-gauge part, and I was amazed to see on what a +magnificent scale the new broad-gauge substitute line is now building. +In striking contrast to the traditional Japanese tendency to +impermanence in building, this line is constructed regardless of +expense as if to last for a thousand years. Tunnel after tunnel +through solid rock, the most superb masonry and bridges wherever +streams intervene, the best of ballast to make an enduring +roadbed--all these indicate the style of the new, not "improved" but +utterly reconstructed, line which is building for Japan's benefit at +China's expense--at China's expense directly if she buys it back in +1932, at China's expense indirectly if she doesn't. + +It will be remembered, of course, that according to her agreement with +China, Japan was to begin the work of "improving" the Antung-Mukden +line within two years. Whether she was strangely unable to make any +sort of beginning in the period, or whether she purposely delayed it +in order to show her contempt for Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria, it +is difficult to say; what is known is only that the Mikado's +government let its treaty rights lapse, and then when China objected +to a renewal, defied China, and proceeded with the work of +"improvement" by what was euphemistically termed "independent action." + +{85} + +Incidentally, it may be recalled just here that in the Portsmouth +Peace Treaty Japan and Russia jointly promised the rest of the world +"to exploit their respective railways in Manchuria exclusively for +commercial and industrial purposes and in no wise for strategic +purpose." + +That Japan (in the event no other method of getting control of +Manchuria appears) hopes to make the railroads too expensive for the +hard-pressed Peking government to buy back is self-evident. She is +looking far ahead, as those interested in the continuance of the Open +Door policy must also look far ahead. The real Open Door question is +not a matter of the last four or five years or of the next four or +five years, but whether after a comparatively short time the Door is +to be permanently closed as in Korea. If it be said that Japan is only +human in laying many plans to gain so rich an empire, let it also be +said that other nations are only human if they wish to protect their +own interests. + + +IV + +For one thing, as has been suggested, Japan has a perfectly obvious +plan to make the railways too expensive for China to purchase when the +lease expires, and just here some comparisons may be in order. In +Japan proper the government-owned railway stations are severe and +inexpensive structures in which not one yen is wasted for display and +but little for convenience. When I was in Tokyo, for example, +Ex-Premier Okuma, in a public interview, called attention to the +disreputable condition and appearance of the leading station +(Shimbashi) in the Japanese capital, declaring that foreign tourists +must inevitably have their general impressions of the country +unfavorably influenced by it, so primitive and uninviting is its +appearance. But when it comes to the South Manchurian Railway, also +under the control of the Japanese Government (five sixths of the +investment held by the government and one {86} sixth by individual +Japanese), one finds an entirely different policy in force. Handsome +stations, built to accommodate traffic for fifty years to come, have +been erected. In Dairen, "virtually the property of the railway +company," the system has built a magnificent modern city--street +railways, waterworks, electric light plants, macadamized roads, and +beautiful public parks. More than this, the railway company, not +content with the best of equipment for every phase of legitimate +railway work, including handsome stations and railway offices, such as +Japan proper never sees, has also erected hotels which, for the +Orient, may well be styled sumptuous, in five leading cities of +Manchuria. Comparatively few travellers go to Mukden, and yet the +hotel which the South Manchurian Railway has erected there, for +example, is perhaps not excelled in point of furnishing and equipment +anywhere in the Far East. + +In buying back the railroads, therefore, China will be expected not +only to pay for the railways themselves but for all the irrelevant +enterprises--hotels, parks, cities--in which the railway companies +have embarked; for lines "improved" beyond recognition, and for lines +built not even with a view to ultimate profit, but for their strategic +importance to a rival and possibly antagonist nation! As an Englishman +said to me: "It's much the same as if I, a poor man, should rent you a +$1000 house, agreeing to stand the expense of some improvements when +taking it back, and you should spend $10,000 in improving my $1000 +house--and largely to suit your own peculiar business and purposes." + +More than this, Japan, as I have said, is determined to keep her +absolute monopoly on South Manchurian railway facilities. In Article +IV of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Japan and Russia reciprocally +engaged not to "obstruct any general measures, common to all +countries, which China may take for the development of the commerce +and industry of Manchuria," but in December of the same year Japan +caused China to yield a secret agreement prohibiting any new line "in +the {87} neighborhood of and parallel to" the South Manchurian Railway +or any branch line that "might be prejudicial" to it. Japan, under +threat of arms, forced China to abandon the plan for the +Hsinmintun-Fakumen line after arrangements had been made with an +English syndicate, and later Japan and Russia on the same pretext +prevented the proposed Chinchow-Aigun line across Mongolia and +Manchuria, although a hundred miles or more away from the South +Manchurian line. + + +V + +That Japan, then, holds the whip hand in Manchuria, and expects to +continue to hold it, is very clear. With China as yet too weak to +protect herself, Japan is virtually master of the situation. Let us +ask then--since this is in an American book--whether the Open Door +policy is being enforced even now; to ask it of any one in Manchuria +is to be laughed at. I tried it once in a Standard Oil office and the +man in front of me roared, and an unnoticed clerk at my back, +overhearing so absurd a question, was also unable to contain his +merriment. It is not a question of the fact of the shutting-up policy, +Chinese and foreigners in Manchuria will tell you; it is only a +question as to the extent of that condition. + +The truth is that the ink was hardly dry on the early treaties before +the discriminations began. The military railroads, which Japan was in +honor bound to all the world to use only for war purposes, were used +for transporting Japanese goods before the military restrictions with +regard to the admission of other foreign goods were removed. The +Chinese merchant and his patrons were famishing for cotton "piece +goods" and other manufactured products, and the Japanese goods coming +over were quickly taken up and a market for these particular "chops" +or "trademarks" (the Chinaman relies largely on the chop) was +established. By the time European and American goods came back their +market in many cases {88} had already been taken away. In some cases, +too, their trademark rights had been virtually ruined by the closeness +of Japanese imitation. Even on my recent tour, among consuls of three +nations, at Manchurian points, I did not find one who did not mention +some recent case of trademark infringement. + +Then came the period of freight discriminations and rebates, when the +Japanese (principally the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha, the one great octopus +of Japanese business and commerce) secured freight rates that +practically stifled foreign business competitors. The railway company +now asserts that rebates (formerly allowed, it alleges, because of +heavy shipments) are no longer given; but in many cases the evil +effects of the former rebating policy remain in that Japanese traders +were thus allowed to rush in during a formative period and establish +permanent trade connections. + +Meanwhile, too, the relations between the Japanese Government and the +Mitsui Bussan Kaisha are so close that competitors are virtually in +the plight of having to ship goods over a line owned by a +rival--without any higher tribunal to guarantee equality of treatment. +As was recently declared: + + "Two directors of the South Manchurian Railway are also directors of + Mitsui Bussan Kaisha. The traffic manager of the railway is an + ex-employee of Mitsui. The customs force at Dalny is not only + entirely Japanese--no other foreigner in charge of a Chinese customs + office employs exclusively assistants of his own nationality--but a + number of the customs inspectors are ex-employees of Mitsui. The + Mitsui company also maintains branches all through Manchuria in and + out of treaty ports. In this way they escape the payment of Chinese + likin, or toll taxes. The Chinese have agreed that these taxes--2 + per cent, on the value of the goods each time they pass to a new + inland town--shall not be paid so long as they remain in the hands + of the foreigner. American piece goods often pay likin tax, two, + three, or four times, while the Japanese--sometimes legitimately by + reason of their branch houses, sometimes illegally by bluffing + Chinese officials or smuggling through their military areas--manage + to escape likin almost altogether." + +It may not be true that the Japanese customs officials at Dairen (the +treaty provides that China shall appoint a Japanese {89} collector at +this port), ignorantly or knowingly, allow Japanese goods to be +smuggled through to Manchuria--although consuls of three nations a few +months ago thought the matter serious enough to suggest an +investigation--but the evasion of likin taxes in the interior is an +admitted fact. + +More flagrant still is another violation of international treaty +rights. Under Chinese regulations foreign merchants are not allowed to +do business in the Manchurian interior away from the twenty-four open +marts, but it has been shown that several thousand Japanese are now +stationed within the prohibited area, and Japan's reply to the Chinese +Viceroy's protest is that he should have objected sooner and that it +is now too late. Meanwhile, many Chinese merchants both in the +interior and along the South Manchurian Railway, themselves paying the +regular likin and consumption taxes, are finding themselves unable to +compete with the Japanese, who refuse to pay these taxes. Thus Japan +is gradually rooting out the natives who stand in her way, and, day by +day, tightening her grip on the country. + +She is advancing step by step as she did in Korea. + +On the whole, the Mikado's subjects seem already to count themselves +virtual masters of the country. Inside their railway areas and +concessions they have their own government; in the majority of cases +while in Manchuria I found it more convenient to use the Japanese +telegraph or the Japanese postal system than the Chinese; and where I +stopped at the little towns along the line it was a Japanese officer +who came to inquire my name and nationality. When I was in Mukden the +German consul there had just had two Chinese meddlers arrested for +spying on his movements, only to find that they were acting under the +direction of Japanese officials who claimed immunity for them! The +fact that they have their soldiers back of them, and that they can be +tried only in their own courts, also gives the Japanese unlimited +assurance in bullying the natives. At Mukden the Japanese bellboy +struck my Chinese rickshaw {90} man to get his attention. At Taolu +some weeks ago some Japanese merchants who were there doing business +illegally (for it is not an open mart) were interfered with, with the +result that the Japanese authorities when I was in Mukden were +preparing a formal demand for satisfaction, including indemnity for +any injury to an unlawful business! + +Manifestly, the new masters of Manchuria propose to teach the natives +their place. "If a Chinaman is killed by a Japanese bullet," as a +Chinaman of rank said to me in Manchuria, "the fault is not that of +the man who fired the bullet: the Chinaman is to blame for getting in +the way of it!" + + +VI + +Those who apologize for Japanese aggressiveness in Manchuria, those +who excuse or sympathize with her evident purpose to make Manchuria +walk the way of Korea, have but one argument for their position--the +pitiably abused and threadbare plea that the Japanese have won the +country by the blood they shed in the war with Russia. The best answer +to this is also a quotation from the distinguished and witty Chinaman +just mentioned. "The Japanese," said he, "claimed they were fighting +Russia because she was preparing to rob China of Manchuria; now they +themselves out-Russia Russia. It is much as if I should knock a man +down, saying, 'That man was about to take your watch,' and then take +the watch myself!" + +The aptness of the simile is evident. My sympathy, and the sympathy of +every other American acquaintance of mine as far as I can now recall, +was with Japan in her struggle because of our hot indignation over +Russian aggressiveness. But if Japan had said, "I am fighting to put +Russia out only that I may myself develop every identical policy of +aggrandizement that she has inaugurated," it is very easy to see with +what different feelings we should have regarded the conflict. + +{91} + +Moreover, Japan's legitimate fruits of victory do not extend to the +control or possession of Manchuria. As one of the ablest Englishmen +met on my tour in the Far East pointed out, Japan's purposes in +inaugurating the war were four: (1) to get a preponderating influence +in Korea; (2) to get the control of the Tsushima Straits, which a +preponderating influence in Korea would give her; (3) to drive Russia +from her ever-menacing position at Port Arthur; and (4) to arrest (as +she alleged) the increasing influence and power of Russia in +Manchuria. + +All these things she has gained. Furthermore, she now has actual +possession of Korea. The menace of a great Russian navy has been swept +away. Again, she has become (with the consent of England) the +commanding naval power in the eastern Pacific; and she has gained an +influence in South Manchuria at least equal to that which Russia had +previous to the war. + +And yet one hears the plea that unless she gets Manchuria her blood +will have been spilt without result! Unless she can do more in the way +of robbing China than she went to war with Russia for doing, she will +not be justified! + +Among representatives of five nations with whom I discussed the matter +in Manchuria I found no dissent from the opinion that Japan will never +get out of Manchuria, unless forced to do so by a speedily awakened +China or by the most emphatic and unmistakable attitude on the part of +the Powers. Chinese, English, Americans, Germans--all +nationalities--in Manchuria agree that thus far the way of Manchuria +has been the way of Korea and that only favoring circumstances--a +rebellion fomented in China or whatever excuse may serve--is needed +for the same end to be reached. + +Then with Japanese customs duties to complete the shutting out of +foreign goods, now made only partially possible by the discrimination +of a railway monopoly, and with the entire Chinese Empire and foreign +trade rights within it menaced by the added preeminence of Japan, the +people of Europe and America {92} may wake up too late to find out at +last that the Open Door in Manchuria is a matter of somewhat more +general importance than the disturbances in Turkey or the change of +government in Portugal. + +Be it said, in conclusion, however, that if the white nations take +heed in time all this may be prevented. China's waking up may serve +the same purpose, but it is doubtful whether she will develop +sufficient military strength for this. In any case there need be and +should be no war, and in describing conditions as I found them my +purpose is to help the cause of peace and not that of bloodshed. For +if the Powers realize the seriousness of the situation and give +evidence of such feeling to Japan that she will realize the bounds of +safety, there will be no trouble. But a continued policy of ignorance, +indifference, or inactivity means that Japan will probably go so far +that she cannot retreat without a struggle. Truth is in the interest +of peace. + +Mukden, Manchuria. + + + +{93} + + +X + +LIGHT FROM CHINA ON PROBLEMS AT HOME + + +I am here in China's ancient capital at one of the most interesting +periods in all the four thousand years that the Son of Heaven has +ruled the Middle Kingdom. The old China is dying--fast dying; a new +China is coming into being so rapidly as to amaze even those who were +most expectant of rapid change. The dreams of twelve years ago, that +have since seemed nothing but dreams, are coming into actual +realization. + +Great reforms were then proposed--twelve years ago--and the Emperor +sanctioned edict after edict for their introduction. But their hour +had not yet come. + +I talked yesterday with one of the men whose voice was most potent at +that time: a man whose heart was then aflame with the idea of remaking +China. They dared much, did these men, and Tantsetung, a Chinaman of +high rank and a Christian, consecrated himself on his knees to the +great task, with all the devotion of a Hannibal swearing allegiance to +Carthage. But reaction came. The Emperor was deposed and the Empress +Dowager substituted, and Tantsetung and five other leaders were +beheaded. + +Now, however, dying Tantsetung's brave words have already been +fulfilled: "You may put me to death, but a thousand others will rise +up to preach the same doctrine." A new reign has come; the Empress +Dowager, dying, has been succeeded by a mere boy, whose father, the +Prince Regent, holds the imperial sceptre. But the sceptre is no +longer all-powerful. {94} For the first time in all the cycles of +Cathay the voice of the people is stronger than the voice of the +Throne. Men do not hesitate any day to say things for which, ten years +ago, they would have paid the penalty with their heads. + +There are many things that give one faith in the future of China, but +nothing else which begets such confidence as the success of the +crusade against the opium habit. Four years ago, when the news went +out that China had resolved to put an end to the opium habit within +ten years--had started on a ten years' war against opium--there were +many who scoffed at the whole project as too ridiculous and quixotic +even for praise; there were more who regarded it as praiseworthy but +as being as unpromising as a drunkard's swearing off at New Year's, +while those who expected success to come even in twice ten years +hardly dared express their confidence among well-informed people. + +"If there is anything which all our contact with the Chinese has +taught more unquestionably than anything else, it is that the Chinaman +will always be a slave to the opium habit." So said a professedly +authoritative American book on China, published only five years ago, +and to hold any other opinion was usually regarded as contradictory to +common sense. "We white Americans can't get rid of whiskey +intemperance with all our moral courage and all our civilization and +all our Christianity. How then can you expect the poor, ignorant +Chinaman to shake off the clutches of opium?" So it was said, but +to-day the most tremendous moral achievement of recent +history--China's victory over opium-intemperance already assured and +in great measure completed, not in ten years, but in four--stands out +as a stinging rebuke to the slow progress our own people have made in +their warfare against drink-intemperance. + +To shake off the opium habit when once it has gripped a man is no easy +task. Officials right here in Peking, for example, died as a result of +stopping too suddenly after the {95} edict came out announcing that no +opium victim could remain in the public service. But a member of the +Emperor's cabinet, or Grand Council, tells me that 95 per cent, of the +public officials who were formerly opium-smokers have given up the +habit, or have been dismissed from office. Five per cent, may smoke in +secret, but with the constant menace of dismissal hanging like a +Damocles sword over their heads, it may be assumed that even these few +are breaking themselves from the use of the drug. + +Formerly it was the custom for the host to offer opium to his guests, +but the Chinese have now quite a changed public sentiment. Because +they recognize that opium is ruining the lives of many of their +people, and lessening the efficiency of many others, because they +regard it as a source of weakness to their country and danger to their +sons, it has become a matter of shame for a man to be known as an +opium-smoker, even "in moderation." To be free from such an enervating +dissipation is regarded as the duty not only to one's self and one's +family, but to the country as well: it is a patriotic duty. I saw a +cartoon in a native Chinese paper the other day in which there were +held up to especial scorn and humiliation the weakling officials who +had lost their offices by reason of failure to shake off opium. In +short, the opium-smoker, instead of being a sort of "good fellow with +human weaknessess"--and with possibilities, of course, of going +utterly to wreck--has become an object of contempt, a bad citizen. + +The earnestness of the people has been strikingly illustrated in the +great financial sacrifices made by farmers and landowners in sections +where the opium poppy was formerly grown. The culture of the poppy in +some sections was far more profitable than that of any other crop; it +was, in fact, the "money crop" of the people. In fact, to stop growing +the opium poppy has meant in some cases a decrease of 75 per cent, in +the profit and value of the land. Farms mortgaged on the basis of old +land values, therefore, had to be sold; peasants who had {96} been +home-owners became homeless. And yet China has thought no price too +great to pay in the effort to free herself from this form of +intemperance. Well may her leading men proudly declare, as one did to +me to-day: "While America dares not undertake the task of stopping the +whiskey curse among less than a hundred million people, we are +stopping the opium curse among over four hundred millions." It should +also be observed that there is little drunkenness over here. At a +dinner party Friday evening my hostess thought it worth while to +mention as a matter of general interest to her guests (so rare is the +occurrence) that she had seen a drunken Chinaman that day. I have not +yet seen one. + +China is waking up, and I am glad she is. She is going into industrial +competition with all the world, and I am glad that she is. I believe +that every strong and worthy nation is enriched by the proper +development of every other nation. But in this coming struggle the +people whom vice or dissipation has rendered weak sooner or later must +go down before the men who, gaining the mastery over every vicious +habit, keep their bodies strong and their minds clear. In thunder +tones indeed does China's victory over opium speak to America. If we +are to maintain our high place among the nations of the earth, if we +are to keep our leadership in wealth and industry, we can do it only +by freeing ourselves, as heroically as the yellow man of the Orient is +doing in this respect, from every enervating influence that now +weakens the physical stamina, blunts the moral sense, or befogs the +brain. + +The new China is devoting itself to a number of other reforms to which +the people of America may well give attention. The curse of graft +among her public officials ("squeeze" it is called over here) is one +of the most deep-rooted cancers with which she has to contend. +Officers have been paid small salaries and have been allowed to make +up for the meagreness of their stipends by exacting all sorts of fees +and tips. Before the coming parliament is very old, however, it will +{97} doubtless undertake to do away with the fee and "squeeze" system, +stop grafting, and put all the more important offices on a strict +salary basis. Under the old fee system of paying county and city +officials in the United States, as my readers know, we have often let +enormous sums go into office-holders' pockets when they should have +gone into improving our roads and schools. The Chinese system not only +has this weakness, but by reason of the fact that the fees are not +regularly fixed by law, as is the case with us, the way is opened for +numberless other abuses. + +Currency reform is in China a matter hardly second in importance to +the abolition of "squeeze." There is no national currency here; each +province (or state, as we would say) issues its own money when it +pleases, just as the different American states did two generations +ago. I remember hearing an old man tell of going from the Carolinas to +Alabama about 1840 and having to pay heavy exchange to get his +Carolina money changed into Alabama money. So it is in China to-day. +You must get your bills of one bank or province changed whenever you +go into another bank or province, paying an outrageous discount, and a +banking corporation will even discount a bill issued by another branch +of the same corporation. Thus a friend of mine with a five-dollar +Russia-Asiatic banknote from the Peking branch on taking it to the +Russia-Asiatic's branch at Hankow gets only $4.80 for it. + +Nor is this all: All kinds of money are in circulation, the values +constantly fluctuating, and hundreds and thousands of men make a +living by "changing money," getting a percentage on each transfer. +Take the so-called 20-cent pieces in circulation; they lack a little +of weighing one fifth as much as the 100-cent dollar; consequently it +takes sometimes 110 and again 112 cents "small coin" to equal one +dollar! The whole system is absurd, of course, and yet when the +government proposes to establish a uniform national currency it is {98} +said that the influence of these money-changers is so great as to make +any reform exceedingly slow and difficult. + +And yet let not my readers at home with this statement before them +proceed too hastily to laugh or sneer at China for unprogressiveness. +For my part, as I have thought of this matter of money transfer over +here, the whole question has seemed to me to be on all-fours with our +question of land title transfers at home, and the more I have thought +of it the firmer has the conviction become. In fact, China's failure +to adopt a modern currency system is perhaps even less a sinning +against light than our failure to adopt the Torrens system of +registering land titles. The man who makes a living by changing money +and investigating its value is no more a parasite than the man who +makes a living changing titles or investigating their value; the +hindrance of trade and easy transfer of property is no more excusable +in one case than the other; and the 90 per cent, that China might save +by a better system of money transfers is paralleled by the 90 per +cent, that we might save by a better system of title transfers. + +Mr. Money-Changing Banker, fattening needlessly at the expense of the +people, prevents currency reform in China--yes, that is true. But +before we assume superior airs let us see if Mr. Title-Changing +Lawyer, also fattening needlessly at the expense of the people, does +not go to our next legislature and stifle any measure for reforming +land-title registration. And in saying this I am not to be understood +as making any wholesale condemnation of either Chinese bankers or our +American lawyers. The ablest advocates of the Torrens system I know +are lawyers, men who say that lawyers ought to be content with the +really useful ways of earning money and not insist on keeping up +utterly useless and indefensible means of getting fees out of the +people. Such lawyers, indeed, deserve honor; my criticism is aimed +only at those who realize the wisdom of a changed system but are led +by selfishness to oppose it. + +{99} + +After all, however, the most revolutionary and iconoclastic reform in +the new China is the changed policy of the schools. For thousands of +years the education has been exclusively literary. The aim has been to +produce scholars. A thorough knowledge of the works of the sages and +poets, and the ability to write learned essays or beautiful verses, +this has been the test of merit. When Colonel Denby wrote his book on +China five years ago he could say: + + "The Chinese scholar knows nothing of ancient or modern history + (outside of China), geography, astronomy, zoology or physics. He + knows perfectly well the dynastic history of his own country and he + composes beautiful poems, and these are his only accomplishments." + +But now all this is changed. The ancient system of selecting public +officials by examination as to classical scholarship was abolished the +year after Colonel Denby's book was published, and the new ideal of +the school is to train men and women for useful living, for practical +things, and to combine culture with utility. Japanese education now +has the same aim. There, in fact, even the study of the languages is +made to subserve a practical end. Where the American boy studies Latin +and soon forgets it, the Japanese boy studies English and continues to +read English and speak it on occasion the rest of his life, increasing +his efficiency and usefulness in no small measure as a result. In +Japan, too, I found the keenest interest in the teaching of +agriculture to boys and domestic science to girls; and in all these +things China is also moving--blunderingly, perhaps, but yet making +progress--toward the most modern educational ideas. + +As a matter of fact, much as America has talked these last ten years +of making the schools train for more useful living, China and Japan +have actually moved relatively much farther away from old standards +than we have done, and if they should continue the same rate of +advance for the next thirty years we may find their schools doing more +for the efficiency {100} of the people than our American schools are +doing. And when I say this let not the cry go up that I am decrying +culture. Already I anticipate the criticism from men who cling to old +standards of education with even more tenacity than absurdly +conservative China has done. I am not decrying culture, but I am among +those who insist that culture may come from a study of useful things +as well as from a study of useless things; that a knowledge of the +chemistry of foods may develop a girl's mind as much as a knowledge of +chemistry that is without practical use; and that a boy may get about +as much cultural value from the knowledge of a language which does put +him into touch with modern life as from the knowledge of a language +which might put him into touch with ancient life but which he will +probably forget as soon as he gets his diploma. Slow-moving and +tradition-cursed China and Japan, as we thought them a generation ago, +have already committed themselves to making education train for actual +life. Has America given anything more than a half-hearted assent to +the idea? + +The practical value of this article, I am reminded just here, has to +do almost entirely with legislation. You may wish to remind your +member of the legislature of the parallel between the wasteful and +antiquated money-transfer system in China and the equally wasteful and +antiquated title-transfer system at home; you may wish to inform your +member of the legislature and your school officials of the advance of +practical education in the Orient; and you may wish to remind both +your member of the legislature and your congressman of China's +successful crusade against the opium evil as an incentive for more +determined American effort against the drink evil. Let me conclude +this letter, therefore, with two more facts with which you may prod +your representatives in Washington. (Which reminds me to remark, +parenthetically, that every reform the Chinese are getting to-day +comes as a result of persistently bringing pressure on their +officials; and this {101} parenthetical observation may be as full of +suggestion as any idea I have elaborated at greater length.) + +The two facts with which you may stir up your servants in Washington +are just these: + +First, in regard to the parcels post. Here in China the other day I +mailed a package by parcels post to another country for about half +what it would have cost me to mail it from one county-seat to another +at home. How long are we going to be content to let so-called +"heathen" countries like China have advantages which so-called +enlightened, progressive America is too slow to adopt? + +Secondly, the tariff. Here in the hotel where I write this article one +of the foremost journalists in the Far East tells me that the average +tariff-protected American industry sells goods to Asiatic buyers at 30 +per cent. less than it will sell to the people at home. Thirty per +cent., he says, is the usual discount for Oriental trade. An electric +dynamo which is sold in America for $1000, for instance, is sold for +Chinese trade at $550 or $600. Quite a number of times on this trip +have men told me that they can get American goods cheaper over here, +after paying the freight ten thousand miles, than we Americans can buy +them at our own doors. For example, a man told me a few weeks ago of +buying fleece-lined underwear at half what it costs at home; a +missionary tells me that he saves 20 cents on each two-pound can of +Royal baking powder as compared with American prices; Libby's meats +are cheaper in London than in San Francisco; harvesting machinery made +in Chicago is carried across land and sea, halfway around the world, +and sold in far-away Siberia for less than the American farmer can buy +it at the factory gates. + +And these are only a few instances. Hundreds of others might be given. +How long the American people are going to find it amusing to be held +up in such fashion remains to be seen. + +Peking, China. + + +{102} + + +XI + +THE NEW CHINA: AWAKE AND AT WORK + + +Within eighteen months China will have a parliament or a revolution +(she may have both). Such at least is the prediction I am willing to +risk, and it is one which I believe most foreigners in Peking would +indorse. + +And the coming of a parliament, popular government, to guide the +destinies of the vast empire over which the Son of Heaven has reigned +supreme for more than four thousand years--this is only one chapter in +the whole marvelous story, not of China Awakening, but of China Awake. +For the breaking with tradition, the acceptance of modern ideas, which +but yesterday was a matter of question, is now a matter of history. +"China Breaking Up" was the keynote of everything written about the +Middle Kingdom ten years ago; "China Waking Up" has been the keynote +of everything treating of it these last five years. + +Sir John Jordan, British Minister to China, does not exaggerate when +he declares that in a European sense China has made greater progress +these last ten years than in the preceding ten centuries. The +criticism one hears most often now is, not that the popular leaders +are too conservative, but that they are if, anything, too radical; are +moving, not too slowly, but too rapidly. + +Instead of the old charge that China is unwilling to learn what the +West has to teach, I now hear foreigners complain that a little +contact with Europe and America gives a leader {103} undue influence. +"Let an official take a trip abroad and for six months after his +return he is the most respected authority in the empire." Instead of +English missionaries worrying over China's slavery to the opium habit, +we now have English officials embarrassed because China's too rapid +breaking loose from opium threatens heavy deficits in Indian revenues. +Instead of the old extreme "states' rights" attitude on the part of +the provinces, as illustrated by the refusal of the others to aid +Manchuria and Chihli in the war with Japan, the beginnings of an +intense nationalism are now very clearly in evidence. Even Confucius +no longer looks backward. A young friend of mine who is a descendant +of the Sage (of the seventy-fifth generation) speaks English fluently +and is getting a thoroughly modern education, while Duke Kung, who +inherits the title in the Confucian line, is patron of a government +school which gives especial attention to English and other modern +branches--by his direction. Significant, too, is the fact that the +ancient examination halls in Peking to which students have come from +all parts of the empire, the most learned classical scholars among +them rewarded with the highest offices, have now been torn down, and +where these buildings once stood Chinese masons and carpenters are +fashioning the building that is to house China's first national +parliament--unless the parliament comes before this building can be +made ready. + +And so it goes. When a man wakes up, he does not wake up in a part of +his body only, he wakes up all over. So it seems with Cathay. The more +serious problem now is not to get her moving, but to keep her from +moving too rapidly. In his Civic Forum address in New York three years +ago, Wu Ting Fang quoted Wen Hsiang's saying, "When China wakes up, +she will move like an avalanche." A movement with the power of an +avalanche needs very careful guidance. + +The one question about which every Chinese reformer's heart is now +aflame is that of an early parliament. By the imperial decree of 1908 +a parliament and a constitution were {104} promised within nine years. +At that time there was little demand for a parliament, but with the +organization of the Provincial Assemblies in the fall of 1909 the +people were given an opportunity to confer together and were also +given a taste of power. For the first time, too, they seem to have +realized suddenly the serious plight of the empire and the fact that +since the deaths of the late Emperor and Empress Dowager, and the +dismissal of Yuan Shih-Kai by the Prince Regent acting for the infant +Emperor, the Peking government is without a strong leader. +Consequently the demand for a hastened parliament has grown too +powerful to be resisted. True, when the delegates from all the +Provincial Assemblies voiced this demand to the Prince Regent last +spring his reply was the Edict of May 29, declaring that the programme +outlined by their late Majesties, like the laws of the Medes and +Persians, could not be changed. Furthermore, the Throne remarked +significantly: "Let no more petitions or memorials upon this subject +be presented to Us; Our mind is made up." + +Unfortunately for the peace of the Regent, however, John Chinaman is +absurdly and obnoxiously persistent on occasion. If you will not heed +other appeals, he may commit suicide on your doorstep, and then you +are bewitched for the rest of your days, to say nothing of your +nights. The talk of an earlier parliament would not down even at the +bidding of the Dragon Throne. Quietly unmanageable delegations waited +upon viceroys and compelled these high officials to petition for a +reopening of the question. Down in Kiang Su a scholar cut off his left +arm and with the red blood wrote his appeal. In Union Medical +Hospital, here in Peking, as I write this, a group of students are +recovering from self-inflicted wounds made in the same cause. Going to +the Prince Regent's, they were told that the Prince could not see +them. "Very well," they declared, "we shall sit here till he does." At +length the Prince sent word that, though he could not receive them, he +would consider their petition, and the students then sliced the {107} +living flesh from their arms and thighs as evidence of their +earnestness, coloring their petition with their blood. + + +{105} + + [Illustration: PU YI, THE SON OF HEAVEN AND EMPEROR OF THE MIDDLE + KINGDOM.] + The baby sovereign of one of the vastest and oldest of empires is + shown here in the lap of his father. Prince Chun, the Regent. + + +{106} + + [Illustration: HOW CHINA IS DEALING WITH OPIUM-INTEMPERANCE.] + Burning a pile of pipes of reformed smokers at Hankow. The amazing + success of China's crusade to free her people from the opium curse + may be justly reckoned one of the greatest moral achievements in + history--a challenge to our Western world. + +{107 continued} + +At this period of our drama there came upon the stage a new actor, at +first little heeded, but quickly becoming the dominating figure--the +Tzucheng Yuan, or National Assembly. This body, consisting of 100 +nobles and men of wealth or scholarship appointed by the Throne, and +100 selected members of Provincial Assemblies approved by the +viceroys, was expected to prove a mere echo of the royal wishes. "It +is evident that the government is to have a docile and submissive +assembly. Mediocrity is the chief characteristic of the members +chosen." So wrote one of the best informed Americans in China, some +weeks before it assembled, October 3. Reuter's press agent in Peking +predicted through his papers that a few pious resolutions would +represent the sum total of the Assembly's labors. + +And yet the first day that these two gentlemen went with me to look in +on the Assembly we found it coolly demanding that the Grand Council, +or imperial