The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-11-28
OUR CHINESE p1LEmMA.


causing our administration any amount
OF worry, and If it succeeds in handling
the situation in a satisfactory manner, it
will deserve all credit. It is too much
like a game of blind-man's buff; 1t is
too much like cropping in the dark, to
get any great satisfaction out of it.
If the integrity of the empire is to be
maintained, the first question is, whether
there is enough decent official timber
there to form a new government with;
government that will be honest, efficient
and progressive and not merely a re-
establishment of the same old rottenness
and barbarism that has prevailed there
in the past.
And there IS reason for grave doubts
on this subject. The young emperor may
mean well, but he is too much of
sickly, decadent wea-lling, to be relied
upon. Ii Hung Chang is held in great
esteem, but Ii has succeeded in amass-
ing such an immense fortune that the
question naturally arises, where did
he get tt?'' And concerning all the rest
Of Chinese oficialdom one constantly
hears the sentiment expressed, that it
is such an absolutely God-forsaken piece
of rottenness, as to preclude all hopes of
reform
On the other hand, the danger would
be still greater if reform should prevail,
for united China, with modern methods
and modern ideas, with it's three or four
hundred millions of population and its
unlimited natural resources would be a
source of greatest danger to the COM
mercial and other interests of Europe
and America. Thus by our superior nat
uraI supply of iron ore and coal, we are
enabled to lead the world in the produc-
ton of iron and steel. But China's sup
ply of coal and iron ore is even far
greater than our own, and the price of
labor in that country is only one-tenth
Of what it is here Hence it would be
an easy matter for China to drive our
iron and steel eventually altogether out
of the markets of the world, and the
same is true of almost every other line
of manufacture. That such would be
impossible ON account Of the inferiority
of Chinese labor is a delusion. The
Chinese have a great deal of natural
talent, they are born imttators and they
would soon learn. And besides, China
might develop such military strength
a tn hpOOTOn fO al ba
of the world.
Russia is against partition. and that
sounds suspicious. 1t sounds like the
protest Of the fox against the farmer
selling his chickens. Partition or no par
tition, Russia will probably insist on keep
ing Manchuria, and she could not hope
to get so very much more even in case
of partition. The whole affair looks very
much as if Russia were merely scheming
to get the other powers out of China,
establish a government which she can
keep constantly embroiled and under con-
troll through her secret intrigues, and
then watch her opportunity and finally
absorb the whole country. This would
be great blow to the interests of our
own country, it would also be a great
blow to the interests of England and
Germany. The prosperity of these two
countries would suffer very materially,
and as the great bulk Of our foreign trace
is with these two countries, any set
back in their prosperity affects us very
perceptibly, for the more prosperous~they
are the more they can buy of u.s. When
they are prosperous, we are prosperous,
too, and conversely.
England and Germany are no doubt
suspicious OF Russia, and if they feel
that their suspicious are sufficiently well
founded, they will insist on Remembering
China now, rather than to take the risk
of having Russia get all Of it later on.
In that case, we can hardly afford to op-
pose England and German, but at the
same time we could not afford either to
relinquish all claims to indemnity or ter
ritory. 1t is therefore quite possible for
the situation to work around in such
manner as to force US to go in with the
other powers for partition of China.