HF 
 
 37*76 
 
 UsHe 
 
BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
WESTERN BENEFITS 
 
 THROUGH 
 
 CHINA'S DEVELOPMENT 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 This article from the pen of our Consul-General, Mr. Ho 
 Yow, reaches so profomidly into the springs from which the trade 
 between the United States and China must arise, and so ably sets 
 forth the conditions upo?i which that commerce ?nust groiv, that we 
 have take?i the liberty of reproducing it from (l The Forum ' ' in which 
 it first appeared, and of se?iding it to you in this form. We request 
 you to read it and express the belief that, after reading it, your 
 views will be benefited as to the possible value of Chinese commerce 
 to the United States. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 CHIN SIC CHO W, 
 
 President Chi?iese Six Compa?iies , 
 San Francisco. 
 Wong Chungs 
 
 Secretary. 
 
WESTERN BENEFITS 
 
 THROUGH 
 
 CHINA'S DEVELOPMENT 
 
 BvJtfO YOW, 
 
 imperial Chinese Consul-general 
 
 (Reprinted from THE FORUM of March, iooo.) 
 
 In the mind of every man who reads his article, China must 
 hereafter stand for something higher and better than before. 
 
 Portland Oregonian. 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 the; mysf,IvL-r.oi,i,ins co. 
 
 22 Clay Street 
 1900 
 

/r^^^ 
 
 Western Benefits Through Chinas Development 
 
 By HO YOW 
 
 Imperial Chinese Consul-General to the United States. 
 
 The leavening of the vast Chinese Empire, begun within the past 
 quarter of a century, by Western thought, is now strongly felt 
 throughout the realm. Under the fostering influence of a wise and 
 progressive government, it is effecting in a nation of over 400,000,000 
 souls marvellously beneficent changes. These have been watched by 
 the peoples of the West with the utmost gratification, and with the 
 liveliest anticipation and hope. 
 
 He must be a curious man of the West who does not feel a certain 
 pride in the fact that the creations of his half of the world have begun 
 to enter the thought realm of what is practically the remainder of the 
 earth, and to effect methods, to establish modes, even to subvert 
 forms in a region which for many centuries esteemed itself, and was 
 in truth, the supreme of the Universe. There is an element of sym- 
 pathy in human nature which feels gratification in the advancement 
 of a fellow being, and contemplates with admiration and applause his 
 rise to higher things. 
 
 It is not altogether consepts and precepts that move the numerous 
 followers of your Christian faiths to establish schools, asylums, and 
 hospitals, to usher the young into a flowering maturity, and to nurse 
 the sick to health. There is an instinct, as natural to mankind as the 
 instinct of self-preservation, which makes for the promotion of others 
 in the scale of being; and this instinct, operating on a plane as wide 
 as the human nature of which it is a part, takes no account of race 
 lines or color limits. Your missionary conceives that his doctrines 
 will secure happiness to the soul after death: straightway he traverses 
 cities and plains and jungles in search of all men not in accord with 
 his views, be they pale, black, yellow, or red. But this most noble 
 quality, like every other benevolent trait of our natures, may, in 
 individual instances be perverted. Where there were heartiness, 
 helpfulness, and generosity there may come narrowness and selfish- 
 ness; and, unfortunate as the fact may be, these faults, which we are 
 
inclined to pity in people, who, from pinched, material conditions, 
 regard with envy their more successful brothers, may exist in those 
 who have not the excuse of material pressure, but who evolve their 
 views from philosophy. 
 
 It is false philosophy, however, that leads to such conclusions; for 
 any reasoning which results in pitting man against man in just as 
 wrong as the notion in chemistry which once designated filth as 
 waste matter. We have since learned that filth is but matter out of 
 place, that, in the harmony of nature, there is no such thing as 
 waste. In the realm of human brotherhood similar harmonies exist; 
 as if any line of thought concludes with a postulate that the prosperity 
 and advancement of one people are irreconcilable with the prosperity 
 and advancement of another people, that the living of one body of the 
 race upon a plane of high ideals can be maintained only through the 
 degradation of another body of the race, or through the continuance 
 of it upon a level distinctly inferior, that line of thought, depend 
 upon it, is wrong and mischievous. 
 
