| Show written for this paper A TALK WITH WU TING FANG UM IM bv br frank Q G carpenter Carpen tr washington D C may 12 1897 he effect of li r H a n g changes trip around the world is is seen every day in the new policy which has been adopted by the chinese emperor s since I 1 n c e djs return home A general change has taken place in the diplomatic circle and nd new ministers are being sent to the leading courts of christendom first it ft was announced that lo 10 feng luh was to 0 be ra minister imster to great britain A week commission was ordered to ar or so 80 affo aero a go 0 o to england to represent the emperor at 44 the diamond jubilee of queen victoria and within the past few days a sew mew chinese minister has arrived in washington the striking peculiarity of the I 1 tew new appointments is that the men chosen are those who are up to date in foreign affairs lo 10 feng luh lub was educated in london I 1 think he studied law there he has spent some time in ferniany erni any and he speaks the english and german languages landua es almost as fluently as the chinese ahen when I 1 met lum him in fain a year or so ago 0 o he quoted shakespeare is in his bis conversations with me and sf aye me his als opinions guions of huxley and Amr darwin win he was then secretary of the teavy of china and was the chief assistant of prince li hung chang in fori 1 n matters met the new chinese minister to this country last night and had an hours c hat bat with him about himself rn and d other things he also speaks english fluently he told me that be was educated in england and that he be was a member of the english bar he studied law at Lincol ns g inn london and after aate r that returned to china and practiced at hong kons it was at this time that li hung chang who keeps b bis is a eyes es out for the brightest young men wao who know anything about foreign affairs discovered bam and later on called him to the service of the emperor and it is largely through li hung chang that he now comes to represent chinese interests in tee united states the new ministers dame ama ar is wu ting fang he is I 1 jud judge e a man of forty five years of age ge he e ii alaa pronounced chinese features having ugh cheek bones a light brown complexion pl Vl exion axion and eyes which are even bri briget bt at f thap than xhosa those of li hung chang he Is is eldom at a lost loss for a word and Is a man of ideas and actions the door of his bis room at the arlington hotel was opened for me by his little son a bright eyed chinese boy of about nine years who was dressed in a long red gown reaching down to his feet and a little black i skull cap which fitted well down over his head crowning features as sober as those of the sphinx when the minister came in he took my hand in american fashion and then turned and drew on a plum colored sack over his long silk gown as he asked me to be seated his excellency opened the conversation by asking a number of personal questions he picked up my card I 1 al and nd read the names of the several newsy newspapers a pe printed P ted at the corner ab said he 1 I see that you write for many papers do they all pay you for your letters you must make a great deal of money I 1 modestly replied that I 1 was able to live whereupon he very politely asked me a number of other questions about newspaper work in the united states and especially as to the profits which are to be derived after a lew few such questions I 1 saw that I 1 was the m man an being inter interview vied rather than the interviewer ter viewer and I 1 adopted the plan that I 1 used in my interview with lt li hung chang of tacking a question on the end of each of my answers and in this way was able to turn the conversation to chinese matters among other things I 1 asked the minister if he had passed the literary examinations at peking no replied his bis excellency 1 I have 11 not at f I 1 have of course spent yea years rs in i chinese studies but a large part of my time has been devoted to english and to foreign branches I 1 was born bom in canton and I 1 first studied english at hong kong then I 1 went to london and spent some years there I 1 see you have the idea that the only way of getting in into office in china is through the literary examinations this is not altogether true most appointments are made in that way but when a high official such for instance as li hung chang chan sees a person whom he thinks will be valuable to the government he calls him into his bis service he can give him a place without such examination it is the desire of the emperor to get the ablest men he can to do his work and it was in this way that I 1 became an official how about those literary examinations your excellency are they fair or is there not a great deal of fraud connected with them 1 I suppose there is fraud in all things replied the minister but I 1 think that our examinations for office are fust about as fair as such examinations anywhere all over the world it is almost impossible for a student to cheat his way through you see a man has to go through h a number of different tests before he can become a high official first there are examinations in the district city near the home of the student here the boys from all parts of the district meet they answer questions write poems and essays the test is so rigid that thai out of perhaps 2000 2000 students not more than twenty will pass this thia examination is not for office those thom who pass it however have the right to enter the examinations tor for the second degree these are held at the capital a of the province or state in which the student lives they are held once every three years and there are thou thousands who compete in them the exa examiners are noted scholars and those who pm pass have the right to go into the great examinations ami nations at poking peking if they pat pass there they have a good chance or of receiving e an official appointment it is ia al a great honor to pass all the examinations as s very few of the thousands who enter eater are re able to do so As the minister thus referred to this educational system of china which has been in use for hundreds of years I 1 thought of the enormous number of people which he represented comprising about one fourth of all in the world I 1 I 1 thought of the age of the chinese and of their civilization and said 1 I have often wondered your excellency what one of you educated chinese think of us and our prospects your nation is gray haired beside those of the west you yon were a people in the days davs whon when egypt was the center of western learning your nation was in its prime when the greeks were the great people of the mediterranean you have existed while rome rose and fell and even today the chinese are intellectually and physically strong what is to be the future will our civilization pass away and that ot of the chinese still live the bright light went out of the chinese ministers minister Is eyes dyels his face became sober and after a moments thought he replied who can tell the chinese way may last they are a people of wonderful strength and it remains to be seen seea whether they will be swallowed up or changed by the now new civilization As tor for me I 1 look tor for great changes we have preserved our institutions and customs throughout the past because we have been walled in as it were from the rest of the world at the west