CHAPTER XXV.

CONTEMPORARY CHINA.

We have now reached the most interesting, the most important, and the most overwhelmingly difficult part of our subject. If all Western Europe were one country, with three times its present population, it would compare, in mere bulk, as a topic of discussion with the empire of China; and it is of such a district as this that we have to describe in brief the economic life, and so much of its laws and social usages as affect the acquisition and enjoyment of property. The task would be impossible but for one circumstance. One of the points upon which all intelligent writers concerning China and the Chinese are agreed, is the essentially homogeneous character, both of the national empire as a whole, and of the life and thought of each of the units included in its vast population. The habitual thoughts of the people are in harmony with their conduct; their manners and customs reflect their ideas.

The writer's pains and the reader's patience would have been spared, had it been possible to pass straight from the traditions of Yao and Shun and the sayings of Chung and Mang, to the condition of modern China. But nineteenth-century scepticism, relying on the brief experience of Western Europe, would refuse to believe in a real connection between facts and theories separated by twice two millenniums, unless the phenomenon was vouched for by a succession of contemporary witnesses. If the history of China, as sketched above, appears tedious as well as lengthy, it will at least be allowed to be authentic; and its course has certainly been modified by the perennial censorship of orthodox men of letters.

Ordinary travellers-merchants, missionaries, or public servants from the West-do not begin their knowledge of China by a study of the Classics; they are not on the look-out for coincidences between the practices of common life and the doctrines of the learned; and their evidence as to the life and character of the modern Chinese is therefore free from bias. Many of them deliver their favourable judgments with a tone of surprise or apology, and none certainly have deliberately gone to China in quest of an example, either of political or economic wisdom, suitable as a corrective to the errors or defects of Western society.

Hitherto we have transcribed, with little comment or criticism, the Chinese version of Chinese history, and the cursory impressions of Western travellers in time past. We have now to give, in the same way, a summary of the more detailed descriptions furnished by observers of our own

age, and much that appears to them strange or paradoxical will be fairly intelligible to us, when viewed in the light of the past history and literature of the country. It is even possible, as already suggested, that the key to the conservative wisdom of the Chaldæans and the Egyptians will be found, rusty with age, but not unrecognisable or useless, in the hands of the black-haired people with the almond eyes.

China, like ancient Egypt and ancient Babylonia, is a country with an advanced civilization, but its civilization is of a totally different complexion from that of modern Europe. It is a primary, an archaic, a primitive civilization; while the culture of Europe and her colonies is secondary, derivative, and composite: complicated with more numerous, and perhaps higher, elements, less perfectly fused and harmonised; consequently less stable and consistent, with a wider range of possibilities for both progress and destruction. But archaic and primitive as it is, Chinese civilization has a vitality, which we shall find it the less difficult to respect, when we realize its kinship with those of the most famous empires of the world's most ancient history. And from a study of contemporary China we shall also learn to regret something of social and economic wisdom, that was lost to the Western world with the fall of Thebes and Babylon, and has not yet been wholly rediscovered.

In the Laws of China, nearly every passage bearing upon what we should consider economic subjects is included in the "Part of the code for regulating households." The ownership of land, buying and selling, lending and borrowing, and the execution of contracts generally, might all be included under the heading, "Domestic relations and family law," because their regulation is left, almost entirely, in the hands of families and family tribunals. But it is the results rather than the antecedents of the economic system that we have to appreciate now, and for this purpose the descriptions of outsiders, who do not naturally start from the conception of the family, are the most valuable.

One of the earliest, and certainly not one of the most partial of these observers, Sir George Staunton, at the beginning of the present century, "ventured to assert" the existence of "some very real, considerable, and positive moral and political advantages," peculiar to the national constitution of the Chinese, which he attributed "to the system of early and universal marriage, to the sacred regard that is habitually paid to the ties of kindred, to the sobriety, industry, and even intelligence, of the lower classes; to the almost total absence of feudal rights and privileges; to the equitable distribution of landed property; to the natural incapacity of the Government and people to an indulgence in ambitious projects and foreign conquests; and lastly, to a system of penal laws, if not the most just and equitable, at least the most comprehensive, uniform, and suited to the genius of the people for whom it is designed, perhaps of any that ever existed." 1