cabinet, be summoned before it to explain an alleged +breach of the rights of Provincial Assemblies! + +From the very beginning the course of this National Assembly in +steadily gathering unexpected power to itself has reminded me of the +old States-General in France in the days just before the Revolution, +and I could not help looking for Danton and Robespierre among the +fiery orators in gown and queue on this occasion. Significantly, too, +I now hear on the authority of an eminent scholar that Carlyle's great +masterpiece is the most popular work of historical literature ever +translated into Chinese. May it teach them some lessons of restraint +as well as of aggressiveness! + +Be that as it may, the Assembly has proved untamable in its demands +for an early parliament, not even the hundred government members +standing up against the imperious pressure of public opinion. In late +October the Assembly {108} unanimously petitioned the Throne to hasten the +programme of constitutional government. The day this petition was +presented it was currently rumored in Peking that unless the Prince +Regent should yield the people would refuse to pay taxes. But he +yielded. The trouble now is that he did not yield enough to satisfy +the public, and there is every indication that he will have to yield +again, in spite of the alleged unalterableness of the present plan, +which allows a parliament in 1913 instead of in 1916, as originally +promised. A parliament within eighteen months seems a safe prediction +as I write this. + +It also seems safe to prophesy that the powers of the parliament will +be wisely used. In local affairs the Chinese practically established +the rule of the people centuries before any European nation adopted +the idea. Nominally, the local magistrate has had almost arbitrary +power, but practically the control has been in the hands of the +village elders. When they have met and decided on a policy, the +magistrate has not dared run counter to it. In much the same fashion, +governors and viceroys of provinces have been controlled and kept in +check. Thus centuries of practical self-government in local affairs +have given the Chinese excellent preparation for the new departure in +national affairs. What is proposed is not a new power for the people +but only an enlargement or extension of powers they already exercise. + +Parliamentary government is the one great accomplishment the Chinese +people are now interested in, because they propose to make it the tool +with which to work out the other Herculean tasks that await them. +Happy are they in that they may set about these tasks inspired by the +self-confidence begotten of one of the greatest moral achievements of +modern times. I refer, of course, to the almost marvellous success of +their anti-opium crusade which I have already discussed. + +Mr. Frederick Ward, who has just returned from a visit to many +provinces, finding in all the same surprising success {109} in enforcing +anti-opium regulations, declares: "It is the miracle of the Middle +Kingdom and a lesson for the world."' + +China's next great task is the education of her people, and the remedy +for pessimism here is to compare her present condition, not with that +of other nations, but with her own condition ten years ago. A reported +school attendance of less than one million (780,325 to be exact) in a +population of 400,000,000 does not look encouraging, but when we +compare these figures with the statistics of attendance a few years +ago there is unmistakable evidence of progress. In the metropolitan +province of Chihli, for example, I find that there are now more +teachers in government schools than there were pupils six years ago, +and the total attendance has grown from 8000 to 214,637! + +Even if China had not established a single additional school, however, +or increased the school attendance by even a percentage fraction, her +educational progress these last ten years would yet be monumental. For +as different as the East is from the West, so different, in literal +fact, are her educational ideals at the present time as compared with +her educational ideals a decade ago. At one fell blow (by the Edict of +1905) the old exclusively classical and literary system of education +was swept away, made sacred though it was by the traditions of +unnumbered centuries. Unfortunately the work of putting the new +policies into effect was entrusted to the slow and bungling hands of +the old literati; but this was a necessary stroke of policy, for +without their support the new movement would have been hopelessly +balked. + +The old education taught nothing of science, nothing of history or +geography outside of China, nothing of mathematics in its higher +branches. Its main object was to enable the scholar to write a learned +essay or a faultless poem, its main use to enable him by these means +to get office. Under the old system the Chinese boy learned a thousand +characters before he learned their meaning; after this he took up a +book {110} containing a list of all the surnames in the empire, and the +"Trimetrical Classics," consisting of proverbs and historical +statements with each sentence in three characters. Now he is taught in +much the same way as the Western boy. The old training developed the +powers of memory; the new training the powers of reasoning. The old +education enabled the pupil to frame exquisite sentences; the new +gives him a working knowledge of the world. The old looked inward to +China and backward to her past; the new looks outward to other +countries and forward to China's future. The old was meant to develop +a few scholarly officials; the new, to develop many useful citizens. +"Even our students who go abroad," as a Peking official said to me, +"illustrate the new tendencies. Formerly they preferred to study law +or politics; now they take up engineering or mining." + +A consideration of Chinese education, however brief, would not be fair +without mention of the crushing handicap under which her people labor +and must always labor so long as the language remains as it is +to-day--without an alphabet--separate and arbitrary characters to be +learned for each and every word in the language. This means an +absolute waste of at least five years in the pupil's school life, +except in so far as memorizing the characters counts as +memory-training, and five years make up the bulk of the average +student's school days in any country. If it were not for this handicap +and the serious difficulty of finding teachers enough for present +needs, it would be impossible to set limits to the educational advance +of the next twenty years. + +The school and the teacher have always been held in the highest esteem +in China. Her only aristocracy has been an aristocracy, not of wealth, +but of scholarship; her romance has been, not that of the poor boy who +became rich, but of the poor boy who found a way to get an education +and became distinguished in public service. Under the old system, if +the son of a hard-working family became noted for aptness in the {111} +village school, if the schoolmaster marked him for a boy of unusual +promise, the rest of the family, with a devotion beautiful to see, +would sacrifice their own pleasure for his advancement. He would be +put into long robes and allowed to give himself up wholly to learning, +while parents, brothers, and sisters found inspiration for their own +harder labors in the thought of the bright future that awaited him. +The difficulty is that education has been regarded as the privilege of +a gifted few, not as the right of all. In a land where scholarship has +been held in such high favor, however, once let the school doors open +to everybody and there is little doubt that China will eventually +acquire the strength more essential than armies or battleships: the +power which only an educated common people can give. + +China's next great purpose is to develop an efficient army. "Might is +right" is the English proverb that I have found more often on the +tongues of the new school of Chinese than any other; and we must +confess that other nations seem to have tried hard enough to make her +accept the principle. In the old days there was a saying, "Better have +no son than one who is a soldier." To-day its new foreign-drilled army +of 150,000 to 200,000 men is the boast of the Middle Kingdom, and the +army is said to be the most honestly administered department of the +government. In sharp contrast to the old contempt for the soldier, I +now find one of the ablest journals in the empire (the Shanghai +_National Review_) protesting that interest in military training is +now becoming too intense: "Scarce a school of any pretensions but has +its military drill, extending in some instances as far as equipment +with modern rifles and regular range practice, and we regret to notice +that some of the mission schools have so far forgotten themselves as +to pander to this militarist spirit." + +It has often been said, of course, that the Chinese will not make good +soldiers, but whether this has been proved is open to question. +Certainly, in view of their wretchedly inferior {112} equipment, their +failure to distinguish themselves in the war with Japan cannot be +regarded as conclusive. Take, for example, this description by an +eye-witness: + + "Every tenth man [among the Chinese soldiers] had a great silk + banner, but few were armed with modern weapons. Those who had rifles + and modern weapons at all had them of all makes; so cartridges of + twenty different sorts and sizes were huddled together without any + attempt at classification, and in one open space all sorts were + heaped on the ground, and the soldiers were fitting them to their + arms, sometimes trying eight or ten before finding one to fit the + weapon, throwing the rejected ones back into the heap." + +No sort of efficiency on the part of the rank and file could have +atoned for such criminal indifference to equipment on the part of the +officers. It seems to be the opinion of the military authorities with +whom I have talked that the Chinese army is now better manned than +officered. "Wherever there has been a breach of discipline, I have +found it the officers' fault," an American soldier told me. + +The annexation of Korea, once China's vassal, by Japan, and that +country's steadily tightening grip on Manchuria have doubtless +quickened China's desire for military strength. Moreover, she wishes +to grow strong enough to denounce the treaties by which opium is even +now forced upon her against her will, and by which she is forced to +keep her tariff duty on foreign goods averaging 5 per cent., alike on +luxuries and necessities. + +The fifth among China's Herculean labors is the cleansing of her +Augean stables, and by this I can mean nothing else than the abolition +of the system of "squeeze," or graft, on the part of her officials. In +fact, no other reform can be complete until this is accomplished. The +bulk of every officer's receipts comes not from his salary, which is +as a rule absurdly small, but from "squeezes"--fees which every man +who has dealings with him must pay. In most cases, of course, these +fees have been determined in a general way by long usage, but their +acceptance opens the way for innumerable abuses. High {113} offices are +auctioned off. When I was in Manchuria it was currently reported that +the Governor of Kirin had paid one hundred thousand taels for his +office. When I was in New-chwang the Viceroy of Manchuria had just +enriched himself to the extent of several thousand taels by a visit to +that port. The men who had had favors from him or had favors to ask +left "presents" of a rather substantial character when they called. I +learn from an excellent authority that when an electric lighting +contract was let for Hankow or its suburbs a short time ago the +officials provided a squeeze for themselves of 10 per cent., but that +the Nanking officials, in arranging for electric lights there, didn't +even seem to care whether the plant worked at all or not: they were +anxious only to make a contract which would net them 35 per cent, of +the gross amount! Under such circumstances it is not surprising to +learn that many an office involving the handling of government +revenues has its price as definitely known as the price of stocks or +bonds. + +In private business the Chinese have a reputation for honesty which +almost any other nation might envy. With their quickened spirit of +patriotism they will doubtless see to it that their public business is +relieved of the shameless disgrace that the "squeeze system" now +attaches to it. + +These are some of the big new tasks to which awakened China is +addressing herself. Of course, the continued development of her +railways is no less important than any other matter I have mentioned, +but railway building cannot be regarded as one of China's really new +tasks. For years she has been alive to the importance of uniting the +people of the different provinces by means of more railways, more +telegraph lines, and better postal service. The increase in number of +pieces of mail handled from 20,000,000 pieces in 1902 to 306,000,000 +in the last fiscal year bears eloquent testimony alike to the progress +of the post office and to the growing intelligence of the people. By +telegraph the people of remotest Cathay now make their wishes known to +the Son of Heaven and the {114} Tzucheng Yuan; it was by telephone +that this Tzucheng Yuan, or National Assembly, requested the Grand +Council of the Dragon Empire to appear before it on the day of my +first visit. The slow and stately camel caravans still come down from +Mongolia to Peking--I have seen them wind their serpentine length +through the gates of the Great Wall at Nankou as they have been doing +for centuries past--but no longer do they bring the latest news from +the tribes about Desert Gobi. Across 3500 miles of its barren wastes +an undaunted telegraph line now "hums the songs of the glad parts of +the earth." + +It is no longer worth while to speculate upon the probability of a new +China; the question now is as to how the new China is going to affect +the United States and the rest of the world. From our Pacific Coast, +China is our next-door neighbor, and vastly nearer in fact than any +map has ever indicated. Even New York City is now nearer to Shanghai +and Hong Kong, in point of ease of access, than she was to Chicago a +century ago. How Japan's awakening has increased that country's +foreign trade all the world knows--and China has eight times the +population of Japan proper, and twenty-eight times the area, with +almost fabulously valuable natural resources as yet untouched! Some +one has said that to raise the Chinese standard of living to that of +our own people would be (from the standpoint of markets) equivalent to +the creation of four Americas. The importance of bringing about closer +commercial relations between the United States and the Middle Kingdom +can hardly be overestimated. + +It is to be hoped, however, that in our desire to cultivate China's +friendship we shall not go to the length of changing our policy of +excluding Asiatic immigration. To the thoughtful student it must be +plain that in the end such a change would lead only to disastrous +reaction. At the same time we might well effect a change in our +methods of enforcing that policy. There is nothing else on land or sea +that the Celestial so much dreads as to "lose face," to be humiliated, +and it {115} is the humiliation that attaches to the exclusion policy +rather than the policy itself that is the great stumbling-block in the +way of thorough cordial relations with America. You wouldn't so much +object to having the servant at the door report his master not at home +to visitors, but you would object to having the door slammed in your +face; and John Chinaman is just about as human as the rest of us. +Moreover, our own friendliness for John should lead us to adopt the +more courteous of these two methods. Why should not our next exclusion +law, therefore, be based upon the idea of reciprocity, and provide +that there shall be admitted into America any year only so many +Chinese laborers as there were American laborers admitted into China +the preceding year? + +Finally, it must always be remembered that the awakening of China is a +matter far more profound than any statistics of exports or imports or +railway lines or industrial development. The Dragon Empire cannot +become (as she will) one of the mightiest Powers of the earth, her +four hundred million people cannot be brought (as they will be +brought) into the full current of the world's activities, without +profoundly influencing all future civilization. For its own sake +Christendom should seize quickly the opportunity offered by the +present period of flux and change to help mold the new force that it +must henceforth forever reckon with. "The remedy for the yellow peril, +whatever that may be," as Mr. Roosevelt said while President, "is not +the repression of life, but the cultivation and direction of life." +The school, the mission, the newspaper--these are the agencies that +should be used. Japan has thousands of teachers in China and scores of +newspapers, but no other nation is adequately active. The present +kindly feeling for America guarantees an especially cordial reception +for American teachers, ministers, and writers, and those who feel the +call to lands other than their own cannot find a more promising field +than China. + +Peking, China. + + + +{116} + + +XII + +A TRIP INTO RURAL CHINA + + +I can't get over (and I hope I never shall) my boyish interest in the +great strange animals that walk along behind the steam piano in the +circus parades. And the animals that I like to see most, I believe, +are the elephants and the camels. The elephant has about him such +quiet, titanic, unboasting strength, such ponderous and sleepy-eyed +majesty, as to excite my admiration, but the camel has almost an equal +place in my interest and esteem. + +He is a funny-looking beast, is the camel, and he always reminds me of +Henry Cates' story of the very little boy who started making a mud man +in the spring branch, but before he got the second arm on, a storm +came up, and when he came back his man had mysteriously disappeared. +But when Johnny went to town next day and for the first time in his +life saw a one-armed man, the whole mystery cleared, and rushing up, +he demanded: "Why didn't you wait for me to finish you?" Somehow the +camel, like Johnny's mud man, always looks to me as if he got away +before he was finished. He is either a preliminary rough sketch +accidentally turned loose on the world, or else he got warped somehow +in the drying process--great, quiet, shaggy, awkward, serene, +goose-necked, saddle-backed Old Slow and Steady! + + +{117} + +[Illustration: A MAN-MADE DESERT.] + + +[Illustration: PUMPING WATER FOR IRRIGATION.] + The destruction of China's mountain forests has made deserts of vast + areas that were once fair and fruitful. The lower picture, showing + Chinese pumping water by human treadmill, furnishes another + illustration of the Orient's waste of labor. + + +{118} + +[Illustration: TRANSPORTATION AND TRAVEL IN CHINA.] + The camels that come down from Mongolia and wind their unhurried way + from Chien Men Gate to the Gate of the Heavenly Peace form one of + the most picturesque of the many picturesque sights in fascinating + old Peking. The right-hand picture shows the author utilizing the + most rapid means of transit in the mountains north of Peking. + + +{116 continued} + +Let me confess, therefore, that hardly anything else on my entire tour +has given me more pleasure than the sight of the camel trains about +Peking and all the way to the end of the Nankou Pass in the mountains +north of the ancient Chinese {119} capital. At the Pass this morning I saw +three such camel trains coming down from Mongolia and the Desert of +Gobi: long, slow-moving, romantic caravans that made me feel as if I +had become a character in the Arabian Nights or a contemporary of +Kublai-Khan. One of the trains was the longest I have yet +seen--twenty-five or thirty camels, I should say, treading Indian-file +with their usual unostentatious stateliness, a wooden pin through each +camel's nostrils from which a cord bound him to the camel next ahead, +a few strangely dressed drivers guiding the odd Oriental procession. + +Nor were the camels the only strange travellers encountered by my +party, a young Frenchman, the German, and myself, as we rode our +little donkeys mile after mile of rocky way from Nankou village +through the Pass. To begin with, we were ourselves funny-looking +enough, for my donkey was so small that he could almost walk under the +belly of my saddle-horse at home, and my feet almost touched the +ground. The donkeys ridden by my friends were but little larger, and +altogether we looked very much like three clowns riding trick mules-- +an effect somewhat heightened when the Frenchman's donkey dropped him +twice in the mud! It was our clothing, however, our ordinary American +and European trousers, coats, overcoats and hats, and the fact that we +wore no queues down our backs, that made us objects of curiosity to +the Mongolian and Manchurian camel-drivers, shepherds, horse-traders, +and mule-pack drivers whom we met on the way, just as we were +interested in the sheepskin overcoats, strange hats, etc., which we +found them wearing along with the usual cotton-padded garments. These +cotton-padded clothes are much like those heavily padded bed-quilts +ineptly called "comforts," and as the poor Chinese in the colder +sections of the empire cannot afford much fire in winter, they add one +layer of cotton padding after another until it is difficult for them +to waddle along. + +On the whole, the life and travel we found on our donkey-ride over the +rough roads of Nankou Pass were Biblical in their {120} very +simplicity and primitiveness. Most of the men we meet come from away +up in Mongolia, where no railroad has yet gone, and the camels and the +donkeys (the donkeys in most cases larger than those we rode) bring +down on their backs the Mongolian products--wool, hides, grain, +etc.--and carry back coal, clothing, and the other simple supplies +demanded by the rude peasantry of Mongolia. We met several pack trains +of donkeys, sometimes twenty-five or forty, I suppose, each carrying a +heavy load of sacks on his back, or perhaps big, well-packed baskets +or goods-boxes carefully balanced. A horse over here will tote about +as much as a horse at home would pull. Then there were several immense +droves of sheep: in one drove two or three thousand, I estimated, and +every sheep with a black face and a white body, so that the general +effect was not unlike seeing a big bin of black-eyed peas. The Chinese +raise immense numbers of long-eared black hogs, too, and drive them to +market loose in the same way that they drive their sheep. We also met +two or three droves of mountain horses, a hundred or more to the +drove. + +But it would have been well worth while to make the trip if we had +gotten nothing else but the view of and from the Great Wall at the end +of the journey. About two thousand miles of stone and brick, +twenty-seven feet high, and wide enough on top for two carriages to +drive abreast, this great structure, begun two thousand years ago to +keep the wild barbarian Northern tribes out of China, is truly "the +largest building on earth," and one of the world's greatest wonders. +It would be amazing if it wound only over plains and lowlands, but +where we saw it this morning it climbed one mountain height after +another until the topmost point towered far above us, dizzy, +stupendous, magnificent. By what means the thousands and thousands of +tons of rock and brick were ever carried up the sheer steep +mountainsides is a question that must excite every traveller's wonder. +Certainly no one who has walked on top of the great wall, climbing +among the clouds from one {121} misty eminence to another, as we did +to-day, can ever forget the experience. + +Perhaps it was well enough, too, that the weather was not clear. The +mists that hung about the mountain-peaks below and around us; the +roaring wind that shepherded the clouds, now driving them swiftly +before it and leaving in clear view for a minute peak after peak and +valley after valley, the next minute brushing great fog-masses over +wall and landscape and concealing all from view--all this lent an +element of mystery and majesty to the experience not out of keeping +with our thought of the long centuries through which this strange +guard has kept watch around earth's oldest empire. Dead, long dead and +crumbled into dust, even when our Christian era began, were the hands +that fashioned these earlier brick and laid them in the mortar, and +for many generations thereafter watchmen armed with bows and arrows +rode along the battlements and towers, straining their eyes for sight +of whatever enemy might be bold enough to try to cross the mighty +barrier. + +However unwise the spirit in which the wall was built, we cannot but +admire the almost matchless daring of the conception and the almost +unparalleled industry of the execution. Beside it the digging of our +Panama Canal with modern machinery, engines, steam power and +electricity, considered simply as a feat of Herculean labor, is no +longer a subject for boasting. To my mind, the very fact that the +Chinese people had the courage to conceive and attempt so colossal an +enterprise is proof enough of genuine greatness. No feeble folk could +even have planned such an undertaking. + +On this trip into the heart of China, however, I have noticed a number +of things of decidedly practical value in addition to the merely +curious things I have just reported. In the first place, I have been +simply amazed to find that these Chinese farmers around Peking, +Nankou, and Tien-tsin are far ahead of some of our farmers in the +matter of horsepower help in plowing. + +{122} + +Coming up from Peking to Nankou, I found farmers in almost every field +busy with their fall plowing or late grain sowing, and while there +were dozens and dozens of three-horsepower plows, I saw only one or +two one-horsepower plows on the whole trip. This is all the more +surprising in view of the fact that labor is so cheap over here--15 +cents a day American money would be a good wage for farm hands--but +evidently the farmers realize that although plow hands are cheap, they +must have two or three horses in order to get the best results from +the soil itself. One-horse plows do not put the land in good +condition. With two, three, or four horses or donkeys (they use large +donkeys for plowing, even if small ones for riding) they get the land +in good condition in spite of the fact that they cannot get the good +plows that any American farmer may buy. I rode donkey-back through +some farming country yesterday and watched the work rather closely. +The plows, like those in Korea, have only one handle, but are much +better in workmanship. Here they are made by the village +carpenter-blacksmith, and have a large steel moldboard in front, and +below it a long, sharp, broad, almost horizontal point. + +The Chinese farmers, it should also be observed in passing, fully +realize the importance of land rolling and harrowing. It is no +uncommon sight to see a man driving a three-horse harrow. It is also +said that for hundreds of years the Chinese have practised a suitable +rotation of crops and have known the value of leguminous plants. + +Nankou Pass, China. + + + +{123} + + +XIII + +FROM PEKING TO THE YANGTZE-KIANG + + +I shall have to go back to Peking some time. You must hurry out of the +city, men tell you there, or else ere you know it the siren-like Lure +of the East will grip you irresistibly; and I felt in some measure the +soundness of the counsel. The knowledge that each day the long trains +of awkward-moving camels are winding their unhurried way from +Chien-Men Gate to the Gate of the Heavenly Peace, the yellow-tiled +roofs of the Forbidden City gleaming ahead of them, while to the left +are the faint gray-blue outlines of the Western Hills--all this will +be to me a silent but perpetual invitation to go back. + +The very life in the streets presents a panorama of never-failing +interest. One can never forget the throngs of Chinese men in gowns and +queues (the wives wear the trousers over here!), the nobles and +officers in gorgeous silks and velvets; the fantastic head-dress of +the Manchu ladies, and the hobbling movements of the Chinese women +hampered by ruined feet; the ever-hurrying rickshaws with perspiring, +pig-tailed coolies in the shafts; the heavy two-wheeled Peking carts +like half-sized covered wagons; the face of some fashionable foreign +or native woman glimpsed through the glass windows of her sedan chair, +eight runners bearing on their shoulders their human burden; the long +lines of shop fronts with such a pleasing variety of decorative color +as to make one wonder why artists have not made them famous; the +uniformed soldiers from every nation on the earth to guard the various +legations, and {124} Chinese soldiers with cropped hair and foreign +clothing. The strange street noises, too, will linger in one's memory +ever after: the clattering hoofs of fleet Mongolian ponies, the +jingling bells of the thousands of sturdy little saddle donkeys, the +rattling of the big cowbells on the dusty camels, the clanging gong of +a mandarin's carriage, outriders scurrying before and behind to bear +testimony to his rank, and the sharp cries of peddlers of many kinds, +their wares balanced in baskets borne from their shoulders. + +Or perhaps there is a blaze in the street ahead of you. Some man has +died and his friends are burning a life-sized, paper-covered horse in +the belief that it will be changed into a real horse to serve him in +the Beyond; and imitations of other things that might be useful to him +are burned in the same way. + +Or perhaps a marriage procession may pass. A dozen servants carry +placards with emblems of the rank of the family represented by the +bride or groom, numerous other servants bear presents, and the bride +herself passes by concealed in a gorgeous sedan chair borne on the +shoulders of six or eight coolies. + +Fascinating as it is for its present-day interest, however, Peking is +even richer in historic interest. And by historic in China is not +meant any matter of the last half-hour, such as Columbus's discovery +of America or the landing at Plymouth Rock; these things to the +Chinaman are so modern as to belong rather in the category of recent +daily newspaper sensations along with the Pinchot-Ballinger +controversy or the Thaw trial. If he wishes something genuinely +historic, he goes back three or four thousand years. For example, a +friend of mine, at a little social gathering in New England some time +ago, heard a young Chinese student make a talk on his country. +Incidentally he was asked about a certain Chinese custom. "Yes,"' he +answered, "that is our custom now, since we changed. But it has not +always been so. We did the other way up to four or five centuries +before Christ." Whereupon the audience, amazed at the utterly casual +mention of an event two thousand {125} years old as if it were a happening +of yesterday, was convulsed in merriment, which the young Chinaman was +entirely unable to understand. + +When Christ was born Peking (or what is now Peking, then bearing +another name), having centuries before grown into eminence, had been +destroyed, rebuilt, and was then entering upon its second youth. About +the time of the last Caesars it fell into the hands of the Tartars, +who gave place to the Mongols after 1215. It was during the reign of +the Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan, that Marco Polo visited his capital, +then called Cambulac. Seventy-three years before Columbus discovered +America the Emperor Yung-loh, whose tomb I saw near Nankou, built the +great wall that surrounds the Tartar City to this day--forty feet +high, wide enough on top for four or five carriages to drive abreast, +and thirteen miles around. + +Yet the history which the foreigner in Peking is likely to have most +often in mind is really very recent. For it has been only ten years +and a few months since the famous Boxer outbreak. The widely current +idea is that this Boxer movement originated in anti-missionary +sentiment, but this is not borne out by the facts. The late Col. +Charles Denby, long American Minister to China, pointed out very +clearly that the main cause was opposition to the land-grabbing +policies of European nations. Once started, however, it took the form +of opposition to everything foreign--missionaries and non-missionaries +alike. I passed the old Roman Catholic Cathedral the other day in +company with a friend who gave me reminiscences of the siege that +sounded like echoes of the days of the martyrs; stories of Chinese +Christian converts butchered like sheep by their infuriated fellow +countrymen. When the Pei-tang, in another part of the city, was +finally rescued by foreign troops, the surviving Christians and +missionaries were dying of starvation; they had become mere wan, +half-crazed skeletons, subsisting on roots and bark. + +The heroism shown by many of the Chinese Christian converts {126} +during this Boxer uprising has enriched the history not only of the +church, but of mankind; for what man of us is not inspired to worthier +things by every high deed of martyrdom which a fellowman anywhere has +suffered? Into the Pei-tang the Boxers hurled arrow after arrow with +letters attached offering immunity to the Chinese converts if they +would abandon their Christian leaders, but not even starvation led one +to desert. Colonel Denby estimated that in the whole empire 15,000 +Chinese Christians were butchered and that only 2 per cent of them +abandoned their faith. A missionary told me the other day of one +family who took refuge in a cave, but when finally smoked out by +suffocating flames, refused life at the cost of denying their Master, +and went to death singing a hymn in Chinese, "Jesus Is Leading Me." At +Taiyan-fu an especially touching incident occurred: Five or six young +girls, just in their teens, were about to be killed, when a leader +intervened, declaring: "It is a pity to slaughter mere children," and +urged them to recant. Their only answer was: "Kill us quickly, since +that is your purpose; we shall not change." And they paid for their +faith with their lives. + +I am writing this down on the Yangtze-Kiang (Kiang means river in +Chinese), having boarded a steamer at Hankow, the famous Chinese +industrial centre, about 600 miles south of Peking. About Hankow I +found farming much more primitive than that around Peking, Nankou, and +Tientsin. Instead of the three and four horse plows I found in North +China, the plowmen about Hankow seem to rely chiefly on a single ox. +The farms, too, are much smaller. No one here speaks of buying a +"farm"; he buys a "field." In Kwang-tung there is a saying that one +sixth of an acre "will support one mouth." As nearly as I can find +out, the average wages paid farm laborers is about 10 cents (gold) a +day. The average for all kinds of labor, a member of the Emperor's +Grand Council tells me, is about 35 to 38 cents Mexican, or 15 to 18 +cents gold a day. + +In forming a mental picture of a rural scene anywhere in {127} China +or Japan there are three or four things that must always be kept in +mind. One is that there are no fences between fields; I haven't seen a +wooden or wire farm-fence since I left America. A high row or ridge +separates one field from another, and nothing else. In the next place, +there are no isolated farm-houses. The people live in villages, from +ten to fifty farmhouses grouped together, and the laborers go out from +their homes to the fields each morning and return at evening. The same +system, it will be remembered, prevails in Europe; and as population +becomes denser and farms grow smaller in America, we shall doubtless +attempt to group our farm homes also. Even now, much more--vastly +more--might be done in this respect if our farmers only had the plan +in mind in building new homes. Where three or four farms come near +together, why should not the dwellings be grouped near a common +centre? It would mean much for convenience and for a better social +life. Another notable difference from our own country is the absence +of wooden buildings or of two-story buildings of any kind. In this +part of China the farmhouse is made of mud bricks, or mud and reeds, +or else of a mixture of mud and stone, and is usually surrounded by a +high wall of the same material. + +Again, there are no chimneys. While my readers are basking in the +joyous warmth of an open fire these wintry nights they may reflect +that the Chinaman on this side of the earth enjoys no such comfort. +Enough fire to cook the scanty meals is all that he can afford. To +protect themselves against cold, as I have already pointed out, the +poor put on many thicknesses of cotton-padded cloth. The rich wear +furs and woolens. When a coolie has donned the maximum quantity of +cotton padding he is about as nearly bomb-proof as an armor-plated +cruiser. Certainly no ordinary beating would disturb him. + +At this time of the year (the late fall) farmers are busy plowing and +harrowing. On my last Sunday in Peking I went out to the Temple of +Agriculture, where each spring the Emperor or Prince Regent comes and +plows sixteen rows, the purpose {128} being to bear testimony to the +high honorableness of agriculture and its fundamental importance to +the empire. This happens, as I have said, in early spring, but it is +in late fall that Chinese do most plowing. They are also busy now +flailing grain on ancient threshing-floors of hard-baked earth, or +grinding it in mills operated by a single donkey. + +In this part of China the mound-like graves of the millions--possibly +billions--of the Chinese dead are even more in evidence than in the +northern provinces. Let China last a few more thousand years with its +present customs and the country will be one vast cemetery, and the +people will have to move away to find land to cultivate. As not one +grave in a thousand is marked by a stone of any kind, it would seem as +if they would not be kept up, but the explanation is that each +Chinaman lives and dies hard by the bones of his ancestors. The care +of their graves is one of life's most serious duties. Even when John +goes to America, half his fortune, if need be, will be used to bring +his body back to the ancestral burying ground. + +In a land so given over to superstition I have no doubt that the most +horrible disasters would also be expected as the penalty for +interfering with any grave. It seems odd that a people who had a +literature centuries before our Anglo-Saxon ancestors emerged from +barbarism should now be the victims of superstitions almost as gross +as those prevailing in Africa; but such are the facts. Chang +Chih-tung, who died a few months ago, was one of the most progressive +and enlightened Chinese statesmen of the last hundred years, but not +even a man of his type could free himself from the great body of +superstition handed down from generation to generation. + +In Wuchang I crossed an amazingly steep, high hill known as "Dragon +Hill," because of the Chinese belief that a dragon inhabits it. This +long hill divides the city into two parts; every day hundreds and +sometimes possibly thousands of people must climb up one side and down +the other in getting from one part of the town to another. Therefore, +when Chang {129} Chih-tung was Viceroy in Hankow he decided that he +would make a cut in this hill and save the people all this trouble. +And he did. Very shortly thereafter, however, he sickened of a painful +abscess in his ear, and the Chinese doctors whom he consulted were +quick in pointing out the trouble. By making the cut in the hill, they +told him, he had offended the earth dragon which inhabits it, and +unless the cut were filled up Chang might die and disaster might come +upon the city. Of course, there was nothing for him to do but to +restore the ancient obstruction to travel, and so it remains to this +day. + +In sight from Dragon Hill is another hill known as Tortoise Hill, +supposed to be inhabited by a tortoise spirit or devil, and at its +foot are some lakes in which it has long been said that the tortoise +washes its feet. Now these lakes are on property owned by the Hanyang +Steel & Iron Works and they decided a few years ago that they would +either drain off the water or else fill up the lakes so as to get more +land. But before they got started the Chinese civil authorities heard +of it and notified the Hanyang Company that such a proceeding could +not be tolerated. The tortoise would have nowhere to wash his feet, +and would straightway bring down the wrath of Heaven on all the +community! + +It is from superstitions such as these that the schools must free the +Chinese before the way can be really cleared for the introduction of +Christianity. The teacher is as necessary as the preacher. And the +task of getting the masses even to the point where they can read and +write is supremely difficult. The language, it must be remembered, has +no alphabet. Each word is made not by joining several letters +together, as with us, but by making a distinct character--each +character an intricate and difficult combination of lines, marks, and +dots. Or perhaps