Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

It may be assumed as an undoubted fact that fully seven-tenths of the whole nation are in hopeless debt, from which they will never be able to release themselves as long as they live. Another tenth owe money, and though these have the means of freeing themselves whenever their bills become due, the tendency to borrow seems to have become so inwrought into the very blood and fibre of a Chinaman that he cannot resist doing so on the least provocation. The remaining fifth are the men of means that have capital at their disposal, and who are the money-lenders to any one that can give the least shred of security that the interest and capital will be forthcoming at the particular times that are agreed upon.

But even these last are borrowers as well as lenders. No Chinaman would ever dream of possessing money and not putting it out to interest. It would be considered the sheerest waste to let it lie idle for a single day, and so they are continually on the look-out for impecunious people to whom they can lend with safety. In addition to this, he will borrow at a certain interest, and then relend at a higher rate, and so money keeps flowing backwards and forwards into his coffers, and though he loses occasionally, his gains are so large and on the whole so certain, that his wealth slowly but surely increases, whilst the seven-tenths I have already spoken of become more and more hopelessly involved.

There are several reasons why the farming population should be so much at the mercy of the money-lenders, though it must be understood that these are not a special class of people that get their living by letting out money at any extravagant rate of interest. Every man or woman that has a spare dollar, at once becomes a money-lender, so that the creditors to whom they are in debt are those in the same position in life, but who are fortunate in having a little more spare cash at their disposal.

The smallness of the great mass of the farms is one great disposing cause why their owners are always in such a perilous financial position. Under ordinary favourable circumstances, these small farmers can work their holdings so that they can make ends meet. Still, even then there is only a very small margin left for the contingencies that this Eastern climate and its great red-hot fiery sun are always producing. Should there be a deficiency in the rainfall, and the rice be left in a waterless field, or should the great typhoons blow with hurricane force, and the flood-gates of Heaven be opened so that the growing crops shall be beaten down and submerged beneath the deluge of waters, then indeed the condition of the farmer is pitiable in the extreme.

There is no resource left them but to borrow, and with the fatal facility of the Chinese for adopting this plan to relieve their immediate necessities, they resort to it with a carelessness of spirit that is perfectly astonishing to a Westerner. An Englishman, for example, with an ordinary sense of honour will shrink from borrowing money, unless he has in his mind some definite plan of being able to repay it at some period in the near future. A Chinaman’s mind being afflicted with turbidity is not troubled with thoughts of this kind. He seems to be able to grasp but one idea at a time, and that is that he is desperately pressed for money, and that by bringing along the deeds of his farm, and depositing them with a rich neighbour, sufficient money will be advanced him to meet his needs. Beyond that he does not take the trouble to think, but he hopes that in some indefinite way he will be able to pay the debt and redeem his deeds.

The light and airy way with which a man will borrow sums that he must know he can never hope to repay is most charming for its naïve simplicity, especially when the high rate of interest that is demanded everywhere is considered. Twelve per cent. is a moderate charge, and is asked where the securities are of a first-rate character. Where these are slightly doubtful, double amount is demanded and obtained, and even as much as thirty-three per cent. is paid by persons who are in great straits, and who wish to be accommodated for a short period of time. An ordinary farmer that borrows at this ruinous rate of interest, unless he has a series of exceptionally good years during which his crops have been most abundant and luxuriant, can hardly hope to pay anything beyond that, and happy will he be indeed if he has not occasionally to add some of the unpaid interest to the original sum he borrowed, and thus add to the liabilities that he is unable to discharge now.

This widespread existence of debt, which I may say is just as prevalent in the cities as in the rural districts, is the cause of a great deal of suffering, especially amongst the farmers, and comes very heavily upon the girls. A farmer, for example, borrows fifty dollars (£5) from a well-to-do man, with the stipulation that fifteen per cent. be paid for the use of the money. When the time comes for the payment of the interest there is not a spare dollar in the house. The year has been a bad one, and sickness has been in the home and medicines have had to be bought. The result is, all the money that had been gradually put aside to give to the money-lender has vanished. The creditor insists, however, upon being paid; he will not be put off, and when he is assured that they have no possible way of raising money before the taking in of the next crop, he quietly points to their little daughter, that with the guilelessness of childhood is amusing herself in her own childish, simple way, whilst the discussion is going on with her father and mother, about the money that has fallen due.

This child is a sweet-faced little girl of about eight years old. She has large black eyes, and a round fat little face, and a merry smile that flashes across it and that gives it such a sunny look that she seems like a sunbeam as she darts in and out of the house in the course of her childish gambols. Both the father and the mother understand exactly what the money-lender means by that significant motion, and without any further discussion they promise that if he will come again in three days more, they will pay not only the interest due to him, but the fifty dollars they had borrowed from him.

Next morning the little girl, who is their only child, is asked if she would not like to go into the great city a few miles away, and see the sights and buy some rare toys that she knows can be got there. She dances for very joy at the idea, and after breakfast she sets out in high glee with her father to see the wonderful things in that great town and to bring back a present for her mother, who bids good-bye to her with tear-dimmed eyes, and a weight upon her heart as she takes a last lingering look at her little one that she knows she will never set eyes upon again.

Upon their arrival in the city, the father, instead of visiting the toy-shops, makes his way to a large imposing-looking mansion where a wealthy family resides, and after some bargaining the little girl is sold to them to become their slave, and to be their absolute property to treat and dispose of as they may deem right. When this transaction is finished and seventy dollars have been transferred to the father, he tells his little girl, who has been looking with wondering gaze at the glories of the house to which she had been brought, to rest awhile and he will call for her by and by when he has seen to some little business that he has to do in a neighbouring street. She little dreams as he goes out of the great door that she will never see him again, and never more will her mother’s eyes look down upon her with the light of affection beaming in them, nor ever again will she see the flash of love illumining her face as she runs to her with some childish grievance or some question that she wishes her to answer. She is a slave now and has lost her freedom, and her new master can dispose of her as he thinks best; and all this she suffers that the debts of the home may be paid and the homestead may be saved from passing into other hands.