“Women in England,” said a man to me the other day, a foreigner, one of our Allies, “deserve the vote, but the Continental women are babies. They cannot have it.” So are the Chinese women babies, very helpless babies indeed, and I feel, and feel very strongly indeed, that until China educates her women, makes them an efficient half of the nation, not merely man's toy and his slave, China will always lag behind in the world's progress.
Already China is split up into “spheres of influence.” Whether she likes it or not, she must realise that Russian misrule is paramount in the great steppes of the north; Japan rules to a great extent in the north-east, her railway from Mukden to Chang Ch'un is a model of efficiency; Britain counts her influence as the most important along the valley of the Yang Tze Kiang, and France has some say in Yunnan. I cannot help thinking that it would be a great day for China, for the welfare of her toiling millions, millions toiling without hope, if she were partitioned up among the stable nations of the earth—that is to say, between Japan, Britain and France. And having said so much, I refer my readers to Mr Farrer for the other point of view. It is diametrically opposed to mine.
CHAPTER IX—KHARBIN AND VLADIVOSTOK
At Tientsin I sweltered in the Astor House, and I put it on record that I found it hotter in Northern China than I did on the Guinea coast in West Africa. It was probably, of course, the conditions under which I lived, for the hotel had been so well arranged for the bitter winter it was impossible to get a thorough draught of air through any of the rooms. James Buchanan did not like it either, for in the British concessions in China dogs come under suspicion of hydrophobia and have always to be on the leash, wherefore, of course, I had to take the poor little chap out into the Chinese quarter before he could have a proper run, and he spent a great deal more time shut up in my bedroom than he or I liked.
But Tientsin was a place apart, not exactly Chinese as I know China—certainly not Europe; it remains in my mind as a place where Chinese art learns to accommodate itself to European needs. All the nations of the world East and West meet there: in the British quarter were the Sikhs and other Indian nationalities, and in the French the streets were kept by Anamites in quaint peaked straw hats. I loved those streets of Tientsin that made me feel so safe and yet gave me a delightful feeling of adventure—adventure that cost me nothing; and I always knew I could go and dine with a friend or come back and exchange ideas with somebody who spoke my own tongue. But Tientsin wasn't any good to me as a traveller. It has been written about for the last sixty years or more. I went on.
One night Buchanan and I, without a servant—we missed the servant we always had in China—wended our way down to the railway station and ensconced ourselves in a first-class carriage bound for Mukden. The train didn't start till some ungodly hour of the night, but as it was in the station I got permission to take my place early, and with rugs and cushions made myself comfortable and was sound asleep long before we started. When I wakened I was well on the way to my destination.
I made friends with a British officer of Marines who, with his sister, was coming back across Russia. He had been learning Japanese, and I corrected another wrong impression. The British do sometimes learn a language other than their own. At Mukden we dined and had a bath. I find henceforth that all my stopping-places are punctuated by baths, or by the fact that a bath was not procurable. A night and day in the train made one desirable at Mukden, and a hotel run by capable Japanese made it a delight. The Japanese, as far as I could see, run Manchuria; must be more powerful than ever now Russia is out of it; Kharbin is Russian, Mukden Japanese. The train from there to Chang Ch'un is Japanese, and we all travelled in a large open carriage, clean and, considering how packed it was, fairly airy. There was room for everybody to lie down, just room, and the efficient Japanese parted me from my treasured James Buchanan and put him, howling miserably, into a big box—rather a dirty box; I suppose they don't think much of animals—in another compartment. I climbed over much luggage and crawled under a good deal more to see that all was right with him, and the Japanese guards looked upon me as a mild sort of lunatic and smiled contemptuously. I don't like being looked upon with contempt by Orientals, so I was a little ruffled when I came back to my own seat. Then I was amused.
Naturally among such a crowd I made no attempt to undress for the night, merely contenting myself with taking off my boots. But the man next me, a Japanese naval officer, with whom I conversed in French, had quite different views. My French was rather bad and so was his in a different way, so we did not get on very fast. I fear I left him with the impression that I was an Austrian, for he never seemed to have heard of Australia. However, we showed each other our good will. Then he proceeded to undress. Never have I seen the process more nattily accomplished. How he slipped out of blue cloth and gold lace into a kimono I'm sure I don't know, though he did it under my very eyes, and then, with praiseworthy forethought, he took the links and studs out of his shirt and put them into a clean one ready for the morrow, stowed them both away in his little trunk, settled himself down on his couch and gave himself up to a cigarette and conversation. I smoked too—one of his cigarettes—and we both went to sleep amicably, and with the morning we arrived at Chang Ch'un, and poor little Buchanan made the welkin ring when he saw me and found himself caged in a barred box. However that was soon settled, and he told me how infinitely preferable from a dog's point of view are the free and easy trains of Russia and China to the well-managed ones of Japan.