the word may be formed by joining two distinct +characters together. For example, to write "obedience" in Chinese you +write together the characters for "leaf" and "river," the significance +being that true obedience is as trusting {130} and unresisting as the +fallen leaf on the river's current. My point is, however, that for +each word a distinct group of marks (like mixed-up chicken tracks) +must be piled together, and the task of remembering how to recognize +and write the five thousand or more characters in the language would +make an average American boy turn gray at the very thought. My friend +Doctor Tenney, of the American Legation in Peking, asserts that at +least five years of the average Chinese pupil's school life might be +saved if the language were based on an alphabet like ours instead of +on such arbitrary word-signs. + +There is one thing that must be said in favor of the Chinese system of +education, however, and that is the emphasis it has always laid on +moral or ethical training. The teaching, too, seems to have been +remarkably effective. Take so basic a matter as paying one's debts, +for example: it is a part of the Chinaman's religion to get even with +the world on every Chinese New Year, which comes in February. If he +fails to "square up" at this time he "loses face," as his expressive +phrase has it. He is a bad citizen and unpopular. Consequently all +sorts of things may be bought cheaper just before the New Year than +any other time. Every man is willing to make any reasonable sacrifice, +selling his possessions at a great discount if necessary, rather than +have a debt against him run over into the new period--an excellent +idea for America! + +I do not know whether Confucianism is responsible for this particular +policy, but at any rate the fact remains that outside the Bible the +world has never known a more sublime moral philosophy than that of +Confucius. It means much, therefore, that every Chinese pupil must +know the maxims and principles of the great sage by heart. Moreover, +as Confucius did not profess to teach spiritual truth, the +missionaries in China are fast coming to realize that it is both +unnecessary and foolish to urge the people to abandon Confucianism. +The proper policy is to tell the Chinese, "Hold on to all that is good +and true in Confucius. There is very little in his teachings that is +{131} in conflict with religion, and Christian leaders now recognize +him as one of the greatest moral forces the world has known. But to +the high moral teaching of the Chinese master you must add now the +moral teachings of Christianity and, more essential still, the great +body of spiritual truth which Confucianism lacks." The grand old man +among Chinese missionaries, Dr. W. A. P. Martin, who has been in the +work since 1850, said to me in Peking, "Some of the best Christians +are now the best Confucianists." + +Confucianism, as any one can see by reading the books, is no more a +substitute for Christianity than Proverbs is for St. John's Gospel. As +Doctor Brewster, another missionary, says, "We do not ask an American +scholar to renounce Plato to become a Christian; why should we ask a +Chinaman to renounce Confucius?" + +Confucius lived five centuries before Christ, and at his old home in +Shantung are the graves alike of his descendants and his +ancestors--the oldest family burying ground in the world. "No monarch +on earth can trace back his lineage by an unbroken chain through so +many centuries." In Peking I was so fortunate as to form a friendship +with a descendant of Confucius of the seventy-fifth generation--Mr. +Kung Hsiang Koh--a promising and gifted senior in the Imperial College +of Languages. At my request he inscribed a scroll for me in beautiful +Chinese characters, representing one of my favorite quotations from +his world-famous ancestor. I give an English translation herewith: + + "Szema-New asked about the Superior Man. The Master said, 'The + superior man is without anxiety or fear.' + + "'Being without anxiety or fear,' said New, 'does this constitute + what we should call the superior man?' + + "The Master replied, 'When a man looks inward and finds no guilt + there, why should he grieve? or what should he fear?'" + +On board _S. S. Kutwo_, Yangtze River, China. + + + +{132} + + +XIV + +SIDELIGHTS ON CHINESE CHARACTER AND INDUSTRY + + +Having mentioned some of the good points of John Chinaman (and he has +many excellent points), it is also necessary to point out some of his +shortcomings. The trouble with John is that he had some tiptop +ancestors, but he fell into the habit of looking backward at them so +continuously that he has failed, in recent centuries, to make any +further progress. He had a civilization and a literature when our +white ancestors were wearing skins; but there he stopped, so that we +have not only caught up with him, but have passed him almost +immeasurably. The result is that now China is waking up to find that a +great number of ancient abuses, both in public and private life, must +be sloughed off if she is to become a genuinely healthy modern nation. + +Of what has been accomplished with reference to opium I have already +written at length. But this is only a beginning. + +With the opium evil under foot, China will still have other dragons to +slay--if I may use the term dragon in an evil sense in a country whose +national emblem is the dragon. For one thing, slavery still exists in +China. A friend of mine in Peking told me of an acquaintance, an +educated Chinaman, who bought a young girl two years ago for two +hundred taels (about $120 gold), and says now he would not take one +thousand two hundred (about $720 gold). Already, however, a vigorous +sentiment for the complete abolition of slavery has {133} developed +over the empire. About six months ago an imperial edict was issued +prohibiting slave trading, decreeing that child-slaves should become +free on reaching the age of twenty-five, and opening ways for older +slaves to buy their freedom. The peons or slaves of the Manchu princes +were, however, excepted from the terms of this edict. + +Foot-binding also continues a grievous and widespread evil. Formerly +every respectable Chinese father bound the feet of all his girls. +Fathers who did not were either degraded men, reckless of public +opinion, or so bitterly poor as to require the services of their +daughters in unremitting manual labor. Consequently, a natural foot on +a woman became a badge of social inferiority: a Chinaman of prominence +wouldn't marry her. Now, however, many of the wealthier upper-class +Chinamen in the cities are letting their girls grow up with unbound +feet, and this custom will gradually spread until the middle and lower +classes generally, seeing that fashion no longer decrees such a +barbaric practice, will also abandon it. + +The progress of the reform, however, is by no means so rapid as could +be wished. A father with wealth may risk getting a husband for his +daughter even though she has natural feet, but ambitious fathers among +the common people fear to take such risks. An American lady whose home +I visited has a servant who asked for two or three weeks' leave of +absence last summer, explaining that he wished to bind the feet of his +baby daughter. My friend, knowing all the cruelty of the practice, and +having a heart touched by memories of the heart-rending cries with +which the poor little creatures protest for weeks against their +suffering, pleaded with the servant to let the child's feet alone. But +to no effect. "Big feet no b'long pretty," he said, and went home +unconvinced. + +"The feet," according to the brief statement of ex-Minister Charles +Denby, "are bandaged at an age varying from three to five years. The +toes are bent back until they penetrate the sole of the foot, and are +tightly bound in that position. The {134} parts fester and the toes +grow into the foot." The result is that women grow up with feet the +same size as when they were children, and the flesh withers away on +the feet and below the knees. Throughout life the fashion-cursed girl +and woman must hobble around on mere stumps. When you first see a +Chinese woman with bound feet you are reminded of the old pictures of +Pan, the imaginary Greek god with the body of a man and the feet of a +goat. The resemblance to goat's feet is remarkably striking. As the +women are unable to take proper exercise--except with great +pain--there is little doubt that their physical strength has been +seriously impaired by this custom, and that the stamina of the whole +race as well has suffered in consequence. + +Whenever a foreigner--it is the white man who is "the foreigner" over +here--begins a comparison or contrast between the Chinese and the +Japanese, he is sure to mention among the first two or three things +the vast difference in moral standards with regard to family life. The +cleanness of the family life in China, he will tell you, is one of the +great moral assets of the race, while the contrary conditions largely +prevailing in Japan would seem to threaten ultimate disaster to the +people. + +As in most Asiatic countries, however, there is in China no very +definite moral sentiment against a man's marrying more than one wife. +In fact, it is regarded not as a question of morals but of expense. It +is one of the privileges of the Chinaman who can afford it, and the +No. 1 wife is often glad for her husband to take a No. 2 and a No. 3 +wife, because the secondary wives are somewhat under her authority and +relieve her of much work and worry. A few months ago a Chinaman in +Hankow had a very capable No. 2 wife who was about to quit him to work +for some missionaries, whereupon Wife No. 1, Wife No. 3, and the +much-worried husband all joined in a protest against the household's +losing so capable a woman. + +All these three wives were in subjection to the husband's mother, +however, until the old lady took cholera last year, and {135} in a day +or so was dead. The prevalence of awful scourges, such as cholera and +bubonic plague, is another evil which the new China must conquer. +These diseases are due mainly, of course, to unsanitary ways of +living, and when you have been through a typical Chinese city you +wonder that anybody escapes. The streets are so narrow that with +outstretched arms you can almost reach from side to side, and the +unmentionable foulness of them often smells to heaven. + +Moreover, if you have the idea that the typical Chinaman is content to +live only on rice, prepare to abandon it. Hogs are more common in a +village of Chinamen than dogs in a village of negroes; and, in some +cases, almost equally at home in the houses. I saw a Chinese woman in +Kiukiang feeding a fat porker in the front room, while, in the narrow +streets around, hogs and dogs were wandering together or lying +contentedly asleep in the sunshine by the canal bank. In fact, the +ancient Chinese character for "home" is composed of two +characters--"pig" and "shelter"--a home being thus represented as a +pig under a shelter! + +Small wonder that cholera is frequent, smallpox a scourge, and leprosy +in evidence here and there. Quite recently a couple of mission +teachers of my denomination have died of smallpox: they "didn't +believe in vaccination." Shanghai, as I write this, is just recovering +from a bubonic plague scare. There were one or two deaths from the +plague among the Chinese, whereupon the foreigners put into force such +drastic quarantine regulations that the Chinese rebelled with riots. +The whites then put their cannon into position, the volunteer soldiers +were called out, and it looked at one time as if I should find the +city in a state of bloody civil war, but fortunately the trouble seems +now to have blown over. + +Unfortunately the ignorant Chinese put a great deal more faith in +patent medicines and patent medicine fakirs than they do in approved +sanitary measures. It is interesting to find that American patent +medicines discredited at home by {136} the growing intelligence of our +people have now taken refuge in the Orient, and are coining the poor +Chinaman's ignorance into substantial shekels. Worst of all, some of +the religious papers over here are helping them to delude the +unintelligent, just as too many of our church papers at home are +doing. + +In Shanghai I picked up a weekly publication printed in Chinese and +issued by the Christian Literature Society, and asked what was the +advertisement on the back. "Dr. Williams's Pink Pills for Pale +People," was the answer. + +One of the most peculiar things about China is the existence of almost +unlimited official corruption side by side with high standards of +honesty and morality in ordinary business or private life. I have +already referred to the system of "squeeze" or graft by which almost +every official gets the bulk of his earnings. In Shanghai it is said +that the Taotai, or chief official there, paid $50,000 (gold) for an +office for which the salary is only $1500 (gold) a year. + +Against this concrete evidence of official corruption place this +evidence of a high sense of honor in private life. A young Chinaman, +employed in a position of trust in Hankow, embezzled some money. The +company, knowing that his family was one of some standing, notified +the father. He and his sons, brothers of the thief, went after the +young fellow and killed him with an ax. The community as a whole +approved the action, because in no other way could the father free his +family from the disgrace and ostracism it would have incurred by +having an embezzler in it. + + +{137} +[Illustration: FASHIONABLE CHINESE DINNER PARTY.] + +[Illustration: HOW LUMBER IS SAWED IN THE ORIENT--THERE ARE +PRACTICALLY NO SAW MILLS.] + + +{138} + +[Illustration: A QUOTATION FROM CONFUCIUS.] + This is the upper part of a scroll kindly written for the author by + Mr. Kung Hsiang Koh (or Alfred E. Kung as he signs himself in + English). Mr. Kung is a descendant of Confucius (Kung Fut-zu) of the + seventy-fifth generation, and the complete quotation of which the + scroll is a reproduction in Chinese characters reads as follows: + + "Ssu-ma Niu asked for a definition of the princely man." + + "The Master said: 'The princely man is one who knows neither grief + nor fear.' 'Absence of grief and fear?' said Niu, 'Is this the mark + of a princely man?' The Master said, 'If a man look into his heart + and find no guilt there, why should he grieve? Or of what should he + be afraid?'" + + +{136 continued} + +The Yangtze River trip from Hankow to Shanghai, mentioned in my last +letter, I found very interesting. We were three days going the 600 +miles. The Yangtze is the third largest river in the world and +navigable 400 miles beyond Hankow, or 1000 miles in all. It would be +navigable much farther but for a series of waterfalls. Nearly thirty +miles wide toward the mouth, its muddy current discolors the ocean's +blue forty miles out in the Pacific, I am told. In fact, I think {139} +it must have been that distance that I last saw the great turgid +stream off the Shanghai harbor. Even as far up as Hankow the river +becomes very rough on windy days. Consequently, when I wished to go +across to Wuchang, I found that the motor boat couldn't go, so +tempestuous were the waves, but a rather rickety looking little native +canoe called a "sampan," with tattered sails, bobbing up and down like +a cork, finally landed me safely across the three or four miles of +sea-like waves. All the way from Hankow to Peking one encounters all +sorts of Chinese junks and other odd river-craft. In many cases they +look like the primitive Greek and Roman boats of which one sees +pictures in the ancient histories. The Chinese are excellent sailors +and manage their boats very skilfully. The greatest canal that the +world knows was begun by them in the time of Nebuchadnezzar and +finished thirteen centuries ago. + +Until very recently, however, the Chinese have not wanted railways. +Coming from Hankow to Shanghai I passed in sight of the site of the +old Woosung-Shanghai Railway, the first one built in China; but before +it got well started the people tore it up and threw it into the river. + +In Shanghai I met his Excellency Wu Ting Fang, formerly Minister to +the United States, and he told me of his troubles in building, under +Li Hung Chang's directions, what turned out to be the first permanent +railway in China. This was less than twenty-five years ago. Li Hung +Chang said to Mr. Wu: "If we ask the authorities to let us build a +railway, they'll refuse, so I am going to take the responsibility +myself. The only way to overcome the prejudice against railways is to +let the people see that a railroad isn't the evil they think it is." +Accordingly, Mr. Wu set to work on the Tongshan Railway. He built +first ten miles, then twenty more. Then as the road was working well, +and its usefulness demonstrated, he and Li Hung Chang thought they +might get permission from the Throne to construct a line from Tientsin +to Peking. Successful in this effort, they went ahead with the survey +and {140} imported from America the materials for building the +line--and then came a new edict forbidding them to proceed! The matter +had been taken up by the viceroys and governors, and 80 per cent, of +them had opposed building the line! + +Now, less than twenty-five years later, John Chinaman is calling for +railroads in almost every non-railroad section, and the railroads +already built are paying handsome dividends. Everybody seems to +travel. Besides the first-class and second-class coaches, most trains +carry box-cars, very much like cattle-cars and without seats of any +kind, for third-class passengers. And I don't recall having seen one +yet that wasn't chock full of Chinamen, happy as a similar group of +Americans would be in new automobiles. A missionary along the line +between Hankow and Peking says that he now makes a 200-mile trip in +five hours which formerly took him nineteen days. Before the railway +came he had to go by wheelbarrow, ten miles a day, his luggage on one +side the wheel, and himself on the other. Thousands of these +wheelbarrows, doing freight and passenger business, are in use in +Shanghai and the regions roundabout. A frame about three feet wide and +four feet long is built over and around the wheel, and a coolie will +carry as much as half a ton on one of them. + +Along the Yangtze a considerable quantity of cotton is grown, and I +went out into some of the fields in the neighborhood of Shanghai. The +stalks were dead, of course, and in some cases women were pulling them +up for fuel, but I could see that the Chinese is a poorer variety than +our American cotton, and is cultivated more poorly. Instead of +planting in rows as we do, the peasants about Shanghai broadcast in +"lands" eight or ten feet wide, as we sow wheat and oats. About +Shanghai they do not use the heavier two and three horse plows I found +about Peking; consequently the land is poorly broken to begin with, +and the cultivation while the crop is growing amounts to very little. +No sort of seed selection or variety breeding has ever been attempted. +No wonder that {141} the stalks are small, the bolls small and few in +number, and the staple also very short. + +From my observation I should say that with better varieties and better +cultivation China could easily double her yields without increasing +her acreage. There is likely to be some increase in acreage, too, +however, because farmers who have had to give up poppy culture are in +search of a new money crop, and in most cases will take up cotton. + +As I have said before, the coolie class wear padded clothes all +winter, and as they have no fire in their houses, they naturally have +to wear several suits even of the padded sort. I remember a speech +Congressman Richmond P. Hobson made several years ago in which he +spoke of having seen Chinamen with clothes piled on, one suit on top +of another, until they looked like walking cotton bales. Some of his +hearers may have thought this an exaggeration, but if so, I wish to +give him the support of my own observation and that of a preacher. As +a Chinaman came in the street-car in Shanghai Friday my missionary +host remarked: "That fellow has on four or five suits already, and +he'll put on more as the weather gets colder." + +Mr. Currie, the English superintendent of the International Cotton +Mills at Shanghai, told me as I went through his factory that the +Chinese men and women he employs average about 12 cents a day +(American money), but that from his experience in England he would say +that English labor at 80 cents or a dollar a day is cheaper. "You'd +have more for your money at the week's end. One white girl will look +after four sides of a ring spinning frame; it takes six Chinese, as +you see. Then, again, the one white girl would oil her own machine; +the Chinese will not. In the third place, in England two overseers +would be enough for this room, while here we must have seven." + +Hong Kong. + + + +{142} + + +XV + +FAREWELL TO CHINA + + +With this letter we bid farewell to China. When I see it again it will +doubtless be greatly changed. Already I have come too late to see +poppy fields or opium dens; too late to see the old-time cells in +which candidates for office were kept during their examination +periods; too late, I am told, to find the flesh of cats or dogs for +sale in the markets. If I had waited five years longer, it is likely +that I should not have found the men wearing their picturesque queues +and half-shaven heads; before five years, too, a parliament and a +cabinet will have a voice in the government in which until now the one +potent voice has been that of the Emperor, the "Son of Heaven" +divinely appointed to rule over the Middle Kingdom. All over the +country the people are athrill with a new life. Unless present signs +fail, the century will not be old before the Dragon Empire, instead of +being a country hardly consulted by the Powers about matters affecting +its own interests, will itself become one of the Powers and will have +to be consulted about affairs in other nations. + +Be it said, to begin with, that I am just back from Canton, the most +populous city in China and supposedly one of the half dozen most +populous in the whole world. As no census has ever been taken, it is +impossible to say how many people it really does contain. The +estimates vary all the way from a million and a half to three +millions. Half a million people, it is said, live on boats in the +river. Some of them are born, marry, grow old, and die without ever +having known a home {143} on land. And these boats, it should be +remembered, are no larger than a small bedroom at home. I saw many of +them yesterday afternoon, and I also saw many of the women managing +them. The women boatmen--or boat-women--of Canton are famous. + +Think of a city of two or three million people without a vehicle of +any kind--wagon, buggy, carriage, street-car, automobile, or even a +rickshaw! And yet this is what Canton appears to be. I didn't see even +a wheelbarrow. The streets are too narrow for any travel except that +of pedestrians, and the only men not walking are those borne on the +shoulders of men who are walking. My guide (who rejoices in the name +of Ah Cum John) and I went through in sedan chairs--a sort of chair +with light, narrow shafts before and behind. These shafts fit over the +heads and bare shoulders of three coolies, or Chinese laborers, and it +is these human burden-bearers who showed us the sights of Canton. + +To get an idea of what the city is like, fancy an area of about thirty +square miles crowded with houses as thick as they can stand, every +house jam up against its neighbors, with only walls between--no room +for yards or parks or driveways--and these houses dense with people! +Then punch into these square miles of houses a thousand winding +alleys, no one wide enough to be called a street, and fill up these +alleys also with hurrying, perspiring, pig-tailed Chinamen. There are +no stores, shops or offices such as would look familiar to an +American, but countless thousands of Chinese shops wide open to the +streets, with practically no doors in evidence. + +Such is Canton: a human hive of industry: a maze of labyrinthine +alleys crowded with people, the alleys or streets too narrow to get +the full light of day! + +Outside this crowded city of Canton's living masses is the even larger +and more crowded city of Canton's dead. From the highest point on the +city wall my guide pointed out an unbroken cemetery extending for ten +miles: the hills dotted {144} with mounds until they have the +appearance of faces pitted by smallpox. + +For the Chinaman, however unimportant in actual life, becomes a man of +importance as soon as he dies, and his grave must be carefully looked +after. The finest place I saw in Canton was the mortuary where the +dead bodies of wealthy Chinamen are kept until burial. The handsome +coffins I saw ranged in value from $1400 to $2700 Mexican, or half +these amounts American money. The lacquered surfacing accounts for the +high cost. + +Nor are these departed Celestials kept here for a few days only. +Sometimes it is a matter of several years, my guide told me, the +geomancers or fortune-tellers being employed all this time in finding +a suitable site for a grave. These miserable scoundrels pretend that +the soul of the dead man will not rest unless he is buried in just the +right spot and in just the right kind of soil. Perhaps no professional +man in China earns as much as these fakirs. Sometimes it happens that +after a man has been dead two or three years his family suffers a +series of misfortunes. A frequent explanation in such cases is that +the wrong site has been chosen for the dead man's burial place. +Another geomancer is then hired and told to find a new grave where the +soul will rest in peace. Of course, he charges a heavy fee. + +In one $1400 coffin I saw was the body of a wealthy young Chinaman who +died last spring. Three times a day a new cup of tea is placed on the +table for his spirit, and on the walls of the room were scores of silk +scrolls, fifteen feet long, expressing the sympathy of friends and +relatives. Around the coffin, too, were almost life-size images of +servants, and above it a heap of gilded paper to represent gold. When +the geomancers finally find a suitable grave for the poor fellow he +will be buried, and these paper servants and this paper gold will be +burned, in the belief that they will be converted into real servants +and real gold for his use in the spirit world. + +{145} + +A friend of mine in Peking who saw the funeral of the late Emperor and +Empress Dowager told me some interesting stories of the truly Oriental +ceremonies then celebrated. Tons of clothes and furs were burned, and +vast quantities of imitation money. A gorgeous imitation boat, natural +size and complete in every detail from cabins to anchors, steamer +chairs, and ample decks, was fitted up at a cost of $36,000 American +money, and burned. Furthermore, as my friend was coming home one +evening, he was surprised to see in an unexpected place, some distance +ahead, a full regiment of soldiers, gorgeous in new uniforms, and +hundreds of handsome cavalry horses. Getting closer, what was his +amazement to find that these natural-size soldiers and steeds were +only make-believe affairs to be burned for the dead monarchs! To +maintain their rank in the Beyond they must have at least one full +regiment at their command! + +Since we are on such gruesome subjects we might as well finish with +them now by considering the punishments in China. I went out to the +execution grounds in Canton, but it happened to be an off-day when +nobody was due to suffer the death sentence. I did see the cross, +though, on which the worst criminals are stretched and strangled +before they are beheaded. The bodies of these malefactors are not +allowed ordinary burial, but quick-limed, I believe. There were human +bones beside the old stone wall where I walked, and when a Chinese +brat lifted for a moment a sort of jute-bagging cover from a barrel +the topmost skull of the heap grinned ghastly in the sunlight. + +The cruelty of Chinese punishments is a blot upon her civilization. +When I was in Shanghai a friend of mine told me of having been to a +little town where two men had just been executed for salt-smuggling. +Salt is a government monopoly in China, or at least is subject to a +special revenue duty, so that salt smuggling is about equivalent to +blockading whiskey in America. + +{146} + +Recognized forms of punishment are death by starvation and "death by +the seventy-two cuts"--gradually chopping a man to pieces as if he +were a piece of wood. This latter punishment is for treason. To let a +bad criminal be hanged instead of beheaded is regarded as a favor, the +explanation being that the man who has his head cut off is supposed to +be without a head in the hereafter. + +The worst feature of the whole system is the treatment of prisoners to +make them confess. The Chinese theory is that no one should be +punished unless he confesses with his own mouth. Consequently the most +brutal, sickening tortures are practised to extort confession, and, in +the end, thousands and thousands of innocent men, no doubt, rather +than live longer in miseries far worse than death, have professed +crimes of which they were innocent. + +But let us turn now to happier topics--say to an illustration of +Chinese humor. Very well; here is the sort of story that tickles a +Chinaman: it is one they tell themselves: + +A Chinaman had a magic jar. And when you think of a jar here don't +think of one of the tiny affairs such as Americans use for preserves +and jams. The jar here means a big affair about half the size of a +hogshead: I bathed in one this morning. It was in such jars that Ali +Baba's Forty Thieves concealed themselves. Well, this magic jar had +the power of multiplying whatever was put into it. If you put in a +suit of clothes, behold, you could pull out perhaps two or three dozen +suits! If you put in a silver dollar, you might get out a hundred +silver dollars. There doesn't seem to have been any regularity about +the jar's multiplying properties. Sometimes it might multiply by two, +while again it might multiply by a hundred. + +At any rate, the owner of the magic receptacle was getting rich fairly +fast, when a greedy judge got word of the strange affair somehow. +Accordingly he made some kind of false charge against the man and made +him bring the jar into court. {149} Then the judge pretended that he +couldn't decide about the case, or else pretended that the man needed +punishment for something, and so wrongly refused to give the citizen's +property back. Instead the magistrate took the jar into his own home +and himself began to get rich on its labors. + + +{147} + +[Illustration: THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.] + The building of the Great Wail, considered simply as a feat of + Herculean labor, leaves us no room to boast over the Panama Canal. + + +[Illustration: CHINESE WOMAN'S RUINED FEET.] + The lower picture shows the terrible deformity produced by + foot-binding. + + +{148} + +[Illustration: CHINESE SCHOOL CHILDREN.] + The upper picture suggests a word about the amazing fertility of the + Oriental races--the Japanese, for example, increasing from their + birth-rate alone as fast as the United States from its birth-rate + plus its enormous immigration. + + +[Illustration: THE AMERICAN CONSULATE AT ANTUNG.] + A great need of America in the East is better consular buildings. + Witness this one at Antung. + + +{149 continued} + +Now, when this happened, the friends of the mistreated man began to +murmur. Failing to do anything with the magistrate, they appealed to +the magistrate's father--for though you may be fifty or seventy years +old in China, if your father is living you are as much subject to his +orders as if you were only ten; this is the case just as long as you +both live. But when the father spoke about the complaints of the +people the magistrate lied about the jar somehow, but not in a way +entirely to deceive the old fellow. He decided to do some +investigating, and went blundering around into a dark room in search +of the jar, and before he saw what he was doing came upon it and fell +into it. Whereupon he cried to his son to pull him out. + +The son did come, but when he pulled out one father, behold there was +another still in the jar--and then another and another and another. He +pulled out one father after another till the whole room was full of +fathers, and then he filled up the yard with fathers, and had six or +eight standing like chickens on the stone wall before the accursed old +jar would quit! And to have left one father in there would naturally +have been equivalent to murder. + +So this was the punishment of the unjust magistrate. He had, of +course, to support all the dozens of aged fathers he pulled out of the +jar (a Chinaman must support his father though he starve himself), and +it is to be supposed that he used up all the wealth he had unjustly +piled up, and had to work night and day as well all the rest of his +life. Of course the jar, too, had to be returned to its owner, and in +this way the whole community learned of the magistrate's unfairly +withholding it. + +This story is interesting not only for its own sake, but for {150} the +light it sheds on Chinese life--the relations of father and son; the +unjust oppression of the people by the officials in a land where the +citizen is without the legal rights fundamental in American +government; and, lastly, the "Arabian Nights" like flavor of this +typically Chinese piece of fiction. + +One of the funny things among the many funny things I have encountered +in China is the peculiar way of buying or selling land, as reported to +me by Rev. Dr. R. T. Bryan. If you buy land from a Chinaman, about +Shanghai at least, without knowing the custom of the country, you may +have to make him three additional payments before you get through with +him. For, according to the custom, after the first payment he will +give you a deed, but after a little while will come around sighing, +regretting that he sold the land and complaining that you didn't pay +enough. Accordingly, you will pay him a little more, and he will give +you what is called a "sighing paper," certifying that the "sighing +money" has been paid. A few days or weeks pass and he turns up again. +You didn't pay him quite enough before. Therefore, you make another +small payment and he gives you the "add-a-little-more" paper showing +that the "add-a-little-more" money has been paid. Last of all, you +make what is called the "pull-up-root" payment, and the land is safely +yours. + +Of course, the impatient foreigner hasn't time for this sort of thing, +consequently he pays enough more in the beginning to cancel these +various dramatic performances. Doctor Bryan's deed certifies that the +"sighing money," "add-a-little-more money," and "pull-up-root money" +have all been settled to start with. + +"Pidgin English," or the corruptions of English words and phrases by +means of which foreigners and Chinese exchange ideas, is also very +amusing. "Pidgin English" means "business English," "pidgin" +representing the Chinaman's attempt to say "business." Some of the +Chinese phrases are very useful, such as "maskee" for our "never +mind." Other good phrases {151} are "chop-chop" for "hurry up," +"chin-chin" for "greeting," and "chow-chow" for "food." + +"Have you had plenty chow-chow?" my good-natured Chinese elevator-boy +in Shanghai used to say to me after dinner; and the bright-eyed little +brats at the temples in Peking used to explain their failure to do +anything forbidden by saying they should get "plenty bamboo +chow-chow"! Bamboos are used for switches (as well as for ten thousand +other things), and "bamboo chow-chow" means the same thing to the +Chinese boy as "hickory tea" to an American boy! + +A Scotch fellow-passenger was telling me the other day of the saying +that "The Scotchman keeps the Sabbath day, and every other good thing +he can lay his hands on." Now, the Chinaman, unlike the Scotchman, +doesn't keep the Sabbath, but he does live up to all the requirements +of the second clause of the proverb. Nothing goes to waste in China +except human labor, of which enough is wasted every year to make a +whole nation rich, simply because it is not aided by effective +implements and machinery. The bottles, the tin cans, the wooden boxes, +the rags, the orange peels--everything we throw away--is saved. And +the coolies work from early morn till late at night and every day in +the week. Their own religion does not teach them to observe the +seventh day, and this requirement of Christianity, in China as well as +in Japan, is regarded as a great hardship upon its converts. + +Buddhism in China, as in Japan, it may also be observed just here, is +now only a hideous mixture of superstition and fraud. As I found +believers in the Japanese temples rubbing images of men and bulls to +cure their own pains, so in the great Buddhist temple at Canton I +found the fat Buddha's body rubbed slick in order to bring flesh to +thin supplicants, while one of the chief treasures of the temple is a +pair of "fortune sticks." If the Chinese Buddhist wishes to undertake +any new task or project, he first comes to the priest and tries out +its advisability with these "fortune sticks." If, when dropped to the +{152} floor, they lie in such a position as to indicate good luck, he +goes ahead; otherwise he is likely to abandon the project. + +Let me close this chapter by noting a remark made to me by Dr. Timothy +Richard, one of the most eminent religious and educational workers in +the empire. + +"Do you know what has brought about the change in China?" he asked me +one day in Peking. "Well, I'll tell you: it is a comparative view of +the world. Twenty years ago the Chinese did not know how their country +ranked with other countries in the elements of national greatness. +They had been told that they were the greatest, wisest, and most +powerful people on earth, and they didn't care to know what other +countries were doing. Since then, however, they have studied books, +have sent their sons to foreign colleges and universities, and they +have found out in what particulars China has fallen behind other +nations. Now they have set out to remedy these defects. The +comparative view of the world is what is bringing about the remaking +of China." + +In China, no doubt, the men who have brought the people this +"comparative view of the word" were criticised sometimes for presuming +to suggest that any other way might be better than China's way; but +they kept to their work--and have won. Doctor Richard himself did much +effective service by publishing a series of articles and diagrams +showing how China compared with other countries in area, population, +education, wealth, revenue, military strength, etc. Such comparisons +are useful for America as a country, and for individual states and +sections as well. + +Hong Kong, China. + + + +{153} + + +XVI + +WHAT I SAW IN THE PHILIPPINES + + +Of the cruelty of Chinese punishments I have already had something to +say, but there is at least one thing that should be said for the +Chinese officials in this connection: No matter how heinous his crime, +they have never sent a criminal from Hong Kong to Manila in an +Indo-China boat in the monsoon and typhoon season. + +Dante could have found new horrors for the "Inferno" in the voyage as +I made it. From Saturday morning till Sunday night, while the storm +was at its height, the waves beat clean over the top of our vessel. A +thousand times it rolled almost completely to one side, shivered, +trembled, and recovered itself, only to yield again to the wrath and +fury of mountain-like waves hurled thundering against it and over it. +The crack where the door fitted over the sill furnished opening enough +to flood my cabin. In spite of the heat not even a crack could be +opened at the top of the window until Monday morning. A bigger ship a +few hours ahead of us found the sea in an even more furious mood. The +captain stayed on the bridge practically without sleep three days and +nights, going to bed, spent with fatigue and watching, as soon as he +came at last into sight of Manila. Two weeks ago the captain of +another ship came into port so much used up that he resigned and gave +his first mate command of the vessel, while still another vessel has +just limped into Manila disabled after buffeting the storm for a brief +period. + + +{154} + + +At any rate, the trip is over now, and I write this in Manila, with +its tropical heat and vegetation, its historic associations, its +strange mixture of savage, Spanish, and American influences. The Pasig +River, made famous in the war days of '98, flows past my hotel, and +beautiful Manila Bay, glittering in the fierce December sunlight, +recalls memories of Dewey and our navy. But the moss-green walls about +the old Spanish city remind us of days of romance and tragedy more +fascinating than any of the events of our own generation. In the days +when Spain made conquest of the world these streets were laid out, and +the statues of her sovereigns, imperious and imperial, still stand +here to remind us that nations, like men, are mortal, and that for +follies or mistakes a people no less surely than an individual must +pay the price. + +Nor let our own proud America, boasting of her greater area and richer +resources, think she may