1 Ta Tsing Leu Lee, translated from the Chinese by Sir G. T. Staunton, Bt., 1810, preface p. II.

In his voluminous work on the "Middle Kingdom," an American missionary concludes his summary of similar observations as follows: "A salubrious climate, semi-annual crops, unceasing industry, early marriages, and an equable taxation, involving reasonable security of life and property. all these causes and influences tend to increase population and equalize the consumption and use of property, more perhaps than in any other country.' It is true all over China, as the missionaries observed at the beginning of the 18th century, that "food is abundant and cheap," 2 except when the local harvest fails. The agreement of all travellers on this point is so complete, that the verdict of one or two writers is as conclusive as that of a score. "Food and lodging," says Mr. Giles,3 "are cheap in China, and it may be roundly stated that every man, woman, and child in the empire has something in the way of clothes, two full meals a day, and a shelter for his head at night." And in another passage, "The normal state of the people of China is one of considerable prosperity and great national happiness." "I doubt," says Fortune, “if there is a happier race anywhere than the Chinese farmers and peasantry;" and again, “I fully believe that in no country in the world is there less real misery and want than in China." 5 "Riches," says Mr. Little, "are fairly distributed, and the contrasts of grinding poverty with arrogant wealth, which is the rule in Europe, is the exception here." M. Simon, who has gone through the experience described by Baron v. Richthofen,7 and is a pronounced Sinomane, ventures to generalize: "The most civilized country is that in which, upon a given territory, the largest possible number of persons have succeeded in procuring and in distributing as equally and cheaply as possible, the greatest amount of well-being, liberty, justice, and security." 8 And he does not hesitate to claim this distinction for China, since the food and furniture of ordinary villagers are as far superior to those of Western peasants, as is their air of ease and good breeding, and their command of civilized amusements. Industry is all but universal, and a comfortable share in the fruits of industry is all but universal also. Labour is too abundant to be dear, but as there are few or no highly paid officers in the industrial army, the real wages of the rank and file stand at a higher level in proportion than in countries esteemed to be of much greater wealth, as well as more advanced industrial organization.

The conjunction of the two characteristics-good living and good manners-noticed by M. Simon, is not accidental. Confucius taught that the

1 The Middle Kingdom, S. Wells Williams, 2nd ed., vol. i. p. 259.

2 Lettres Edifiantes, vol. xviii. p. 311.

3 Historic Sketches, p. 124.

Residence among the Chinese, p. 99.

5 Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China, 3rd ed., p. 96.

6 Through the Yangtsze Gorges, or Trade and Travel in Western China, by A. J.

Little, 1888, p. I.

7 China, i. p. 719, n.

He observes that cultivated Europeans, after a prolonged

residence in China, are subject to a peculiar transformation. The Sinologist becomes

not merely a Sinophil, but a Sinomane.

La Cité Chinoise, G. E. Simon, p. 3.

first thing to be done for the people was to enrich them, and the second to teach them. Instruction is more diffused and the wealth of the majority of households greater than it was 2,000 years ago; there is more of social as well as economic equality than in Europe, and, at the same time—a result which has been despaired of in Western democracies-the levelling process has been attended by a general rise in the average level. It does not appear from the Li Ki that the common people were seriously expected to observe the rules of propriety in the period of "Middle Antiquity;' they were to be moral and industrious, and as polite as they could; and since the days of the Warring States, there have been several periods during which the masses can scarcely have been in a position to exercise the grace of courtesy. Under the present dynasty it may fairly be said that all

classes are familiar with the rules of propriety.

The early missionaries contrasted the polite bows and good-tempered proffers of help exchanged by Chinese peasants whose wagons came into collision on an awkward road, with the oaths and objurgations in which European rustics would indulge under similar provocation. Coolies who are not acquainted address each other as "Sir," while friends are all brothers. Mrs. Gray writes of Canton-the population of which is considered one of the most turbulent in the empire; "In the streets I have been much struck by the quiet, gentle deportment of the Chinese;"1 and in the pottery districts, huge projecting trays of valuable and fragile ware are carried safely through crowded streets because every one makes way for the bearer.

