With the beginning of the twentieth century, however, Asia began to show signs of an economic activity as striking in its way as the activity which Asia was displaying in idealistic and political fields. Japan had already laid the foundations of her flourishing industrial life based on the most up-to-date Western models, while in other Asiatic lands, notably in China and India, the whir of machinery and the smoke of tall factory chimneys proclaimed that the East was fathoming the industrial secrets of the West.
What Asiatics were seeking in their industrial revival was well expressed a decade ago by a Hindu, who wrote in a leading Indian periodical: “In one respect the Orient is really menacing the West, and so earnest and open-minded is Asia that no pretense or apology whatever is made about it. The Easterner has thrown down the industrial gantlet, and from now on Asia is destined to witness a progressively intense trade warfare, the Occidental scrambling to retain his hold on the markets of the East, and the Oriental endeavoring to beat him in a battle in which heretofore he has been an easy victor.... In competing with the Occidental commercialists, the Oriental has awakened to a dynamic realization of the futility of pitting unimproved machinery and methods against modern methods and appliances. Casting aside his former sense of self-complacency, he is studying the sciences and arts that have given the West its material prosperity. He is putting the results of his investigations to practical use, as a rule, recasting the Occidental methods and tools to suit his peculiar needs, and in some instances improving upon them.”[140]
The accuracy of this Hindu statement of Asia’s industrial awakening is indorsed by the statements of white observers. At the very moment when the above article was penned, an American economic writer, Clarence Poe, was making a study tour of the Orient, from which he brought back the following report: “The real cause of Asia’s poverty lies in just two things: the failure of Asiatic governments to educate their people, and the failure of the people to increase their productive capacity by the use of machinery. Ignorance and lack of machinery are responsible for Asia’s poverty; knowledge and modern tools are responsible for America’s prosperity.” But, continues Mr. Poe, we must watch out. Asia now realizes these things and is doing much to remedy the situation. Hence, “we must face in ever-increasing degree the rivalry of awakening peoples who are strong with the strength that comes from struggle with poverty and hardship, and who have set themselves to master and apply all our secrets in the coming world-struggle for industrial supremacy and for racial readjustment.”[141] And more recently another American observer of Asiatic economic conditions reports: “All Asia is being permeated with modern industry and present-day mechanical progress.”[142]
Take, for example, the momentous possibilities involved in the industrial awakening of China. China is not merely the most populous of lands, containing as it does nearly one-fourth of all the human beings on earth, but it is also dowered with immense natural resources, notably coal and iron—the prime requisites of modern industrial life. Hitherto China has been on an agricultural basis, with virtually no exploitation of her mineral wealth and with no industry in the modern sense. But the day when any considerable fraction of China’s laborious millions turn from the plough and handicrafts to the factory must see a portentous reaction in the most distant markets.
Thirty years ago, Professor Pearson forecast China’s imminent industrial transformation. “Does any one doubt,” he asks, “that the day is at hand when China will have cheap fuel from her coal-mines, cheap transport by railways and steamers, and will have founded technical schools to develop her industries? Whenever that day comes, she may wrest the control of the world’s markets, especially throughout Asia, from England and Germany.”[143]
Much of what Professor Pearson prophesied has already come to pass, for China to-day has the beginnings of a promising industrial life. Even a decade ago Professor Ross wrote of industrial conditions there:
“Assuredly the cheapness of Chinese labor is something to make a factory owner’s mouth water. The women reelers in the silk filatures of Shanghai get from eight to eleven cents for eleven hours of work. But Shanghai is dear; and, besides, everybody there complains that the laborers are knowing and spoiled. In the steel works at Hanyang common labor gets three dollars a month, just a tenth of what raw Slavs command in the South Chicago iron-works. Skilled mechanics get from eight to twelve dollars. In a coal-mine near Ichang a thousand miles up the Yangtse the coolie receives one cent for carrying a 400-pound load of coal on his back down to the river a mile and a half away. He averages ten loads a day but must rest every other week. The miners get seven cents a day and found; that is, a cent’s worth of rice and meal. They work eleven hours a day up to their knees in water, and all have swollen legs. After a week of it they have to lie off a couple of days. No wonder the cost of this coal (semi-bituminous) at the pit’s mouth is only thirty-five cents a ton. At Chengtu servants get a dollar and a half a month and find themselves. Across Szechuan lusty coolies were glad to carry our chairs half a day for four cents each. In Sianfu the common coolie gets three cents a day and feeds himself, or eighty cents a month. Through Shansi roving harvesters were earning from four to twelve cents a day, and farm-hands got five or six dollars a year and their keep. Speaking broadly, in any part of the empire, willing laborers of fair intelligence may be had in any number at from eight to fifteen cents a day.
“With an ocean of such labor power to draw on, China would appear to be on the eve of a manufacturing development that will act like a continental upheaval in changing the trade map of the world. The impression is deepened by the tale of industries that have already sprung up.”[144]
Of course there is another side to the story. Low wages alone do not insure cheap production. As Professor Ross remarks: “For all his native capacity, the coolie will need a long course of schooling, industrial training, and factory atmosphere before he inches up abreast of the German or American working man.”[145] In the technical and directing staffs there is the same absence of the modern industrial spirit, resulting in chronic mismanagement, while Chinese industry is further handicapped by traditional evils like “squeeze,” nepotism, lust for quick profits, and incapacity for sustained business team-play. These failings are not peculiar to China; they hamper the industrial development of other Asiatic countries, notably India. Still, the way in which Japanese industry, with all its faults, is perfecting both its technic and its methods shows that these failings will be gradually overcome and indicates that within a generation Asiatic industry will probably be sufficiently advanced to supply at least the Asiatic home-markets with most of the staple manufactures.
Thus it looks as though white manufactures will tend to be progressively eliminated from Asiatic markets, even under conditions of absolutely free competition. But it is a very moot point whether competition will remain free—whether, on the contrary, white wares will not be increasingly penalized. The Asiatic takes a keen interest in his industrial development and consciously favors it even where whites are in political control. The “swadeshi” movement in India is a good example, while the Chinese and Egyptian boycotts of foreign as against native goods are further instances in point. The Japanese have supplemented these spontaneous popular movements by systematic governmental discrimination in favor of Japanese products and the elimination of white competition from Japan and its dependencies. This Japanese policy has been markedly successful, and should Japan’s present hegemony over China be perpetuated the white man may soon find himself economically as well as politically expelled from the whole Far East.