ignore the lessons the history of her +predecessors here may teach. The statue of Bourbon Don Carlos in his +royal robe that stands amid the perennial green of the Cathedral +Park--it may well bring our American officers who look out daily upon +it, and the other Americans who come here, a feeling not of pride but +of profound and reverent humility: + + "God of Our Fathers, known of old. + Lord of our far-flung battle-line. + Beneath whose awful hand we hold + Dominion over palm and pine. + Judge of the nations, spare us yet, + Lest we forget, lest we forget!" + +In order to see what the Philippine country looks like, I left Manila +Thursday and made the long, hot trip to Daguban, travelling through +the provinces of Rizal, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, and Pangasinan. The +first four of these are known as Tagalog provinces; the fifth is +inhabited by Ilocanos and Pampangans. Three dialects or languages are +spoken by the {155} tribes in the territory covered. Not far beyond +Daguban are savage dog-eating, head-hunting tribes; taos, or peasants, +buy dogs around Daguban and sell to these savages at good profits. + +The provinces I travelled through are typical of Filipinoland +generally. Rather sparsely settled, only the smaller part of the land +is under cultivation, the rest grown up in horse-high tigbao or Tampa +grass, or covered with small forest trees. Among trees the feathery, +fern-like foliage of the bamboo is most in evidence; but the +broad-leaved banana ranks easily next. The high topknot growth of the +cocoanut palm and the similar foliage of the tall-shanked papaya +afford a spectacle unlike anything we see at home. About Daguban +especially many cocoanuts are grown, and the clumps of trees by the +Agno River reminded me of the old Bible pictures of the River Nile in +the time of Pharaoh--especially when I looked at the plowing going on +around them. For the Filipino's plow is modelled closely on the old +Egyptian implement, and hasn't been much changed. A properly crooked +small tree or limb serves for a handle, another crooked bough makes +the beam, and while there is in most cases a steel-tipped point, some +of the poorer farmers have plows made entirely of wood. A piece of +wood bent like the letter U forms the hames; another piece like U with +the prongs pulled wide apart serves as a singletree. Then, with two +pieces of rope connecting primitive hame and single-tree, the +Filipino's harness is complete. + +Before going into any further description of the plows, however, let +us get our picture of the typical country on the Island of Luzon as I +saw it on this hot December day. Great fields of rice here and there, +ripe for the harvest, and busy, perspiring little brown men and women +cutting the crop with old-fashioned knives and sickles; the general +appearance not unlike an American wheat or oat harvest in early +summer. Bigger fields of head-high sugarcane at intervals, the upper +two feet green, the blades below yellow and dry. Some young corn, some +of it tasselling, some that will not be in tassel before the last of +{156} January. Some fields of peanuts. Here and there a damp +low-ground and a sluggish river. Boats on the rivers: small freight +boats of a primitive type and long canoes hewed out of single logs. + +Most striking of all are the houses in which the people live, +clustered in villages, as are farmhouses in almost every part of the +world except in America. Surrounded in most cases by the massive +luxuriance of a banana grove, the Filipino's hut stands on stilts as +high as his head, and often higher. One always enters by a ladder. In +most instances there are two rooms, the larger one perhaps 10 x 12 +feet, and a sort of lean-to adjoining, through which the ladder comes. +A one-horse farmer's corn crib is about the size of the larger +Filipino home. And it is made, of course, not of ordinary lumber, but +of bamboo--the ever-serviceable bamboo--which, as my readers probably +know, strongly resembles the fishing-pole reeds that grow on our river +banks. The sills, sleepers, and scaffolding of the house are made of +larger bamboo trunks, six inches or less in diameter; the split trunks +form the floor; the sides are of split bamboo material somewhat like +that of which we make our hamper baskets and split-bottom chairs; the +roofing is of _nipal_, which looks much like very long corn shucks. + +In short, imagine an enormous hamper basket, big enough to hold six or +eight hogsheads, put on stilts, and covered with shucks: such in +appearance is the Filipino's house. Around it are banana trees bent +well toward the ground by the weight of the one great bunch at the +top, and possibly a few bamboo and cocoanut trees. For human ornaments +there are rather small and spare black-haired, black-eyed, +brown-skinned men, women, and children in clothing rather gayly +colored--as far as it goes: in some cases it doesn't go very far. The +favorite color with the women-folk is a sort of peach-blossom mixture +of pink and white or a bandanna-handkerchief combination of red and +white. Bare feet are most common, {159} but many wear slippers, and +not a few are now slaves enough to fashion to wear American shoes. The +men, except the very poorest, wear white, nor is it a white worn dark +by dirt such as Koreans wear, but a spotless, newly washed white. +Nearly every Filipino seems to have on clothes that were laundered the +day before. A sort of colored gauze is frequently the only outer +garment worn by either men or women on the upper part of the body. + + +{157} + +[Illustration: A FILIPINO'S HOME.] + Nearly all the native houses I saw in the rural Philippines were of + this type--about this size, set on stilts, and constructed of + similar material. The scene is not quite natural-looking, however, + without a banana grove and a fighting cock or two. + + +{158} + +[Illustration: THE CARABAO, THE WORK-STOCK OF THE FILIPINOS.] + + +[Illustration: AN OLD SPANISH CATHEDRAL.] + Of all the native Oriental peoples, the Filipinos alone have become + thoroughly Christianized. The great majority are Catholics. + + +{159 continued} + +The beast of burden in the Philippines, the ungainly, slow-moving +animal that pulls the one-handled plows and the two-wheeled carts, is +the _carabao_. The _carabao_, or water buffalo, is about the size of +an ordinary American ox, and much like the ox, but his hide is black, +thick, and looks almost as tough as an alligator's; his horns are +enormous, and he has very little hair. Perhaps his having lived in the +water so much accounts for the absence of the hair. Even now he must +every day submerge himself contentedly in deep water, must cover his +body like a pig in a wallow: this is what makes life worth living for +him. Furthermore, when he gives word that he is thirsty Mr. Tao (the +peasant) must not delay watering him; in this hot climate thirst may +drive him furiously, savagely mad, and the plowman may not be able to +climb a cocoanut tree quick enough to escape hurt. + +I saw quite a few goats, some cattle, a few hogs, and, of course, some +dogs. Much as the Filipino may care for his dog, however, he always +reserves the warmest place in his heart for nothing else but his +gamecock, his fighting rooster. Cock-fighting, and the gambling +inseparably connected with it, are his delight, and no Southern +planter ever regarded a favorite fox-hound with more pride and +affection than the Filipino bestows on his favorite chicken. In grassy +yards you will see the rooster tied by one leg and turned out to +exercise, as we would stake a cow to graze, while his owner watches +and fondles him. I shall never forget a gray-headed, bright-eyed, +barefooted old codger I saw near Tarlac stroking the feathers of his +bird, while in his eyes was the pride as of a woman over {160} her +first-born. A man often carries his gamecock with him as a negro would +carry a dog, and he is as ready to back his judgment with his last +_centavo_ as was the owner of Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog" before that +ill-fated creature dined too heartily on buckshot. Sundays and saints' +days are the days for cock-fighting--and both come pretty often. + +I wish I could give my readers a glimpse of the passengers who got on +and off my train between Manila and Daguban: Filipino women carrying +baskets on their heads, smoking cigarettes, and looking after +babies--in some cases doing all three at once; Filipino men, likewise +smoking, and with various kinds of luggage, including occasional +gamecocks; Filipino children in most cases "undressed exceedingly," as +Mr. Kipling would say; and American soldiers in khaki uniforms and +helmets. At one place a pretty little twelve-year-old girl gets +aboard, delighted that she is soon to see America for the first time +in six years. For a while I travel with an American surveyor whose +work is away out where he must swim unbridged streams, guard against +poisonous snakes, and sleep where he can. An army surgeon tells me as +we pass the site of a battle between the Americans and the Filipino +insurgents eleven years ago: the Filipinos would not respect the Red +Cross, and the doctors and hospital corps had to work all night with +their guns beside them, alternately bandaging wounds and firing on +savages. In telling me good-bye a young Westerner sends regards to all +America. "Even a piece of Arizona desert would look good to me," he +declares; "anything that's U.S.A." A young veterinarian describes the +government's efforts to exterminate rinderpest, a disease which in +some sections has killed nine tenths of the _carabao_. A campaign as +thorough and far-reaching as that which the Agricultural Department at +home is waging against cattle ticks is in progress, but the ignorant +farmers cannot understand the regulations, and are greatly hindering a +work which means so much of good to them. + +Such are a few snapshots of Philippine life. + +{161} + +Of the vast natural resources of the Philippines there can be no +question. With a fertile soil, varied products, immense forest wealth, +and possibly extensive mineral wealth; with developing railway and +steamship lines; with the markets of the Orient right at her doors and +special trade advantages with the United States--with all these +advantages, the islands might soon become rich, if there were only an +industrious population. + +Unfortunately, the Filipino, however, doesn't like work. Whether or +not this dislike is incurable remains to be seen. Perhaps as he comes +into contact with civilization he may conceive a liking for other +things than rice, fish, a loin-cloth, and shade--plenty of shade--and +proceed to put forth the effort necessary to get these other things. +Already there seems to have been a definite rise in the standards of +living since the American occupation. "When I came here in '98," Mr. +William Crozier said to me, "not one native in a hundred wore shoes, +and hats were also the exception; you can see for yourself how great +is the change since then." + +Moreover, in not a few cases Americans who have complained of +difficulty in getting labor have been themselves to blame: they tried +to hire and manage labor the American way instead of in the Filipino +way. The _custombre_, as the Spanish call it--that is to say, the +custom of the country--is a factor which no man can ignore without +paying the penalty. + + +I am having to prepare this article very hurriedly, and I must +postpone my comment on the work of the American Government until +later. In closing, however, I am reminded that just as the old proverb +says, "It takes all sorts of people to make a world," so I am seeing +all sorts. A week ago yesterday the Hong Kong papers announced that +Mr. Clarence Poe would be the guest at luncheon of his Excellency the +Governor-General, Sir Frederick Lugard, K. C. M. G., C. B., D. S. O., +etc., and Lady Lugard, in the executive mansion; yesterday {162} I had +"chow" (food) in a Filipino's place, "The Oriental Hotel, Bar, and +Grocery," away up in the Province of Pangasinan, and climbed to my +room and cot on a sort of ladder or open work stairs such as one might +expect to find in an ordinary barn! It was the best place I could find +in town. + +Nor do the incongruities end here. After getting my evening meal I +walked out in the warm December moonlight, past the shadows of the +strange buildings and tropical trees--and all at once there burst out +the full chorus of one of the world's great operas, the magnificent +voice of a Campanini or Caruso dominating all! + +Great is the graphophone, advance agent of civilization! + +Manila, P. I. + + + +{163} + + +XVII + +WHAT THE UNITED STATES IS DOING IN THE PHILIPPINES + + +There are so many islands in the Philippine group, which I have just +left behind me (I write in a steamer off Manila), that if a man were +to visit one a day, without stopping for Sundays, it would take him +eight years to get around. Most of these islands though, of course, +are little more than splotches on the water's surface and do not +appear on the map. The two big ones, Mindanao and Luzon, contain three +fourths of the total land surface of 127,000 square miles, leaving the +other one fourth to be divided among the other 3138 islets. + +The land area statistics just given indicate that the Philippines are +about the size of three average American states and the population +(7,000,000) is about three times that of an average American +commonwealth. There are only about 30,000 white people in the islands, +and 50,000 Chinese. Chinese immigration is now prohibited. + +The 7,000,000 native Filipinos who make up practically the entire +population represent all stages of human progress. The lowest of them +are head-hunters and hang the skulls of their human enemies outside +their huts, as an American hunter would mount the head of an elk or +bear. The great majority, however, have long been Christians and have +attained a fair degree of civilization. Even among the savage tribes a +high moral code is often enforced. The Igorrotes, for example, though +some of their number make it a condition of marriage {164} that the +young brave shall have taken a head, shall have killed his man, have +remarkable standards of honor and virtue in some respects, and +formally visit the death penalty as the punishment for adultery. +Because roads or means of communication have been poor the people have +mingled but little, and there are three dozen different dialects. In +the course of a half day's journey by rail I found three different +languages spoken by the people along the route. The original +inhabitants were Negritos, a race of pigmy blacks, of whom only a +remnant remains, but the Filipino proper is a Malayan. + +Filipinos are unique in that they alone among all the native peoples +of Asia have accepted Christianity. Fortunate in being without the +gold of Mexico or Peru, the Philippines did not attract the more +brutal Spanish adventurers who, about the time of Magellan's +discovery, were harrying wealthier peoples with fire and sword. +Instead of the soldier or the adventurer, it was the priest, his soul +aflame with love for his church, who came to the Philippines, and the +impression made by his virtues was not negatived by the bloody crimes +of fellow Spaniards mad with lust of treasure. The result is that to +this day probably 90 per cent, of the Filipinos are Catholics. Before +the priests came, the people worshipped their ancestors, as do other +peoples in the Far East. + +The only Asiatics who have accepted Christianity, the Filipinos are +also the only Asiatics among whom women are not regarded as degraded +and inferior beings. "If the Spaniards had done nothing else here," as +a high American official in Manila said to me, "though, as a matter of +fact, we are beginning to recognize that they did a great deal, they +would deserve well of history for what they have accomplished for the +elevation of woman through the introduction of Christianity. No other +religion regards woman as man's equal." + +The testimony I heard in the Philippines indicated that the female +partner in the household is, if anything, superior in authority to the +man. She is active in all the little business {165} affairs of the +family, and white people sometimes arrange with Filipino wives for the +employment of husbands! + +The resources of the islands, as I have already said, are magnificent +and alluring. In the provinces through which I travelled, less than 10 +per cent. of the land seemed to be under cultivation, and statistics +show that this is the general condition. A small area has sufficed to +produce a living for the tao, or peasant, and he has not cultivated +more--a fact due in part to laziness and in part to poor means of +transportation. What need to produce what cannot be taken to market? +This fact, in my opinion, goes far to account for Filipino +unaggressiveness. + +According to the latest figures, the average size of the farms in the +Philippines, including the large plantations, is less than eight +acres, and the principal products are hemp, sugarcane, tobacco, +cocoanuts, and rice. The Manila hemp plant looks for all the world +like the banana plant (both belong to the same family), and the +newcomer cannot tell them apart. The fibre is in the trunk or bark. +Sisal hemp, which I found much like our yucca or "bear grass," is but +little grown. Sugarcane is usually cultivated in large plantations, as +in Louisiana, these plantations themselves called _haciendas_, and +their owners _hacienderos_. The tobacco industry is an important one, +and would be even if the export averaging half a million cigars for +every day in the year were stopped, for the Filipinos themselves are +inveterate smokers. The men smoke, the women smoke, the children +smoke--usually cigarettes, but sometimes cigars of enormous +proportions. "When I first came here," Prof. C. M. Conner said to me, +"it amused me to ask a Filipino how far it was to a certain place, and +have him answer, 'Oh, two or three cigarettes,' meaning the distance a +man should walk in smoking two or three cigarettes!" Cocoanut-raising +is a very profitable industry--all along the Pasig River in Manila you +can see the native boats high-packed with the green, unhusked product, +and two towns in Batanzas shipped 1500 carloads last year. It is also +believed that {166} the rubber industry would pay handsomely. The +rubber-producing trees I saw about Manila were very promising. + +Coffee plantations brought their owners handsome incomes until about +twenty years ago, when the blight, more devastating than the cotton +boll weevil, came with destruction as swift as that which befell +Sennacherib. I heard the story of an old plantation near Lipa, whose +high-bred Castilian owner once lived in splendor, his imported horses +gay in harness made of the finest silver, but the blight which ruined +his coffee plants was equally a blight to his fortunes and his home +and it is now given over to weeds and melancholy ruins. In some +sections, however, coffee is still grown successfully, and I was much +interested in seeing the shrubs in bearing. + +The Philippines are about the only place I have found since leaving +home where the people are not trying to grow cotton. In California, in +the Hawaiian Islands, in Japan, in Korea, and even in Manchuria as far +north as Philadelphia, I have found the plants, and of course in China +proper. But I should add just here, that in Southern China, about +Canton, I did not find cotton. As for the industry in the Philippines, +a Southern man, now connected with the Agricultural Department in +Manila, said to me: "Cotton acts funny here. It runs to weed. I +planted some and it opened five or six bolls a stalk and then quit: +died down." He showed me some "tree cotton," about twenty feet high, +and also some of the Caravonica cotton from Australia, which is itself +much like a small tree. + +When it comes to the lumber industry, not even Col. Mulberry Sellers +would be likely to overestimate the possibilities the Philippines +offer. There are literally millions in it. The government is leasing +immense areas on a stumpage royalty of about 1 per cent., and as +railways are built the industry will expand. Fortunately, there are +strict regulations to prevent the destruction of the forests. They +must be used, not wasted. The authorities realize that while timber is +a crop like other crops, it differs from the other crops in that the +harvesting must {167} never be complete. The cutting of trees below a +certain minimum size is forbidden. + +And now a word as to the activities of the American Government in the +islands and the agencies through which these activities are conducted. +The supreme governing body is known as the Philippine Commission, +consisting of the Governor-General, who is ex-officio president, and +seven other members (four Americans, three Filipinos) appointed by the +President of the United States. Four of these commissioners (three of +these are Americans) are heads of departments, having duties somewhat +like those of Cabinet officers in America. This commission is not only +charged with the executive duties, but it acts as the Upper House or +Senate of the Philippine Congress. That is to say, the voters elect an +Assembly corresponding to our House of Representatives, but no +legislation can become effective unless approved by the Philippine +Commission acting as the Upper House. In the first two elections, +those of 1907 and 1909, the advocates of early independence, opponents +of continued American supremacy, have predominated. The result has +been that the American members of the commission have had to kill +numberless bills passed by the Assembly. On the other hand, some very +necessary and important measures advocated by the commission, measures +which would be very helpful to the Filipinos, are opposed by the +Assembly either through ignorance or stubbornness. Most of the +Assembly members are of the politician type, mestizos or half-breeds +(partly Spanish or Chinese), and very young. "In fact," a Manila man +said to me, "when adjournment is taken, it is hard for a passerby to +tell whether it is the Assembly that has let out or the High School!" +The people in the provinces elect their own governors and city +officials. + +In some respects the legislation for the Philippines adopted by the +American officials at Washington and Manila has been quite +progressive. To begin with, our Republican National {168} +Administration frankly recognized the blunders made in the South +during Reconstruction days, and has practically endorsed the general +policy of suffrage restriction which the South has since adopted. When +the question came up as to who should be allowed to vote, even for the +limited number of elective offices, no American Congressman was heard +to propose that there should be unrestricted manhood suffrage. +Instead, the law as passed provides that in order to vote in the +Philippines one must be 23 years of age, a subject of no foreign +power, and must either (1) have held some responsible office before +August 13, 1898, or (2) own $250 worth of property or pay $15 annually +in established taxes, or (3) be able to speak, read, and write English +or Spanish. Of course, the Filipinos, with a few exceptions, do not +"speak, read, or write" English or Spanish; they have been taught only +their own dialect. I understand that only 2 per cent, of the people +can vote under these provisions. + +It should be said just here, however, that the government is now +making a magnificent effort to educate all the Filipinos, and the +schools are taught in English. The fact that half a million boys and +girls had been put into public schools was the first boasted +achievement of the American administration of the islands. It was, +indeed, a great change from Spanish methods, but in the last three or +four years the officials have been rapidly waking up to the fact that +while they have been getting the Filipinos into the schools, they have +not been getting them into the right sort of schools. + +With the realization of this fact, a change has been made in the kind +of instruction given. More and more the schools have been given an +industrial turn. When I visited the Department of Education in Manila +I found that old textbooks had been discarded and new text-books +prepared--books especially suited to Philippine conditions and +directed to practical ends. Instead of a general physiology describing +bones, arteries, and nerve centres, I found a little book on {169} +"Sanitation and Hygiene in the Tropics," written in simple language, +profusely illustrated, and with information which the pupil can use in +bettering the health of himself, his family, and his neighborhood. +Instead of a general book on agriculture, I found a book written so as +to fit the special needs, crops, and conditions in the Philippines. +Moreover, I found the officials exhibiting as their chief treasures +the specimens of work turned out by the pupils as a result of the +practical instruction given them. + +"I really think," said one of the officers, "that we have carried the +idea of industrial education, of making the schools train for +practical life, much farther in the Philippines than it has been +carried in the United States. The trouble at home is that our teachers +don't introduce industrial education early enough. They wait until the +boy enters the upper grades--if he doesn't leave school before +entering them at all, as he probably does. In any case, they reach +only a few pupils. Our success, on the other hand, is due to the fact +that we begin with industrial education in the earlier grades and get +everybody." + +And right here is a valuable lesson for those of us who are interested +in getting practical training for white boys and girls in America as +well as for brown boys and girls in the Philippines. + +Another progressive step was the introduction of postal savings banks +for the Filipinos before any law was passed giving similar advantage +to the white people of the United States. The law has worked well. In +fact, the increase in number of depositors last year, from 8782 to +13,102--nearly 50 per cent, in a single twelve-month--would indicate +that the people are getting enthusiastic about it and that it is +achieving magnificent results in stimulating thrift and the saving +habit. + +The government has also introduced the Torrens System of Registering +Land Titles, as it has done in Hawaii. Formerly {170} the farmer or +the peasant paid 20 per cent, or more for advances or loans. With his +land registered under the Torrens system the bank will lend him money +at a normal rate of interest, with nothing wasted in lawyers' fees for +expensive investigations of all previous changes in title since the +beginning of time. Judge Charles B. Elliott, now Secretary of Commerce +and Police for the islands, was on the Minnesota Supreme Bench when +the Torrens plan was put into force there, and he is enthusiastic +about its workings both in his home state in America and in the +Philippines. + +For the public health an especially fruitful work has been done by the +Americans, albeit the Filipino has often had much to say in criticism +of the methods of saving life, and but little in praise of the work +itself. "The hate of those ye better, the curse of those ye bless" may +usually be confidently counted on by those who bear the White Man's +Burden, and this seems to have been especially true with regard to +health work in the East. In the Philippines the farmers object to the +quarantine restrictions that would save their carabao from rinderpest; +they object to the regulations that look to stamping out cholera, and +I suppose the isolation and colonization of lepers, who formerly ran +at large, has also been unpopular. In spite of opposition, vaccination +is now general; pock-marked Filipinos will not be so common in future. + +Nor is it likely that there will be many reports of cholera outbreaks +such as an ex-army nurse described to me a few days ago: "When I was +in Iloilo in 1902," she said, "it was impossible to dig graves for the +poor natives as fast as they died. The men were kept digging, at the +point of the bayonet, all night long--pits 100 feet long, 7 feet wide +and 7 feet deep, in which the bodies of the dead were thrown and +quick-limed--and yet I remember that on one occasion 235 corpses lay +for forty-eight hours before we could find graves for them." + +In Manila statistics show that 44 per cent. of the deaths are {171} of +babies under one year old, and the ignorance of the mothers as to +proper methods of feeding and nursing has resulted in a shockingly +high death rate of little ones all over the Philippines. I noticed +that the new school text-book on sanitation and hygiene gives especial +attention to the care of infants, and it is said that already the +school boys and girls are often able to give their mothers helpful +counsel. In this fact we have another good suggestion for the school +authorities at home, where it is said that proper knowledge and care +would save the lives of a million infants a year. + +Hardly less important than the school work has been the road-building +undertaken by the American officials. And in Philippine road work a +most excellent example has been set for the states at home, in that +the authorities have given attention not only to building roads but to +maintaining them after they are built. Too many American communities +vote a heavy bond issue for roads and think that ends the matter. In +the Philippines no such mistake has been made. "With the heavy rains +here," the Governor-General said to me, "our entire investment in a +piece of good road would be lost in four years' time if repair work +were not carefully looked after." + +The system adopted for keeping up the roads is very interesting. +Everywhere along the fine highways I travelled over there were at +intervals piles or pens of crushed stone and other material for +filling up any hole or break. For each mile or so a Filipino is +employed--he is called a _caminero_--and his whole duty is to take a +wheelbarrow and a few tools and keep that piece of road in shape. + +Prizes of $5000 each are also offered to the province that maintains +the best system of first-class roads, to the province that spends the +largest proportion of its funds on roads and bridges, and to the +province that shows the best and most complete system of second-class +roads. + +That the Filipinos are unfit to face the world alone there can be +little doubt. As to whether it is our business in that {172} case to +manage for them is another question. The Filipinos are, like our +negroes, a child-race in habits of thought, whatever they may be from +the standpoint of the evolutionist. "I never get angry with them, +however much they may obstruct my plans," an American of rank said to +me, "for I look on them as children. We are running a George Junior +Republic; that's what it amounts to." Another American, who has had +some experience with the Assembly, said to me: "When you have +explained and reiterated some apparently simple proposition, they will +come to you a day or so later with some elementary question amazing +for its childishness." A large number of excellent measures for which +the Assembly has received the credit were really instigated by the +commission--"personally conducted legislation," it is called. + +The Filipinos come of a race which has achieved more than the negro +race, but on the whole they are probably hardly better fitted for +self-government than the negroes of the South would be to-day if all +the whites should move away. As a Republican of some prominence at +home said to me in Manila: "A crowd of ten-year-old schoolboys in +Chicago would know better how to run a government." + +The mere fact that the Filipinos are not capable of managing wisely +for themselves, of course, is not enough to justify a colonial or +imperialistic policy on the part of the United States. It is not our +business to go up and down the earth taking charge of everybody who is +not managing his affairs as well as we think we could manage for him. +But, in any case, there is no use to delude ourselves as to what are +the real qualifications of Mr. Filipino. + +I believe that the United States should eventually withdraw from the +islands, but when it does so there should be an understanding with the +Powers that will prevent the natives from being exploited by some +other nation. + +China Sea, off Manila Harbor. + + + +{173} + + +XVIII + +ASIA'S GREATEST LESSON FOR AMERICA + + +The prosperity of every man depends upon the prosperity (and therefore +upon the efficiency) of the Average Man. + +So I have argued for years, in season and out of season, in newspaper +articles and in public addresses; and the most impressive fact I have +discovered in all my travel through the Orient is the fundamental, +world-wide importance of this too little accepted economic doctrine. +It is the biggest lesson the Old World has for the New--the biggest +and the most important. + +In America, education, democratic institutions, a proper organization +of industry: these have given the average man a high degree of +efficiency and therefore a high degree of prosperity as compared with +the lot of the average man in Asia or Europe--a prosperity heightened +and enhanced, it is true, by the exploitation of a new continent's +virgin resources, but, after all, due mainly, primarily, as we have +said, to the high degree of efficiency with which the average man does +his work. + +And while there may be "too much Ego in our Cosmos," as Kipling's +German said about the monkey, for us to like to admit it, the plain +truth is that, no matter what our business, we chiefly owe our +prosperity not to our own efforts, but to the high standards of +intelligence, efficiency, and prosperity on the part of our people as +a whole. We live in better homes, eat more wholesome food, wear better +clothing, have more leisure {174} and more recreation, endure less +bitter toil; in short, we find human life fairer and sweeter than our +fellow man in Asia, not because you or I as individuals deserve so +much better than he, but because of our richer racial heritage. We +have been born into a society where a higher level of prosperity +obtains, where a man's labor and effort count for more. + +In China a member of the Emperor's Grand Council told me that the +average rate of wages throughout the empire for all classes of labor +is probably 18 cents a day. In Japan it is probably not more, and in +India much less. The best mill workers I saw in Osaka average 22 cents +a day; the laborers at work on the new telephone line in Peking get 10 +cents; wheelbarrow coolies in Shanghai $4 a month; linotype operators +in Tokyo 45 cents a day, and pressmen 50; policemen 40; the +ironworkers in Hankow average about 10 cents; street-car conductors in +Seoul make 35 cents; farm laborers about Nankou 10 cents; the highest +wages are paid in the Philippines, where the ordinary laborer gets +from 20 to 50 cents. + + Since writing the foregoing I have looked up the latest official + statistics for Japan in the "Financial and Economic Annual for + 1910," the latest figures compiled to date being for 1908. In 1908 + wages had increased on the whole 40 per cent, above 1900 figures, + and I give herewith averages for certain classes of workmen for 1899 + and 1908: + + Daily Wages in Cents + 1899 1908 + Farm laborer, male $0.13 $0.19 + Farm laborer, female .08-1/2 .11-1/2 + Gardener .24 .34 + Weaver, male .15 .22 + Weaver, female .09 .12 + Shoemaker .22-1/2 .32-1/2 + Carpenter .25 .40 + Blacksmith .23 .34 + Day laborer .17 .26-1/2 + + When I asked Director Matsui what he paid the hands I saw at work on + the Agricultural College farm, he answered, "Well, being so near + Tokyo, we have to pay 30 to 40 sen (15 to 20 cents) a day, but in + the country, generally, I should say 20 to 35 sen" (10 to 13-1/2 + cents a day). + + +{175} + + +Moreover, there is a savage struggle for employment even at these low +figures; men work longer hours than in America, and their tasks are +often heart-sickening in their heaviness: tasks such as an American +laborer would regard as inhuman. + +Take, for example, the poor fellow who pulls the jinrikisha. He is +doing the work that horses and mules do at home, and for wages such as +our Southern negroes would refuse for ordinary labor. More than this, +in most cases he is selling you not only his time but his life-blood. +Run he must with his human burden, and faster than Americans would +care to run without a burden; and the constant strain overtaxes his +heart and shortens his days. More than this, he must go in all kinds +of weather, and having become thoroughly heated, must shiver in the +winter wind or driving rain during waits. The exposure and the +overtaxing of the heart are alike ruinous. The rickshaw man's life, I +was told in Japan, is several years shorter than that of the average +man. + +And yet so many men are driven by the general poverty into the +rickshaw business that I have hardly found a city in which it is not +overcrowded. In Peking on one occasion I almost thought my life +endangered by the mob who jostled, tugged, and fought for the +privilege of earning the 15 or 20 cents fare my patronage involved. In +Hong Kong two runners, wild-eyed with the keenness of the savage +struggle for existence, menaced the smaller, younger man I had hired +as if they would take me by force from his vehicle to their own--and +this for a climb so steep that I soon got out and walked rather than +feel myself guilty of "man's inhumanity to man" by making a fellow +being pull me. Fiercer yet was the competition in Hankow, where not +even the brutal clubbing of the policeman was enough to keep the men +in order. In wintry Newchwang I think I suffered almost as much as my +rickshaw man did merely to see him wading through mud and foulness +such as I should not wish my horse to go through at home--though if he +had {176} not waded I should have had to, and he was the more used to +it! + +I mention the hard life of the Oriental laborer who pulls the +jinrikisha because it is typical. The business would not be crowded if +it were not that the men find life in other lines no better. Consider +the men who carried me in my sedan chair in Canton. As each man fitted +the wooden shafts over his shoulders I could see that they were welted +with corns like a mule's shoulders chafed by the hames through many a +summer's plowing. + +Consider, too, the thousands of Chinese and Japanese who do the work +not of carriage horses, but of draft horses. From the time you land in +Yokahoma your heart is made sick by the sight of half-naked +human-beings harnessed like oxen to heavily laden carts and drays. +Bent, tense, and perspiring like slaves at the oar, they draw their +heavy burdens through the streets. One or two men wearily pull an +immense telegraph pole balanced on a two-wheeled truck. Eight or ten +men are harnessed together dragging some merchant's heavy freight. +Four to a dozen other men carry some heavy building-stone or piece of +machinery by running bamboo supports from the shoulders of the men +behind to the shoulders of the men in front: you can see the constant, +tortuous play of the muscles around each man's rigid backbone while +the strained, monotonous, half-weird chorus, "Hy-ah! Hullah! Hee-ah! +Hey!" measures their tread and shifts the strain from man to man, step +by step, with the precision of clock work. On the rivers in China, +too, one sees boats run by human treadmill power: a harder task than +that of Sisyphus is that of the men who sweat all day long at the +wheel, forever climbing and never advancing. + +Nor do the women and children of the Orient escape burdens such as +only men's strong shoulders should bear. Children who should have the +freedom that even the young colt gets--how my heart has gone out to +them cheated out of the joys {177} of childhood! And the women with +children strapped on their backs while they steer boats and handle +passengers and traffic about Hong Kong! Or leave, if you will, the +water-front at Hong Kong and make the hard climb up the steep, +bluff-like, 1800-foot mountainside, dotted with the handsome +residences of wealthy Englishmen: you can hardly believe that every +massive timber, every ton of brick, every great foundation-stone was +carried up, up from the town below, by the tug and strain of human +muscle--and not merely human muscle, but in most cases the muscles of +women! Probably no governor in any state in America lives in a +residence so splendid as that of the governor-general of Hong +Kong--certainly no governor's residence is so beautifully situated, +halfway up a sheer mountain-slope--and yet the wife of the +governor-general told me that the material used in the building was +brought up the mountainside by women! + +Hardly better fare the women in the factories. I mentioned in a former +letter the mills in Shanghai where women work 13-1/4 hours for 12 +cents a day; and in most cases the women in Eastern factories are +herded together in crowded compounds little better than the workhouses +for American criminals! + +Or consider the rice farmers who wade through mud knee-deep to plant +the rice by hand, cultivate it with primitive tools, and harvest it +with sickles. And after all this, they must often sell the rice they +grow, and themselves buy cheaper millet or poorer rice for their own +food. The situation has probably improved somewhat since Col. Charles +Denby