I passed this spot a month or so afterwards, and am convinced that at the time I wrote the above there must have been something radically wrong with my liver. Had it been in Killarney in summer, nothing could have been more entrancing than the two lakes midway between Yün-nan-ï and Hungay. Patches of light green vegetation, interspersed with brown-red houses, skirting the lake-shore in pleasant contrast to the green of the water, which, bathed in soft sunshine, lapped their walls in endless restlessness. Of that delicate blue which is indescribably beautiful, the morning sky looked down tranquilly upon the undulating hills of grey and brown, which seemed to hem in and guard a very fairyland. Geomancers of the place did not go wrong when they suggested the overlooking hill-sides as suitable resting-places for the departed. All was ancient and primitive, yet simple and glorious, and as one of my followers called my attention to the telegraph wires, I was struck by the fact that this alone stood as the solitary element of what we in the West call civilization. Yet nothing bore traces of gross uncivilization; the people, hard workers albeit, were happy and quite content, with their slow-moving caravan, which we would, if we could, soon displace for the railway engine. Ploughmen with their buffaloes and their biblical ploughshare, raked over the red ground; women, with babies on their backs, picked produce already ripe; children played roundabout, and those old enough helped their fathers in the fields; coolies bustled along with exchanges of merchandise with neighboring villages, quite content if but a couple of meals each day were earned and eaten; the official, the ruler of these peaceful people, passed with old-time pomp—not in a modern carriage, not in a modern saloon, but in the same way as did his ancestors back in the dim ages, in a sedan-chair carried by men. There was plenty of everything—enough for all—but all had to contribute to its getting. There was no greed, their few wants were easily satisfied, and here, as everywhere in my journeyings, I have noticed it to be the case among the common people, there was no desire to get rich and absorb wealth. They wanted to live, to learn to labor as little as the growth of food supplies demanded, to become fathers and mothers, and, to their minds, to get the most out of life. And who will contradict it? They do not see with the eyes of the West; we do not, we cannot, see with their eyes. But surely the living of this simple life, the same as it was in the beginning, has a good deal in it; it is not uncivilization, not barbarism, and the fair-minded traveler in China can come to but one opinion, even in the midst of all the conflicting emotions which result from his own upbringing, that we could, if we would, learn many a good lesson from the old-time life of the Celestial in his own country.
Yet these are the very people who may jostle us harshly later on in the racial struggle.
I am not suggesting that when the Chinese adopts the cult of the West, and comes into general contact with it—and I believe that I am right in saying that this is the desire, generally speaking, of the whole of the enlightened classes—he continues with his few wants. As a matter of fact, he does not. He is as extravagant, and perhaps more so, than the most of us. I have seen Straits Chinese waste at the gaming tables in their gorgeous clubs as much in one night as some European residents handle in one year, and he is quick to get his motor-car, his horses and carriages, and endless other ornaments of wealth. So that if progress in the course of the evolution of nations means that the Chinese too will demand all that the European now demands, and will cease to find satisfaction in the existing conditions of his life in the new goal towards which he is moving, and if he, in course of time, should increase the cost of living per head to equal that of the Westerner, then he will lose a good deal of the advantage he now undoubtedly has in the struggle for racial supremacy. But if, gradually taking advantage of all in religion, in science, in literature, in art, in modern naval and military equipment and skill, and all that has made nations great and made for real progress in the West, he were also to continue his present hardy frugality in living—which is not a tenth as costly in proportion to that of the Occident—then his advantage in entering upon the conflict among the nations for ultimate supremacy would be undoubted, immeasurable.
The question is, will he?
If he will, then the Occident has much to fear. China, going ahead throughout the Empire as she is at the present moment in certain parts, will in course of time (as is only fair and natural to expect) have an army greater in numbers than is possible to any European power, and her food-bill will be two-thirds lower per head per fighting man. Subsequently, granting that China fulfils our fears, and becomes as great a fighting power as military experts declare she will, even in our generation, by virtue of her numbers alone, apart from phenomenal powers of endurance, which as every writer on China and her people is agreed, is excelled by no other race on earth, she would be able to dictate terms to the West. But, again, will she? Will the people continue to live as they are living?
I personally believe that the Chinese will not. I believe that as the nation progresses, more in accordance with lines of progress laid down by the West, so will her wants increase, and consequent expenses of life become greater. The Yün-nanese even are beginning to acknowledge that they have no ordinary comforts. In other parts of the empire the people are already beginning to learn what comfort, sanitation, lighting, and general organization means—in the home, in the city, in the country, in the nation.
And they are learning too that it all costs money, and means, perhaps, a higher state of social life. For this they do not mind the money. They are not going half-way—they are going to be whole-hoggers. And when in the future, near or far, we shall find them, as is almost inevitable, able to compete in everything with other nations, we shall find that they have not been successful in learning the source of strength without having absorbed also some of the weaknesses; they will not escape the vices, even if they learn some of the virtues of the West.—E.J.D.