The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-04-07

do all can to secure their good treat
ment when they come; and no labor
Ing man has anything whatever %
fear from that policy. Il have rigA4
to challenge You AZ good American
citizens to support that policy, and IN
any event l shall stand unfiinchingly
for it."
On the Methodist map Of the world
Shanghai Is now an episcopal resi-
dence" town. and DIR. James w. Bash
ford-president OF Ohio Wesleyan uni-
versity ,18S9-1900. author OF "The
Science Of Religion" etc.-is the resi-
dent bishop. The triennial educa-
tional conference was in session IN.
Shanghai when the boycott on Amer
lean goods began to pinch. He pre-
sided at the meeting of Americans
which, through its committee, made
known to Mr.. Roosevelt the serious-
ness of the situation. Since then he
has met all the Methodist mission
aries at the annual conferences; he
has learned. all they had to tell him
about the boycott. The mercantile
and industrial guilds of China are
more highly organized and q much
unions of this country or any other
country. Acting together, they can
exert within their field an influence
and control fivalling that of the Inn
perial government itself. They were
stirred to action by the stories Of ILL.,
treatment told by Chinese youths re-
turning from the United States and
taken up by the Chinese newspapers.
These newspapers are multiplying
nowadays almost as fast as the post
offices, and are another new force to
be reckoned with. In 1900 there were
only 200 pOstoffices In China: now
there are more than 1900. In 1902
Tientsin had three newspapers; now
1t has twenty. The old days of shut-in
horizons-of local isolation and fx-
norance and Indifference to everything
outside the district-are passing away.
Chinese nation has come to the
birth. In this recent concerted ban
on American goods the bishop bids us
see the first manifestation of Chinese
national sentiment.
1t would have been a much costlier
affair for our exporters, he says, but
for the fact that the Chinese have
liked Americans more Tor perhaps dis
liked them less) than other foreigners,
and in many lines have found Ameri-
can goods preferable to European
goods. Their commercial goodwill .is
worth having. The external trade OF
China is now in the near neighborhood
of 100000 a year. and the pos
sibilities of growth in 1t are simply
Unreasonable.
Is it too late to make friends again
with China? The bishop thinks not,
and he thinks (for reasons which he
gives) that the time to do it Is now
this very spring of 1906 What he sug-
gests is that congress wipe out the
offensive and irritating Exclusion
acts and put in their place general
immigration act refusing abundance
to aliens from whatever country who
cannot read and write their native
language intelligently. That would
exclude all the coolies quite as effec-
tually as our present legislation does,
he says. 1t would also have the adj
vantage OF excluding multitude OF
non-Chinese aliens who are not de-
sirable raw material for American cit
izenship.
We are not able to feel very hope
full that congress will give a minutes
serious thought to this advice; the
rolling year is bringing around Novem-
Der and election day in "the dees-
tricts," as MIR. Payne has just remind
ed the Massachusetts malcontents.
But We can recall quite number Of
suggestions that did not seem to MS
as well worth thinking about seriously
as Bishop Bashford's suggestion.