published his book five years ago, but in its general outlines +the plight of the typical Chinese farmer as described by him then is +true to-day: + + "The average wage of an able-bodied young man is $12 per annum, with + food and lodging, straw shoes, and free shaving--an important item in + a country where heads must be shaved three or four times a month. + His clothing costs about $4 per annum. In ten years he may buy one + third of an acre of land ($150 per acre) and necessary implements. + In ten years more he may {178} double his holdings and become + part-owner in a water buffalo. In six years more he can procure a + wife and live comfortably on his estate. Thus in twenty-six years he + has gained a competence." + +So much by way of a faint picture of existing industrial conditions in +the Orient. Let us now see what there is for us to learn from these +facts. + +First of all, we may inquire why such conditions obtain. Why is it +that the Oriental gets such low wages, and has such low earning power? +"An overcrowded population," somebody answers, "in China, for example, +four hundred million people--one fourth the human race--crowded within +the limits of one empire. This is the cause." + +I don't believe it. + +There is a limit no doubt beyond which increase of population, even +with the most highly developed system of industry, might lead to such +a result, but I do not believe that this limit has been reached even +in China. The people in England live a great deal better to-day than +they did when England had only one tenth its present population. The +average man in your county has more conveniences, comforts, and a +better income than he had in your grandfather's day when the +population was not nearly so dense. The United States with a +population of ninety odd million pays its laborers vastly better than +it did when its population was only thirty million. + +The truth is that every man should be able to earn a little more than +he consumes; there should be a margin, an excess which should +constitute his contribution to the "commonwealth," to the race. Our +buildings, roads, railroads, churches, cathedrals, works of +art--everything which makes the modern world a better place to live in +than the primitive world was: these represent the combined +contributions of all previous men and races. And if society is so able +to handle men that they produce any fraction more than they consume, +the more men the better the world. + +{179} + +My conviction is that the Oriental nations are poor, not because of +their dense populations, but because of their defective industrial +organizations, because they do not provide men Tools and Knowledge to +work with. + +Ignorance and lack of machinery--these have kept Asia poor; knowledge +and modern tools--these have made America rich. + +If Asia had a Panama Canal to dig, she would dig it with picks, hoes, +and spades and tote out the earth in buckets. Nothing but human bone +and sinew would be employed, and the men would be paid little, because +without tools and knowledge they must always earn little. But America +puts brains, science, steam, electricity, machinery into the Big +Ditch--Tools and Knowledge, in other words--and she pays good wages +because a man thus equipped does the work of ten men whose only force +is the force of muscle. + +But Asia--deluded, foolish Asia--has scorned machinery. "The more work +machinery does, the less there will be for human beings to do. Men +will be without work, and men without work will starve." With this +folly on her lips she has rejected the agencies that would have +rescued her from her never-ending struggle with starvation. + +Oftentimes, we know, the same cry has been heard in England--and alas! +even in America; our labor unions even now sometimes lend a willing +ear to such nonsense. There were riots in England when manufacturers +sought to introduce labor-saving methods in cotton-spinning; and when +railroads were introduced among us there were doubtless thousands of +draymen, stage-drivers, and boatmen who, if they had dared, would have +torn up the rails and thrown them into the rivers, as the Chinese did +along the Yangtze-Kiang. With much the same feeling the old-time hand +compositors looked upon the coming of the typesetting machine. + +And yet with all our engines doing the work of millions of draymen and +cabmen, with all our factory-machines doing the {180} work of hundreds +of thousands of weavers and spinners, with all our telegraphs and +telephones taking the place of numberless messengers, runners, and +errand boys, and with a population, too, vastly in excess of the +population when old-fashioned methods prevailed, the fact stands out +that labor has never been in greater demand and has never commanded +higher wages than to-day. + +With a proper organization of industry it seems to me that it must +ever be so--certainly as far ahead as we can look into the future. +When a machine is invented which enables one man to do the work it +formerly required two men to do in producing some sheer necessity for +mankind, an extra man is released or freed to serve mankind by the +production of some comfort or luxury, or by ministering to the things +of the mind and the spirit. + +And it is the duty of society and government, it may be said just +here, to facilitate this result, to provide education and equality of +opportunity so that each man will work where his effort will mean most +in human service. Knowledge or education not only cuts the shackles +which chain a man down to a few occupations, not only sets him free to +labor where he can work best, but is also itself a productive +agency--a tool with which a man may work better. + +Take the simple fact that cowpeas gather nitrogen from the air: a man +may harness this scientific truth, use it and set it to work, and get +results, profits, power, from it, as surely as from a harnessed horse +or steam engine. And so with every other useful bit of knowledge under +heaven. Knowledge is power. + + +{181} + +[Illustration: "SOCIETY BELLES" OF MINDANAO, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.] + + +[Illustration: A STREET SCENE IN MANILA.] + + +{182} + +[Illustration: TWO KINDS OF WORKERS IN BURMA .] + One of the pleasures of being "on the road to Mandalay" was to see + the-- + + "Elephints a-pilin' teak + In the sludgy, squdgy creek" + + The elephants of Rangoon are as fascinating as the camels of Peking. + But one never gets hardened to the every-day Oriental spectacle of + human beings harnessed like oxen to weary burdens, many of which + make those in the lower picture look light by comparison. + + +{180 continued} + +All this doctrine Asia has rejected, or has never even got to the +point of considering. In America a motorman or conductor by means of +tools and knowledge--a street-car for a tool and the science of +electricity for knowledge--transports forty people from one place to +another. These men are high-priced laborers considered from an +Oriental standpoint and yet {183} it costs you only five cents for +your ride, and five minutes' time. In Peking, on the other hand, it +takes forty men pulling rickshaws to transport the forty passengers; +and though the pullers are "cheap laborers," it costs you more money +and an hour's time to get to your destination--even if you are so +lucky as not to be taken to the wrong place. + +Forty men to do the work that two would do at home! Men and women +weavers doing work that machines would do at home. Grain reaped with +sickles instead of with horses and reapers as in America. Sixteen men +at Hankow to carry baggage that one man and a one-horse dray would +carry in New York. Women carrying brick, stone, and timber up the +mountainside at Hong Kong--and the Chinese threatened a general riot +when the English built a cable-car system up the incline; they +compelled the owners to sign an agreement to transport passengers +only--never freight! No sawmills in the Orient, but thousands of men +laboriously converting logs into lumber by means of whipsaws. No +pumps, even at the most used watering places, but buckets and ropes: +often no windlass. No power grain-mills, but men and women, and, in +some cases, asses and oxen, doing the work that the idle water-powers +are given no chance to do. + +These are but specimen illustrations. In the few industries where +machinery and knowledge are brought into play ordinary labor is as yet +but little better paid than in other lines because such industries are +not numerous enough to affect the general level of wages. The net +result of her policy of refusing the help of machinery is that Asia +has not doubled a man's chances for work, but she has more than halved +the pay he gets for that work. And why? Because she has reduced his +efficiency. A man must get his proportion of the common wealth, and +where the masses are shackled, hampered by ignorance and poor tools, +they produce little, and each man's share is little. + +Suppose you are a merchant: what sort of trade could you hope for +among a people who earn 10 cents a day--the head {184} of a family +getting half enough to buy a single meal in a second-rate restaurant? +Or if you are a banker, what sort of deposits could you get among such +a people? Or if a railroad man, how much traffic? Or if a +manufacturer, how much business? Or if a newspaper man, how much +circulation? Or if a doctor, lawyer, teacher, or preacher, how much +income? + +Very plain on the whole must be my two propositions: + +(1) That the Asiatic laborer is poor, the American laborer well-to-do, +because the Asiatic earns little, the American much--a condition due +to the fact that the American doubles, trebles, or quadruples his +productive capacity, his earning power, by the use of tools and +knowledge, machinery and education. The Oriental does not. + +(2) Your prosperity, in whatever measure you have it; the fact that +your labor earns two, three, or ten times what you would get for it if +you had been born in Asia; this is due in the main, not to your +personal merit, but to your racial inheritance, to the fact that you +were born among a people who have developed an industrial order, have +provided education and machinery, tools and knowledge, in such manner +that your services to society are worth several times as much as would +be the case if you were in the Orient, where education has never +reached the common people. + +Pity--may God pity!--the man who fancies he owes nothing to the +school, who pays his tax for education grudgingly as if it were a +charity--as if he had only himself to thank for the property on which +the government levies a pitiable mill or so for the advancement and +diffusion of knowledge among mankind. Pity him if he has not +considered; pity him the more if, having considered, he is small +enough of soul to repudiate the debt he owes the race. But for what +education has brought us from all its past, but for what it has +wrought through the invention of better tools and the better +management (through increased knowledge) of all the powers with which +men labor, our close-fisted, short-sighted {185} taxpayer would +himself be living in a shelter of brush, shooting game with a bow and +arrow, cultivating corn with a crooked stick! Most of what he has he +owes to his racial heritage; it is only because other men prosper that +he prospers. And yet owing so much to the Past, he would do nothing +for the Future; owing so much to the progress the race has made, he +would do nothing to insure a continuance of that progress. + +"Line upon line; precept upon precept." At the risk of possible +redundancy, therefore, let me conclude by repeating: Whatever +prosperity you enjoy is largely due to what previous generations have +done for increasing man's efficiency by means of knowledge and tools; +your first duty to your fellows is to help forward the same agencies +for human uplift in the future. And while this is the first duty of +the individual, it is even more emphatically the first duty of a +community or a commonwealth. + +This is Asia's most important lesson for America. + +Singapore, Straits Settlements. + + + +{186} + + +XIX + +THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS AND BURMA + + +The Straits Settlements and Burma I have seen in the dead of winter, +and yet with no suggestion of snow, bare fields, or leafless trees. +The luxuriant green of the foliage is never touched by frost, and in +Singapore, only seventy-seven miles from the equator, summer and +winter are practically alike. + +"But you must remember that we are here in the wintertime," a +fellow-traveller remarked when another had expressed his surprise at +not finding it hotter than it really was--the speaker evidently +forgetting that at the equator December is as much a summer month as +July, and immediately south of it what are the hot months with us +become the winter months there. And Singapore is so close to the +equator that for it "all seasons are summer," and the _punkah wallas_ +(the coolies who swing the big fans by which the rooms are made +tolerable) must work as hard on Christmas Day as on the Fourth of +July. + +The vegetation in the Straits Settlements is such as writers on the +tropics have made familiar to us. The graceful cocoanut palms are +silhouetted against the sky in all directions; the dense, heavy +foliage of the banana trees is seen on almost every street; the +sprawling, drunken banyan tree, a confusion of roots and branches, +casts its dense shadows on the grateful earth; and all around the city +are rubber plantations, immense pineapple fields, and uncleared +jungle-land in which wild beasts and poisonous serpents carry on the +unending {187} life-and-death struggle between the strong and the weak. +Singapore, in fact, is said to have been called "the Lion City" for a +long while because of the great number of lions found in the +neighborhood. I saw the skins of elephants and tigers killed nearby, +and also the skin of a Singapore alligator fifteen feet long. + +There is probably no place on earth in which there have been brought +together greater varieties of the human species than in Singapore. I +was told that sixty languages are spoken in the city, and if diversity +of color may be taken as an indication of diversity of language, I am +prepared to believe it. There are many Indians or Hindus, most of them +about as black as our negroes, but with the features of the Caucasian +in the main--sharp noses, thin lips, and straight glossy black hair; +but 72 per cent, of the population of Singapore is Chinese. + +It is interesting to observe that John Chinaman seems to flourish +equally in the Tropics and in the Temperate Zone. Here in Singapore +under an equatorial sun, or in Canton on the edge of the Tropics, he +seems as energetic, as unfailing in industry, as he is in wintry +Mukden or northern Mongolia. For hours after sunset many of the +Chinese shops in Singapore present as busy an appearance as at +mid-day, and the pigtailed rickshaw men, with only a loin-cloth about +their bare bodies, seem to run as fast and as far as they would if +they were in Peking. + +The Chinese are a wonderful people, and I am more and more impressed +with the thought of what a hand they are to have in the world's +affairs a hundred years hence when they get thoroughly "waked up." +They were first brought to Singapore, I understand, as common +laborers, but now their descendants are among the wealthiest men and +women in the place and ride around in automobiles, while descendants +of their one-time employers walk humbly on the adjacent sidewalks. It +is a tribute to the untiring industry, shrewdness, and business skill +of the Chinaman that nowadays when people {188} anywhere speak of +desiring Celestials as laborers, they add, "Provided they are under +contract to return to China when the work is finished, and do not +remain to absorb the trade and wealth of the country." + +From Singapore we made a very interesting trip to Johore, a little +kingdom about the size of ten ordinary counties, and with a population +of about 350,000. The soil and climate along the route are well suited +to the cultivation of rubber trees, and considerable areas have +recently been cleared of the dense jungle growth and set to young +rubber plants. One of my friends who has a rubber plantation north of +Singapore says that while rubber is selling now at only $1.50 a pound +as compared with $3 a pound a few months ago, there are still enormous +profits in the business, as the rubber should not cost over 25 cents a +pound to produce. Some of the older plantations paid dividends of 150 +per cent, last year, and probably set aside something for a rainy day +in addition. + +Yet not even these facts would have justified the wild speculation in +rubber, the unreasoning inflation in values, which proved a veritable +"Mississippi Bubble" for so many investors in Europe and Asia last +year. Shares worth $5 or $10 were grabbed by eager buyers at $100 +each. I know of a specific instance where a plantation bought for +$16,000 was capitalized at $230,000, or 20 for 1, and the stock +floated. When the madness had finally spent itself and people began to +see things as they were, not only individuals, but whole communities, +found themselves prostrated. Shanghai will not recover for years, and +some of its citizens--the young fellow with a $1500 income who +incurred a $30,000 debt in the scramble, for example--are left in +practical bondage for life as a result. The men who have gone into the +rubber-growing industry on a strictly business basis, however, are +likely to find it profitable for a long time to come. + +The cocoanut industry is also a profitable one, although the modest +average of 10 per cent., year in and year out, has {189} not appealed +to those who have been indulging in pipe dreams about rubber. Where +transportation facilities are good, the profits from cocoanuts +probably average considerably in excess of 10 per cent., for the trees +require little care, and it is easy for the owners to sell the product +without going to any trouble themselves. In one section of the +Philippines, I know, the Chinese pay one peso (50 cents gold) a tree +for the nuts and pick them themselves. And when we consider the great +number of the slim-bodied trees that may grow upon an acre, it is not +surprising to hear that many owners of cocoanut groves or plantations +live in Europe on the income from the groves, going to no trouble +whatever except to have the trees counted once a year. + +Penang, where we spent only a day, is almost literally in the midst of +an immense cocoanut plantation, and I was much interested in seeing +the half-naked Hindus gathering the unhusked fruit for shipment. The +tall, limbless trunks of the trees, surmounted only by a top-knot of +fruit and foliage, are in nearly every case gapped and notched at +intervals of about three feet to furnish toe-hold for the natives in +climbing. + +After tiffin on this winter day, instead of putting on gloves and +overcoats, we went out on a grassy lawn, clad in linen and pongee as +we were, and luxuriated in the cool shade of the palm trees. The dense +foliage of the tropical jungle was in sight from our place by the +seaside, and in the garden not far away were cinnamon trees, cloves, +orchids, rubber trees, the poisonous upas, and palms of all varieties +known. + +Penang is a rather important commercial centre, and exports more tin +than any other place on earth. The metal is shipped in molten bars +like lead or pig iron, and to one who has associated tin only with +light buckets, cups, and dippers, it is surprising how much strength +it takes to move a bar of the solid metal the size of a small +watermelon. + +The imports of Penang are also not inconsiderable, and in walking +through the warehouses along the wharves I was {190} struck by the +number of boxes, crates, bales, and bundles bearing the legend, "Made +in Germany." The Germans are today the most aggressive commercial +nation on earth, and I find that their government and their business +houses are searching every nook and corner of the globe for trade +openings. Unlike our American manufacturers, it may be observed just +here, they are quick to change the style of their goods to meet even +what they may regard as the whims of their customers, and this is an +advantage of no small importance. If a manufacturer wishes to sell +plows in the Philippines, for example, it would not be worth while for +him to try to sell the thoroughly modern two-handled American kind to +begin with. He should manufacture an improved one-handled sort at +first and try gradually to make the natives see the advantages of +using two handles. At present, as an American said to me in Manila, if +you should seek to sell a Filipino a two-handled plow he would +probably say that two handles may be all right for Americans who are +not expert at plowing, but that the Filipino has passed that stage! + +I mention this only by way of illustrating the necessity of respecting +the _custombre_, or custom, of the country. The Germans realize this, +and we do not. + +One day by steamer from Penang brought us to Rangoon, the capital and +most important city in Burma, and (next to Bombay and Calcutta) the +most important in British India. We had heard much of the place, +situated thirty miles up the river "on the road to Mandalay," but +found that even then the half had not been told. If there were nothing +else to see but the people on the streets, a visit to Rangoon would be +memorable, for nowhere else on earth perhaps is there such +butterfly-like gorgeousness and gaudiness of raiment. At a little +distance you might mistake a crowd for an enormous flower-bed. All +around you are men and women wearing robes that rival in brilliancy +Joseph's coat of many colors. + +The varieties in form of clothing are as great as the varieties {191} +in hue. The Burmese babies toddle about in beauty unadorned, and for +the grown-ups there is every conceivable sort of apparel--or the lack +of it. Most of the laborers on the streets wear only a loin-cloth and +a turban (with the addition of a caste-mark on the forehead in case +they are Hindus), but others have loose-fitting red, green, yellow, +blue, striped, ring-streaked or rainbow-hued wraps, robes, shirts or +trousers: and the women, of course, affect an equal variety of colors. + +"The whackin' white cheroot" that the girl smoked in Kipling's "Road +to Mandalay" is also much in evidence here; or perhaps instead of the +white cheroot it is an enormous black cigar. In either case it is as +large as a medium-sized corncob, that the newly landed tourist is +moved to stare thereat in open-eyed amazement. How do Kipling's verses +go? + + "'Er petticoat was yaller, an' 'er little cap was green. + An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat--jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen, + An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot. + An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on a 'eathen idol's foot." + +They are all there in Rangoon yet--the gorgeous coloring of the lady's +raiment, her cheroots, and the heathen idols-- + + "Bloomin' idol made o' mud. + Wot they called the Great Gawd Bud." + +How many images of Buddha there are in the city it would be impossible +to estimate--I saw them not only in the pagodas, but newly carved in +the shops which supply the Buddhist temples in the interior--and the +gilded dome of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, "the most celebrated shrine of +the entire Buddhist world," glitters like a beacon for miles before +you reach the city. Nearly two thirds the height of the Washington +Monument, it is gilded from top to bottom--with actual gold leaf, +Rangoon citizens claim--and around it are innumerable smaller pagodas +and shrines glittering with mosaics of colored glass in imitation of +all the gems known to mortals. {192} Studied closely, they appear +unduly gaudy, of course, but your first impression is that you have +found a real Aladdin's palace, a dazzling, glittering dream of +Oriental splendor and magnificence. To these shrines there come +to-day, as there have been coming for more than twenty centuries, +pilgrims from all lands where Buddha's memory is worshipped, pilgrims +not only from Burma, but from Siam, Ceylon, China, and Korea. I shall +not soon forget the feeble looks of the old white-haired pilgrim whom +two women were helping up the steep ascent as I left the Pagoda after +my second visit there. I am glad for his sake, and for the sake of all +the millions to whom Buddha's doctrine is "the Light of Asia," that it +is a religion at least without the degrading, blighting tendencies of +Hinduism, and that the smiling faces of the images about the Shwe +Dagon present at least some faint idea of a God who tempers justice +with mercy and made human life good rather than a God of cruelty who +made life a curse and a mockery. Every traveller who sees Buddhist +Burma after having seen Hindu India comments on the greater +cheerfulness and hopefulness of the Burman people, and especially the +happier lives of the women--all a result, in the main, of the +difference in religion. + +And yet Burman Buddhism, in all conscience, is pitiable enough--its +temples infested by fortune-tellers, witches, and fakirs, its faith +mingled with gross superstitions and charms to propitiate the "nats" +or spirits which are supposed to inhabit streams, forests, villages, +houses, etc., and to have infinite power over the lives and fortunes +of the people. A common sight on the morning streets is a group of +yellow-robed priests with their begging bowls, into which pious +Buddhists put food and other offerings; without these voluntary +offerings the priest must go hungry. A curious custom in Burma, as in +Siam, requires every youth to don the priestly robe for a few days and +get his living in this way. + +The ordinary beast of burden in Rangoon is the Indian {193} bullock. +Often pure white, usually with a well-kept appearance and with a +clean, glossy coat of short hair, he looks as if he should be on the +way to a Roman sacrifice with garlands about his head. Teams of black +Hindus, three quarters naked, are also seen pulling heavy carts and +drays; and it may be that the small boys utilize the long-eared goats +(they have heavy, drooping ears like a foxhound's) to pull their small +carts, but this I do not know. The work-beast of the city that +interested me most was the elephant, and henceforth the elephants of +Rangoon shall have a place alongside the camels of Peking in my memory +and affection. Of course, the elephants of Rangoon are not so numerous +as are the camels in China's capital, but those that one sees display +an intelligence and certain human-like qualities that make them +fascinating. + +One morning I got up early and went to McGregor & Co.'s lumber yard at +Ahloon on the Irrawaddy to see the trained elephants there handle the +heavy saw-logs which it is necessary to move from place to place. It +was better than a circus. + + "Elephants a-pilin' teak + In the sludgy, squdgy creek." + +It is very clear that my lord the Elephant, like most other beings in +the Tropics, doesn't entirely approve of work. What he did at Ahloon +on the morning of my visit he did with infinite deliberation, and he +stopped much to rest between tugs. Also when some enormous log, thirty +or forty feet long and two or three feet thick, was given him to pull +through the mire, he would roar mightily at each hard place, getting +down on his knees sometimes to use his strength to better advantage, +and one could hardly escape the conclusion that at times he "cussed" +in violent Elephantese. The king of the group, a magnificent tusker, +pushed the logs with his snout and tusks, while the others pulled them +with chains. But the most marvellous thing is how the barefooted, +half-naked driver, or mahout, astride the great giant's shoulders, +makes him {194} understand what to do in each case by merely kicking +his neck or prodding his ears. + +At one time while I watched, a tuskless elephant or mutna got his log +stuck in the mud and was tugging and roaring profanely about his +trials, when the tusker's mahout bid that royal beast go help his +troubled brother. Straightway, therefore, went the tusker, leaving +great holes in the mud at each footprint as if a tree had been +uprooted there, gave a mighty shove to the recalcitrant log, and there +was peace again in the camp. + +For stacking lumber the elephant is especially useful. Any ordinary +sized log, tree or piece of lumber he will pick up as if it were a +piece of stovewood and tote with his snout, and in piling heavy plank +he is remarkably careful about matching. Eying the pile at a distance, +he looks to see if it is uneven or any single piece out of place, in +which case he is quick to make it right. The young lady in our party +was also much amused when the mahout called out, "Salaam to memsahib" +("Salute the lady"), and his lordship bowed and made his salutation as +gracefully as his enormous head and forelegs would permit. + +One of my fellow-passengers, a rubber planter from the Straits +Settlements, has worked elephants, has used them on the plantation and +as help in building bridges, and has told me some interesting stories +concerning them. He had two--one a tusker worth 2500 rupees, or +$833-1/3, and the other a mutna (without tusks) worth 2250 rupees, or +$750. On one occasion the mutna heard "the call of the wild," and went +back to the jungle. Evidently, though, his wild brethren didn't like +the civilized ways he brought back with him, for when he returned home +later two thirds of his tail had been pulled off, and he bore other +marks of struggle on his body. The tusker on one occasion ran mad (as +they will do now and then) and killed one of his keepers. + +I was also interested to hear how a wild elephant is caught. Driven +into a stockade, the tamed elephants close in {195} on him, and the +mahouts get him well chained before he knows what has happened. For a +day or two he remains in enforced bondage, then two or three of the +great tamed creatures take him out for a walk or down to the river +where he may drink and bathe himself. Moreover, the other mahouts set +about taming him--talk to him in the affectionate, soothing, half +hypnotizing way which Kipling has made famous in his stories, and +stroke his trunk from discreet but gradually lessening distances. In a +couple of months "my lord the Elephant" is fully civilized, responds +promptly to the suggestions of his mahout, and a little later adopts +some useful occupation. + +In Siam the elephants are much used in managing the immense rafts of +teak trees that are floated down the rivers for export. My friend the +rubber planter has also had one or two good travelling elephants on +which he used to travel through the jungle from one plantation to the +other, a distance of twenty-five miles. On more than one occasion he +has run into a herd of wild elephants in making this trip. On good +roads, elephants kept only for riding purposes will easily make seven +miles an hour, moving with a long, easy stride, which, however, they +are likely to lose if set to heavy work. + +Perhaps the greatest difficulty about the elephant is the great +quantity of food required to keep him going. Eight hundred pounds a +day will barely "jestify his stummuck," as Uncle Remus would say, and +when he gets hungry "he wants what he wants when he wants it," and +trumpets thunderously till he gets it. The skipper on a +Singapore-Rangoon steamer told of having had a dozen or more on board +a few months ago, and their feed supply becoming exhausted, they waxed +mutinous and wrathy, evincing a disposition to tear the whole vessel +to pieces, when the ship fortunately came near enough to land to +enable the officers to signal for a few tons of feed to be brought +aboard for the elephants' breakfast. + +I haven't seen a white elephant yet, but in the Shwe Dagon {196} +Temple I found a lively eight-months-old youngster, an orphan from +Mandalay, that could eat bananas twice as fast as my Burmese boy-guide +and I could peel them, and the boy-guide in question assured me that +he will turn white by the time he is two or three years old. Which +would be very interesting if true, but I fear it isn't. + +I am now hurrying on to India proper and must conclude my impression +of Burma with this letter. In Rangoon the lighter-skinned and +lighter-hearted Burmese contrast rather notably with the dark and +serious Hindus. Many of the Hindus are in Burma only temporarily. One +ship that I saw coming into Rangoon from the Coromandel Coast, India, +was literally spilling over with 3000 brown Hindu coolies. They will +work through the Burman rice harvest--rice is the one great crop of +the country--at eight to twelve annas (16 to 24 cents) a day, and +after three or four months of this will return home. Because they are +so poor at home the steamship charges only ten rupees ($3) for +bringing them to Rangoon, but requires fifteen rupees for carrying +them back. + +Nor should I fail to mention another thing that impressed me very much +in Rangoon: the graves of the English officers who were killed in the +war with the Burmans many years ago, and are now buried within the +walls of the picturesque old Buddhist Temple. True it is that the sun +never sets on the English flag; and one finds much to remind him, too, +that the sun never sets on the graves of that flag's defenders. +Scattered through every zone and clime are they: countless thousands +of them far, far from the land that gave them birth. Nearby the place +where those of the Shwe Dagon sleep I stood on the temple walls and +looked out on the fading beauty of the tropic sunset, the silvery +outline of the Irrawaddy River breaking into the darkening green of +the jungle growth. And then came up the cool night breeze of the +Torrid Zone--more refreshing and delightful than our Temperate climate +ever knows. As gentle and caressing as a mother's lullaby, how {197} +it crooned among the foliage of the cocoanut palms, whispered among +the papaya leaves, and how joyously the great blades of the bananas +welcomed it! + +With that fair view before our eyes, with the breezes as if of Araby +the Blest making mere existence a joy, we take our leave of Burma. + +Rangoon, Bunna. + + + +{198} + + +XX + +HINDUISM--AND THE HIMALAYAS + + +If it were any other country but India, I might write last of the +religion the people profess, but, since it is India, it is the first +thing to be considered. Religion is the supreme fact of Indian life-- +if we may call religion what has been more properly defined as "a +sacred disease." + +Certainly nowhere else on earth is there a country where the entire +life of the people is so molded by their spiritual beliefs. Two +children are born the same day. The one, of high-caste parentage, +Brahminism has irrevocably decreed shall be all his life, no matter +how stupid or vicious, a privileged and "superior" being, to whom all +lower orders must make obeisance. The other, born of a Dom father and +mother, Brahminism has decreed shall be all his life, no matter how +great his virtue or brilliant his mind, an outcast whose mere touch +works pollution worse than crime. And through the lifetime of each, +Brahminism, or Hinduism, as the supreme religion of India is called, +will exercise over him an influence more potent and incessant than any +civil government has ever exercised over its subjects. + +About theoretical or philosophical Hinduism there is admittedly a +certain measure of moral beauty, but to get even this from Hindu +literature one must wade through cesspools of filth and obscenity and +must shut his eyes to pitiably low ideals of Deity, while in its +practical manifestations modern Hinduism is the most sickening +combination of superstition, idolatry, and {199} vice that now +disgraces the name of religion in any considerable portion of the +earth. The idea of the transmigration of souls, "Samsara," the belief +that you have had millions of births (as men and animals) and may have +millions more (unless you earlier merit the favor of the gods and win +release from life), and that what you are in your present life is the +result of actions in previous existence, and what you do in this +present existence will influence all your future rebirths--this is a +doctrine that might be a tremendous moral force if it were linked with +such ideals as distinguish the Christian religion. In practical +Hinduism, however, the emphasis is not on worthy living, not on +exalted moral conduct, as the thing essential to divine favor, but on +rites and ceremonies, regard for the priests, rigid observance of +caste, sacred bathing, and the offering of proper sacrifices to fickle +or bloodthirsty gods and goddesses. In their religion no Isaiah makes +terrible and effective protest against the uselessness of form; no +Christ teaches that God can be worshipped only in spirit. + +Another doctrine, that Self, that a man's own soul is an Emanation of +God, a part of the Divine Essence, and the purpose of man's existence +to hasten a final absorption into God--this also (although destructive +of the idea of individuality, the sacredness of personality, so +fundamental in Christian thought) would seem to be a tremendous moral +force, but it is vitiated in much the same way as is the idea of +Samsara, while it is further weakened by the fact that the Hindu gods +themselves are often represented as immoral, bloodthirsty, obscene and +criminal. + +Enmeshed in vicious traditions and false doctrine, its philosophy and +purer teachings known only to a cultured few, the Higher Hinduism +"powerless to be born," is only the illusion which it would teach that +all else is, while practical Hinduism hangs like a blight over a land +whose people are as the sands of the sea for multitude. If all the +human race alive to-day were to pass in review before you, every +eighth person in the {200} ranks would be a Hindu. And to realize in +what manner Hinduism guides its 200,000,000 followers it is only +necessary to visit some of their most celebrated temples. + +It is an extreme illustration, no doubt, but since it was the first +Hindu shrine I visited, we may begin with the Kalighat in Calcutta. +This temple is dedicated to Kali, or "Mother Kali," as the +English-speaking temple priest who conducted me always said, the +bloody goddess of destruction. That terrible society of criminals and +assassins, the Thugs (its founder is worshipped as a saint), had Kali +as their patron goddess and whetted their knives and planned their +murderous crimes before her image: all this in a "temple" of +"religion." + +The representations of Kali befit her character. Fury is in her +countenance and in her three red eyes. Her tongue lolls from her +mouth. In one of her four hands is the dripping, bloody head of a +slaughtered enemy. Her necklace is of the heads of her slain. Her +girdle is the severed hands of the dead men. Tradition says that she +constantly drinks blood; and each man who comes to worship her brings +a little wet, trembling kid: the warm blood that flows after the +priestly ax has done its work is supposed to please the terrible +goddess. The morning of my visit there were sacrifices every few +minutes, and on the great day of Kali-worship, in October, the place +runs ankle-deep in blood. + +In the old days--and not so long ago at that--there were human +sacrifices at Kalighat, and when I asked the priest concerning them, +his significant answer was that the British Government would no longer +allow them. He made no claim that Hinduism itself has changed! Their +Kaliki Purana says that one human sacrifice delights Kali for a +thousand years, and in spite of British alertness a bloody human head +bedecked with flowers was found in a Kali temple near Calcutta not +many years ago, and at Akrha, also near Calcutta, human sacrifice has +been attempted within a decade. + +From the Kalighat temple the priest of Mother Kali took me {201} to +the edge of the dirty, murky Hoogli (sacred as a part of the Ganges +system), where in its consecrated filth scores of miserable pilgrims +were washing away their sins or "acquiring merit" with the gods. On +the way we passed the image of Juggernaut, the miserable stable-like +shelters in which the pilgrims are lodged, and the image of Setola, +"the Mother of the Smallpox," as the priest called her, to which +smallpox victims come for cure. Back again to the temple, the priest +assured me that if I would give the other priests a few annas (an anna +is worth 2 cents of our money) they would drive back the shrieking, +bloodstained, garlanded crowds of half-naked "worshippers" and give me +a view of the Kali idol. The money forthcoming--and the high priest, +in expectation of a tip, coming out to lend his assistance--there +ensued such a Kilkenny fight between the priests and the dense mob of +"worshippers," such knocking, kicking, scrouging, as never any man got +for the same amount of money in any prize-fight, until finally I got a +swift glimpse of the idol's hideous head. + +Then having paid the greedy priest and the high priest (like the +daughters of the horseleech they always cry for "more") I went back to +my hotel, properly edified, let us believe, by this spectacle of Hindu +"religion." + +It was Sunday morning. + +Could I have been otherwise than impressed when I went that afternoon +to another Indian religious service--this time of Christians--and +compared it with what I had seen in the morning? Instead