Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace

by George Hebard Maxwell

The chief original causes of the great famines of China have been floods which were preventable. In some of her largest valleys the floods have resulted primarily from the denudation of the mountains and the destruction of the woodland and forest cover on the watersheds of the rivers.

In "The Changing Chinese" by Prof. Edward A. Ross some vivid descriptions will be found of the havoc wrought by deforestation and flood. Here is one of the pictures he has drawn for us of Chinese conditions:

"On the Nowloon hills opposite Hong Kong there are frightful evidences of erosion due to deforestation several hundred years ago. The loose soil has been washed away till the country is knobbed or blistered with great granite boulders. North of the Gulf of Tonkin I am told that not a tree is to be seen and the surviving balks between the fields show that land once cultivated has become waste. Erosion stripped the soil down to the clay and the farmers had to abandon the land. The denuded hill-slopes facing the West River have been torn and gullied till the red earth glows through the vegetation like blood. The coast hills of Fokien have lost most of their soil and show little but rocks. Fuel-gatherers constantly climb about them grubbing up shrubs and pulling up the grass. No one tries to grow trees unless he can live in their midst and so prevent their being stolen. The higher ranges further back have been stripped of their trees but not of their soil for, owing to the greater rainfall they receive, a verdant growth quickly springs up and protects their flanks.

"Deep-gullied plateaus of the loess, guttered hillsides, choked water-courses, silted-up bridges, sterilized bottom lands, bankless wandering rivers, dyked torrents that have built up their beds till they meander at the level of the tree-tops, mountain brooks as thick as pea soup, testify to the changes wrought once the reckless ax has let loose the force of running water to resculpture the landscape. No river could drain the friable loess of Northwest China without bringing down great quantities of soil that would raise its bed and make it a menace in its lower, sluggish course. But if the Yellow River is more and more 'China's Sorrow' as the centuries tick off, it is because the rains run off the deforested slopes of its drainage basin like water off the roof of a house and in the wet season roll down terrible floods which burst the immense and costly embankments, spread like a lake over the plain, and drown whole populations."

We are following faithfully in the footsteps of China in our national policy of non-action or grossly inadequate action. It is only a question of time when we will suffer as they have suffered, unless we mend our ways, and arouse our people to the spirit of patriotic service necessary, over vast areas in the United States, to protect our mountains, forests, valleys, and rivers from the fate of those in China.

The Chinese people, lacking in national patriotism, were overcome by the invasion of barbaric hordes from the North, and were also overwhelmed by the destroying powers of Nature. A national spirit of patriotism, bearing fruit in national organization, would have protected them from both disasters, as it actually did protect the Japanese. The Japanese have not only successfully defended themselves against the aggressions of Russia. In the same spirit of energetic and purposeful patriotism, they have preserved and utilized to the highest possible extent the resources of their country. They have defended Japan against the destructive forces of Nature which have devastated China.

The hillsides and mountains of many sections of China are bared to the bone of every vestige of forest or woodland cover. The floods have eroded the mountains and filled the valleys with the débris. Torrential floods now rage and destroy where perennial streams once flowed. In Japan, those perennial streams still flow from every hillside and mountain, feeding the myriad of canals with which her fertile fields are laced and interlaced. The result is that on only 12,500,000 acres of intensively cultivated soil Japan sustains a rural population of 30,000,000 people.

The power of Japan as a nation lies in the racial strength of her people. That comes largely from the physical vigor and endurance developed by the daily labor of the gardeners who till the soil. They have the land to cultivate because the devotion of the people to the good of all has led them to preserve their forests and water supplies. Where would they be to-day if the same spirit of selfish individualism, and apathy and indifference to the national welfare, and to the preservation of the nation's resources, had dominated Japan, that has dominated China for centuries, and that now dominates the United States of America?

In "The Valor of Ignorance," the author, Homer Lea, most truly says:

"No national ideals could be more antithetic than are the ethical and civic ideals of Japan to those existent in this Republic. One nation is a militant paternalism, where aught that belongs to man is first for the use of the State, the other an individualistic emporium where aught that belongs to man is for sale. In one is the complete subordination of the individual, in the other his supremacy."