Evening star., 1928-12-16
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
OF CHINA IS DESCRIBED
Creation of Proletariat Based ON Con
ditiOn Similar to Those in
America Observed.

are not long for those partS-Dnly 1Oi2
hours a day went through the work
rooms, accompanied by Japanese in
spector. Thousands of young Chinese
girls stood rigid and dumb, as on pa
rade. their eyes fixed on their ma
chimes. Those were the orders.
The following day went to Chinese
factory rather similar to the japanese
one In the Chinese factory, where
every one certainly was paid less, and
where everything was dlrtier, general
merriment reigned among the wOrkmen,
who even ioked about the height of the
foreign devil" as he went by between
two tiny Cantonese directors.
All That Remains.
This little is all that remains OF the
old genial Chinese industrial life. When
I say old I speak of only II years back,
when everything was based upon the
family system, as were all Chinese ways
of life
The fact is that family links reach
very far in China. Every Chinese was,
and still is, obliged to keep and 20
protect, wherever possible, his sons,
nephews and brothers nephews, ad in
finitum. When there are no ties of
couSinShip, a certain amount of duty
exists between folk from the same VII
lage between members of the same
guild. A Chinese employer who was not
surrounded by his relations or country
men would have been looked upon as a
monster, socially speaking.
From this resulted kind of intimacy
in everyday life. Those of hls who, not
content to play golf on the dusty links
of old Peking, visited the carpet fac
tories or porcelain works there before
the war will remember the impossibility
of distinguishing clearly between mas
ters and men. There was no need for
the owner to maintain authority by
keeping his men at diStance-no one
would have dared to fail in due respect
to their uncle" for the sake of their
own self-respect. AS result. under
the old system there was family feel
ing between masters and men such as
sixteenth century Europe knew in the
cloth-weaving democratic cities of Flan-
ders or in Dante'S turbulent but init
mate Florence
The hours of work were long-though
no longer than in preSent-day Shanghai
with its violent strikeS-but they we're
broken up by impromptu rests. Did
procession with music pass down
neighboring street? Headed by the
masters, every one would run out to
look and they would only return after
exchanging quipS and jests. There was
no weekly holiday, but long breaks
sometimes three weeks-at the New
Year During the dinner hour the same
itinerant sellers would bring practically
the same ragout for masters and men
at any rate, all had the same rice. Un-
der these conditions the Chinese work.
men at least had the satisfaction of
knowing that the same kind of life as
his own was going on all around him.
What a gulf between yesterday and
today! The workmen are no longer
relations or pSeudo-relations, neighbors
or friends of neighbors; they are moth
ing but an unstable mass of individuals
brought by hunger to Hankow or
Shanghai or Tientsin from the prov
inceS of the interior, each speaking a
dialect often unintelligible to any one
not of his own region, ignorant each of
the other, knowing only the superin-
tendent who engaged them.
Keeps Percentage.
He, their paymaster, comes between
foreign master and men, but the pay
rarely reaches them intact-a certain
percentage remains in his pocket as
fee for having engaged them. The Eu-
ropean or American owner is aware OF
this and guesses that the wage he pays
knowing a word of Chinese, he never
speaks to any Of his men, and soon
learns how to dismiss any inconvenient
qualmS of conscience. With the will to
do so sometimes, he would not know
how to prevent a squeeze" Of which in
many other fields he himself becomes
the victim.
So it happened that after some years
of mute endurance strike began to sue
ceed strike. The men have realized that
the workshop is no longer big, noisy
family center but grim prison. Muir
ders of foremen are becoming more and
more frequent, an evident proof-so, at
least, it seems to me-that such mani
festations of discomfort would have oc-
Cured even without the suggestions OF
agitators, foreign or otherwise. A Rus
sian agitator would probably have ad-
vised a more brilliant coup than the
murder of a brutal but unknown native
superintendent. In killing him the Chi
nese workman proves that he is salts
flying direct and personal hatred.
Realizing the necessity of securing
large number of graduate pilots from
our flying schools, the methods en-
ployed and the courses of instruction
given are being carefully ,analyzed.
Some very important changes have been
1
ates, compared with the number of en-
trants in flying training, has been less
| than 25 per cent With the very care
full attention which is being paid to
| this phase of Air Corps work. it now
! seems that the number of graduates
will be increased to more than 40 per
cent of those who enter.
One of the important changes which
have brought about this very desirable
result is raising the standard of quail
| fications of those who enter training.
F! The impetus and aroused interest in
| flying training as result of prominent
| flights and general air activity have
made it possible to get a much higher
type of personnel. The class now un-
dergoing instruction at the flying
schools is composed largely of college
graduates. Notwithstanding this high
requirement, more than 200 qualified
applicants were not taken because they
could not be accommodated at the
schools
Let us look at the other side of the
problem-the foreign employer.
If the industrial worker is a novelty
so also is the modern type of employer.
A good half of the cotton or silk spin
ming in China is in foreign hands
japanese, English American, French,
lJdIdIl. EVEN IL Lllc lOIGlBlGTS were d
minority, to them goes the responsibility
for the origin of modern industry in
China Even if Japanese factories alone
remained. their origin would be none
the less Western.
Since sort of moral, or, at any rate,
a historical responsibility, rested upon
the foreign employer, he would have
been wiser not to try to escape from
this, especially when the Chinese min
lister of the interior in Peking promul-
gated two or three years ago some social
legislation intended to dazzle-by naive
copies of foreign laws-the bureaus of
the "Ofice du Travail at Geneva and
the Investigators the British Labor party
was beginning to send to China.
Lack of Foresight.