of a +money-hunting priest sitting beside a butcher's block and exacting a +prescribed fee from each pushing, jabbering, suppliant of a +bloodthirsty goddess, herself only one of the many jealous gods and +goddesses to be favored and propitiated--instead of this there was a +converted Indian minister who told his fellows of one God whose +characteristic is love, and whose worship is of the spirit. And +instead of the piteous bleating of slaughtered beasts there was the +fine rhythm of hymns whose English names one could easily {202} +recognize from their tunes in spite of the translation of the words +into the strange tongue of the Bengali. + +At home, I may say just here, I am not accused of being flagrantly and +outrageously pious; but no open-minded, observant man, even if he were +an infidel, could make a trip through Asia without seeing what a +tremendously uplifting influence is the religion to which the majority +of Americans adhere as compared with the other faiths, and how +tremendously in Christian lands it has bettered and enriched the lives +even of those of + + "Deaf ear and soul uncaring" + +who ignore it or deride it. In no spirit of cant and with no desire to +preach, I set down these things, simply because they are as obvious as +temples or scenery to any Oriental traveller who travels with open +eyes and open mind. + +But let us now go to Benares, the fountain-head of the Hindu faith, +the city which is to it what Mecca is to Mohammedanism and more than +Jerusalem is to Christianity. And Benares is so important that I must +give more than a paragraph to my impressions of it. + +The view of the river-front from the sacred Ganges I found +surprisingly majestic and impressive. The magnificent, many-storied +pilgrim-houses, built long ago by wealthy princes anxious to win the +favor of the gods, tower like mountains from the river bank. A strange +mingling of many styles and epochs of Oriental architecture are they, +and yet mainly suggestive of the palaces and temples that lined the +ancient Nile. An earthquake, too, has heightened the effect by leaving +massive ruins, the broken bases of gigantic columns, that seem to +whisper tales even older than any building now standing in Benares. +For Benares, although its present structures are modern, was old when +the walls of Rome were built; it was historic when David sat on the +throne of Israel. + +But while one may find elsewhere structures not greatly {203} unlike +these beside the Sacred River, nowhere else on earth may one see +crowds like these--crowds that overflow the acres and acres of stone +steps leading up from the river's edge through the maze of buildings +and spill off into the water. There are indeed all sorts and +conditions of men and women. Princes come from afar with their +gorgeous retinues and stately equipages, and go down into the +bathing-places calling on the names of their gods as trustingly as the +poor doomed leper who thinks that the waters of Mother Gunga may bring +the hoped-for healing of his body. Wealthy, high-caste women whose +faces no man ever sees except those that be of their own +households--they too must not miss the blessing for soul and body to +be gained in no other way, and so they are brought in curtained, +man-borne _palki_ and are taken within boats with closed sides, where +they bathe apart from the common herd. Men and women, old and young, +high and low (except the outcasts)--all come. There are once-brown +Hindus with their skins turned to snowy whiteness by leprosy, men with +limbs swollen to four or five times natural size by elephantiasis, +palsied men and women broken with age, who hope to win Heaven (or that +impersonal absorption into the Divine Essence which is the nearest +Hindu approach to our idea of Heaven) by dying in the sacred place. + +A great many pilgrims--may God have pity, as He will, on their poor +untutored souls--die in despair, worn out by weakness and disease, ere +they reach Benares with its Balm of Gilead which they seek; but many +other aged or afflicted ones die happier for the knowledge that they +have reached their Holy City, and that their ashes, after the quick +work of the morrow's funeral pyre, will be thrown on the waters of the +Ganges. "_Rama, nama, satya hai_" (The name of Rama is true): so I +heard the weird chant as four men bore past me the rigid red-clad +figure of a corpse for the burning. No coffins are used. The body is +wrapped in white if a man's, in red if a woman's, strapped on light +bamboo poles, and before {204} breakfast-time the burning wood above +and beneath the body has converted into a handful of ashes that which +was a breathing human being when the sun set the day before. + +Other writers have commented on the few evidences of grief that +accompany these Hindu funerals. In Calcutta mourners are sometimes +hired--for one anna a Hindu can get a professional mourner to wail +heart-breakingly at the funeral of his least-loved mother-in-law--but +somehow the relatives of the dead themselves seem to show little +evidence of grief. "But where are the bereaved families?" I asked a +Hindu priest as we looked at a few groups of men and woman sitting and +talking around the fires from whence came the gruesome odor of burning +human flesh. "Oh, those are the families you see there," he replied. +And sure enough they were--I suppose--although I had thought them only +the persons hired to help in the cremation. One ghastly feature of the +funerals occurs when the corpse is that of a father. Just before the +cremation is concluded it is the son's duty--in some places I visited, +at least--to take a big stick and crack the skull in order to release +his father's spirit! + +But, after all, reverting to the question of mourning, why should the +Hindu mourn for his dead? Human life, in his theology, is itself a +curse, and after infinite rebirths, the soul running its course +through the bodies of beasts and men, the ultimate good, the greatest +boon to be won from the propitiated gods, is "remerging in the general +soul," the Escape from Being, Escape from the Illusions of Sense and +Self; not Annihilation itself but the Annihilation of Personality, of +that sense of separateness from the Divine which our encasement in +human bodies gives us. Where Christianity teaches that you are a son +of God and that you will maintain a separate, conscious, responsible +identity throughout eternity, Hinduism teaches that your spirit is a +part of the Divine and will ultimately be reabsorbed into it. Its +doctrine in this respect is much like that of Buddhism. Inevitably +neither religion {207} lays that emphasis on personality, the sacredness of +the individual life, which is inherent in Christianity and Christian +civilization, just as the absence of this principle is characteristic +of the social and political institutions of the Orient. + + +{205} + +[Illustration: TYPES AT DARJEELING, NORTHERN INDIA, AND AT DELHI, + CENTRAL INDIA.] + India has not a homogeneous population. There are almost as many + races, types, and languages as in the continent of Europe. The + right-hand figure in the upper picture bears a striking resemblance + to a North American Indian. The instrument in his hands is a + praying-wheel. + + +{206} + + TWO RANGOON TYPES. + +[Illustration: Supi-yaw-lat and her "whackin' white cheroot."] + +[Illustration: A Hindu girl.] + + Rangoon is a city of gorgeous colors and varied human types. But one + need not go far to find the Burmese girl Kipling has immortalized: + + "'Er petticoat was yaller and 'er little cap was green, + An er name was Supi-yaw-lat--jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen + An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot. + An' a wastin' Christian kisses on a 'eathen idol's foot'" + + +{207 continued} + +But let us get back to Benares and its pilgrims. They do not all die, +nor do they spend all their time bathing in the sacred waters of +"Mother Gunga," as the Ganges is called. Naturally there are many +temples in which they must worship, many priests whom they must +support. There are said to be 2000 temples in Benares and the high +priest of one of them--while sparring for a bigger tip for his +services--told me that he was at the head of 400 priests supported by +his establishment alone (the Golden Temple). + +And such temples as they are! I have seen the seamy side of some great +cities, but for crass and raw vulgarity and obsceneness there are +"temples" in Benares--so-called "temples" that should minister to +man's holier nature, with so-called "priests" to act as guides to +their foulness--that could give lessons to a third-rate Bowery den. No +wonder that the Government of India, when it made a law against +indecent pictures and carvings, had to make a special exception for +Hindu "religious"(!) pictures. There is a limit, however, even to the +endurance of the British Government, and at the Nepalese Temple I was +told that the authorities do not allow such structures to be built +now. Moreover, it is not only admitted that the temples in many parts +of India are the resort of the lowest class of women, "temple girls" +dedicated to gods and goddesses, but their presence is openly defended +as proper. + +Most of the temples in Benares, too, are as far from cleanliness as +they are from godliness. The Golden Temple with its sacred cows penned +up in dirty stalls, its ragged half-naked worshippers, its holy +cesspool known as "The Well of Knowledge," its hideous, +leprosy-smitten beggars, its numerous emblems of its lustful god +Krishna, and its mercenary priests, {208} is a good illustration. And +the famous Monkey Temple (dedicated like the Kalighat to Mother Kali) +I found no more attractive. This temple is open to the sky and the +most loathsome collection of dirty monkeys that I have ever had the +misfortune to see were scrambling all around the place, while the +monkey-mad, bloodstained, goat-killing priests, preying on the +ignorance of the poor, and itching for a few annas in tips, won a +place in my disgust second only to that occupied by their monkey +companions. I left and went out to the gate where the snake-charmers +were juggling with a dozen hissing cobras. It was pleasanter to look +at them. + +That night an eminent English artist, temporarily in Benares, +discoursed to me at length though vaguely on the beauties of Hindu +religious theory, but what I had seen during the day did not help his +argument. Emerson's phrase may well be applied to Hinduism, "What you +are speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say." + +Not that it has anything to do with Hinduism but simply to get a +better taste in the mouth at the end, let us turn in conclusion to a +happier subject. Some days ago I went to Darjeeling on the boundary of +northern India and on the edge of the great Himalaya mountain range. +In sight from its streets and from nearby peaks are the highest +mountains formed by the Almighty's hand, the sublimest scenery on +which the eye of mortal man may ever rest. + +Long before daylight one morning I bestrode a sure-footed horse and +wound my way, with two friends of a day, as friends on a foreign tour +are likely to prove, to the top of Tiger Hill, from which point we +looked across the boundaries of Tibet and saw the sun rise upon a view +whose majesty defied description. In the distance on our left there +glittered in its mantle of everlasting snow, and with its twin +attendants, the summit of Mt. Everest, 29,002 feet high, the highest +mountain on the surface of the earth. Even grander was the view +directly in front of us, for there only one third as far away as +Everest, royal {209} Kinchinjunga shouldered out the sky, its colossal, +granite masses, snow-covered and wind-swept, towering in dread majesty +toward the very zenith. Monarch of a white-clad semicircle of kingly +peaks it stood, while the sun, not yet risen to our view, colored the +pure-white of its crest with a blush of rose-tint, and in a minute or +two had set the whole vast amphitheatre a-glitter with the warm hues +of its earliest rays. Across forty-five miles of massive chasms and +rugged foothills (these "foothills" themselves perhaps as high as the +highest Alps or Rockies) we looked to where, thousands of feet higher +yet, there began the eternal snow-line of Kinchinjunga, above which +its further bulk of 11,000 additional feet formed a dazzling +silhouette against the northern sky. Stand at the foot of Pike's Peak +and imagine another Pike's Peak piled on top; stand at the foot of +Mount Mitchell and imagine four other Mount Mitchells on top of one +another above its highest point--the massive bulk in either case +stretching thousands and thousands of feet above the line of +everlasting snow. Such is Kinchinjunga. + +Spellbound we watched as if forbidden intruders upon a view it was not +meet for any but the high gods themselves to see. About it all was a +suggestion of illimitableness, of more than earthly majesty, of +infinite serenity and measureless calm, which sat upon our spirits +with a certain eerie unworldliness. + +It only confirmed an almost inevitable conjecture when I learned later +that it was in sight of the Himalayas that Gautama Buddha dreamed his +dream of the Nirvana and of its brooding and endless peace in which +man's fretful spirit-- + + "From too much love of living + From hope and fear set free"-- + +may find at last the rest that it has sought in vain through all our +human realm of Time and Place. + +Lucknow, India. + + + +{210} + + +XXI + +"THE POOR BENIGHTED HINDUS" + + +GREAT indeed are the uses of Poetry. Consider by way of illustration +how accurately and comprehensively some forgotten bard in four short +lines has pictured for us the true condition of the inhabitants of +England's great Indian Empire: + + "The poor, benighted Hindu, + He does the best he kin do + He sticks to his caste from first to last. + And for pants he makes his skin do." + +A Mr. Micawber might dilate at length upon how this achievement in +verse informs us (1) as to the financial condition of the people, to +wit, they are "poor," the average annual income having been estimated +at only $10, and the average wages for day labor in the capital city +of India only 6 to 20 cents per diem; (2) as to their intellectual +condition, "benighted," ninety men in each hundred being unable to +read or write any language, while of every thousand Indian women 993 +are totally illiterate; (3) as to the social system, each man living +and dying within the limits of the caste into which he is born; and +(4) as to the clothing, garb or dress of the inhabitants (or the +absence thereof), the children of both sexes being frequently attired +after the manner of our revered First Parents before they made the +acquaintance of the fig tree, while the adults also dispense generally +with trousers, shoes, and stockings, and other impedimenta of our +over-developed civilization. + +{211} + +Great indeed are the uses of poetry. In all my letters from India I +shall hardly be able to do more than expand and enlarge upon the great +fundamental truths so eloquently set forth in our four-line poetry +piece. + +If it be sound logic to say that "God must have loved the common +people because he made so many of them," then the Creator must also +have a special fondness for these "poor benighted Hindus," for within +an area less than half the size of the United States more than +300,000,000 of them live and move and have their being. That is to +say, if the United States were as thickly populated as India, it would +contain 600,000,000 people. It is also said that when the far-flung +battle-line of Imperial Rome had reached its uttermost expansion that +great empire had within its borders only half as many people as there +are in India to-day. India and its next-door neighbor, China, contain +half the population of the whole earth. In other words, if the Chinese +and East Indians were the equals of the other races in military +prowess the combined armies of all other nations on the globe, of +every nation in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, +Australia, the Isles of the Sea, and of the rest of Asia, would be +required to defeat them. + +Obviously, such a considerable portion of the human family calls for +special study. And if we would study them we must not confine +ourselves to a tour of a few cities in North India, interesting as +these cities are. + +The significant man in India (where about eight tenths of the people +live on the soil) is not the trader, a city-dweller in these few large +centres of population, but the ryot or farmer, in the thousands and +thousands of little mud-house villages between the Himalaya slopes and +Cape Comorin. The significant economic fact in India is not the +millions of dollars once spent on royal palaces but the $7 to $30 +spent in building this average peasant's home or hut. The significant +social fact is not the income of some ancient Mogul or some modern +Rajah {212} estimated in lakhs of rupees, but the five or six cents a +day which is a laborer's wage for millions and millions of the people. + +For these reasons I have been no more interested in the famous cities +I have seen than in the little rural villages whose names may have +never found place in an English book. Let us get, if we can, a pen +picture of one of these villages in north central India. + +As I approached it from a distance it looked like an enormous mass of +ant-hills, for the low windowless one-story huts, as has been +suggested, are made of yellowish sun-dried clay, and are often roofed +with clay also--made flat on top with a little trench or gutter for +drainage. Perhaps the majority, however, have thick sloping roofs of +straw, the eaves being hardly as high as a man's head. Very thick are +the mud walls of the houses, eighteen inches or more in most cases, +and as the floor is also the bare earth, there is no woodwork about +such a dwelling except the doors and a few poles to hold up the roof. +In one or two small rooms of this kind without a window or chimney +(oftener perhaps in one room than in two) a whole family lives, cooks, +and sleeps. + + +{213} + +[Illustration: A HINDU FAQUIR.] + + + [Illustration: SOME FASHIONABLE HINDUS.] + The faquirs do not like to be photographed, and this follow in the + upper picture was snapped just in the act of rising from his bed of + spikes. This is only one of many methods of self-torture practised + in the hope of winning the favor of the gods. + + +{214} + + +[Illustration: HINDU CHILDREN--NOTICE THE FOREHEAD CASTE MARKS.] + + +{212 continued} + +The streets, if such they may be called, are often little more than +crooked water-rutted paths, so narrow that one may reach from the mud +walls of the houses on one side to the mud walls on the other, and so +crooked that you are likely to meet yourself coming back before you +get to the end. Or perhaps you wind up unexpectedly in some +_mahullah_--a group of huts representing several families of kinsfolk. +Enclosed by a mud wall, the little brown bright-eyed, black-haired, +half-naked children are playing together in the little opening around +which the houses are bunched, and the barefooted mothers are cooking +_chapatis_, spinning cotton on knee-high spinning wheels, weaving in +some wonderfully primitive way, gathering fuel, or are engaged in +other household tasks. The equipment of one of these human ant-hills, +called a home, is about as primitive as the building itself. There is, +of course, a bed or cot: it is about {215} half knee-high, and the heavy +twine or light rope knitted together after the fashion of a very +coarse fish-net is the only mattress. The coarse grain which serves +for food is stored in jars; the meagre supply of clothing hangs in one +corner of the room; there are no chairs, knives or forks. The stove or +fireplace is a sort of small clay box for the fire, with an opening on +top for the kettle or oven. In one corner of the room is the fuel: a +few small sticks and dried refuse from cow stalls that Americans use +for fertilizing their fields. "We have found rather bad results," a +missionary told me, "from providing Indian girls with mattresses, +chairs, knives, forks, etc., at our mission schools. Later, when they +marry our native workers, the $5-a-month income of the family (which +is about all they can expect) is insufficient to provide these +luxuries, and the girl's recollections of former comforts are likely +to prove a source of dissatisfaction to her." + +At first you ask, "But why are there no windows in the houses? Surely +the people could leave openings in the clay walls that would give +light and ventilation?" The answer is that most of the year the +weather is so hot that the hope of the owner is to get as nearly +cave-like conditions as possible; to find, as it were, a cool place in +the earth, untouched by the fiery glare of the burning sun outside. +Even in north central India in the houses of the white men, where +everything has been done to reduce the temperature and with every +punkah-fan swinging the room's length to make a breeze, the +temperature in May and June is 106 or higher, and at midnight in the +open air the thermometer may reach 105. "It is then no uncommon +thing," a friend in Agra told me, "to find even natives struck down +dead by the roadside; and the railways have men designated to take and +burn the bodies of those who succumb to the heat in travel by the +cars." + +In such a warm climate the dress of the people, as has already been +suggested, is not very elaborate. In fact, the garb of the adult man +is likely to be somewhat like the uniform of the {216} Gunga Din (the +Indian _bhisti_ or water-carrier for the British regiment): + + "The uniform 'e wore + Was nothin' much before + An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind-- + For a twisty piece o' rag + And a goatskin water-bag + Was all the field equipment 'e could find." + +In cold weather, however, the majority of the men are rather fully +covered, and in any case they add a turban or cap of some gaudy hue to +the uniform just suggested. + +As for the dress of the women, a typical woman's outfit will consist +of, say, a crimson skirt with a green border, a navy-blue piece of +cloth as large as a sheet draped loosely (and quite incompletely) +around the head and upper part of the body, and a breast-cloth or +possibly a waist of brilliant yellow. This combination of hues, of +course, is only a specimen. The actual colors are variable but the +brilliancy is invariable. + +Furthermore, the celebrated Old Lady of Banbury Cross, who boasted of +rings, on her fingers and bells on her toes, would find her glory +vanish in a twinkling should she visit India. Not content with these +preliminary beginnings of adornment, the barefooted Hindu woman +wears--if she can afford it--a band or two of anklets, bracelets +halfway from wrist to elbow, armlets beyond the elbow, ear-rings of +immense size, a necklace or two, toe-rings and a bejewelled nose-ring +as big around as a turnip. Sometimes the jewelry on a woman's feet +will rattle as she walks like the trace-chains on a plow-horse on the +way to the barn. + +This barbaric display of jewelry, it should be said, is not made +solely for purposes of show. The truth is that the native has not +grown used to the idea of savings banks (although the government is +now gradually convincing him that the postal savings institutions are +safe), and when he earns a spare rupee he puts it into jewelry to +adorn the person of himself or {217} his wife. If all the idle +treasures which the poor of India now carry on their legs, arms, ears, +and noses were put into productive industry, a good deal might be done +to alleviate the misery for which the agitators profess to blame the +British Government. + +Calcutta, India. + + + +{218} + + +XXII + +HINDU FARMING AND FARM LIFE + + +In the rural villages, of course, the majority of the inhabitants are +farmers, who fare afield each morning with their so-called plows or +other tools for aiding the growth of their crops. The Indian plow is, +I believe, the crudest I have found in any part of the wide world. It +consists of a simple handle with a knob at the top; a block of wood +with an iron spike in it about an inch thick at one end and tapering +to a point at the other; and a tongue to which the yoke of bullocks +are attached. The pointed spike is, perhaps, sixteen inches long, but +only a fraction of it projects from the wooden block into which it is +fastened, and the ordinary plowing consists only of scratching the two +or three inches of the soil's upper crust. + +The Allabahad Exposition was designed mainly to interest the farmers +in better implements, and its Official Handbook, in calling attention +to the exhibit of improved plows, declared: + + "The ordinary Indian plow is, for certain purposes, about as + inefficient as it could be. Strictly speaking it is not a plow at + all. It makes a tolerably efficient seed-drill, a somewhat + inefficient cultivator, but it is quite incapable of breaking up + land properly." + + +The other tools in use on the Indian farm are fit companions for the +primitive plow. Some one has said that 75 cents would buy the complete +cultivating outfit of the Hindu ryot! I saw men cutting up +bullock-feed with a sort of hatchet; the threshing methods are +centuries old; the little sugarcane mills {219} I found in operation +here and there could have been put into bushel baskets. The big ox +carts, which together with camel carts meet all the requirements of +travel and transportation, are also heavy and clumsy, having wheels as +big as we should use on eight-horse log-wagons at home. These wheels +are without metal tires of any kind, and the average cost of one of +the carts, a village carpenter told me, is $25. + +As to the other crops grown by the Indian ryot, or farmer, I cannot +perhaps give a better idea than by quoting the latest statistics as to +the number of acres planted to each as I obtained them from the +government authorities in Calcutta. + + + Rice 73,000,000 + Wheat 21,000,000 + Barley 8,000,000 + Millets 41,000,000 + Maize 7,000.000 + Other grains 47,000,000 + Fodder crops 5,000,000 + Oilseeds: linseed, + mustard, sesamum, etc. 14,000,000 + Sugarcane 2,250,000 + Cotton 13,000,000 + Jute 3,000,000 + Opium (for China) 416,000 + Tobacco 1,000,000 + Orchard and garden 5,000,000 + + +It is somewhat surprising to learn that of the 246,000,000 acres under +cultivation to supply 300,000,000 people (the United States last year +cultivated 250,000,000 acres to supply 90,000,000) only 28,000,000 +acres were cropped more than once during the year. With the warm +climate of India it would seem that two or more crops might be easily +grown, but the annual dry season makes this less feasible than it +would appear to the traveller. Even in January much artificial +crop-watering must be done, and no one can travel in India long +without growing used to the sight of the irrigation wells. Around them +the earth is piled high, and oxen hitched to the well ropes draw up +the water in collapsible leather bags or buckets. A general system of +elevated ditches then distributes the water where it is needed. + +Concerning the drought, a resident of Muttra said to me that {220} +there practically no rain falls from the middle of January to the +middle of June. "In the latter part of the drought," he said, "the +fields assume the appearance of deserts; only the dull green of the +tree-leaves varies the vast, monotonous graybrown of the +far-stretching plains. The streams are dried up; the cattle hunt the +parched fields in vain for a bit of succulence to vary their diet of +dry grass. But at last there comes the monsoon and the rains--and then +the Resurrection Morning. The dead earth wakens to joyous +fruitfulness, and what was but yesterday a desert has become a +veritable Garden of Eden." + +But, alas! sometimes the rains are delayed--long, tragically long +delayed! The time for their annual return has come--has passed, and +still the pitiless sun scorches the brown earth as if it would set +afire the grass it has already burned to tinder-dryness. The ryot's +scanty stock of grain is running low, the daily ration has been +reduced until it no longer satisfies the pangs of hunger, and with +each new sunrise gaunt Famine stalks nearer to the occupants of the +mud-dried hut. The poor peasant lifts vain hands to gods who answer +not; unavailingly he sacrifices to Shiva, to Kali, to all the +heartless Hindu deities of destruction and to unnamed demons as well. +The Ancient Terror of India approaches; from time immemorial the +vengeful drought has slain her people in herds, like plague-stricken +cattle, not by hundreds and thousands, but by tens of thousands and +hundreds of thousands. In Calcutta I saw several young men whom the +mission school rescued from starvation in the last great famine of +1901-02 and heard moving stories of that terrible time. Many readers +will recall the aid that America then sent to the suffering, but in +spite of the combined efforts of the British Government and +philanthropic Christendom, 1,236,855 people lost their lives. To get a +better grasp upon the significance of these figures it may be +mentioned that if every man, woman, and child in eight American states +and territories at that time (Delaware, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, +Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada) had been {221} swallowed up in +a night, the total loss of life would not have been so great as in +this one Indian famine. + +Appalling as these facts are, it must nevertheless be remembered that +the loss would have been vastly greater but for the excellent system +of famine relief which the British Government has now worked out. It +has built railways all over India, so that no longer will it be +possible for any great area to suffer while another district having +abundance is unable to share its bounty because of absence of +transportation. In the second place, the government has wisely +arranged to give work at low wages to famine sufferers--road building, +railroad building, or something of the kind--instead of dispensing a +reckless charity which too often pauperizes those it is intended to +help. Before the British occupation India was scourged both by famine +and by frequent, if not almost constant, wars between neighboring +states. The fighting it has stopped entirely, the loss by drought it +has greatly reduced; and some authority has stated (I regret that I +have not been able to get the exact figures myself) that for a century +before the British assumed control, war and famine kept the population +practically stationary, while since then the number of inhabitants has +practically trebled. + +Not unworthy of mention, even in connection with its work in relieving +famine sufferers, is the excellent work the British Government is +doing in enabling the farmers to free themselves from debt. The +visitor to India comes to a keener appreciation of Rudyard Kipling's +stories and poems of Indian life because of the accuracy with which +they picture conditions; and the second "Maxim of Hafiz" is only one +of many that have gained new meaning for me since my coming: + + "Yes, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum, + If he borrowed in life from a native at 60 per cent. per annum."' + +When I first heard of "60 per cent, per annum," and even of 70 per +cent, or 80 per cent., as the ordinary rate of interest paid {222} by +the Indian ryot to the merchant or money-lender, I could not believe +it, but further investigation proved the statement true. In the United +Provinces I found that in some cases the ryot has been little better +than a serf. The merchant has "furnished him supplies," adding +interest at the rate of one anna on each rupee at the end of each +month--6-1/4 per cent., not a year but a month, and that compounded +every 30 days! In one case that came to my attention, two orphan boys +twenty years ago, in arranging the marriage of their sister, borrowed +100 rupees at 50 per cent, interest. For seventeen years thereafter +they paid 50 rupees each year as interest, until an American +missionary took up the account at 5 per cent, instead of 50, and in +two years they had paid it off with only 7 rupees more than they had +formerly paid as annual tribute to the money-lender. In many such +cases debts have been handed down from generation to generation, for +the Hindu code of honor will not permit a son to repudiate the debts +of his father; and son, grandson, and great-grandson have, staggered +under burdens they were unable to get rid of. + +In this situation the cooperative credit societies organized under +government supervision have proved a godsend to the people, and +thousands of ryots through their aid are now getting free of debt for +the first time in their lives, and their families for perhaps the +first time in generations. Each member of a cooperative credit society +has some interest in it; the government will lend at 4 per cent, an +amount not greater than the total amount deposited by all the members; +stringent regulations as to loans and their security, deposit of +surplus funds, accounting, etc., are in force, and altogether the plan +is working remarkably well. The latest report I have shows that in a +single twelvemonth the total working capital of these societies +increased more than 300 per cent. + +The United States seems to be about the only fairly civilized country +in which some form of cooperative credit society, with government aid, +has not been worked out. + +{223} + +Of great help to the small farmer also has been the action of the +government in regulating land-rents in crowded districts. The courts +see to it that no landlord raises rents unfairly. One Brahmin +freeholder I met in a small village (he owned 250 acres, worth from +$130 to $275 per acre) told me his rents were 32 to 40 rupees (or from +$10 to $13) per acre. He grows wheat and cotton, and appeared to be +quite intelligent as well as prosperous, although he wore nothing save +a turban and an abbreviated lower garment not quite stretching from +his loins to his knees, the rest of his body being entirely naked. + +That the day laborer in India can have but small hope of buying land +at $100 to $300 an acre (and I think these prices general) is +indicated by the fact that when I asked, in the next village, the wage +per month, I was told, "Four or five rupees ($1.28 to $1.60), the +laborer boarding himself." + +"And how much is paid per day when a single day's labor is wanted?" I +asked. + +"Two annas and bread," was the reply. (An anna is 2 cents.) + +My informant was the schoolmaster of Khera Kalan village. At his +school he told me that the children of farmers were allowed tuition +free; the children of the village people pay 1 to 3 annas a month. But +so hard is the struggle to get enough coarse grain to keep soul and +body together (the peasant can seldom afford to eat rice or wheat) +that few farm children are free from work long enough to learn to read +and write. + +It is heartbreaking to see the thousands and thousands of bright-eyed +boys and girls growing up amid such hopeless surroundings. I shall not +soon forget the picture of one little group whom I found squatted +around a missionary's knees in a little mud-walled yard just before I +left Khera Kalan that afternoon. Outside a score of camels were +cropping the leaves from the banyan trees (the only regular +communication with the outside world is by camel cart) and the men of +the village {224} were grinding sugarcane on the edge of the +far-reaching fields of green wheat and yellow-blossomed mustard. Not +far away was a Hindu temple; not far away, too, the historic Grand +Trunk Road which leads through Khyber Pass into the strange land of +Afghanistan. It is the road, by the way, over which Alexander the +Great marched his victorious legions into India, and over which +centuries later Tamerlane came on his terror-spreading invasion. But +this has nothing to do with the little half-naked boys and girls we +are now concerned with. They had gathered around the Padre to recite +the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer in Hindustani. I asked how +many had been to school (only one responded), asked something about +their games, told them something about America, and then their +instructor inquired (interpreting all the time for me, of course): + +"And what message would you like for the Sahib to give the boys and +girls of America for you?" + +"Tell them, Salaam," was the quick chorus in reply. + +"And that is good enough, I guess," remarked the American who is now +giving his life to the Indian people, "for Salaam means. Peace be to +you." + +So indeed I pass on the message to the fortunate boys and girls of the +United States who read this article. "Salaam,"--Peace be to you. +Little Ones. You will never even know how favored of Heaven you are in +having been born in a land where famine never threatens death to you +and your kindred, where the poor have homes that would seem almost +palatial to the average Indian child; where educational opportunities +are within the reach of all; where the religion of the people is an +aid to moral living and high ideals instead of being a hindrance to +them; where no caste system decrees that the poorest children shall +not rise above the condition of their parents; where a wage-scale +higher far than six cents a day enables the poorest to have comforts +and cherish ambitions; and where the humblest "boy born in a log +cabin" may dream of the Presidency instead {225} of being an outcast +whose very touch the upper orders would account more polluting than +the touch of a beast. + +Ah, the little fate-cursed Indian brats, some of them wearing rings in +their noses and not much else, who send the message through me to +you--think of them to-night and be glad that to you the lines have +fallen in pleasanter places. + +Salaam, indeed, O happy little folk of my own homeland across the +seas! Peace be to you! + +Jeypore, India. + + + +{226} + + +XXIII + +THE CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA + + +Of Hinduism as a religious or ecclesiastical institution we had +something to say in another chapter; of Hinduism as Social Fact bare +mention was made. And yet it is in its social aspects, in its +enslavement of all the women and the majority of the men who come +within its reach, that Hinduism presents its most terrible phases. For +Hinduism is Caste and Caste is Hinduism. Upon the innate, +Heaven-ordained superiority of the Brahmin and the other twice-born +castes, and upon the consequent inferiority of the lower castes, the +whole system of Brahminism rests. + +Originally there were but four castes: The Brahmin or priest caste who +were supposed to have sprung from the head of Brahma or God; the +Kshatriya or warrior caste who sprang from his arms, the Vasiya or +merchant and farmer class who sprang from his thigh, and the Sudra or +servant and handicraftsmen class who came from his feet. The idea of +superiority by birth having once been accepted as fundamental, +however, these primary castes were themselves divided and subdivided +along real or imaginary lines of superiority or inferiority until +to-day the official government statistics show 2378 castes in India. +You cannot marry into any one of the other 2377 classes of Hindus; you +cannot eat with any of them, nor can you touch any of them. + +Thus Caste is the Curse of India. It is the very antithesis of +democracy--blighting, benumbing, paralyzing to all aspiration and all +effort at change or improvement. + +{227} + +No man may rise to a higher caste than that into which he is born; but +he may fall to a lower one. + +There is no opportunity for progress; the only way to move is +backward. Don't kick against the pricks therefore. You were born a +Brahmin with wealth and power because you won the favor of the gods in +some previous existence; or you were born a Sudra, predestined to a +life of suffering and semi-starvation, because in your previous +existence you failed to merit better treatment from the gods. If you +are only a sweeper, be glad that you were not born a pig or a cobra. +Kismet, Fate, has fixed at birth your changeless station in this life; +and, more than this, it has written on your brow the things which must +happen to you throughout your whole existence. + +The Brahmin put himself into a position of superiority and then said +to all the other classes: Rebel not at the inequalities of life. They +are ordained of the gods. The good that the higher castes enjoy is the +reward of their having conducted themselves properly in previous +existences. Submit yourself to your lot in the hope that with +obedience to what the Brahmins tell you, you may possibly likewise win +birth into a higher caste next time. But strike a Brahmin even so much +as with a blade of grass and your soul shall be reborn into twenty and +one lives of impure animals before it assumes human shape again. + +Never in human history has the ingenuity of a ruling class devised a +cleverer or a crueller mode of perpetuating its supremacy. Never has +there been a religion more depressing, more hopeless, more deadening +to all initiative. "_Jo hota so hota_,"--"What is happening was to +happen"--so said the wounded men who had gone to the Bombay hospital +to have their limbs amputated a few days before I got there. "It is +written on my forehead," a man will often say with stoical +indifference when some calamity overtakes him, in allusion to the +belief