Untitled
Share Embed Flag
Download ePaper

Untitled

Untitled Untitled

100yixueyuan.sdu.edu.cn
from 100yixueyuan.sdu.edu.cn More from this publisher
30.07.2015 Views

IOCHINA MISSION YEAR BOOK.economic effects are as yet but dimly discernible asrelates to the country as a whole, not having been asyet studied intelligently. It is reported in Russianjournals that the Trans-Siberian line which was to havebeen the means for the subjugation by Russia of Manchuria, is maintained at vast expense by that empirewith the result that perhaps half a million of Chinese areannually poured into the Hei-lung-chiaug province, thetotal emigration being said to be already between threeand four millions. Extensive parts of China are greatlyoverpopulated, notably the ancient province of Shantung,whose people might advantageously be transplanted tothe great regions now opened up beyond the Great Wall.A constant stream of trekking of this sort is indeedkept up, but it should be assisted by the provincial andthe general governments, and should be conducted regularly and permanently. For this the high officialstell us no funds are forthcoming (though they appearto be found for numerous objects of far less importance),but the real difficulty is lack of statesmanship and initiative and an indifference to the condition of the people.The ravages of the great famine of thirty-two years agohave been fully made up ; nothing but emigration can,from the economic point of view, save Shantung, but sofar as we know no Chinese official has even consideredthe matter. Coincident with the extension of the railway system of China, her waterways of great antiquityand of priceless value, are going to ruin. The lowerreaches of the Peiho, on which Tientsin is built, havebeen straightened and dredged by successful skill, butall this is the work of foreigners. The Paotingfuriver, the Hsiahsiho, the Hunho, are all absolutelyneglected and a source of peril to the whole countryabout, when they might be deepened and regulated soas to be a perennial blessing. The Peiho, which adecade ago bore the tribute-rice to the capital, is noweither dried up in its old habitat (having run off somewhere else in default of anything to do), or it is a raging

""GENERAL SURVEV.IItorrent inundating whole counties. A year ago hundreds of boatmen were stranded at T ungchou unableto get anywhere. Yet this is w thin an hour s ride ofthe Imperial Palace ! The Grand Canal, throughout ^large part of its northern course, is a venerable and amelancholy ruin. In northern Kiangsu the choking ofits channels for drainage to the sea directly caused thefloods which ended in the terrible famine of 1906-7.Yet nothing is anywhere undertaken, or if work isbegun,it is isolated, sporadic, and fruitless. According to thebest foreign opinionit can be but a matter of a decademore or less before the ancient foe of China (whichmight be converted into its staunch friend) the YellowRiver will once more break away by reason of thesilting up of its bed, and we shall have a repetition ofwith wails about the will ofthe scenes of 1887-8,heaven and the helplessness of man against fate.After protracted squabbling between the rulers of twoadjacent provinces (as if they had been rival Europeankingdoms instead of constituent parts of one empire)we have atlast thepromise and potencyof practicalsteam navigation of the Upper Yangtze. When therail andImperial province of Szch uan is joined bysteamboat to the rest of China, and likewise with thevast almost unpenetrated regions beyond, there will bea new world for the whole empire.Nothing has so showed the temper of the newChina as her treatment of the opium reform, to whicha few sentences must be devoted. It is important toremember that the avowed object is to "make Chinastrong."Five years agoit was something of a riskto assume (as some of us did assume) that the Chinesegovernment was in earnest. This is now everywhereadmitted by those whose opinion is of any value. Thegreat opium conference in Shanghai in 1909 may be saidto have focused the sentiment of the world against thisdeadly drug, and seems to have been the means of a slowbut definite change of view among the journals of the

IOCHINA MISSION YEAR BOOK.economic effects are as yet but dimly discernible asrelates to the country as a whole, not having been asyet studied intelligently. It is reported in Russianjournals that the Trans-Siberian line which was to havebeen the means for the subjugation by Russia of Manchuria, is maintained at vast expense by that empirewith the result that perhaps half a million of Chinese areannually poured into the Hei-lung-chiaug province, thetotal emigration being said to be already between threeand four millions. Extensive parts of China are greatlyoverpopulated, notably the ancient province of Shantung,whose people might advantageously be transplanted tothe great regions now opened up beyond the Great Wall.A constant stream of trekking of this sort is indeedkept up, but it should be assisted by the provincial andthe general governments, and should be conducted regularly and permanently. For this the high officialstell us no funds are forthcoming (though they appearto be found for numerous objects of far less importance),but the real difficulty is lack of statesmanship and initiative and an indifference to the condition of the people.The ravages of the great famine of thirty-two years agohave been fully made up ; nothing but emigration can,from the economic point of view, save Shantung, but sofar as we know no Chinese official has even consideredthe matter. Coincident with the extension of the railway system of China, her waterways of great antiquityand of priceless value, are going to ruin. The lowerreaches of the Peiho, on which Tientsin is built, havebeen straightened and dredged by successful skill, butall this is the work of foreigners. The Paotingfuriver, the Hsiahsiho, the Hunho, are all absolutelyneglected and a source of peril to the whole countryabout, when they might be deepened and regulated soas to be a perennial blessing. The Peiho, which adecade ago bore the tribute-rice to the capital, is noweither dried up in its old habitat (having run off somewhere else in default of anything to do), or it is a raging

logo

products

Resources

Company

Terms of service
Privacy policy
Cookie policy
Cookie settings
Imprint
Change language
Made with love in Switzerland
© 2024 Yumpu.com all rights reserved

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!