 It is to me a most painful circumstance that this idea of the suc- 
 cess of one nation being dependent upon the non-success of another 
 nation, and whence of the world, should be so widely diffused in the 
 United States; and it is remarkable, too, that it should be diffused 
 not only in the teeth of philosophy, but in the very presence of facts 
 incessantly proclaiming to the contrary. It is a school of thought 
 which, I am glad to say, England has survived, and which, it is 
 comforting to note, the United States, under the sagacious adminis- 
 tration now existing at Washington, is rapidly putting aside through 
 the avenue of reciprocity treaties. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are those who, in all seriousness, maintain, 
 with specious arguments, that the development of one nation must 
 operate to the harm of the nations with which it trades if trade be 
 left open between them. The most striking instance which I have 
 lately observed of the assertion of this fallacy elaborated with 
 wrongly drawn deductions, is the article by Mr. John P. Young, in 
 The Forum for November, 1899. It is more notable to me since the 
 nation against which it is aimed is China. Mr. Young is the 
 first man who, to my knowledge, has specifically declared in 
 public print that the industrial development now progressing in 
 China will result detrimentally to the welfare of the United States. If 
 this voice had come from New York I might have thought that it 
 was moved by rivalry on the part of the Eastern metropolis caused 
 by the impending greatness of the chief seaport of the Pacific coast, 
 fronting, as San Francisco does, the very face of China. But when 
 it is considered that Mr. Young is a resident of San Francisco and 
 managing editor of one of the largest newspapers on the coast, a 
 
newspaper which makes it its especial province to foster the 
 industrial growth of the city and State, his error becomes all the more 
 perplexing. 
 
 Mr. Young takes the curious position that the development of 
 China, which would mean her rise in the production of those things 
 esteemed by Westerners, would be a menace, and a possible blight, 
 to Western industry. It is singular that any American should be 
 found who asserts that American industry stands upon so unstable a 
 basis. If the assertion were true, the country would have good 
 reason to fear, and would urgently need to post geese on the Capitol 
 to quack out in the night at the approach of an invader. Any 
 civilization built upon such sands would surely he swept away; and 
 the day of its downfall could never be far from the date of its rise. 
 Mr. Young feels that the vast natural resources of China, together 
 with her myriads of population, among whom the laborers are willing 
 to work for a mere pittance per day, when acted upon by the methods 
 in Western use will result in producing so cheaply that the producers 
 of the United States will be unable to compete with such products 
 in their own market. The result will be, Mr. Young thinks, not only 
 to drive American salesmen out of China, but to a large degree to 
 close American mills, and to convert their salesmen into purveyors 
 of Chinese wares. The picture is exceedingly dark. Here we have 
 China's import trade entirely eliminated, and an immence export 
 trade developed, by which China is inundating the United States with 
 the things her people want, and taking nothing in return. 
 
 Mr. Young would say, however, that China would demand gold 
 for her goods, and, in this way, would drain the country of gold. 
 But China does not want gold; almost every pennyweight mined 
 within her territory being sent abroad. Gold is not currency with 
 her; it is a commodity no more specialized or valued than cloth or 
 grain indeed, not so much. China 's standard is silver, and silver you 
 do not want. Seven out of every ten of your silver mines are today 
 lying idle. The people of the States in which the mines are located 
 have recently been waging a vigorous campaign to open the mints 
 of the country to the coinage of silver, in order that a market for 
 their commodity may be created. Now here, according to Mr. Young, 
 is China, which will be willing to take their silver and to give goods 
 in their return. Consequently, in any event, if Chinese competition 
 should close the cotton mills of Massachusetts, the iron mills of 
 Pennsylvania, the tanneries of Chicago, the furniture factories of 
 Michigan, and so on throughout the whole gamut of American 
 enterprise, it would at least open the silver mines of Utah, Nevada, 
 and Montana, and make populous and powerful those now neglected 
 States. 
 
Mean while, it must be remembered that China has immense resources 
 of silver of her own. The mountains which flank the Great Desert of 
 Gobi, the Tsin-lings, the Pelings, the Nan-lings, all contain great 
 deposits of silver; the mountains of Yun-nan being particularly rich 
 in it. When the concessionaires to whom China has granted the 
 privilege of digging and reducing much of this ore shall, by modern 
 methods, have completed their tasks, then as much silver as all the 
 needs of art or trade require shall be leit loose over the Empire; and 
 small call may be made upon foreign commerce for the money metal. 
 If in the eyes of Mr. Young such a calamity takes place, and if, as he 
 assumes, China still persists in sending to the United States her 
 goods, why then, manufacturing everything cheaper than like articles 
 are made here, there could, of course, be nothing taken in return; and 
 the United States would be deluged in clean gift with infinite quan- 
 tities of superior Chinese goods to the closing of all her mills and to 
 the utter idleness of her people. Imagine such a state! Every person 
 in possession of all he could desire to eat, drink, and wear, all of 
 Chinese production, for which nothing could be taken in return 
 because of your cost of manufacture, and withal, lolling in enforced 
 and complete indolence! Surely the possibilities of such a catastrophe 
 might alarm any one. To avert such a misfortune the pens of such 
 publicists as Mr. Young might well be engaged. 
 
