Evening star., 1927-09-25

tired him to a rural palace. with a
comfortable annuity and a concubine.
For the most part these rulers were
emperors only in name; the country
was too vast, and modes Of travel and
communication too slow. to permit any
great Capitalization Of authority.
While worshiping Confucius as a
god, the Chinese people quietly
ignored his plea for the unifiCation of
power: they preferred the local au-
tonomy of each village and each prov
ince, and though they sacrificed some
thing of security they gained Consid-
erahly in peace. They made their own
terms with local robbers rather than
pay a sovereign robber to put down
the rest. They were seldom conscript-
ed; like sensible people, they hired
merCenaries to do their fighting for
them. and the mercenarieS agreed, be-
ing skilled in the art of avoiding bat
tie. while providing the nation with
all the noise. and glory of war. The
capital and its environs might have
the honor of a hundred revolutions
and a thousand campaigns. but the
countryside. protected by space ana
time, went on it's peasant way unheed-
ing and undisturhed.
The little village ruled itself by a
council composed of the heads of fam
lilies. In each county a magistrate
represented the central government,
but the villagers seldom allowed their
troubles to reach his court. Their
proverbs said: win your lawsuit, lose
your money" and IF one family has
q lawsuit, ten families are involved.
Though every son tended to follow
the occupation of his father, he could
study in his leisure hours and offer
himself for the examinations winch Sc
leCted the candidates for public offlCe.
If he continued TO study successfully
de, if he memoriZed more and more
of Chinese history and the writings of
Confucius), he became mandarin,
the learned ruler of a province, and
by this route the lowiest lad in the
fields might rise to the highest place
in the land. No one could be appoint
ed to Office who had not passed such
tests, and no one was excluded from
them. Never in history was there SO
close an approximation to Plato's
dream of philosophers who might also
be kings.
Economic Provision.
Meanwhile the people titled the soil
with unruff1ed patience, content in
their poverty, and looking even on
death with a certain Confucian calm.
The great teacher himself had warned
them that when they left the fields
they would leave health and happiness
behind. Their sense of justice kept
them poor, for every holding was di'
vided equally among the sons OF the
dead, and the people did not mitl-
gate the consequences, like the
French, by having small families. In
fanticide was their clumsy anticipa-
ton of birth-control, but, as 1t was
almost confined to girls, it did not
solve the problem of transmitting an
undivided farm. In the end each
holding was reduced to a point where
only the most sedulous husbandry
could win livelihood from 1t.
Not all the human fertilizer in the
world for the Chinese, with sublime
olfac ctory sacrifice. make careful use
of their own waste). nor all intensive
cultivation which squeeZes from the
soil every possible leaf of tea or grain
of rice, can keep an agricultural peo-
pie from poverty when it breeds with
the fertility of the Orient. In China
man is exploited not by subtraction
but by multiplication. At 20 nearly
all girls are married and five-siXths
of the men: therefore there are four
generations to our three. The religion
Of ancestor-worship leads every man
to desire many children, that his spirit
may be properly tended by them after
his death. The birth rate ranges from
55 to so births per 100000 population
per year,; in the United States it runs
from Is to 20. The death rate does
not lag far behind; in Hongkong, in
a normal year Q909, 81 per cent of
all the children died before complet-
ing their first year. Milk is unknown:
if the mother cannot nurse her child
it dies.
From this point Of view the period
ical famines have certain advantages
that explain the equanimity with
which the survivors view them. Those
who succumb forget their suffering,
those who remain find fewer mouths
to feed. Three million peasants die,
in any average year, from lack of
nourishment, but the philosophical
Chinaman, hardened by many repeti-
tions, looks about him calmly and OBJ
serves, Plenty Cinnamon left" Here
in this tropical fertility of the Chi
nese is their peril to themselves and
to the world. The West thinks to
control the danger with many guns,
but it would be wiser to send ship
load of contraceptives.
X X X \
: Yet there has been little slavery in
China. THE Chinese" says an adage,
It'll the soil, the Europeans till the
man, and even in his poverty and
dirt the peasant has dignity in his
carriage and a certain cheeriness in
his heart. In towns he covers his
penury with color and ceremony, and
no Western proletaire is happier than
the Chinese workingman making
rugs, laces or silks in his shop or his
home. Gradually, however, this pic
turesque domestic industry gives way
before the advance of the capitalist
and the mill; the old guilds disappear,
and the clutch of the factory levels all
artisans and breaks down even the
ancient seclusion of women and the
once sacred unity of the family.
Transport is still primitive, and
therefore famine may waste prov
ince while its neighbor reaps sur
plus crop. Coolies carry commerce
on their backs; donkeys and wheel
barrows bear the rest, struggling
through miles of dust and stone and
mire. Robbers infest the highway,
but immunity can be purchased of
them for a reasonable sum. Honesty
prevails in Chinese trade, but has no
place in Chinese politics; apparently
il is necessity in the one field and
disqualification in the other. Even in
China it is not given to man to be at
once an officeholder and a saint.
Copyright 1927, by Will Durant)