The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-11-04
SOME TRUSTWORTHY TRAITS OF
CHINESE CHARACTERS.

CHINESE CHARACTERS.
AS our much-vaunted Western civil
cation comes into closer contact with the
despised social conditions of the far
East, it may be well for the European and
American to remember the contempt is
not all on one side, but that the character
of the people whom he so much despises
has in it qualities of which it's possessors
may well be proud, and the lack of which
in Us breeds in them a quiet, but deep
seated feeling, half derisiveness, half ha-
tired, which finds only a partial express
sion in such terms as foreign devil and
white harlot.".s
The quality which forms the basis of
the radical difference between the Chinese
nature and thataof all other nations is dis
tinctly physical one, and has been well
named ''nervelessness." But this nerve
lessness is not a quality which finds ex-
preston in the. torpor of the tropical
races nor the hayward Incidence of our
own North American Indian, but rather
in quiet, untiring and long-continued
activity, whichTha resulted in feats of
endurance on the part of individuals
which are nothing short of marvellous
and which goes far to account for con-
tinuous national existence, stretching far
back beyond the dawn of history
The laws which govern trade and com
mercial relations in China are also a
necessary outgrowth of this peculiar
nervous makeup of the Chinese people,
The even tenor of Chinese business life
is seldom if ever disturbed by causes
coming from within that life itself. AS a
consequence, panics, those great ecIipses
which cloud the business sky of West
ern civilization with such regularity that
economists are now able to predict them
with almost as much accuracy as the as
trononaer forete1ls the darkness of a
terrestrial eclipse, never darkens the Chi
nese business world with it's pernicious in
1uences, .
As result of his lack of nerves tfe
imagination, that outgrowth of highly
nervous energy, plays but little part in
Chinese contract is very simple affair.
any at all in business transactions The
Chinese. contrast is a very simply affair,
and so far as possible entirely devoid Of
uncertainty in its terms, or as to the pos
sibility of carrying it out. Unless it
be with foreigners as for foreign goods
1t consists mostly of an entry in the note
book of the contractor of the amount OF
goods to be supplied, the price, and the
time of delivery. Everything is carefully
noted that would affect the price of The
gooGs, the time of delivery and the con-
dition at delivery, before the terms are
finally entered in the note book So that
in case of miscarriage Or loss it is easy
to determine where the blame shall fall
This having been settled, the loser bows
to the inevitable not by legal compuI-
sion so much as a. mater of honor, and
meets his obligations with his last dol
lar Then the Chinese contract being
stripped from its inception of all these
intricacies of measuring and -interpreta-
ton which have made the contract in
+ Anglo-Saxon law the source of more
bubbles than any other legal document,
and it's execution being largely a matter
of honor, and not sas with us of legal
compulsion it becomes not only the cor
ner stone of trade and commerce, but
exercises as well a certain moral force
which our own contract does not possess
Indeed those who are now on the ground
in China assert that the one safeguard
which prevented the recent mob uprising
from spreading its force on all Chinese
as well as native Christians and foreign
lives and property was the interest Of
the Chinese merchant class bound to-
gether throughout the empire by the
material and moral ties of the con-
tractural relation. Other forces which
are now and always have been a great
moulder of Chinese national character,
is the respect for ancestors and the
sacredness in which the family life gem
orally is held Confueius, who has been
accredited with 4instilling these as well
as many other great principles into the
Chinese nature, was probably like all
great reformefs, merely a codifer of
those ethicaTss principles, the germ of
which had already existed for ages in
the customs and manners of the people
However this may be his selection of
these two. principles as fundamental rules
of conduct for the Chinese, while it has
tended to keep. Gut foreign and new
ideas has been the very strongest force
in preserving the Integrity of the state
and the morale status of the people For
while more oFHIess of moral degradation
exists today, 4n ned1;r always has existed
among the people. yet in a national
there has never been a total moral col
lapse such as befell Greece and Rome be-
fore those nations had passed through a
life one-third as long, and which finally
resulted in the downfall of their power
in the national and political world.
As the American speople stand ready
and eager 10 reap tpeir full share of the,