Show THE PEOPLE OF CHINA Wo are accustomed to speak of China and the Chinese people as if they were distinct entitles This Is an error at the bottom of many of Our mistakes and confusions Me may use the word China as a convenient expression ex-pression to connote a certain vast portion por-tion of lie earths surface but In no more exact sense What figures as China on the map Is a number of districts dis-tricts often separated from each other and from the center by Immense distances dis-tances differing widely In climate resources f re-sources and configuration Inhabited by people of largely varying race tem perament habit religion and language The Mohammedans of whom there are GooooOo regard the Bdiits as lniellgious foreigners The Inhabitants of the central and northern provinces says Mr Kcanc scarcely regard those of life extreme ioutheaat districts as fellowcountry inca at all A native of Shanghai was heard to say There were seven Chinamen and two Cantonese A man from Thin Tsin and a man from Canton can no more talk to each other than can a Frenchman and a Dutchman More over there exists between them a viru lent race hatred I lost the best Chi nOse servant I over bad because being from th6 north nothing would induce him to accompany me In the south ot China where his speech would have be trayed him Cantonese velly bad man master he said I go home Thin curious Intelhatred Is conspicuous whero Chinese from different parts of China meet as for example In Bang kok or on the plantations Ju Malaya or the Dutch Indies Savage faction fights are ot constant occurrence Con sequently it is easy to raise a force of Chinese one place to light Chinese In another It Is because there Is no such thing ns China that the military caste ot the Manchus comparatively Infinitesimal In numbers have been able to impose their rule upon the enormous masses of Chinese Thus it Is unwise to predicate predi-cate anything of China as a whole or to believe that what suits on6 part will necessarily suit another Over the heterogeneous and conflict ing masses ot China there has never been any effective central control and what control there has been has stfeadl ly grown weaker The vermilion pencil I pen-cil makes a faint mark In the south while lu the southwest and extreme northwest It has little but an academic influence and on the Thibetan borders none at all Respect this appended to every Imperial rescript In thp Peking Gazette Is as far from actuality as the Oyevc of the usher with us or the challenge of the Queens champion at the coronation There is therefore not the least possibility of establishment1 by 1 Chinese authority of a national army or navy or civil service And the corruption which Is the fatal curse of China Is directly due to the fact that there is not and cannot be any central authority to exercise control over local ollclals In the absence of this to pay them The Chinese people in the language lan-guage of physics Is a mechanical mixture mix-ture and not a chemical compound and therefore it Is irresponsive to the action of any single reagent arid Incapable Inca-pable of exhibiting any common property Nineteenth Century Review |