Life and sport in China Part 17

While enough of this loud-voiced deprecation may be true to lend a colouring to the whole, I have no hesitation in saying that the opinions of most of the critics are absolutely worthless. In fact, they know nothing whatever about either the missionaries or their work, but simply repeat, with their own additions, things they have heard from any and every source without ever troubling to verify them personally. Never was there a clearer case of "giving a dog a bad name," etc.

We civilians in China frequently lead far from model lives and are in no position to throw stones, for which reason, probably, the mere sight of a professional good man is worse than the proverbial red rag, and the tendency is strong, I own, to disparage him and all his works, while serenely forgetful of our own palpable shortcomings.

I have known one or two missionaries commit shady actions. I have known several civilians commit crimes.

Missionaries, like ourselves, it must not be forgotten, are very human, and contain in their ranks men widely differing in degrees of fitness.

In various remote places I have met missionaries of many denominations--Jesuits, Anglicans, Non-conformists, etc.--and on closer acquaintance I have almost invariably found them at heart, whatever their methods, attainments or achievements, to be men of sterling worth, of lofty ideals, leading n.o.ble, self-denying lives, and fighting the good fight for love of G.o.d and man, and for the faith that is in them.

From the militant nature of their calling they cannot avoid interesting themselves in the lives and customs of the natives, and that their message to the heathen, inviting them to forsake the G.o.ds of their fathers and embrace the only true faith, arouses hostility in the most conservative people on earth, is in no sense to be wondered at.

Of medical missionaries who found hospitals and heal the sick, as well as of those who devote their lives to teaching the blind to read and the dumb to speak, adverse comment by anyone speaking with sincerity and briefest knowledge of the facts would be impossible.

These missions of mercy shine as great beacons of Christianity through the gloom of heathen darkness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUDDHIST PRIEST AND ACOLYTE HOLDING BOOK.

_To face page 228._]

The greatest fault brought home to several missions is, in my opinion, their interference in legal quarrels between native Christians and their unconverted fellow-citizens. This interference has undoubtedly frequently occurred and with marked success, thereby causing extreme irritation to the Chinese officials, who dread possible complications with foreign consuls, and arousing the bitter resentment of the populace, not only against all Christians, but also against all foreigners.

Indiscretion and want of tact are usually the fruit of enthusiastic inexperience, for veteran missionaries have generally tempered zeal with both suavity and cautiousness.

That young, unmarried women, brought up in the pure atmosphere of Western homes and unaccustomed to the nauseous sights and insanitary surroundings of Eastern cities, should be allowed to ruin their healths, risk death by indescribable tortures, and in Chinese eyes to forfeit their reputations, for the sake of doing a very problematical amount of good is, I cannot help feeling, a great mistake and too heavy a price to pay. If there must be missionaries, at least let them be men, and it would be far better and much more in accordance with the divine will if these girls settled in some one of our many colonies, married, and gave sons to the world, who then in due time might take up the cross of missionary endeavour.

On the whole, I should say that while missionaries are greatly over-condemned by Europeans residing in China, the good they do is over-estimated by people at home.

Putting aside all criticism of missionaries themselves, the vital question is--"Will they succeed in converting China to Christianity?"

I am not sufficiently versed in the necessary statistics to offer a very valuable opinion, but, such as it is, it tends to the conviction that they will not.

It is a mistake to believe that persecution is an unfailing help to a religious cause. It is so only when the persecution is sporadic and fitful: storms succeeded by sunshine. When persecution partakes of a stern, unrelenting nature, such as has recently been meted out to Chinese converts, it certainly destroys, or at least stultifies, growth.

Despite remonstrances from the great Powers and despite all treaties, I greatly fear that these persecutions will be more bitter and more general in the future than they have been in the past.

While the progress of conversion is thus delayed and Christianity by drawing the fire of hate and intolerance absorbs all attention, Mohammedanism is silently making considerable strides, favoured by a period of bright sunshine, and unless storms of persecution soon burst again to roll back the tide, as after the last Mohammedan rising, when, it is said, loads of human ears were forwarded to Peking in token of successful repression, followers of the Prophet bid fair to establish a position in China which cannot be coerced and must be recognised, and which would oppose to Christianity an even stronger and keener influence than is exerted now.

I have often heard the question asked--"Would the Chinese be any the better for becoming Christians?" and the reply has usually been that they would not.

Personally, I believe that Christianity would supply the Chinaman's character with an element which it now altogether lacks--chivalry, and which, added to his many excellent qualities, would place him in the very forefront of the peoples of this earth.

If China accepted Christianity her moral and material regeneration would be a.s.sured, stagnation would yield to progress, darkness to light and hostility to friendliness. Instead of the unwieldy ma.s.s now lying sulking at the feet of other nations, China would become a strong, self-reliant, prosperous state, fearing none, but held in respect and friendship by all.

Heathen China may possibly fall under the yoke of foreign powers, but the spirit of Christianity, bringing with it reformation and progress, having once been breathed into her nostrils, it would be just as possible to chain the waters of the ocean as to hold her in lasting bondage, and Christian China would be free.

[Sidenote: CHANCES.]

Forty odd years ago, at the close of the second great war, China was a veritable Eldorado for Europeans, where all turned to gold beneath the lightest touch of alien hands. Fortunes were made with startling rapidity, and money came in so freely that the standard of living amongst foreign merchants and their _employes_ reached to such preposterous heights of luxuriousness, that when the inevitable reaction set in, want, and even ruin, supervened where plenty should have been found.

From that date to this the descent from an inflated prosperity to a mean working level has been gradual and sure.

