Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1886-07-30
THE CHINESE
AND THE
CHINA QUESTION.

The Chinese Problem question of Migra.
ton OF Races Character and Tendencies
of the Chinese must be deduced from
the past-Early origin of Chinese his
tory-The arts in China different from
those of any other country-Chinese
Originators of many of the arts and in
dustries of other nations-The Chinese
intellect as displayed in the Useful Arts
Tho wants OF China supplied by her
internal product and traffic.
The Chinese problem is not merely
a question of temporary disturbance
to a single community. 1t is one of
the migration of races; of the overflow
of redundant populations upon COM
paratively unsettled regions. In its
political, social, industrial and COM
mercial bearings upon the future of
our country it is of broader import
than any other that has ever engaged
the attention of the American people.
Its proper consideration calls for the
laborious examination of many facts,
and for careful investigation of their
numerous and complex relations
And it requires that investigations be
made, and that deductions be drawn,
with the calmness of judicial impair
tiality. In this, as in every other
matter of broad international concern,
the narrow pathway of truth is that
which leads to safety, and truth is
gained only by taking facts without
disguise and treating them without
prejudice. My own studies have con-
vinced me that Chinese immigration
is full of danger to our country, to our
institutions, and to our people. NY
reasons for this will be given in the
course of this article, and it will be
seen that they are based, not upon un-
rejecting hostility to any race, but
upon proofs that we have opened to
a colossal people the opportunity for
limitless aggrandisement at our ex-
pense, and that we have done this
with recklessness that could only be
equalled by one who, dwelling on lands
below the level of the sea, should
break down the dykes that hold the
impending waves. And if it shall
seem that l lay too much stress upon
the historical development of China,
her laws, her customs, and the charac-
ter of her people, remember that in the
subject so wide and so deep, we shall
be most content with our conclusions,
if we deduce them, not from merely
proximate data, but from those that
are original and undeniable, even if
remote.
For it is only through the study of
the past of China that one may form
clear conception of the present char
acter and tendencies of her people.
And this conception, when gained,
must constitute the basis of all accu-
rate perception of her future relation
with the outside world. A population
comprising one-third of the human
race, of a mental, moral and physical
type Indigenous to the soil, unmodified
by external influences and intensified
by isolation and successive repetition
through tens of centuries, must, in the
nature of things, possess an inertia pc
culiarly its own. The future direction
of this can only be foreseen from a
knowledge of its line of movement in
former times. The slow but progress
sive development of China has pro-
produced a civilization in which the
low level Of moral and physical life in
cident to debased and enslaved races is
strangely combined with an intellec-
tual vigor that, in all the requirements
and vicissitudes of a complex social
and political system, has proved itself
equal to the promotion of learning and
the extension of arts, and to the elabo-
ration of methods and traditions of
statecraft not inferior to those that
have controlled the policy Of European
countries and of our own. To under
stand this, and the logical outcome
thereof, is manifestly the first step to
a proper appreciation of the conditions
of the conflict, peaceful or otherwise,
impending between the Turanian and
the Aryan races. And such an under
standing is best gained by the labor
ious but fruitful process of tracing the
development of China through its sal
liant causes and more noticeable re-
suits from the time when off-shoots of
unlettered tribes crept downward from
the Altaic mountains to find homes on
the marshy border of the Hoang-Ho.
China is, for the most part, fertile
plain or basin, bounded on the east by
the Pacific, on all other sides by ele-
waited and comparatively barren pla-
teaus and ranges of lofty mountains.
1t is watered by two great rivers, the
Yellow or Hoang- He, and the Blue or
Yang-ste-Kinag, and their tributaries.
1t was upon the banks of these rivers
that the Scythian progenitors of the
present population formed their ear
liest settlements. The date is lost in
the mists of legendary and mythical
traditions, but it is known that nearly
twenty-three centuries before the
Christian era the Chinese possessed a
written language; and as this was
original and not derived from any ex-
ternal source, there must have been