The general verdict of foreign observers on the working of the new system up to 1910 was that in many instances the teaching was ineffective, but there were notable exceptions. The best teachers, next to Europeans, were foreign or mission-trained Chinese. The Japanese employed as teachers were often ignorant of Chinese and were not as a rule very successful. (See further § History.) A remarkable indication of the thirst for western learning and culture was the translation into Chinese and their diffusion throughout the country of numerous foreign standard and other works, including modern fiction.
The Peking Gazette, which is sometimes called the oldest paper in the world, is not a newspaper in the ordinary sense, but merely a court gazette for publishing imperial decrees and such public documents as the government may wish to give out. It never contains original articles nor any discussion of public affairs. The first genuine native newspaper was published at Shanghai about 1870. It was termed the Shen Pao or Shanghai News, and was a Native press. Chinese speculation under foreign protection, the first editor being an Englishman. It was some years before it made much headway, but success came, and it was followed by various imitators, some published at Shanghai, some at other treaty ports and at Hong-Kong. In 1910 there were over 200 daily, weekly or monthly journals in China. The effect of this mass of literature on the public mind of China is of first-rate importance.
The attitude of the central government towards the native press is somewhat undefined. Official registration of a newspaper is required before postal facilities are given. There are no press laws, but as every official is a law unto himself in these matters, there is nothing to prevent him from summarily suppressing an obnoxious newspaper and putting the editor in prison. The emperor, among other reform edicts which provoked the coup d’état of 1898, declared that newspapers were a boon to the public and appointed one of them a government organ. The empress-dowager revoked this decree, and declared that the public discussion of affairs of state in the newspapers was an impertinence, and ought to be suppressed. Nevertheless the newspapers continued to flourish, and their outspoken criticism had a salutary effect on the public and on the government. The official classes seem to have become alarmed at the independent attitude of the newspapers, but instead of a campaign of suppression the method was adopted, about 1908, of bringing the vernacular press under official control. This was accomplished chiefly by the purchase of the newspapers by the mandarins, with the result that at the beginning of 1910 there was said to be hardly an independent native daily newspaper left in China. The use of government funds to subsidize or to purchase newspapers and thus to stifle or mislead public opinion provoked strong protests from members of the Nanking provincial council at its first sitting in the autumn of 1909. The appropriation by the Shanghai Taot‘ai of moneys belonging to the Huangpu conservancy fund for subsidizing papers led to his impeachment by a censor and to the return of the moneys.[17]
(X.)
III. Economics
Agriculture and Industry.
China is pre-eminently an agricultural country. The great majority of its inhabitants are cultivators of the soil. The holdings are in general very small, and the methods of farming primitive. Water is abundant and irrigation common over large areas. Stock-raising, except in Sze-ch‘uen and Kwang-tung, is only practised to a small extent; there are few large herds of cattle or flocks of sheep, nor are there any large meadows, natural or cultivated. In Sze-ch‘uen yaks, sheep and goats are reared in the mountains, and buffaloes and a fine breed of ponies on the plateau. Cattle are extensively reared in the mountainous districts of Kwang-tung. The camel, horse and donkey are reared in Chih-li. Forestry is likewise neglected. While the existing forests, found mainly in high regions in the provinces of Hu-nan, Fu-kien and Kwei-chow, are disappearing and timber has to be imported, few trees are planted. This does not apply to fruit trees, which are grown in great variety, while horticulture is also a favourite pursuit.
The Chinese farmer, if his methods be primitive, is diligent and persevering. In the richer and most thickly populated districts terraces are raised on the mountain sides, and even the tops of lofty hills are cultivated. The nature of the soil and means of irrigation as well as climate are determining factors in the nature of the crops grown; rice and cotton, for example, are grown in the most northern as well as the most southern districts of China. This is, however, exceptional and each climatic region has its characteristic cultures.
The loess soil (see § Geology) is the chief element in determining the agricultural products of north China. Loess soil bears excellent crops, and not merely on the lower grounds, but at altitudes of 6000 and 8000 ft. Wherever loess is found the Soils. peasant can live and thrive. Only one thing is essential, and that is the annual rainfall. As, owing to the porous nature of loess, no artificial irrigation is possible, if the rain fails the crops must necessarily fail. Thus seasons of great famine alternate with seasons of great plenty. It appears, also, that the soil needs little or no manuring and very little tillage. From its extremely friable nature it is easily broken up, and thus a less amount of labour is required than in other parts. The extreme porosity of the soil probably also accounts for the length of time it will go on bearing crops without becoming exhausted. The rainfall, penetrating deeply into the soil in the absence of stratification, comes into contact with the moisture retained below, which holds in solution whatever inorganic salts the soil may contain, and thus the vegetation has an indefinite store to draw upon.[18]
There is no one dominant deposit in south China, where red sandstone and limestone formations are frequent. Cultivation here is not possible on the high elevations as in the north, but in the plains and river valleys the soil is exceedingly fertile, while the lower slopes of the mountains are also cultivated. In the north, moreover, but one crop, in general, can be raised in the year. In the centre two and sometimes three crops are raised yearly, and in the south, especially in the lower basin of the Si-kiang, three crops are normally gathered. In the north, too, the farmer has frequently to contend with drought or with rain or floods; in the central and southern regions the weather is more settled.