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In the country districts hospitality and kindness are the rule. Mr. T. T. Cooper, 66 an Englishman who has lived among them as one of themselves," ventures "to tell his countrymen that to know the Chinese middle classes and peasantry is to like them.2 . The people look wellto-do, well and warmly clad in winter;" they are "kindly, courteous, yet impulsive, as easily moved to friendship as we now think to barbarous outrage. Indeed, I must own that, for true politeness, the Chinese of all ranks can compete with any nation and bear away the palm." 3 A French missionary in Northern China in the 18th century speaks exactly the same language as the English tradesman whose experience lies in Southern China in the 19th century. Amyot describes the peasants as "polite, good neighbours, good relations," while as to ordinary hospitality, "even a labourer has the ideas of a French grand seigneur." And so to-day, even in the poorest village, a fowl will be killed for a stranger, and payment refused. Archdeacon Gray, in summing up the mixed characteristics of the people, gives the front place to the same trait, and judges them on the whole to be "courteous, orderly, industrious, peace-loving, sober and patriotic."

"4

The same writer's wife had the advantage over the majority of travellers

1 Fourteen Months in Canton, 1880, p. 16.

2 Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce, 1871, p. 3.

3 lb., p. 432.

4 Mémoires concernant les Chinois, vol. iv. p. 318.

in China in being able to penetrate into the interior of Chinese households, and so to judge how far the charm of Chinese manners is independent of sex as well as rank; she describes her Chinese hostess as possessing "an indescribable grace and courtesy in all she did." Cooper speaks of the charm of manner of a Chinese gentleman, and on this subject there is the same agreement among diplomatists, and those whose circumstances have restricted them to intercourse with the literary and official class, as between the traders and missionaries who have cultivated the acquaintance of the lower orders. In the words of Davis, "The ease and good breeding of the better sort of Chinese, when they are on friendly terms, is very striking, and by no means what might be expected from the rigid nature of their ceremonial observances. These, however, sit upon them much easier than might be imagined." 1 The preceding quotations show that this good breeding is not restricted to the "better sort," but is a truly national characteristic, promoted no doubt by the "republican" or "democratic' spirit, which again strikes most intelligent tourists. The unfortunate Margary described the Chinese as a reasonable people, who can be talked into good humour very easily," adding that, while a Chinese mob is rather dangerous, "singly or in small groups, they are the pink of civility; and again, "China is the true home of democracy, and the place where fraternity and equality have taken root with advantage to the lower orders, but at the expense of a good deal to the more respectable class." 3 Mrs. Gray comments on this feature in the tea saloons, where "rich and poor occupy the same room, a man in silk at one table, a man in cotton clothes at another," and what in England would be still more remarkable—the same tariff of prices for both. In another place 5 she describes how the blind musician hired for an evening, asks for tobacco and calmly takes a pipe before beginning his performance, to prove that "with all their formalities, deference to rank, etc., the Chinese are a most republican people."

1 The Chinese, by John Francis Davis. Supplementary volume, p. 109.

2 Similar incidents to the one commented on by Pumpelly are described by other travellers, and his experience may be taken as representative. He and his companion were visiting the coal mines north of Peking, and, after some annoyance from the curiosity of the crowd, he and his companion were being hustled, and a few Chinese had even begun to use missiles. "When they had reached this point, Murray stopped his horse, and turning to face the crowd, raised his hand to motion silence. 'Oh people of Ta-hweichang!'exclaimed Murray in excellent Chinese, is this your hospitality? Do ye thus observe the injunctions of your sages, that ye shall treat kindly the stranger that is within your gates? Have ye forgotten that your great teacher, Confucius, hath said: "What I would not that men should do to me, that would I not also do to men?" The effect of this exhortation was as remarkable as it was unexpected by me. In an instant the character of the crowd was changed; the hooting and pelting had stopped to hear the barbarian talking in the familiar words of Confucius, the old men bowed approvingly, and a number of boys jumped forward to show us the way. This scene will appear more impressive by contrast, if we suppose a couple of Chinamen, followed by a crowd of a few thousand American men and boys, and if we suppose the two strangers to turn and quote in good English the similar passage of our Lord's Sermon on the Mount. The reader may form his own opinion as to the success of such an experiment." (Across America and Asia, p. 299.)

8 A. R. Margary, Journal and Letters, pp. 53, 131, 214. 4 Fourteen Months at Canton, p. 388.

5 Ib., p. 273.