Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-06-30
LESSONS FROM THE ORIENT.
Education and Machinery Greatest
ADVANTAGE of Occident.

Advantage of ooeident.
1t Is the wise man who knows how
to profit by the mistakes Of others,
and with that thought I'm view Mr..
Clarence Poe contributes to the
Worlds Work for July most illumi-
mating article. in which he undertakes
to summarize the results Of the in
vestigations which he made during
the extended tour of the Orient from
which he has just returned. There is
much that we of the Occident may
learn from the older civilizations Of
the east thinks Mr.. Poe. much by
way of example, much more, perhaps,
by way Of wsrning.
1t Is to a lesson Of the latter sort
that the readers attention Is first d.
rected. Mr.. Poe tells Of trip which
he made through the country north
of Peking, where he found river-val-
ley after river-valley "once rich and
productive but now become an abom-
ination of desolation-covered with
countless tons of sand and stone
brought down from the treeless noun
tainsides." Rivers upon whose DO
SONS a rich traffic once moved, which
were spanned with splendid bridges,
their banks lined with thriving towns
and busy cities, are now dribbling
streamlets or sandbeds In the dry sea-
son and raging torrents In the wet. AT
Nankou Pass numbers of quaint Mon
golian horses and awkward camels
To- lynN
bearing nomeward little bags Of coal
dearly bought fuel to be sparingly
used through the long winters cold
I'm quantities Just large enough to cook
the meagre meals, or In extreme
weather to keep the poor peasants
from freezing" Yet the mountain
slopes, too steep for cultivation, would
have provided. with wise attention to
tree growth, fuel for thousands and
tens of thousands, besides affording
protection against devastating floods.
But IL the Oriental has been neg
lectful of the conservation Of natural
resources, he has nevertheless a very
keen appreciation of the value Of the
wealth of the individual, and wasteful-
ness Is looked upon as essentially i'm
moral. Mr.. Poe tells a story Of Iyey-
asu, founder Of the Tokugawa dynas-
ty, illustrative Of this truth. when
virtual dictator Of Japan" he says,
"Iyeyasu was seen smoothing out an
old silk kakama. i was doing this he
said, not because of the worth of the
garment in itself, but because Of what
1t needed to produce 1t. 1t Is the re-
suit of the toll Of some poor woman,
and that Is why value II. II we do
not think while using these things Of
the toll and effort required to produce
them, then our want Of consideration
puts us on a level with the beasts.
Mr.. Poe finds In japan horrible
example" of the evils of militarism,
the average Japanese citizen paying
thirty per cent Of his total income In
taxes, most of which goes for the pay
ment of the empires whr debt and
for military preparations, He urges
most earnestly the Importance Of re-
lieving the nations from the terrible
burdens under which they are now
staggering because as yet 1--WE are liv-
ing in the days of anarchy"
Still more important, however, In
Mr.. Poe's opinion, is the conservation
Of our physical stamina and racial
strength. 1.-The Chinaman Of today"
he says, sis giving up opium, Is al
most free from other forms of intem-
perance, is afire with a new enthusi-
asm for athletics and for athletic
training; and he Is already so physi-
cally fit and adaptable that / found
him as hardy and un untiringly ener-
getic beneath an equatorial sun In
Singapore as In the rigorous climate
of north-central Manchuria. 1t made
me wonder II the meek who are to
inherit the earth in the end may not
prove to be the Chinese!' Similar
conditions were remarked by Mr.. Poe
in Japan, where, also there Is no race
suicide, Mr. Poe soon observing that
ut looked almost as unnatural to see
a woman between twenty and forty
without a baby on her back as 1t
would be to see a camel without a
hump" Mr.. Poe quotes and accepts
as authoritative the statement OF Mr..
Putnam Weale in his new book, 1.-The
Conflict of Color" that whereas the
- races double in eighty years, the
yellow or brown double In sixty, and
the black in forty. We were struck
with this statement at the time Mr..
Neale's book appeared last fall, and
remarked upon 1t, but we found our
selves unable to accept Mr.. Weale's
rather sweeping deductions and we
did not consider that he exercised
proper diligence In establishing the
verify of his often startling declara-
tions.
Mr. Poe, however thinks that such
conflict as Mr.. Weale has predicted
is by no means unlikely, and perhaps
the most interesting portion Of his ar
ticle Is that devoted to consideration
of the qualities that have given the
white race leadership thus far" and
the steps which should be taken for
their conservation. Passing by with
casual mention such fundamental
reasons for white supremacy as "the
tonic air of Democratic ideals In
which long generations Of white men
have lived and developed as contrast
ed with the sitting absolutism of the
east" the superiority of the white
mans religion and our emphasis
upon the worth Of the individual, our
conception of the sacredness of per-
sonality, as compared with the Orien-
tai lack Of concern for the individual
I'm the supreme regard for the family
and the state" Mr. Poe proceeds to
an enlightening discussion Of certain
of the economic causes which have
contributed to the greater prosperity
and power Of the Occidental peoples.
The average rate Of wages In China
and Japan, we are told, Is about IL
cents the day. In India 1t Is less. Lin
otype operators In Toxic are paid As
cents the day, policemen 40 cents. In
Southern India unskilled laborers are
paid from to IL cents the day. Yet
even at such low figures as these,
there Is a savage struggle for en-
ployment; men work longer hours
than i'm America, nd their tasks are
often Notwithstanding in their heavi-
ness" Mr.. Poe rejects the theory
that such poverty is to be explained
through the congestion of population.
England, he urges, "thickly pop
ulated as 1t Is now, is more prosper
Gus and pays labor better than 1t did
when it had one-tenth the present
number of people; the same thing is
true of Germany; and America pays
labor better now that we have ninety