RETARDED EFFORT TO ADOPT CIVILIZATION OF WEST IS LARGE FACTOR IN CHINESE PROBLEMS

China's problems arise in part from the peculiarities developed by her age-long isolation, and are in part due to a retarded effort to adapt her civilization to Western ideas. Consequently the problems of China are constantly shifting. There seem to be at least four fundamental national necessities that are outstanding and abiding.

China needs to adjust population and resources, unless she is content to remain economically foot-bound. It is true that China is over-populated; there is not, however, an extreme general density of population. In China as a whole the population per square mile is less than half that of Massachusetts and one-third that of England. But there are huge spots of density; as for example, in the far western province of Szechwan, four million people--the equivalent of the population of Massachusetts--life on the Chengtu Plain, an area less than twice the size of Rhode Island; and they are self-supporting at that. If China's potential resources of soil and mine and water power were developed with full effectiveness, and were served by adequate transportation facilities, her present population could have a modern standard of living. Nevertheless, if China continues to breed four generations in a century, instead of three, she can scarcely hope to make her resources keep up with her population. The problem is both social and economic; there must be both restriction of population and enlargement of industry. Indeed the problem is fundamentally religious, because she will not restrict her population until she radically modifies her ideas of ancestor worship.

Must Develop Factory System

A second problem is to develop industry under the factory system, while avoiding the evils of industrialism. Slowly but surely the mill and factory are taking the place of the village and household industries in China. But there are no labor laws, there are no restrictions of hours, there are no minimum wage guarantees, there is unblushing exploitation of the labor of children. The pace is set by foreign firms, closely followed by the Chinese employers themselves. One does not need to assert that there is only one side to this question in order to argue the point that herein lies one of China's most serious difficulties for the remainder of the century.

The problem of universal education is one of overwhelming magnitude. The ancient system of education in China was thoroughly democratic in that it gave every boy his chance to become a scholar and an official; but inasmuch as the number of scholars that could be profitably employed was limited largely by the number of officials that could be maintained, the proportion of the population getting an education was extremely small. Great progress has been made in the twenty years since the old system was thrown overboard, but the fact remains that not over 10 percent of the people are literate, probably not over 10 percent of the children of school age are actually in Scholl and when one considers the financial resources of the country, the task of providing universal education seems almost impossible. One should not infer that illiteracy and lack of intelligence are the same thing. The Chinese are a highly intelligent race and if they can have the benefit of schooling they can become exceedingly efficient.

China Needs Stable Government

The most serious difficulty in the way of solving these three fundamental problems constitutes a fourth problem; namely, the need of a stable, efficient, honest government. China is a republic only in name. The present rulers are military chieftains employing hired armies. The central government is practically bankrupt, and by the Chinese themselves is constantly charged with dishonesty. The provision of universal education, the installation of research in technical fields, the building of levees for flood control, the reforestation of the hills and mountains, the colonization of unproductive lands, the construction of railways, the securing of labor laws, the ability to borrow money, the practicability of abolishing extraterritoriality, the proper management of post offices and customs, the establishment of just systems of taxation--all these things can be brought to fruition only as the government becomes more stable, more effective, more honest.

Now, the reader is perhaps impressed with the idea that this statement of problems leads to a pessimism concerning China's future, that China is hopeless. But such is not the case. It is highly important that China's friends shall not be blind to these serious, fundamental, genuine difficulties. To do so is to play false to China's best interests. With few exceptions, however, foreigners who have been residents in China for a term of years agree that remarkable progress has been made by this wonderful people. By all odds the oldest civilization of our time, the most populous single country in the world, a race so virile as to have absorbed all comers through the ages, China stands today amazingly strong and deep-rooted. Perhaps the greatest tribute that can be paid to her stability, which exists in spite of a government system that seems to be the last word in ineffectiveness, is that her people go about their business as usual, living out their lives as they have always done, managing their own affairs through family and village and guild, and continuing to multiply and replenish the earth. Many of her farmers are among the most skillful in the world. In large regions, land cultivated for thousands of years is still intensively productive. She has the most elaborate canal system in the world. She has probably made more progress in education in twenty years than has any other country, and the critics of her government must remember that she is endeavoring to build a modern republic upon the ruins of a monarchical system three thousand years old.

In a word, China's problems consist in a right-about-face. She has treasured stability, she has worshipped the past just as we have cherished change and have set our faces to the golden future. She must not be expected to adopt the West; but she must adapt the West to her own uses.

And, may one add that fundamentally the one adequate solvent of her difficulties is a Christianity freed of sectarianism, of outworn theologies, and of ecclesiastical machinery; a Christianity of the spirit, committed everlastingly to belief in the essential brotherhood of man, and to the firm conviction that the Christian principles of the dignity of the individual and of the worth of service, are the most practical things in the world