China Revolutionized - John Stuart Thomson

Nan-Tang cathedral (French) towering over native roofs at Canton. Up to the revolution, this offended the feng-shui superstition of old China, and was a constant source of difficulty.

Cement hill roads, South China, Kwangtung province. Bamboo water-buckets. Note luxuriant vegetation, in a moist hot climate; fern, rubber, tamarind, banyan, mulberry trees.

The political economists of Japan are beginning to denounce the exportation of coal, and recommend the reservation of the fields as a war supply. The proposition is to use foreign coal in manufacturing. Accordingly, measures have been taken to develop the Manchurian, Korean, Saghalien and Formosan fields, as well as purchasing from the rich Chinese supplies. This conservation method will certainly be followed by Australia, England, Germany and America, as the years go by. The export of coal is not a benefit; it is an impoverishment. The Japanese make into briquettes the anthracite coal of Ping Yang, Korea, so as to produce a smokeless navy coal.

An interesting aftermath of the Boxer massacres in 1900 was the strange disappearance of the Manchu prince, Liang Chow, who was condemned to be strangled in private with the silver cord, which two unseen friends were to tighten behind two holes bored in a wall. Prince Liang fled to America, where he became a pauper, and was buried in the Alamosa, Colorado, cemetery. At the request of the Manchu throne his body was exhumed on November 25, 1910, and started on its way to China to the tombs of the Manchu emperors west of Peking (not the Ming tombs, which are northwest). A splendid, dragon-gilded coffin was furnished, and the Manchus sent magnificent mandarin robes, a yellow jacket, peacock feather and pearl button of honor. The Chinese whom Prince Liang found in America were not Manchus, but republican Cantonese of southern Kwangtung province.

Hongkong, the dean of foreign settlements, Shanghai, Tientsin, Singapore, Hankau, Harbin, etc., all have volunteer military companies and inter-port rifle matches. Every man in a settlement can be impressed for the protection of life and property. All these uniformed companies have seen hard active service in the taking of Kowloon, the various riots at Shanghai, the Peking Relief Expedition and the revolution which broke out at Hankau in October, 1911. The companies cover infantry, machine and field gun, bicycle and garrison corps trained in the use of cannon. Hongkong’s uniformed contingent at King George’s coronation in London attracted much attention for the smartness of their swinging march. “We didn’t think the jaded tropics could turn out such ambition,” was the remark of many onlookers.

The English historian, Creasy, who lived in the Far East, in writing his book, Decisive Battles of the World, as early as 1852 recognized the importance of America’s mission across the Pacific. These are his words: “The conquests of China and Japan by the fleets and armies of the United States are events which many now living are likely to witness. Compared with the magnitude of such changes in the dominion of the old world, the certain ascendancy of the Anglo-Americans over central and southern America seems a matter of secondary importance.” If we change Creasy’s favorite idea of physical conquest to that of moral, educational and commercial, with physical power only as an auxiliary in the case of the heinous jealousy of those not concerned, we shall agree with him as to America’s advance across the Pacific. It was nevertheless a wonderful prophecy, made as long ago as 1852, when the tide of America’s western advance, with the exception of one meager settlement, had not yet risen over the Rockies. All the Chinese leaders, republican and conservative, look for the growing evidence of America’s interests across the Pacific, and American affairs and history are keenly studied.