that on the sixth night after birth Vidhata writes on every +man's forehead the main events of his life-to-be, and no act {228} of +his can change them. "I was impelled of the gods to do the deed," a +criminal will say in the courts. "And I am impelled of the gods to +punish you for it," the judge will sometimes answer. If plague comes, +the natives can only be brought by force to observe precautions +against it. "If we are to die, we shall die; why offend the gods by +attempting interference with their plans?" The fatalism of the East as +expressed by Omar Khayyam is the daily creed of India's millions: + + "We are no other than a Moving Row + Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go. . . . + + "But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays + Upon this Checkerboard of Nights and Days." + +It is in this fatalistic conception of life that caste is rooted; but +for this belief that all things are predestined, no people would ever +have been so spiritless as to submit to the tyranny of the caste +system. Perhaps it should also be added that the belief in the +transmigration of the soul has also had a not inconsiderable +influence. Though you have fared ill in this life, a million rebirths +may be yours ere you finally win absorption into Brahma, and in these +million future lives the gods may deal more prodigally with you. +Indeed, the things you most desire may be yours in your rebirth. "You +are interested in India; therefore you may have your next life as an +Indian," an eminent Hindu said to me. But Heaven forbid! + +At any rate, with this double layer of nourishing earth--the belief, +first, that what you are now is the result of your actions in previous +lives, and, secondly, that there are plenty more rebirths in which any +merit you possess may have its just recompense of reward, the caste +system has flourished like the Psalmist's green bay tree, though its +influence has been more like that of the deadly upas. + +If you are a high-caste man you may not only refuse to eat with or +touch a low-caste man, your equal perhaps in {229} intelligence and in +morals, but in some cases you may even demand that the low-caste man +shall not pollute you by coming too near you on the road. On page 540 +of the 1901 "Census of India Report" will be found a table showing at +what distances the presence of certain inferior classes become +contaminating to a Brahmin! Moreover, the low-caste man, offensive to +men, is taught that he is equally offensive to the gods. He must not +worship in the temples; must not even approach them. Usually it is +taken for granted that no Pariah will take such a liberty, but in some +places I have seen signs in English posted on the temple gates warning +tourists who have low-caste servants that these servants cannot enter +the sacred buildings. + +Not only are these creatures of inferior orders vile in themselves, +but the work which they do has also come to be regarded as degrading. +A high-caste man will not be caught doing any work which is "beneath +him." The cook will not sweep; the messenger boy would not pick up a +book from the floor. The liveried Brahmin who takes your card at the +American Consulate in Calcutta once lost his place rather than pick up +a slipper; rather than humiliate himself in such fashion he would walk +half a mile to get some other servant for the duty. It is no uncommon +thing to find that your servant will carry a package for you, but will +hire another servant if a small package of his own is to be moved. "I +had a boy for thirteen years, the best boy I ever had, till he died of +the plague," a Bombay Englishman said to me, "and he shaved me +regularly all the time. But when I gave him a razor with which to +shave himself, I found it did no good. He would have 'lost caste' if +he had done barber's work for anybody but a European!" + +"I have a good sweeper servant," a Calcutta minister told me, "but if +I should attempt to promote him beyond his caste and make a +house-servant of him, every other servant I have would leave, +including my cook, who has been a Christian twenty years!" + +The absurdities into which the caste system runs are well {230} +illustrated by some facts which came to my notice on a visit to a +school for the Dom caste conducted by some English people in Benares. +The Doms burn the bodies of the dead at the Ganges ghats, and do other +"dirty work." Incidentally they form the "thief caste" in Benares, and +whenever a robbery occurs, the instant presumption is that some Dom is +guilty. For this reason a great number of Doms (they belong to the +Gypsy class and have no houses anywhere) make it a practice to sleep +on the ground just outside the police station nearly all the year +round, reporting to the authorities so as to be able to prove an alibi +in case of a robbery. So low are the Doms that to touch anything +belonging to one works defilement; consequently they leave their most +valuable possessions unguarded about their tents or shacks, knowing +full well that not even a thief of a higher caste will touch them. + +"We had a servant," a Benares lady said to me, "who lost his place +rather than take up one end of a forty-foot carpet while a Dom had +hold of the other end. The new bearer, his successor, did risk helping +move a box with a Dom handling the other side of it, but he was +outcasted for the action, and it cost him 25 rupees to be reinstated. +And until reinstated, of course, he could not visit kinsmen or friends +nor could friends or kinsmen have visited him even to help at a +funeral; his priest, his barber, and his washerman would have shunned +him. Again, our bearer, who is himself an outcast in the eyes of the +Brahmins, will not take a letter from the hands of our Dom chiprassi +or messenger boy. Instead, the messenger boy drops the letter on the +floor, and the bearer picks it up and thus escapes the pollution that +would come from actual contact with the chiprassi." Moreover, there +are social gradations even among the Doms. One Dom proudly confided to +this lady that he was a sort of superior being because the business of +his family was to collect the bones of dead animals, a more +respectable work than that in which some other Doms engaged! + +Similarly, Mrs. Lee of the Memorial Mission in Calcutta {231} tells +how one day when a dead cat had to be moved from her yard her sweeper +proudly pulled himself up and assured her that, though the lowest +among all servants, he was still too high to touch the body of a dead +animal! + +My mention of the Doms as the thief caste of Benares makes this a +suitable place to say that I was surprised to find evidences of a +well-recognized hereditary robber class in not a few places in India. +The Thugs, or professional murderers, have at last been exterminated, +but the English Government has not yet been able to end the activities +of those who regard the plunder of the public as their immemorial +right. In Delhi a friend of mine told me that the watchmen are known +to be of the robber class. "You hire one of them to watch your house +at night, and nothing happens to you. I noticed once or twice that +mine was not at his post as he should have been, but had left his +shoes and stick. He assured me that this was protection enough, as the +robbers would see that I had paid the proper blackmail by hiring one +of their number as chowkidar." + +In Madura, in southern India, I found the robber element carrying +things with a much higher hand. "There's where they live," Dr. J. P. +Jones, the well-known writer on Indian affairs, said to me as we were +coming home one nightfall, "and the people of Madura pay them a +tribute amounting to thousands of rupees a year. They have a god of +their own whom they always consult before making a raid. If he +signifies his approval of a robbery, it is made; otherwise, +not--though it is said that the men have a way of tampering with the +verdict so as to make the god favor the enterprise in the great +majority of cases." + +India's most famous tree, the banyan, grows by dropping down roots +from a score or a hundred limbs; these roots fasten themselves in the +earth and later become parent trees for other multiplying limbs and +roots, until the whole earth is covered. In much the same fashion the +Indian caste system has {232} developed. Instead of the four original +castes there are now more than five hundred times that number, and the +system now decrees irrevocably before birth not only what social +station the newborn infant shall occupy from the cradle to the grave +(or from the time the conch shell announces the birth of a man-child +till the funeral pyre consumes his body, to use Indian terminology), +but also decrees almost as irrevocably what business he may or may not +follow. A little American girl of my acquaintance once announced that +she hadn't decided whether she would be a trained nurse, a +chorus-girl, or a missionary; but Hinduism leaves no one in any such +embarrassing quandary. Whether a man is to be a priest or a thief is +largely decided for him before he knows his own name. + +"But isn't the system weakening now?" the reader asks, as I have also +asked in almost every quarter of India. The general testimony seems to +be that it is weakening, and yet in no very rapid manner. Eventually, +no doubt, it will die, but it will die hard. A few weeks ago, a +Parliament of Religions was held in connection with the Allabahad +Exposition, with his Highness the Maharaja of Darbhanga as the +presiding officer. In the course of his "Presidential Address" the +Maharaja delivered a lengthy eulogy of the caste system, resorting in +part to so specious an argument as the following: + + "If education means the drawing forth of the potentialities of a boy + and fitting him for taking his ordained place as a member of society, + then the caste system has hitherto done this work in a way which no + other plan yet contrived has ever done. The mere teaching of a youth + a smattering of the three R's and nothing else in a primary school + is little else than a mere mockery. Under the caste system the boys + are initiated and educated almost from infancy into the family + industry, trade, profession, or handicraft, and become adepts in + their various lines of life almost before they know it. This unique + system of education is one of the blessings of our caste + arrangement. We know that a horse commands a high price in the + market if it has a long pedigree behind it. It is not unreasonable + to presume that a carpenter whose forefathers have followed the same + trade for centuries will be a better carpenter than one who is new + to the trade--all other advantages being equal." + +{233} + +In the phrase, "his ordained place as a member of society," we have +the keynote of the philosophy upon which the whole caste system rests. +It suits the Maharaja of Darbhanga to have the people believe that his +sons were "ordained" of Heaven to be rulers, even if "not fit to stop +a gully with," and the Sudra's sons "ordained" to be servants, no +matter what their qualities of mind and soul. But the caste system is +rotting down in other places and some time or other this "ordained" +theory will also give way and the whole vast fabric will totter to the +ruin it has long and richly merited. + +The introduction of railways has proved one of the great enemies of +caste. Men of different rank who formerly would not have rubbed elbows +under any considerations sit side by side in the railway cars--and +they prefer to do it rather than travel a week by bullock-cart to +reach a place which is but a few hours by train. Consequently the +priests have had to wink at "breaking caste" in this way, just as they +had to get around the use of waterworks in Calcutta. According to the +strict letter of the law a Hindu may not drink water which has been +handled by a man of lower caste (in Muttra I have seen Brahmins hired +to give water to passersby), but the priests decided that the payment +of water-rates might be regarded as atonement for the possible +defilement, and consequently Hindus now have the advantages of the +city water supply. + +Foreign travel has also jarred the caste system rather severely. The +Hindu statutes strictly forbid a man from leaving the boundaries of +India, but the folk have progressed from technical evasion of the law +to open violation of its provisions. In Jeypore I saw the half-acre of +trunks and chests which the Maharaja of that province used for +transporting his goods and chattels when he went to attend the +coronation of the King of England. The Maharaja is a Hindu of the +Hindus, claims descent from one of the high and mighty gods, and when +he was named to go to London, straightway declared that the {234} +caste law against leaving India stood hopelessly in the way. Finally, +however, he was convinced that by taking all his household with him, +his servants, his priests, material for setting up a Hindu temple, a +six-months' supply of Ganges water, etc., he might take enough of +India with him to make the trip in safety, and he went. Now many are +going without any such precautions, and a moderate fee paid to the +priests usually enables them to resume caste relations upon their +return. + +Sometimes, however, the penalties are heavier. A Hindu merchant of +Amritsar, who grew very friendly with a Delhi friend of mine on a +voyage from Europe, said just before reaching Bombay: "Well, I shall +have to pay for all this when I get home, and I shall be lucky if I +get off without making a pilgrimage to all the twelve sacred places of +our religion. And in any case I shall never let my wife know that I +have broken caste by eating with foreigners." My impression is, +however, that only in a very few cases now is the crime of foreign +travel punished so severely. In Madras I met one of the most eminent +Hindu leaders, Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer. "Caste has kept me from going +abroad until now," he told me, "but I have made up my mind to let it +interfere no longer. Just as soon as business permits, I shall go to +Europe and possibly to America." + +Christianity is another mightily effective foe of Caste. As in the +olden days, it exalts the lowly and humbles the proud. In Muttra I +found a converted high-caste Brahmin acting as sexton of a Christian +church whose members are sweepers--outcast folk whom as a Hindu he +would have scorned to touch. On the other hand, the acceptance of +Christianity frees a man from the restrictions imposed upon a low +caste, even though it does not give him the privileges of a higher +caste and thus often wins for the Christianized Hindu higher regard +from all classes. Thus there was in Moradabadad some years ago the son +of a poor sweeper who became a Christian, and was a youth of such fine +promise that a way was {235} found for him to attend Oxford +University. Returning, he became a teacher in Moradabadad Mission +School and won such golden opinions from his townspeople that when he +died the whole city--Hindus, Mohammedans and Christians alike--stopped +for his funeral. + +In its present elaborate form the caste system is undoubtedly doomed. +It is too purely artificial to endure after the people acquire even a +modicum of education. Perhaps it was planned originally as a means of +preserving the racial integrity and political superiority of the Aryan +invaders, but for unnumbered centuries it has been simply a gigantic +engine of oppression and social injustice. At the present time no +blood or social difference separates the great majority of castes from +the others: each race is divided into hundreds of castes; and so high +an authority as Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer assured me that even in the +beginning all the castes save the Sudras were of the same race and +blood. + +If the purpose of caste, however, be in part to prevent the +intermarriage of radically different races, this may be accomplished, +as it is accomplished in our own Southern States, without restricting +the right of the individual to engage in any line of work for which he +is fitted or to go as high in that work as his ability warrants. +Booker Washington, born in the South's lowest ranks, becomes a +world-figure; had he been born in India's lowest caste, he would have +remained a burner of dead bodies. To compare the South's effort to +preserve race integrity with India's Juggernaut of caste is absurd. + +Bombay, India. + + + +{236} + + +XXIV + +THE PLIGHT OF THE HINDU WOMAN + + +In India marriage is as inevitable as death, as Herbert Compton +remarks. There are no bachelors or old maids. Children in their +cradles are not infrequently given in marriage by their parents; they +are sometimes promised in marriage (contingent upon sex) before they +are born. + +"You are married, of course?" the zenana women will ask when an +American Bible-woman calls on them; and, if the answer is in the +negative, "Why not? Couldn't they get anybody to have you?" + +"Every girl at fourteen must be either a wife or a widow," is an +Indian saying almost unexceptionally true. And the lot of woman is +hard if she be a wife; it is immeasurably harder if she be a widow. +Hinduism enslaves a majority of the men within its reach; of the women +within its reach it enslaves all. + +I think it was George William Curtis who said, "The test of a +civilization is its estimate of woman"; and if we are to accept this +standard, Hindu civilization must take a place very near the bottom. +In the great temple at Madura are statues of "The Jealous Husband" who +always carried his wife with him on his shoulder wherever he went; and +the attitude of the man in the case is the attitude of Hinduism as a +system. It bases its whole code of social laws upon the idea that +woman is not to be trusted. Their great teacher, Manu, in his "Dharma +Sastra" sums up his opinion of woman in two phrases: "It is the nature +of woman in this world to cause men to sin. A female is able to draw +from the right path, not a fool {237} only, but even a sage." And the +"Code of Hindu Laws," drawn up by order of the Indian Government for +the guidance of judges, declares: + + "A man both by day and by night must keep his wife so much in + subjection that she by no means is the mistress of her own actions. + If the wife have her own free will, notwithstanding she be sprung + from a superior caste, she will behave amiss. A woman is not to be + relied on." + + "Confidence is not to be placed in a woman. If one trust a woman, + without doubt he must wander about the streets as a beggar." + +In accordance with these ideas the life of the Hindu woman has been +divided into "the three subjections." In childhood she must be subject +to her father; in marriage to her husband; in widowhood to her sons +or--most miserable of all!--lacking a son, to her husband's kinsmen. +Her husband is supposed to stand to her almost in the relation of a +god. "No sacrifice is allowed to women apart from their husbands," +says Manu, "no religious rite, no fasting. In so far only as a wife +honors her husband so far is she exalted in Heaven." And a recent +Hindu writer says, "To obey the husband is to obey the Vedas (the +Hindu scriptures). To worship the husband is to worship the gods." + +Hinduism and the caste system, hard on the men, are doubly hard on the +women. The women may no more rise above their caste than the male +members of the family; and they are predestined to take up life's most +serious duties before their fleeting childhood has spent itself. No +wonder they look old before they are thirty! + +If any one doubts the prevalence of child-marriage in India, a trip +through the country will very quickly dispel his doubts. A law enacted +by the British Government a few years ago decrees that while the +marriage ceremonies may be performed at any age, the girl shall not go +to her husband as his wife until she is twelve years old; but it is +doubtful if even this mild measure is strictly enforced. In Delhi I +attended an elaborate {238} and costly Hindu wedding-feast and was +told that the bride was "eleven or twelve" and would go to her +husband's home (he lives with his father, of course) the following +week. My travelling servant told me that he was married when he was +sixteen and his wife ten, though she remained two years longer with +her parents before coming to him. The first American lady I met in +India was telling of a wedding she had recently attended, the bride +being a girl of eleven and the groom a year or two older. In +Secunderabad a friend of mine found a week-old Brahmin girl baby who +had been given in marriage, and in the house where he visited was a +ten-year-old girl who had been married two years before to a man of +thirty. + +In prescribing a marriageable age for high-caste Hindu girls Manu +named eight as a minimum age and twelve as the maximum. The father who +delays finding a husband for his daughter until after she is twelve is +regarded as having committed a crime--though it must always be +remembered that girls and boys in India mature a year or two younger +than boys and girls in the United States. + +One reason for arranging early marriages is that the cost increases +with the age of the girl, and the wedding ceremonies in all cases are +expensive enough. Weddings in India furnish about as much excitement +as circuses at home. My first introduction to a Hindu wedding was in +Agra one Sunday afternoon--though Sunday in the Orient, of course, is +the same as any other day--and the shops were in full blast (if such a +strenuous term may be used concerning the serene and listless Hindu +merchant) and the craftsmen and potters were as busy as they ever are. +From afar the sound of drums smote my ear, and as the deafening +hullabaloo came nearer its volume and violence increased until it +would have sufficed to bring down the walls of Jericho in half the +time Joshua took for the job. Just behind the drummers came two +gorgeously clad small boys astride an ass begarlanded with flowers; +and when the musicians stopped for a minute to tighten their drums so +as {239} to make confusion worse confounded, I made inquiry as to the +meaning of the procession. Then it developed that the eight-year-old +small boy in front, dressed in red and yellow silk and gauze and who +ought to have been at home studying the Second Reader, was on his way +to be married, and the little chap riding behind him was the brother +of the bride. It was very hard to realize that such tots were not +merely "playing wedding" instead of being principal participants in a +serious ceremony! + +The wedding-feast which I attended in Delhi was arranged for a couple +who came from the higher ranks of Hindu society, and though no one +could have asked for a more gracious welcome than my American friend +and I received, I very much doubt if any one of the high-caste folk +about us would have condescended to eat at the same table with us even +to end a three-days' hunger. The groom, Harri Ram by name, was a +nice-looking boy of fourteen, clad in a velvet suit and apparently +pleased with the show of which he was It. There had already been a +three or four days' wedding ceremony at the bride's house, we were +told, and this was the fifth and last day of the ceremonies and feasts +arranged by the groom's father. One thousand people had been invited +and, judging from the richness of the food with which we were served, +I should think that my friend's estimate of the total cost, 5000 +rupees, or $1633, was none too high. + +Not only are the wedding ceremonies expensive, but a poor father, or a +father with several daughters to find husbands for, must often strain +his credit to the utmost in providing dowries. It is said that among +the humbler classes a father will sometimes mortgage his wages for +life to secure money for this purpose. Then, too, the marriage-broker +or middleman who has gone to the groom's father with the story that +the bride is "as beautiful as the full moon, as graceful as a young +elephant, and with a voice as sweet as a cuckoo's"--he must also be +paid for his indispensable services. + +{240} + +Not to be envied is the little damsel of twelve who leaves her +childhood home and goes out as the bride of a boy or man--whose face +she may never have seen but once or twice--to take up the hard life of +a Hindu wife in the home of her father-in-law and mother-in-law. Yet +from her infancy she has been bred in an atmosphere full of suggestion +of the inferiority of womankind, and to her it is probably not so +galling as we fancy that she is never accounted worthy of eating at +the same table with her husband, but must be content with what he +leaves. Even Christianity can move but slowly in bringing the people +to a higher appreciation of the dignity of womanhood. "Some of my +girls are engaged to be married," Mrs. Lee, of the Lee Memorial Home +in Calcutta, said to me, "and when their fiances come to call, after +the Christian fashion, the girls must remain standing as inferiors +while the boys are seated." + +Once married, the Hindu wife has two things to dread: either that her +husband may die or that he may supplant her by a second wife. If she +lives seven years as a wife without giving birth to a son, the husband +is authorized by law and religion to take a second spouse; and in +nearly all such cases the lot of the first wife is a hard one. Rev. W. +J. Wilkins says that a servant in his employ married a second wife and +insisted that the first should not only support herself but contribute +the bulk of her wages for the support of wife No. 2. The older wife is +tantalized by the thought that she herself was selected by the parents +of her husband, while the new wife is probably his own choice; and +another cause of jealousy is found in the new wife's youth. For no +matter how old the man himself may be--forty, fifty or sixty--his +bride is always a girl of twelve or thereabouts--and for the very +simple reason that practically no girls remain single longer, and +widows are never allowed to remarry. A story was told me in Bombay of +a Hindu in his fifties who was seeking a new wife and sent an agent to +his native village and caste with power to negotiate. + + +{241} + +[Illustration: THE TAJ MAHAL FROM THE ENTRANCE GATE.] + The most beautiful building on earth with a story no less beautiful + than the building itself. + + +{242} + +[Illustration: GUNGA DIN ON DRESS PARADE.] + + Ordinarily the Indian water carrier, or _bhisti_, is attired more + nearly after the manner described in Kipling's poem: + + "The uniform 'e wore + Was nothing much before + An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind. + For a twisty piece o' rag and a goatskin leather bag + Was all the field equipment 'e could find." + + +{243} + +"My friends have persuaded me that I ought not to marry a very young +girl," he said to the agent, "get an older one therefore--oh, it +doesn't matter if she is twenty-four." + +The agent left and two days thereafter the Hindu received this +message: "Can't find one of twenty-four. How about two of twelve +each?" + +The sorrows of a superseded wife, however, are as nothing to the +troubles of a Hindu widow. The teaching of Brahminism is that she is +responsible through some evil committed either in this existence or a +previous one, for the death of her husband, and the cruelest +indignities of the Hindu social system are reserved for the bereaved +and unfortunate woman. If a man or boy die, no matter if his wife is +yet a prattling girl in her mother's home, she can never remarry, but +is doomed to live forever as a despised slave in the home of his +father and mother. Her jewels are torn from her; her head is shaved; +and she is forced to wear clothing in keeping with the humiliation the +gods are supposed to have justly inflicted upon her. In a school I +visited in Calcutta I was told that there were two little widows, one +five years old and one six. + +Formerly and up to the time that the British Government stopped the +practice less than a century ago, it was regarded as the widow's duty +to burn herself alive on her husband's funeral pyre. "It is proper for +a woman after her husband's death," said the old Code of Hindu Laws, +"to burn herself in the fire with his corpse. Every woman who thus +burns herself shall remain in Paradise with her husband 35,000,000 +years by destiny. If she cannot burn, she must in that case preserve +an inviolable chastity." This rite of self-immolation was known as +suttee, and it is said that in Bengal alone a century ago the suttees +numbered one hundred a month. It was an old custom to set up a stone +with carved figures of a man and a woman to mark the spot where a +widow had performed suttee, and travellers to-day still find these +gruesome and barbaric memorials here and there along the Indian +roadsides. {244} Moreover, the present general treatment of widows in +India is so heartbreakingly cruel that many have been known to declare +that they would prefer the suttee. + +And yet we may be sure that the picture is not wholly dark; that a +kind providence mingles some sunshine with the shadows which blacken +the skies of Indian womanhood. Men are often better than their customs +and sometimes better than their religions. The high-caste Hindu and +Mohammedan women who are supposed to keep their faces veiled and (in +the case of the Hindus at least) must not even look out of the windows +of their zenanas, manage to get a little more freedom than the strict +letter of the law allows; and the Hindu father and husband, doing good +by stealth, sometimes pours out in secret an affection for his +womenfolk which it would not be seemly for the world to know about. +Standing with a friend of mine on a high flat housetop in Calcutta one +day, I saw a Hindu father on the next-door housetop proudly and +lovingly walking and talking with his daughter who was just budding +into maidenhood. "His affection is quite unmistakable," my friend said +to me, "and yet if in public, he would never give any sign of it." + +Nor can the lot of the Indian woman ever be regarded as hopeless while +the country holds the peerless Taj Mahal, the most beautiful monument +ever erected in memory of a woman's love. True, Shah Jehan, the +monarch who built it, was not a Hindu: he was a Mohammedan. And yet +Mohammedanism, although its customs are less brutal, places woman in +almost the same low position as Hinduism. In considering the status of +woman in India, therefore, scorned alike by both the great religions +of the country, it is gratifying to be able to make an end by +referring to this loveliest of all memorial structures. Of all that I +saw in India, excepting only the magnificent view of the Himalayas +from Tiger Hill, I should least like to forget the view of the Taj +Mahal in the full glory of the Indian full moon. + +The inscription in Persian characters over the archway, "Only the Pure +in Heart May Enter the Garden of God," {245} is enough to assure one +that Arjmand Banu, "The Exalted One of the Palace," whose dust it was +built to shelter, was a queen as beautiful in character as she was in +form and feature. We know but little about her. There are pictures +which are supposed to carry some suggestion of her charm; there are +records to show that it was in 1615 that she became the bride of the +prince who later began to rule as "His Imperial Highness, the second +Alexander (Lord of the two Horns) King Shah Jehan," and we may see in +Agra the rooms in the palace where she dwelt for a time in the Arabian +Nights-like splendor characteristic of Oriental courts, + +"Mumtaz-i-Mahal," they called her--"Pride of the Palace." And seven +times Arjmand Banu walked the ancient way of motherhood--that way +along which woman finds the testing of her soul, the mystic reach and +infinite meaning of her existence, as man must find his in some bitter +conflict that forever frees him from the bonds of selfishness. Seven +times she walked the mother's ancient way down to the gates of Death +and brought back a new life with her, but the eighth time she did not +return. And grief-stricken Shah Jehan, carrying in his heart a sorrow +which not all his pomp nor power could heal, declared that she should +have the most beautiful tomb that the mind of man could plan. So the +Taj was built--"in memory of a deathless love," and in a garden which +is always sweet with the odor of flowers, at the end of an avenue of +fountains and stately cypress trees, and guarded by four graceful, +heaven-pointing minarets, "like four tall court-ladies tending their +princess," there stands this dream in marble, "the most exquisite +building on earth." + +With the memory of its beautiful dome and sculptured detail in our +thoughts, let us take leave of our subject; trusting that the Taj +itself, like a morning star glittering from a single rift in a +darkened sky, may form the prophecy of a fairer dawn for the womanhood +of the country in which it is so incongruously placed. + +Madras, India. + + + +{246} + + +XXV + +MORE LEAVES FROM AN INDIA NOTE-BOOK + + +There are many show places and "points of interest" in India that have +a hundred times more attention in the guide books, but there is a +simple tomb in Lucknow--it cost no more than many a plain farmer's +tombstone in our country burying-places--which impressed me more than +anything else I saw excepting only the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal and +the view of Benares from the river. + +It is the tomb of the heroic Sir Henry Lawrence, who died so glorious +a death in the great mutiny of 1857. No commander in all India has +planned more wisely for the defence of the men and women under his +care; and yet the siege had only begun when he was mortally wounded. +He called his successor and his associates to him, and at last, having +omitted no detail of counsel or information that might enable them to +carry out his far-seeing plans, he roused himself to dictate his own +immortal epitaph: + + + Here Lies + + HENRY LAWRENCE + + Who Tried to Do His Duty + + May the Lord Have Mercy on his Soul. + + +And so to-day these lines, "in their simplicity sublime," mark his +last resting place; and one feels somehow that not even the great +Akbar in Secundra or Napoleon in Paris has a worthier monument. + +{247} + +There are many places in India to which I should like to give a +paragraph. I should like to write much of Delhi and its palaces in +which the Great Moguls once lived in a splendor worthy of the monarchs +in the Arabian Nights--no wonder the stately Diwan-i-Khas, or Hall of +Public Audience, bears the famous inscription in Persian: + + "If there be Paradise on earth. + It is this, oh, it is this, oh, it is this!" + +In the ruins of seven dead and deserted Delhis round about the present +city and the monuments and memorials which commemorate "the old +far-off unhappy things" of conquered dynasties and romantic epochs, +there is also material for many a volume. + +Then there is Cawnpore with its tragic and sickening memories of the +English women and children (with the handful of men) who were +butchered in cold blood by the treacherous Nana Dhundu Pant; and I was +greatly interested in meeting in Muttra one of the few living men, a +Christianized Brahmin, who as a small boy witnessed that terrible +massacre which for cruelty and heartlessness is almost without a +parallel in modern history. + +In Agra is the Pearl Mosque, which is itself an architectural triumph +splendid enough to make the city famous if the Taj had not already +made it so; the Great Temple in Madura is one of the most impressive +of the strictly Hindu structures in India; in Madras I found a curious +reminder of early missionary activity in the shape of a cathedral +which is supposed to shelter the remains of the Apostle Thomas; and +the ruins of the once proud and imperial but now utterly deserted +cities of Amber and Fatehpuhr-Sikri have a strange and melancholy +interest. But all these have been often enough described, and there +are things of greater pith and moment in present-day India to which we +can better give attention. + +{248} + +One thing concerning India, which should perhaps have been said in the +beginning, but which has not had attention until now, is the fact that +it is no more a homogeneous country than Europe is--has perhaps, +indeed, a greater variety of languages, peoples, and racial and +traditional differences than the European continent. I have already +called attention to the fact that there are 2378 castes. There are +also 40 distinct nationalities or races and 180 languages. For an +utterly alien race to govern peacefully such a heterogeneous +conglomeration of peoples, representing all told nearly one fifth of +the population of the whole earth, is naturally one of the most +difficult administrative feats in history, and Mr. Roosevelt probably +did not give the English too high praise when he declared: "In India +we encounter the most colossal example history affords of the +successful administration by men of European blood of a thickly +populated region in another continent. It is the greatest feat of the +kind that has been performed since the break-up of the Roman Empire. +Indeed, it is a greater feat than was performed under the Roman +Empire." + +I was interested to find that the American-born residents of India +give, if anything, even higher praise to British rule than the British +themselves. "I regard the English official in India," one +distinguished American in southern India went so far as to say to me, +"as the very highest type of administrative official in the world. +More than this, 90 per cent. of the common people would prefer to +trust the justice of the British to that of the Brahmins." In Delhi an +American missionary expressed the opinion that the American +Government, if in control of India, would not be half so lenient with +the breeders of sedition and anarchy as is the British Government. + +It should be said, however, that there are now fewer of these +malcontents, and these few are less influential than at any time for +some years past. In Madras I was very glad to get an interview with +Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer, one of the most distinguished of the Hindu +leaders. + + +{249} + + [Illustration: BATHING IN THE SACRED GANGES AT BENARES.] + + +{250} + + [Illustration: THE BATTLE-SCARRED AND WORLD-FAMOUS RESIDENCY AT + LUCKNOW.] + The writer was shown through the historic fortress by William + Ireland, one of the few living survivors of the great siege. In + Muttra the writer also met Isa Doss, a Hindu (now a Christian + preacher) who saw the massacre of the English women and children by + the treacherous Nana Dhundu Pant. + + +{251} + +"Lord Morley's reforms," he declared, "have been so extensive and have +satisfied such a large proportion of our people that the extremists no +longer have any considerable following. We no longer feel that it is +England's intention to keep us in the condition of hopeless helots. +The highest organization for the government of the country is the +British Secretary of State and his council; Lord Morley placed two +Indians there. In India the supreme governmental organization is the +Governor-General and his council; he put an Indian there. In three +large provinces--Bombay, Madras, and Bengal--Indians have been added +to the executive councils." + +"For the first time, too, our people are really an influential factor +in the provincial and imperial legislative councils. We have had +representation in these councils, it is true, for fifty years; but it +was not until 1892 that representation became considerable, and even +then the right of the people to name members was not recognized. +So-called constituencies were given authority to make nominations, but +the government retained the right to reject or confirm these at +pleasure." + +"Now, however, through Lord Morley's and Lord Minto's reforms, the +number of Indians on these councils has been more than doubled--in the +case of the Imperial Council actually trebled--and the absolute right +given the people to elect a large proportion, averaging about 40 per +cent. of the total number, without reference to the wishes of the +government. In fact, with two fifths of all the members chosen by the +people and a considerable number of other members chosen from +municipal boards, chambers of commerce, universities, etc., we now see +the spectacle of Provincial Councils with non-official members in the +majority. In Bombay the non-official element is two thirds of the +whole; and in Madras also the non-official members could defeat the +government if they chose to combine and do so. But of course the +greater willingness of the government to cooperate with the people has +brought {252} about a greater willingness on the part of the people to +cooperate with the government." + +"The appointment of Indians to the highest offices charged with the +responsibility of government; the increased representation given the +people on the legislative and executive councils; the recognition of +the right of the people to elect instead of merely to nominate +members; and the surrender of majority-control to the non-official +element--all these are very substantial gains, but the spirit back of +them is worth more than the reforms themselves. While there is a +feeling in some quarters that the government has not gone far enough, +the large majority of my educated countrymen regard the advance as +sufficient for the present and look forward with hope to a further +expansion of our powers and privileges." + +If I may judge by what I gathered