Lawrence Dundas

“ To form any adequate idea of China, the inquirer must leave the foreign settlements which dot the coast-line and travel into the interior of this vast empire. There he may observe for himself the manner of life of the real Chinese,—the teeming millions who live the immemorial life of China, as distinct from the men of the coast, who rub shoulders daily with peoples thinking other thoughts and observing a different mode of life from themselves. He will live among the Chinese people and learn for himself the nature of their requirements, and their ability or otherwise to satisfy them. ”

“ When we begin to sum up the assets of China,—its 400,000,000 of frugal and industrious people, its incalculable mineral wealth scattered bounteously over a compact territory nearly half as large again as the United States of America, its variety of soil and climate, its immense rivers and vast sea-board,—we need not feel surprised if the mind is staggered at the thought of what a regenerated China may mean to posterity. ”

“ Even the present generation will see vast changes in East Asia, and it was with my mind full of such thoughts as are suggested by considerations of this kind that I started on a journey which was to take me into the very heart of China, up the swelling bosom of the mighty Yang-tsze, into the recesses of the wide-stretching and wealthy province of Ssŭch'uan, across the bleak highlands of Yün-nan, and out, finally, on the far side, through the tropical swamps and jungles of British Burma. ”

“ The astute business man of China soon realised the advantage of living under equitable government, and, contrary to the intentions of its founders, flocked into the settlement. To-day the Chinese lady, decked in her most splendid satins and silks, may be seen driving in her smart victoria along Bubbling Well Road, while the Chinese gentleman bowls gaily along in his latest pattern motor-car from Europe. ”

“ Beyond Hankow the yellow waters of the great river stretch away westward like a ribbon, between low-lying plains cultivated with cotton. The resources of a river steamer are not great, and the lack of interest is doubly emphasised by the dull monotony of the landscape, broken only by the occasional graceful outline of argosies of white-sailed junks. ”

“ It is, indeed, a vast commercial emporium at which the products of European and American factories are first collected before being distributed to the consumers of China, and for this very reason it is not here that the would-be investigator will find material for forming a just estimate of the future of China, commercial, industrial, or political: Shanghai, in other words, is not China, it is an exotic which flourishes because it is not subjected to Chinese conditions. ”

“ Shanghai is an example of one of the curious anomalies which have been generated by the collision of Western progress with Eastern stagnancy. It presents, indeed, an astonishing phenomenon, a European city—not unfit to be the capital of many a European country—dumped down on a Chinese mud-flat. The mud-flat is still the property of China, who receives ground-rent from the foreigner who has spread his palatial mansions over it ”

“ In more ways than one Hankow is a remarkable town. It is, according to the members of the Blackburn Commercial Mission, "the greatest centre of distribution in the empire." Its position is certainly unique. Situated at the junction of the Han river with the Yang-tsze, 600 miles from the coast, it is nevertheless visited by ocean-going steamers at certain seasons of the year, and is at all times in communication with Shanghai and the sea through the medium of a perfect flotilla of river steamers of considerable speed and size. ”

“ If new forces are found stirring the quiet and stagnation which for centuries have brooded over these back-waters of the great onward-flowing current of the world's progress, then we may begin to view the problems presented by a renovated China in the light of problems at last within the range of the practical, and destined to have immense influence upon our own future. ”

“ Little of the city is to be seen from the river except the inevitable stone wall, which here comes down within a short distance of the river's edge, and a not altogether attractive-looking excrescence between the city wall and the river bank, due to the advent of the foreigner and his trade. Another foreign innovation is on its way—namely, the railway which is being pushed forward from Shanghai by the British and Chinese Corporation, and which may be expected to arrive in another year's time. ”

“ Yet we find "worn-out London horse-shoes coming out 12,000 miles by sea and then journeying inland within a stone's throw of the greatest iron ore deposits in the world, there to be sold at high prices because a working plan without restrictions has not yet been found by which to drive a little way into the bowels of mother earth." ”

“ Hukow, a fortified position at the entrance to the Poyang lake; and on the evening of the third day draw up at the treaty port of Kiukiang, celebrated locally for pottery and silver ware, and enjoying the unenviable reputation of being the hottest of all the Yang-tsze ports. The following morning the houses and factories of Hankow rise on the horizon, and by midday we are landing on the magnificent shaded esplanade which runs along the river's edge the whole length of the British, French, and German concessions. ”

“ But the Chinese have ideas of their own as to the relative value of foreign tongues, and it is a curious fact, noticeable throughout the empire, that whereas a Chinese will pay to learn English, he will seldom take lessons in other languages free. [5] Finally, Hankow is the largest city between Shanghai and Ch'ung-k'ing, and occupies a commanding position upon the greatest of all the avenues of approach to the vast regions of Western China. ”

“ Seven large Japanese firms are doing business in the city; three large new steamers are about to be put on the Yang-tsze by the Nippon Yusen Kwaisha, [9] the largest shipping company in Japan; of an estimated foreign population of 2500, it is said that 1000 are Japanese; and the Japanese concession, which has lain fallow for ten years, is now being taken vigorously in hand. Hankow, indeed, presents an admirable example of the prosecution of the rapidly growing ambitions and aspirations which are so conspicuous a feature of new Japan. ”

“ It is at the present time the terminus, and in the future will be the central point, of a great trans-Chinese railway running from Peking to Canton. Railway travelling in China is, generally speaking, still a novelty where it exists, which is the exception, and an as yet scarcely felt desideratum where it does not, which is the rule ”

“ I noted as a curious fact that the danger to be apprehended from departing from "good morals and Confucian principles" is not apparently so great in a silk filature as in a cotton mill, since in a silk factory next door the hands employed were almost exclusively women and girls. ”

“ In the matter of raw material Hankow is abundantly blessed. At the coal mines of Ping Shan, coke equal to the best Durham is made at the pit's mouth; while at Ta Yeh, seventy miles down the river, stands a mountain of iron ore, giving 65 per cent of pure metal, 3 miles long and 400 feet high,—sufficient, according to the estimate of a European engineer, "to turn out 700 tons of iron a day for 1000 years." ”

“ At a cost of 2,500,000 taels a new blast furnace, Siemens-Martin furnaces, rolling mills, and beam and angle plant are already being set up, and it is estimated that before long the furnaces will be turning out from 400 to 450 tons of pig-iron a-day, while the rolling mills will be capable of dealing daily with from 800 to 1000 tons of steel to allow of future expansion in the furnaces. ”

“ All the conditions required for enhancing the value of a coal-field are here combined in such a remarkable manner as to make the extraction of a very superior coal easier and cheaper than in any other known instance.... ”

“ Here natural resources, immensely greater in all probability than those of the United States, are being sedulously hoarded up for a future generation. Baron von Richthofen has spoken with authority upon the mineral deposits of China. Again let me give but a single quotation: "I was not a little surprised to find the southern half of the province [Shansi] ... constituting one great coal-field of incredible wealth; ... and besides, the seams accompanied by beds of excellent iron ore in abundance, and a variety of clays fit for many technical purposes.... ”