The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-11-19
The Yellow Peril Scare

Governor IOLEloT Ol IsIlOOe III q @P0I~Ai
before the New England Textile Club I'M
burdened himself of the following:
"The recent tariff legislation has opened the
way for. a commercial yellow peril 1t will result
in the lowering of wages of textile mill opera
tives and will deprive American manufacturers
of their home market. That there may be a
yellow peril commercially thoughtful man
will deny"
But that's iust'where the Governor is wrong.
Thoughtful men, who know great deal more
about the Celestial Empire than he, do deny
that there is any possible danger from COM
mercial yellow peril. Not for at least two or
three generations may we expect to see the
yellow mena enter into competition with western
factories.
In China the family and not the Individual is
the social unit Here we are accustomed to see
an individual detach himself from the mass and
walk free as an Independent responsible person,
but there it is not So man is not an individual,
but a fraction of family. And duty to his kins-
men is the Chinamans highest,ethical principle
AS consequence nepotism is rampant every
where. Offer Chinaman job today and you
will find of sinecurists settling about
him tomorrow each one with some petty place,
sucking bit from your treasury. This alone
makes any industrial enterprise almost i'm
possible.
The wellnigh universal habit of pilfering is
another great obstacle in the path of industrial
success. So hard pressed are the Chinese for
food and other necessaries of life they have fall
en- into the habit of taking for granted the small
thefts that make work nightmare for the for
eigner. Hundreds of thousands of bolts, plates,
nuts, ETC., are annually stolen from the Hankow
and other railways. The Chinaman will pilfer
the hair that camel sheds Therefore many an
enterprise goes glimmering because its profits
eaten up by these human rodents.
And what is pilfering among the poor go per
cent. of China) becomes 'squeeze' among the
mandarns and managers. Grating, opium
smoking and gambling constitute the empires
trinity of devils. 1t is almost impossible to de-
pend on native manager, overseer or superin-
tendent He will pocket so much of the funds
nothing will be left for operations. Chinese riv-
ers Edward Alsworth Ross says, are often
lined with rustng machinery which
reached it's destination because of the squeeze"
all along the line.
The Chinaman has never learned team play
or the habits of cooperative enterprise. The
biting need of securing today's bread has been
with him many centuries he will sacrifice any
future gain for present profits. 1t is for this
reason, largely, China's magnificent natural re-
sources have never been developed
The utter lack of harmonious and adequate
central control is another barrier in the way of
Chinese industralism If one starts boat load
of goods across province he will find it almost
impossible to negotiate the trip owing to the
chaos of customs, tariffs, taxes, etc. Every
petty viceroy mandarin seems to have his
own little code of laws and regulation.
Most important of all, the yellow man has
the handicraft habits into his flesh and
blood. He can't seem to learn industrialism A
machine is worse than Chinese puzzle to him.
They are slow, stess, so underfed and so
careless it is almost impossible to secure the
men who can keep up with machine. China has
governmental bridge works, the employees of
which work for three four cents a day. vet so
inefficient they it is found cheaper to import
bridges from Belgium where the laborer receives
fifty times as much On an average one Euro
pean worker turns out more than five China
men.
Nothing but generations of schooling centur-
les of drill, revolutionary changes in govern
ment and complete changes in social customs will
ever place China in competition with European
or American industrial markets.