from conversation with Hindus, +Mohammedans, Parsees, I should say that no one has given a more +accurate and clear-cut statement of the feelings of the Indian people +than has Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer in these few terse sentences. + +"The wealth of the Indies" has been a favorite phrase with romantic +writers from time immemorial; and a book now before me speaks in the +most matter-of-course way of "the prosperous and peaceful empire." Yet +the Indian is really one of the poorest men on earth. The wealth with +which the Moguls and kings of former ages dazzled the world was wrung +from the hard hands of peasants who were governed upon the theory that +what the king wanted was his, and what he left was theirs. Even the +splendid palaces and magnificent monuments, such as the Taj Mahal, +were built largely by forced, unpaid labor. In some cases it is said +that the monarch did not even deign to furnish food for the men whom +he called away from the support of their families. + +An ignorant people is always a poor people, and we have already seen +that only 10 per cent. of the men in India can read or write, and of +these 10 per cent. the majority are Brahmins. {253} Then, again, the +people use only the crudest tools and machinery; and a third factor in +keeping them poor is the system of early marriage. When it is a common +thing for a boy of fifteen or sixteen to be the father of a growing +family, it is easy to see that not much can be laid up for rainy days. + +Owing to the absence of diversified industries, the crudeness of the +tools, the ignorance of the men behind the tools, and the over-crowded +population of folk hard-pressed by poverty, the wages are what an +American would call shamefully low. An Englishman who had lived in an +interior jungle-village, five days by bullock-cart from a railway, +told me that twenty years ago laborers were paid 2 rupees (64 cents) a +month, boarding themselves, or 4 rupees ($1.28) a year and grain. The +wages have now advanced, however, to 5 rupees ($1.60) a month where +the man boards himself; and for day labor the wages are now five annas +(10 cents) instead of two annas (4 cents) twenty years ago. + +In Madura a well-educated Hindu with whom I was talking rang the +familiar changes on the "increasing cost of living," and pointed out +that in four or five years the cost of unskilled labor has increased +from eight to twelve cents. "And in some towns," he declared, looking +at the same time as if he feared I should not believe his story, +"they are demanding as much as 8 annas (16 cents) a day!" In Bombay I +was told that coolies average 16 to 20 cents a day; spinners in jute +factories, $1.16 a week, weavers, $1.82. In a great cotton factory I +visited in Madras, employing about 4000 natives (all males) the +average wages for eleven and a half hours' work is $3.84 to $4.85 a +month. In Ahmedabad, another cotton manufacturing centre, about the +same scale is in force. Miners get 16 to 28 cents a day. Servants, +$3.20 to $3.84 a month. + +The women in Calcutta (some of them with their babies tied out to +stakes while they worked) whom I saw carrying brick and mortar on +their heads to the tops of three and four story buildings, get 3 to 4 +annas a day--6 to 8 cents. In {254} Darjeeling the bowed and +toil-cursed women laden like donkeys, whom I found bringing stone on +their backs from quarries two or three miles away managed to make 12 +to 16 cents a day for their bitter toil up steep hills and down, for +eight long hours. Women who carried lighter loads of mud, making 50 +trips averaging 20 miles of travel, earned only 8 cents, as did also +the women with babies strapped on their backs, who nevertheless toiled +as steadily as the others. + +"As for the men I pay these strong, brawny Bhutia fellows 8 annas (16 +cents) a day," the contractor told me, "but those Nepalese who are not +so strong get only 5 annas for shovelling earth." + +Director of Agriculture Couchman of the Madras Presidency gave me the +following as the usual scale of wages for farm work: men 6 to 8 cents; +women 4 to 6; children 3 to 5, the laborers boarding themselves. + +With this Mr. Couchman, whom I have just mentioned, I had a very +interesting interview in Madras which should shed some light on Indian +agriculture. + +"In Madras Presidency," he told me, "we cultivate 10,000,000 acres of +rice, which is the favorite food of the people. As it is expensive +compared with some cheaper foods, however, the people put 4,500,000 +acres to a sort of sorghum--not the sorghum cultivated for syrup or +sugar but for the seed to be used as a grain food--and also grow +4,000,000 acres of millet the seed of which are used as a grain food." + +"Then we grow 2,000,000 acres in cotton, but cotton in India is grown +only on black soils. We want some for red soils, and we are also +seeking to increase the yield and the length of staple in the +indigenous varieties. In both these points the Indian cotton now +compares very badly with the American. Our average yield is only about +50 to 100 pounds lint per acre, and the staple is only three quarters +to five eights of an inch in length, and not suitable for spinning +over 20s in warp." + + +{255} + +[Illustration: BURNING THE BODIES OF DEAD HINDUS.] + + +[Illustration: AN INDIAN CAMEL CART.] + + +{256} + +[Illustration: TRAVEL IN INDIA.] + How the author and his friends made the trip from Jeypore to Amber + + +{257} + +"Of course, with our dense population, land is high and our system of +farming expensive. Good irrigated wet land, used chiefly for rice, is +worth from $166 to $500 per acre, renting for $20 to $25; dry land +sells for $17 to $133 per acre and rents for from $3 to $5. It is +commonly said that a man and his family should make a living on two +acres, and the usual one-man farm consists of 5 to 10 acres of wet +land or 30 to 50 of dry. The wet land farmers are generally renters, +the others owners. Of course, you have noticed that no horses are used +on the farms, nothing but bullocks; nor do I think that horses will be +used for a long time to come. We are making some progress in +introducing better methods of farming. Little, of course, can be done +with bulletins where such a small percentage of the people can read, +but demonstration farms have proved quite successful, and the +government is much pleased with the results obtained from employing +progressive native farmers to instruct their neighbors." + +The advancing price of cotton has proved a matter of hardly less +interest to India than to America, and for several years the crop has +been steadily increasing. The 1910-11 crop (the picking ended in May) +was almost 4,500,000 bales of 400 pounds each. The necessity for +growing food crops, however, is so imperative that the cotton acreage +cannot be greatly increased--at least not soon. During our Civil War, +it will be remembered, India did her uttermost; and Bombay laid the +foundations of her greatness in the high prices then paid for the +fleecy staple. Hers is still a great cotton market and down one of her +main streets from morning to night one sees an almost continuous line +of cotton carts, drawn by bullocks and driven by men almost as black +as our negroes in the South. I was very much interested in seeing how +much better the lint is baled than in America. In the first place the +bagging is better--less ragged than that we commonly use--and in the +next place it is held in place by almost twice as many encircling +bands or ties as our bales. + +{258} + +All in all, I regret to say good-by to India. Its people are poor; its +industries primitive; its religion atrocious; its climate generally +oppressive, and yet, after all, there is something fascinating about +the country. For one thing, there is a large infusion of Aryan blood +among the people, and after one has spent several months among the +featureless faces of the Chinese and Japanese, these Aryan-type faces +are strangely attractive. The speech of the people, too, is +picturesque beyond that of almost any other folk, as readers of +Kipling have come to know. It is very common for a beggar to call out, +"Oh, Protector of the Poor, you are my father and mother, help me, +help me." + +"I salute you," said our old guide at the Kutab Minar, speaking in his +native Hindustani, which my friend interpreted for me. "I know that +you are the kings of the realm, but I have eaten your salt before, and +I am willing to eat it again." + +At the end, of course, he wished a tip. "But ask him why I should give +him anything," I said to my friend. + +Replying, he mentioned first the number of his children, the blindness +of his wife, and then dropped into the picturesque native plea: +"Besides, you are my father and mother, the king of the realm, and if +I may not look to you, to whom shall I look?" + +"Well, so much lying ought to be worth four annas," I said, and left +him happier with the coin. + +There is one thing, of course, that would never do: it would never do +to write about India without saying something about lions, tigers, and +snakes. Last of all, therefore, let me come to this topic. + +I didn't see any tigers, let me say frankly, except those in +cages--though there was one in Calcutta which had slain men and women +before they caught him, and whose titanic fury as he lunged against +his cage-bars, gnashing at the men before him, I shall never forget. A +jackal howled at my room-door in Jeypore one night; between Jeypore +and Bombay monkeys {259} were as thick as rabbits were in the old +county where I was reared; in Delhi only lack of time prevented me +from getting interested in a leopard hunt not many miles away; en +route to Darjeeling I saw a wild elephant staked out in the woods near +where he had evidently been caught; and near Khera Kalan I saw wild +deer leaping with their matchless grace across the level plains. + +"In my district," one missionary told me, "five or six people a month +are killed by tigers and panthers and even more by snakes. One panther +carried off a man from my kitchen. We found his body half-eaten in the +jungle. It is customary when a body is found in this condition for +hunters to gather around it and await the return of the tiger or +panther. He will come back when hungry, and there is no other way so +sure for getting a man-eater." + +As for snakes, I may mention that when I spent the night with a friend +in Madura I was shown a place near the house where a deadly cobra had +been seen (his bite kills in twenty minutes), while upon retiring I +was given the comforting assurance that it was not safe to put my foot +on the floor at night without having a light in the room! + +As I rode out with Dr. J. P. Jones, of Pasamaila, he pointed to a +grassy mound near the roadside and said. + +"See that grave over there? There's rather an interesting story +connected with it which I'll tell you. One day about four years ago +three snake-charmers came to my house, and as I had an American friend +and his son with me, I decided for the boy's sake to have them try +their art. Only two of the men had flutes, but one went into my garden +and one took up his post on another side of the house, and began to +play. It wasn't long before one called out, 'Cobra!' and sure enough +there was the snake, which he captured; but on coming back he declared +that he had been bitten. In fact, he showed a bruise, but I knew that +snake-charmers counterfeit these bites, so I would not believe him. +Then the other charmer also cried {260} 'Cobra!' and captured another +snake. They showed me the fangs of each serpent, and I gave them four +annas. 1 also offered them four annas more if they would kill the +serpents; but of course they would not. 'Man kill cobra, cobra kill +man,' is one of their sayings. And so they left, but the man who +captured the first snake hadn't gone twenty steps before he fell in +convulsions and died. He had really been bitten, and that is his grave +which you see there." + +Madura, India. + + + +{261} + +XXVI + +WHAT THE ORIENT MAY TEACH US + + +But, after all, what may the Orient teach us? The inquiry is a +pertinent one. Perhaps it is all the more pertinent because, while +acknowledging that the old East may learn much from the young West, we +are ordinarily little inclined to look to the Orient for instruction +for ourselves. In fact, we are not inclined to look anywhere. + +That the germ and promise of all the new Japan was in the oath taken +by the young Mikado in 1868, "to seek out knowledge in all the world," +we are ready to admit, and we are also ready to admit the truth of +what Dr. Timothy Richard said to me in Peking last November. "This +revolutionary progress in China has come about," he remarked, "because +for twenty years China has been measuring herself with other +countries. It is a comparative view of the world that is remaking the +empire." + +In our own case unfortunately, certain natural conditions as well, +perhaps, as the excessive "Ego in our Cosmos," conspire to keep us +from this corrective "comparative view of the world." We are not +hemmed about by rival world-powers, whose activities we are compelled +to study, as is the case with almost every European nation. Barring +the Philippines (and their uncertain value) we have no far-flung +battle line to lure our vision beyond borders. And thus far our +growing home markets have been so remunerative that not even commerce +has induced as to look outward, with the incidental results of {262} +bringing us to realize our defects and remedy them, our strong points +and emphasize them. + +For these reasons, I made my trip through the Orient with an increased +desire to bring home the lessons its long experience should teach us. +And now that I come to summarize these lessons I find a single note +running through all--from beginning to end. And this keynote may be +given in a single word. Conservation: the conservation not only of our +natural resources, but of racial strength and power, of industrial +productiveness, of commercial opportunities, and of finer things of +the spirit. + +Taking up first the matter of natural resources, I may mention that +hardly anything that I saw on my entire trip burned itself more deeply +into my memory than the heavy penalty that the Celestial Empire is now +paying for the neglect of her forests in former years. + +In the country north of Peking I found river valley after river valley +once rich and productive but now become an abomination of +desolation--covered with countless tons of sand and stone brought down +from the treeless mountainsides. So long as these slopes were +forest-clad, the decaying leaves and humus gave a sponge-like +character to the soil upon them, and it gave out the water gradually +to the streams below. Now, however, the peaks are in most cases only +enormous rock-piles, the erosion having laid waste the country +roundabout; or else they are mixtures of rock and earth rent by gorges +through which furious torrents rush down immediately after each +rainfall, submerging once fruitful plains with rock and infertile +gully-dirt. Where the thrifty, pig-tailed Chinese peasant once +cultivated broad and level fields in such river valleys, he is now +able to rescue only a few half-hearted patches by piling the rock in +heaps and saving a few intervening arable remnants from the general +soil-wreck. + +Especially memorable was the ruin--if one may call it such--of a once +deep river, its bed now almost filled with {263} sand and rock, that I +crossed on my little Chinese donkey not far from the Nankou Pass and +the Great Wall. Even the splendid arches of a bridge, built to span +its ancient flood, were almost submerged in sand. Instead of the +constant stream of water that once gladdened the lowlands, there is in +each rainy season a mad torrent that leaves a ruinous deposit behind, +and, later, long weeks when the river-bed is as dry as a desert. So it +was when I saw it last fall; and the old stone bridge, almost +sand-covered like an Egyptian ruin, was at once a melancholy monument +to the gladness and fertility of a vanished era, and an argument for +forest-conservation that should carry conviction to all who see it. + +The next day as I rode amid the strange traffic of Nankou Pass I found +this argument translated into even more directly human terms. For of +the scores of awkward-moving camels and quaint-looking Mongolian +horses and donkeys that I saw homeward-bound after their southward +trip, a great number were carrying little bags of coal--dearly bought +fuel to be sparingly used through the long winter's cold in quantities +just large enough to cook the meagre meals, or in extreme weather to +keep the poor peasants from actually freezing. Only in the rarest +cases are the Chinese able to use fuel for warming themselves; they +can afford only enough for cooking purposes. + +Yet in sight of the peasant's home, perhaps--in any case, not far +away--are mountain peaks too steep for cultivation, but which with +wise care of the tree-growth would have provided fuel for thousands +and tens of thousands, and at a fraction of the price at which wood or +coal must now be bought. + +Japan, Korea, and India--the whole Orient in fact--bear witness to the +importance of the forestry messages which Gifford Pinchot and Theodore +Roosevelt have been drumming into our more or less uncaring ears for a +decade past. When I reached Yokohama I found it impossible to get into +the northern part of the island of Hondo because of the {264} flood +damage to the railroads, and the lives of several friends of mine had +been endangered in the same disaster. The dams of bamboo-bound rocks +that I found men building near Nikko and Miyanoshita by way of remedy +may not amount to much; but there is much hope in the general +programme for reforesting the desolated areas, which I found the +Japanese Department of Agriculture and Commerce actively prosecuting. +Here is a good lesson for America. In Korea, however, the Japanese +lumbermen, even in very recent years, have given little thought to the +morrow and with such results as might be expected. The day I reached +Seoul, one of its older citizens, standing on the banks of the Han +just outside the ancient walls, remarked, "When I was young this was +called the Bottomless River, because of its great depth. Now, as you +can see, it is all changed. The bed is shallow, in some places nearly +filled up, and it has been but a few weeks since great damage was done +by overflows right here in Seoul." + +Yet another kind of conservation to which our people in Occidental +lands need to give more earnest heed is the conservation of the +individual wealth of the people. The wastefulness of the average +American is apparent enough from a comparison of conditions here with +conditions in Europe--when I came back from my first European trip I +remarked that "Europe would live on what America wastes"--but a +comparison of conditions in America with those in the Orient is even +more to our discredit. In Lafcadio Hearn's books on Japan we find a +glorification of the Japanese character that is unquestionably +overdone on the whole, but in his contrast between the wasteful +display of fashion's fevered followers in America and the ideals of +simple living that distinguished old Japan, there is a rebuke for us +whose justice we cannot gainsay. Take an old Japanese sage like Baron +Shibusawa, who, like Count Okuma, it seems might well have been one of +Plutarch's men, and you are not surprised to hear him mention the +extravagance of America as the thing that impressed him more {265} +than anything else in traveling in our country. "To spend so much +money in making a mere railroad station palatial as you have done in +Washington, for example, seems to me uneconomic," he declared. + +What most impressed him and other Oriental critics with whom I talked, +be it remembered, was the wastefulness of expenditures not for genuine +comforts but for fashion and display--the vagaries of idle rich women +who pay high prices for half-green strawberries in January but are +hunting some other exotic diet when the berries get deliciously ripe +in May, and who rave over an American Beauty in December but have no +eyes for the full-blown glory of the open-air roses in June. It is +such unnatural display that most grates against the "moral duty of +simplicity of life," as Eastern sages have taught it. + +"When I was in the Imperial University here in Tokyo," a Japanese +newspaper man said to me, "my father gave me six yen a month, $3 +American money. I paid for room, light, and food $1.20 a month; for +tuition, 50 cents; for paper, books, etc., 30 cents; and this left me +$1 for pocket money expenditures, including the occasional treat of +eating potatoes with sugar!" In such Spartan simplicity the victors of +Mukden, Liao-yang and Port Arthur were bred. + +The great founder of the Tokugawa dynasty, Iyeyasu, whose tomb at +Nikko situated at the end of a twenty-five mile avenue of giant +cryptomerias, is the Mecca of all tourists, has expressed in two +memorable sayings the Japanese conception of the essential immorality +of waste, of the regard that is due every product of human labor as +being itself in some sense human or at least a throb with the blood of +the toiler who has wrought it and moist with the sweat of his brow. +When virtual dictator of Japan, Iyeyasu was seen smoothing out an old +silk kakama. "I am doing this," he said, "not because of the worth of +the garment in itself, but because of what it needed to produce it. It +is the result of the toil of some poor woman, and that is why I value +it. If we do not think while {266} using these things, of the toil and +effort required to produce them, then our want of consideration puts +us on a level with the beasts." Again, when opposing unnecessary +purchases of costly royal garments, he declared. "When I think of the +multitudes around me, and the generations to come after me, I feel it +my duty to be very sparing, for their sake, of the goods in my +possession." + +No wonder Hearn declares of this "cosmic emotion of humanity" which we +lack that "we shall certainly be obliged to acquire it at a later date +simply to save ourselves from extermination." + +The importance of saving the wealth of nations from the wastes of war +and the wastes of excessive military expenditures is another lesson +that one brings home from a study of conditions abroad. While our +American jingoes are using Japan as a more or less effective bogy to +work their purposes, peace advocates might perhaps even more +legitimately hold it up as a "horrible example" to point their moral +as to how war drains the national revenues and exhausts the national +wealth. In the Mikado's empire the average citizen to-day must pay 30 +per cent, of his total income in taxes, the great proportion of this +enormous national expenditure growing out of past wars and +preparations for future wars. No wonder venerable Count Okuma, once +Premier of the Empire, said to me: "I look for international +arbitration to come not as a matter of sentiment but as a matter of +cold financial necessity. Nations have labored for centuries to build +up the civilization of to-day: it is unthinkable that its advantages +must be largely sacrificed for the support of enormous non-productive +armies and navies. That would be simply the Suicide of Civilization." + +For the lesson of all this I may quote the words of Dr. Timothy +Richard, one of the most distinguished Englishmen in China, in the +same conversation from which a fragment was quoted in the beginning of +this article: + +{267} + +"The world is going to be one before you die, sir," he said as we +talked together just outside the walls of the Forbidden City. "We are +living in the days of anarchy. Unite the ten leading nations; let all +their armaments be united into one to enforce the decrees of the +Supreme Court of the World. And since it will then be the refusal of +recalcitrant nations to accept arbitration that will make necessary +the maintenance of any very large armaments by these united nations, +let them protect themselves by levying discriminating tariff duties +against the countries that would perpetuate present conditions." + +All this I endorse. The necessity of preserving the national wealth +from the wastes of war I regard as one of the most important lessons +that we may get from the Orient. And yet I would not have the United +States risk entering upon that military unpreparedness which must +prove a fool's paradise until other great nations are brought to +accept the principle of arbitration. The proper programme is to +increase by tenfold--yes, a hundredfold--our personal and national +efforts for arbitration, at the same time remembering that so long as +the community of nations recognizes the Rule of Force we cannot secede +and set up a reign of peace for ourselves. If it takes two to make a +quarrel, it also takes two to keep a peace. We must be in terrible +earnest about bringing in a new era, and yet we cannot commit the +folly of trying to play the peace game by ourselves. It is not +solitaire. + +Even more important, whether we consider it from the standpoint of the +general welfare or as a matter of national defence, is the +conservation of our physical stamina and racial strength. Whether the +wars of the future are commercial or military it doesn't matter. The +prizes will go to the people who are strong of body and clear of mind. +"The first requisite," said Herbert Spencer, "is a good animal," and +not even the success of a Peace Court will ever prevent the good +animal--the power of physical vigor and hardness with its {268} +concomitant qualities of courage, discipline, and daring--from +becoming a deciding factor in the struggle between nations and between +races. It has been so from the dawn of history and it will ever be so. + +And just here we may question whether the growth of wealth and luxury +in the United States is not tending here, as it has tended in all +other nations, toward physical softness and deterioration. It may be +argued on the contrary that while a few Occidental children are +luxury-weakened, a great body of Oriental children are +drudgery-weakened. But is there not much more reason to fear that in +our case there is really decay at both ends of our social system--with +the pampered rich children who haven't work enough, and with the +hard-driven poor who have too much? The overworking of the very young +is certainly a serious evil in America as well as in Asia; and even in +this matter the Eastern folk are perhaps doing as well, according to +their lights, as we are. In China manufacturing is not yet extensive +enough for the problem to be serious; but in both Japan and India I +found the government councils thoroughly aroused to the importance of +conserving child-life, and grappling with different measures for the +protection of both child and women workers. My recollection is that +the four thousand brown-bodied Hindu boys (there were no girls) that I +found at work in a Madras cotton mill already have better legal +protection than is afforded the child-workers in some of our American +states. + +For a long time, too, we have been accustomed to think of the Oriental +as the victim of enervating habits and more or less vicious forms of +self-indulgence. But while this may have been true in the past, the +tide is now definitely turning. Fifty years of agitation in the United +States have probably accomplished less to minimize intemperance among +us than ten years of anti-opium agitation has accomplished in ridding +China of her particular form of intemperance. I went to China too late +to see the once famous opium dens of Canton and Peking; {269} too late +to see the gorgeous poppy-fields that once lined the banks of the +Yangtze; and on the billboards in Newchang I found such notices as the +following concerning morphine, cocaine and similar drugs: + + "In accordance with instructions received through the + Inspector-General from the Shuiwu Ch'u the public is hereby notified + that henceforth the importation into China of cocaine ... or + instruments for its use, except by foreign medical practitioners and + foreign druggists for medical purposes, is hereby prohibited." + +And these foreign doctors handling cocaine are heavily bonded. The +Chinaman of to-day is giving up opium, is little given to other forms +of intemperance, is afire with new enthusiasm for athletics and for +military training; and he is already so physically adaptable that I +found him as hardy and untiringly energetic beneath an equatorial sun +in Singapore as in the rigorous climate of north-central Manchuria. It +made me wonder if the "meek who are to inherit the earth" in the end +may not prove to be the Chinese! + +Perhaps if the United States were a less powerful nation, or if we +realized more fully the keenness of the coming world-struggle for +industrial supremacy, we might find our patriotism a stronger force in +warding off some of the evils that now threaten us. In his address to +the German navy, Emperor William recently urged the importance of +temperance because of the empire's need of strong, clear-headed men, +unweakened by dissipation; and there can be little doubt that some +such patriotic motive has had not a little to do with the anti-opium +movement in awakening China. Certainly the Japanese with their almost +fanatical love of country are easily influenced by such appeals, and +keep such reasons in mind in the training of their young. "For the +sake of the Emperor you must not drink the water from these condemned +wells; for the sake of the Emperor you must observe these sanitary +precautions--lest you start an epidemic and so weaken the {270} +Emperor's fighting forces!" So said the Japanese sanitary officers in +the war with Russia; and when the struggle ended Surgeon-General +Takaki was able to boast in his official report: + + "In the Spanish-American War fourteen men died from disease to one + from bullets. We have established a record of four deaths from + disease to one from bullets." + +In studying these Eastern peoples one is also led inevitably to such +reflections as Mr. Roosevelt gave utterance to in his Romanes lectures +a few months ago. Not only are the Orientals schooled from their youth +up to endure hardness like good soldiers, but their natural increase +contrasts strikingly with the steadily decreasing birth-rate of our +French and English stocks. In Japan I soon came to remark that it +looked almost as unnatural to see a woman between twenty and forty +without a baby on her back as it would to see a camel without a hump; +and Kipling's saying about the Japanese "four-foot child who walks +with a three-foot child who is holding the hand of a two-foot child +who carries on her back a one-foot child" came promptly to mind. In +view of these things it is not surprising to learn that in the last +fifty years Japan has increased in population, through the birth rate +alone, "as fast as the United States has gained from the birth rate +plus her enormous immigration." The racial fertility of the Chinese is +also well known; a Chinaman without sons to worship his spirit when he +dies is not only temporarily discredited but eternally doomed. As for +India, that every Hindu girl at fourteen must be either a wife or a +widow is a common saying, and readers of "Kim" and "The Naulahka" will +recall the ancient and persistent belief that the wife who is not also +a mother of sons is a woman of ill-omen. + +Mr. Putman Weale abundantly justifies the title of his new book, "The +Conflict of Color"--the seeming foreordination of some readjustment of +racial relations if present tendencies continue--when he asserts that +while the white races double {271} in eighty years, the yellow or +brown double in sixty, and the black in forty. + +This last consideration, that of a possible readjustment of racial +relations, leads us very naturally to inquire, What are the qualities +that have given the white race the leadership thus far? And what may +we do for the conservation of these qualities? + +There are, of course, certain basic and fundamental reasons for white +leadership that I need not elaborate. For one thing, there is the +tonic air of democratic ideals in which long generations of white men +have lived and developed as contrasted with the stifling absolutism of +the East. There is also our emphasis upon the worth of the Individual, +our conception of the sacredness of personality, as compared with the +Oriental lack of concern for the individual in its supreme regard for +the family and the State. And even more important perhaps is the fact +that the white man has had a religion that has taught--even if +somewhat confusedly at times--that "man is man and master of his +fate," that he is not a plaything of destiny, but a responsible son of +God with enormous possibilities for good or evil, whereas the Oriental +has been the victim of benumbing fatalism that has made him +indifferent in industry and achievement, though it has given him a +greater recklessness in war. It would also be difficult to exaggerate +the influence which our radically different estimate of woman has had +upon Western civilization. And here we have to consider not only +woman's own direct contributions to progress, but also the indirect +influence of our regard for woman, not as an inferior and a plaything, +but as a comrade and helpmeet. How frequently the ideal of English +chivalry-- + + "To love one maiden only, cleave to her, + To worship her by years of noble deeds"-- + +has been the inspiration of the best that men of our race have +wrought, it needs only a glance at our literature to {272} suggest. +These things are indeed basic and fundamental and the question of +their conservation, the preservation of the ideals of the Occident as +compared with those of the Orient, is supremely important not only to +us as a nation but to all our human race. But when one comes to +consider only the sheer economic causes of the difference between +Oriental poverty and Occidental plenty, it seems to me impossible to +escape the conviction, already expressed and elaborated that it is +mainly a matter of tools and knowledge, education and machinery. + +In the Orient every man is producing as little as possible; in the +Occident he is producing as much as possible. That is the case in a +nutshell. + +With better knowledge and better tools, half the people now engaged in +food-production in Asia could produce all the food that the entire +rural population now produces, and the other half could be released +for manufacturing--thereby doubling the earning power and the spending +power of the whole population. + +It is universal education and modern machinery, far more than virgin +resources, that have made America rich and powerful. Let her make +haste then to learn this final lesson that the Orient teaches--the +necessity of conserving in the fullest degree all the powers that have +given us industrial supremacy: the power of the trained brain and the +cunning hand reinforced by all the magic strength that we may get from +our Briarean "Slave of the Lamp," modern machinery. We must thoroughly +educate all our people. Was it not an Oriental prophet who wrote: "My +people are destroyed for lack of knowledge?" In China only 1 per cent, +of the people can now read and write, and the highest hope of the +government is that 5 per cent, may be literate by 1917. In India only +5 per cent, can read and write. In Japan for centuries past, the +education of the common man has also been neglected, but she is now +compelling every child to go into the schools, {273} and her industrial +system will doubtless be revolutionized at a result. + +In no case must we forget that education, if it is to be effective, +must train for efficiency, must link itself with life and work, must +be practical. I had thought of the movement for relating the school to +industry as being confined to America and Europe. But when I landed in +Japan I found the educational authorities there as keenly alive to the +importance of the movement as ours in America; in China I found that +the old classical system of education has been utterly abandoned +within a decade; in the Philippines it was the boast of the +Commissioner of Education that the elementary schools in the islands +give better training for agriculture and industry than those in the +United States; and in India the school authorities are earnestly at +work upon the same problem. + +Knowledge and tools must go hand in hand. If this has been important +heretofore it is doubly important now that we must face in an +ever-increasing degree the rivalry of awakening peoples who are strong +with the strength that comes from struggle with poverty and hardship, +and who have set themselves to master and apply all our secrets in the +coming world-struggle for industrial supremacy and racial +readjustment. + + +THE END + +{274} + +{275} + +INDEX + + + +American commerce abroad, 87-8, 91-2 +American goods sold lower abroad, 101 +Ancestor worship, Japan, 7-8 +Area and population, + Manchuria, 78; + Philippines, 163; + India, 211 +Artistic Japanese, 40, 48-9 + + +Beans in Manchuria, 75-6 +Beasts, India's wild, 258-60 +Benares, 202 +Boxer troubles, 125-26 + + +Camels in China, 116-17 +Canton, 142 +Caste system, 226-35; + effect on labor, 229; + robber caste, 231; + defended, 232 +Child marriage in India, 237-8 +Children, Hindu, 223-4 +China, premonitions of revolution, 93, 102-6. +China Sea, 153 +Chinese hardiness, 187-8 +Chinese immigration, 114-15 +Christian vs. Hindu philosophy, 199, 204-5 +Christian vs. Oriental philosophy, 271 +Cocoanut planting, 189 +Confucianism, 103 +Conservation of forests, 262-4 +Cooperative credit societies, + Japan, 25; + India, 222 +Crops-- + Rice, 23-5; + cotton, 23, 76, 140, 168, 254-7; + India's crops, 219 +Currency reform in China, 97-98 + +Diseases and sanitation, 56-64, 72, 135, 170-71 +Dress, + Japanese, 10-11; + Indian, 216 + +Education, 272; + Japanese, 17; + Chinese, 99, 109-11; + Filipino, 168-9; + Indian, 210 +Elephants, Stories about, 193-5 +Extravagance, American, 264-6 + +Factory child labor, 268; + Japan, 33 +Family government, 7, 149 +Famines in India, 218-20 + +Farm animals, + Japan, 22; + Manchuria, 74; + Philippines, 159 +Farming-- + Japan, 21-28; + Manchurian, 76; + Chinese, 122, 126-8, 140-41, 177; + Philippine, 155-6, 165; + Indian, 218-23, 255-7; + tools, 23, 190, 218; + houses, 26, 127, 156, 212 +Fatalism, 227-8 +Filipino character, 172 +Filipino houses, 156 +Foot binding. Chinese, 133-84 +Funeral and burial customs, 77, 124, 128, 144-5, 203-4, 243 + +Ganges, 203 +German commercial activity, 190 +Government, + Japanese, 4; + Korea's corrupt, 65-7; + Chinese, 108 +Great Wall, 120-21 + +Himalayas, The, 208-9 +Hindu gods and goddesses, 200 +Hindu village described, 212 + +{276} + +India, English rule in, 248-52 +India's diversity of races, 248 +Individual, repression of, 55-6 +Industrial efficiency, 37, 40, 141 + + +Japan control in + Korea, 67-8; + Manchuria, 78-92 +Japanese city described, 9-11 +Japanese-Russian War, 70-72; 90-91 + +Korea, 60-69 + +Language-- + Japanese spoken, 3; + written, 9-10; + Chinese, 129-30 +Lawrence, Sir Henry, 246 +Love of nature, Japanese, 27 + +Machinery, Asia's refusal to use, 183 +Manchuria's fertility, 73-4 +Manila, 154 +Manufacturing, Japan, 31, 34-47 +Marriage customs, + Japanese, 5-7, 139; + Korean, 63; + Chinese, 134; + Indian, 236-43 +Missionary work, 59, 69; + Japan, 61; + Korea, 68; + Philippines, 164 +Moral standards, 134, 136 +Music, 5 + + +Odd customs, + Japan, 3-6, 12; + Korean, 65 +Okuma, Count, interviewed, 44-5; 266 +Open door in Manchuria, The, 78-92 +Opium, China's crusade against, 94-6; 108 + +Parcels post, 101 +Peking, Glimpses of, 123-25 +Perry's Expedition, 58 +Persecution of Christians, 51-2, 125-6 +Philippine government, 167-70 +Philippine resources, 165-7 +Philippine scenery, 155-6 +"Pidgin English," 150-51 +Politeness, Japanese, 12, 13 +Postal savings banks, 169 +Poverty of Oriental people, 175, 210, 252 +Practical education, 99, 273 +Punishments, Chinese, 145-6 + +Racial fertility, 7, 11, 270-71 +Railways, + Manchurian, 83-6; + Chinese, 139-40 +Rangoon, 190-91 +Religions, + Shintoism, 49; + Buddhism, 49-50, 151, 122-3; + Confucianism, 130-31; + Hinduism, 198-208, 227 +Roads, 74; + in Philippines, 171 +Rubber speculation, 188 + +School term, Japan, 17-18 +Size of farms, + Japan, 21; + China, 126 +Slavery in China, 132 +Social gradations, Japanese, 16 +"Squeeze" system in China, 96, 112 +Story, A Chinese, 146-7 +Superstitions, 77, 128-9 + +Taj Mahal described, 244-5 +Tariff-- + Japanese, 30, 44-6; + Chinese, 112 +Taxes in Japan, 30 +Torrens land titles, 98, 169-70 +Tropical vegetation, 186 + + +Wages-- + Japan, 29, 34, 36, 42, 174; + China, 126, 141, 174, 177; + Burma, 196; + India, 210, 223, 253-4 +War spirit, 267; + Japan, 35, 72, 266; + China, 111-12 +Wedding, A Hindu, 239 +Welfare work in Japanese factories 31-3 +Woman's degraded position, 271; + Japan, 6, 52-6; + India, 236-44 +Women laborers, 39, 43, 177, 253-4 +Wu Ting Fang interviewed, 139 + +Yang-bans, The, 66 +Yangtze River, 138-9 + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Where Half The World Is Waking Up, by Clarence Poe + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE HALF THE WORLD IS WAKING UP *** + +***** This file should be named 29546.txt or 29546.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/5/4/29546/ + +Produced by Don Kostuch + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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