Year: 1868




an incompatible mass of starving, dying,
purifying humanity. 1t is to be presumed
that the spread of the material civilization of
Europe into China would bring with it those
centrifugal tendencies which have heretofore
marked the progress Of the same civilization;
tendencies which have zoned the world with
European colonization, and which continue
to impel from the over-crowded centers OF
| population and industry in Europe ever
swelling streams of emigrants to this
country. 1t may be doubted, however,
whether navigation, with its present
appliances, could afford the means for as
speedy an exodus as the crisis would de-
mand. But navigation, as already observed,
is not stationary art. 1t would be far more
bold to deny than to assert that, in less than
fifty years hence, marine architecture and ma
rine motive power will have done so much to
overcome the difficulties and dangers of the
deep, that million of passengers may cross,
on the same bottom, the Atlantic or the Paci-
6c ocean, with as much safety as though they
were ferying the Hudson or the Mississippi
AA'NAs ~Ae tAA OfCAbo, vi du
era of steam and labor-saving machinery in
China must produce degree of social dislo-
cation such as will turn adrift hordes of hum
CRY Chinamen-the cheapest and most assidu-
Gus laborers in the world-to find their way to
every country where manual labor is wanted
and thrifty industry may hope for substan-
tial reward. Hence, it is not impossible that
before the lapse of the present century, tide
of emigration will set from farther Asia to this
continent even greater than that now
flowing westward from Europe. The meet
ing OF these two tides, the eastward and the
westward, will be attended by no common
shock. 1t may shake the whole continent,
perhaps convulse the world. And this with
out the development of formidable ag-
gressive qualities on the part of the
Oriental immigrants, although the mill
tary possibilities of China and its people
under the new system of material civilization
which awaits them are as yet involved in an
unsolved problem. At this moment We only
know this certainly of the typical Chinaman's
qualifications for an effective fghter-that he
is singularly fearless of death, and singularly
persistent in pursuing his purpose. But as
workers the efficiency Is such that their
competition is not to be despised by any
other laborers. They work longer and
consume less than all other laborers. Thus
far, wherever they have gone, they have been
able, at their will, to monopolze the manual
and menial industries. Some authorities on
China and the Chinese believe that as indus
trial antagonists they are altogether invin-
chile. If this be true what is to prevent
them, if they come to the United States in
vast numbers, within the next half century,
from achieving the industrial conquest of the
country? And what might they not accom-
plish after that, in state of civilization which
tends to make industrial supremacy the key
to all other supremacies? These questions
may now seem too remote and speculative to
demand serious consideration. But the time
is not far distant when, even to the most care
less and superficial, they will wear a very
different aspect.