we had the high plateau of asia to keep out invaders and on the east there was the sea we had little I 1 communication with the outside worl world d and their customs custom and ideas did not affect us now the doors are thrown open and the nw new elements which are comin coming in may make great changes we may lose a so something methin of our individuality but we shall proy ably hold bold our own but your excellency is china now really open to the world yes was the reply can you notice any material changes going on I 1 1 I think so replied his excellency but you must remember that our country is very large we have an enormous number of people and it takes time to move such great masses an aln attempt to change matters quickly would be very likely to create a revolution you will understand the danger when I 1 tell you that there are tens ot of millions of chinese who have never seen a foreigner and who know practically nothing about foreign matters the only way to make changes in china is by education it is by this means that china may be led to modern methods such education is is not a matter ot of days but of years ears I 1 believe the time will come aten when our people will select from your civilization the the best things in it and will add them to those which we now have the bad elements of our civilization will be eliminated and od it may be that the new civilization the chinese civilization of the ft future iture willbe better than anything which exists today how about the building of railroads m chinal china your excellency we are pushing right ahead along such lines was the reply the road from tien tsin to peking will be completed in june and you will then be able to go from the seashore to the capital by rail where will the peking road end your excellency it will go to the very gates of the ackt city the distance is from eighty to lu ninety y miles and fast trains will probably take you from tien tsin to peking in about two hours at present the journey y requires from one to three days according to the route whether hether by river or by land how about other railroads we have you know a very good line from tien tsin to the Shan on the edge of manchuria this is well built and the trains run regul regularly rl 11 how about the line to han kow wr that line is also being pushed 01 said mr wu ting fang it will run through one cf the most populous parts of china and will go south through some of the best of of our provinces touching large cities ot of every lew jew miles era are now great car works at han yang ang a little bit above han kow and all sorts of railroad machinery are being made there 21 how H ow about factories are many new ones being built yes but these are constructed by the chinese merchants and business men and not by the government there is a large cotton mill at han kow hundreds ot of miles in the interior there are other mills at shanghai including silk mills I 1 how about the japanese at the dose of the war they expected to do a great deal of manufacturing in china did they not yes I 1 know they did replied his excellency wn ting fang 1 I hey investigated vesti gated ted the situation and and made many plans but so far they have not carried them cut I 1 do not know what they will do in the future but your excellency do you think the japanese could do much in china I 1 have always thought the chinese superior to the japanese in business ability there is little doubt of that replied the chinese minister the japanese are very quick to grasp at new things the chinese are careful about going into anything they do not understand still they are very determined and sure they are reliable and sale and such progress as they make will be permanent 11 what are our missionaries doing in china 1 I think that the medical missionaries are doing great good replied the minister they are earnest able men and women they heal the sick and they are introducing modern modem medical ideas mong among the people how about the other missionaries i oh ob replied his excellency they are like all other kinds of men some are good and some are bad there are black sheep in every flock and the missionaries sion aries are no exception still they do some good they teach the practice of morality and virtue and people who teach such things will always make some converts will they ever convert the whole chinese nation no replied his excellency with a laugh do yon realize how many keople people we are and how long our religion has as lasted such a conversion will be impossible 1 I have often wondered your excellency said 1 I whether this great chinese brain which invented gunpowder printing the marin marinero mariners ma ers er s compass and other things may not turn back to anven tipa again the bringing in of our ideas and civilization may stimulate it and it may produce many new things that may be so 1 I was the reply some of your scientific men who have lived in china say that our people are griat great imitators that we can copy anything but that we cannot invent or originate now that may be so but I 1 doubt it the trouble with us today is that we have no incentive to inventions as you have here in america we have no copyright laws and no patent laws if a man writes a book he does not want to publish it for any printer near by can get autan out an edition and compete with him if a man has an idea for a laborsaving device he keeps it to himself or perhaps makes only one or two machines if he tried to sell the machines other men would copy them and he would have no protection if we had patent laws I 1 think the chinese would display their former inventive power I 1 dont see why not how could such laws be secured I 1 asked very easily replied the minister any amy of our great statesmen might suggest or memorialize the emperor if it seemed good to him he would put out a decree establishing a patent law and the law would be enforced pi have you seen many evidences of inventive aven tive genius existing among the chinese h esel no I 1 cannot say I 1 have replied the minister but our people are you know a very ingenious people and I 1 have no doubt that many wonderful in mentions vent ions have been created in the past and lost because there was no patent law to foster or preserve them we have instances of such things in our history you are now talking here of your vehicles which go without horses horse sand and other such inventions now it is a fact well known to every chinese gentleman that one of our great generals of the past who lived during the latter ran han dynasty about A D invented wooden horses and buffaloes to be used for military purposes these horses were worked by means of machinery placed in their insides and they moved rapidly over the earth carrying men on their backs were used in and it was by means of them that this general conquered the enemy every chinese boy knows ot of that invention but the details of it have been lost ana and never rediscovered I 1 have no doubt that we have invented many other things which have met with a like late at this moment one of the chinese secretaries called upon the minister and our interview closed upon leaving the minister gave me his latest photograph writing at my request his autograph in english and chinese upon its face the photograph was made by a chinese photographer to at shanghai and is as good as any of the photographs which are made in america nl |