What has been the cause of this descent?

Forty years ago the foreign trade was practically monopolised by Englishmen, who had only to place their goods on the market of any newly-opened port for them to be snapped up at almost any price by Chinese merchants, who then possessed but little knowledge of foreign wares and were exceedingly timid of their own officials. As time wore on this ignorance and timidity grew less and less, until the Chinese purchaser came to close quarters with the English importer, eliminating middlemen at the small ports and transferring operations chiefly to the great emporiums of Hongkong and Shanghai. Americans and Continentals of all nationalities arrived in rapidly-increasing numbers, bringing merchandise for the Chinese market, thus giving native buyers a much larger variety of goods from which to choose, and introducing a compet.i.tion fatal to the former enormous profits.

Although the volume of both import and export trade shows a continuous yearly increase, it tends more and more to centre in the hands of a comparatively few large European firms with which Chinese merchants from all parts of the Empire directly negotiate, to the exclusion of foreigners in a small way of business.

Another reason for the decrease of profitable commercial openings is the practical extinction of China's tea trade with England, Ceylon and India now supplying the home-market, and although as great a quant.i.ty of tea is still exported from China as formerly, it nearly all goes to Russia, and this trade being in the hands of Russian monopolists, there is but little employment for other nationalities, while even here it probably will not be many years before the Russians largely follow our example in abandoning Chinese tea in preference for that of Ceylon and India.

Similarly the steam shipping, which originally was almost exclusively British-owned, is gradually pa.s.sing to the credit of Chinese capitalists, if not in name yet in reality, and any new development in this line is almost sure to be mainly financed from native sources.

The opinion is largely held that accordingly as China is opened up by railways, by steam navigation on the inland waters, and by simplification of inland duties, foreigners will reap such advantages as may again enable them to quickly ama.s.s fortunes. Let there be no delusion on this point.

Wherever openings for trade occur there will instantly be found shrewd Chinese business men backed by a plentiful supply of native capital, and the Westerner will get but little that is worth having.

When the West River was thrown open to steamer traffic a few years since it was confidently predicted on all sides that it would cause a considerable development in foreign shipping. Nothing of the kind. On a recent trip to Wuchow I saw scores, and possibly hundreds, of small steamers and launches crammed with cargo and pa.s.sengers, or towing strings of deep-laden junks, but they were all Chinese-owned, while the only foreign-owned vessels to be seen were a few gun-boats and less than half-a-dozen steamers, which it is generally believed barely earn enough to cover expenses.

The descent thus accounted for has chiefly then been caused by the compet.i.tion amongst Westerners allowing Chinese merchants to get on even terms with them, when, being extremely good business men, holding absolute command of the native markets, and able to live much more cheaply than Europeans, they have generally ousted small foreign traders from the out-ports by carrying operations over their heads direct to well-known houses at the great centres of trade.

Firms doing a large import and export business should prosper, although hara.s.sed by continual fluctuations in the value of silver, but their prosperity will redound to the direct advantage of a few only, while the chances of a man who comes out from home with a small capital being able to make for himself a successful commercial career are woefully meagre. Even representatives of wealthy syndicates, after investigating prospects on the spot, generally come to the conclusion that capital can be more profitably invested elsewhere than in China.

On the other hand there are a considerable number of official appointments to be obtained, carrying with them comfortable remuneration, but these are mostly filled up in England and in the several countries concerned.

Professional men, such as doctors, lawyers and dentists, working both for Chinese clients and foreign residents, have capital opportunities, while for captains, officers and engineers for steamers, engineers and directors for docks and factories, professors for various colleges, mining experts and railroad constructors, there is an increasing demand at fair salaries, but, considering the trying climate, the banishment from home and the persistent decline in the value of silver, residence in the Far East, even on a large income, is a doubtful advantage.

The collapse of silver has been so great that whereas twenty or thirty years ago four silver dollars would purchase a sovereign, and a salary of four hundred dollars a month represented twelve hundred pounds a year, now it takes more than twelve dollars to purchase a sovereign, so that a similar salary of four hundred dollars a month represents less than four hundred pounds a year.

It is a common belief at home that fluctuations in the value of silver are not felt when purchases are confined to a silver-using country.

This is quite a mistake. China is a silver-using country, yet the standard of value maintained by her four hundred million souls is neither silver nor gold but copper cash, and the ultimate cost of _everything_ of native origin is regulated by its value in cash.

A coolie's wages a few years ago may have been six thousand cash a month, and a dollar being then purchasable for say a thousand cash, you gave him six dollars a month. To-day his wages may still be six thousand cash but a dollar being now worth only five hundred cash, you are obliged to give him twelve dollars a month. Precisely the same rule applies to meat, coals, vegetables, etc.

For all imported foreign articles, such as clothes, stores, wines, etc., you must give enough in silver dollars to make up the price as reckoned at home, that is, in gold, and as you now have to give three times as many dollars for a sovereign as formerly your imported goods are three times dearer, or, in other words, the value of silver has fallen and its purchasing power is very much less than it used to be the whole world over.

For a man drawing his salary in dollars the cost of living in the Far East is more than double what it was twenty-five years ago. For those who direct big businesses the earnings of which are in silver and the expenses largely in gold, as well as for those who had already invested their fortunes in shares prior to the utter collapse of silver, the past few years have been a period of crushing losses, while the future must be fraught with grave anxiety.

In short, but few fortunes are to be made in China, while money is very easily lost, and unless a man before leaving home secures a definite position in a good business firm, in Government employ or in some profession, it would be most unwise of him to go out on the chance of finding employment after his arrival.

THE END