 Mr. Young gives reasons of inclining to the opinion that the Chinese 
 will take nothing in return for what they send. The chief reason is, 
 that the Chinese want nothing. He tells us that " for nearly half a 
 century Europeans and Americans have had very few obstructions 
 placed in the way of introducing their wares to the attention of the 
 millions living in and near the treaty ports; and in that time they 
 have not succeeded in securing as great a market for their surplus of 
 manufactured products as that created in half the time in spasely 
 populated Argentina." He tells us, too, that, in California, "such a 
 thing as Europeans and Americans manufacturing for Chinese con- 
 sumption is never thought of; and i f the idea ever did occur, it would be 
 speedily abandoned; because if the article wereone which this really 
 curious people wanted, they would turn to and make it themselves." 
 And then he remarks that "the workers of Europe and the United 
 States may not take kindly to the prospect of China's vast stores of 
 mineral wealth being converted by Chinese into finished articles for 
 consumption in the Western World." Mr. Young says furthermore: 
 
 " It is probable that, in the earlier stages of modern industrial 
 development, the vast surplus energy of the Empire will be utilized 
 in manufacturing for outsiders rather than for Chinese. The latter, 
 until they radically change their habits of living, until they learn to 
 consume wastefully, must necessarily be poor customers for the 
 
wares which they may produce in profusion." So he concludes that 
 " it may be safely predicted that the effect of the opening of China 
 to the trade of the world will not be followed by results so confidently 
 expected by people who have surplus products that they are anxious 
 to dispose of at a profit. Instead, the effect of the opening and 
 awakening will probably be to bring disaster upon Western indus- 
 trialism unless a barrier be interposed to the competition of a race 
 whose most striking characteristic is an entire absence of those 
 desires and aspirations which Americans and Europeans strive to 
 gratify. This notable peculiarity, at this stage of the world's devel- 
 opment, may give the Chinese an overwhelming advantage in the 
 struggle for existence, and compel the Western working classes to 
 abandon their ideals." 
 
 So it is plain that the Chinese will persist in sending without 
 taking, and that they will not take because they do not want. They 
 do not want because traits, the " result of an intense struggle for 
 existence extending through thousands of years," have trained them 
 to the utmost parsimony in living. Their houses are of "a uniform 
 low level and monotonous appearance, the interiors being as uni- 
 form as the exteriors. The meager furnishing and extreme plainness 
 which mark nearly all interiors are due to a national trait, and are 
 not enforced by lack of things with which to make home beautiful." 
 In communities like the Chinese, he says, "the only incentive to 
 accumulation is a mere desire for subsistence which takes the form 
 of providing for a rainy day. The desire for reputability, which is 
 responsible for the system of conspicuous waste that marks the 
 expenditures of all highly civilized Western peoples, and is account- 
 able for the chief part of the consumption of the manufactured goods 
 in the Western world, is almost unknown in China ; and it is doubt- 
 ful whether such a struggle could be incited in that country." 
 
 But, not only in his house, we are informed, are the Chinese 
 content to dispense with luxuries, but in the matter of dress the 
 utmost uniformity prevails. Fashion, that incentive to incessant 
 change and unending waste in clothes, is not known among us; 
 hence, he argues, much less material would be consumed by us than 
 is consumed by Western peoples. Consequently, on the whole, 
 there would be no demand by the Chinese for Western goods ; while 
 the cargoes of utilities which we would deliver upon these shores 
 could only be warded off by high and hostile tariffs, for the enact, 
 ment and levying of which, Mr. Young's article is especially framed- 
 The absurdity of the statements of Mr. Young and of his deductions 
 is so palpable that ordinarily I would not bother to reply to them. 
 But it is an unhappy fact that his views are shared by others. I 
 have said that he has been the first to publish them. He seems 
 
8 
 
 to have taken his cue, however, from what he calls a "warning note" 
 sounded by " Bradstreet's Trade Review;" reciting that " some day- 
 China will figure as a competitor in many lines of industries in the 
 markets of the world." This competition is what these champions of 
 monopoly fear. 
 
 They are champions of monopoly, though they may not know it. 
 What afflicts them is the unfortunate perversion of ideas which has 
 arisen in the United States through a trade system created by legis- 
 lative acts in opposition to the natural trend, and which is built upon 
 the error that foreign trade means an exchange of goods for gold. If, 
 therefore, you can have vast quantities of goods going out of your 
 country, and great amounts of gold coming in, then you have the 
 acme of what you call " national prosperity." The very statement 
 looked at as a cold formula is ridiculous. Suppose this sort of thing 
 possible. Suppose that in the range of the Tsin-lings we should find 
 a mountain of pure gold, and we should send this stuff to you by ship- 
 load, as we probably should in exchange for your goods. What 
 would be the result? Why, very shortly gold would become so 
 plentiful in your country that its purchasing power would not equal 
 the cost of digging it from the mountain and transporting it, slight as 
 might be that cost in cheap labor in China. Asa consequence, your 
 one-sided foreign trade would be shut off entirely, snuffed out by the 
 very process upon which, in lack of wisdom, you wish to base your 
 foreign trade, and which such disputants as Mr. Young are alert to 
 defend. Nay, this mountain of gold idea may not be altogether alle- 
 gorical. Our alchemists have always held that gold is a compound ; 
 a view now finding sanction among the metallurgists of the United 
 vStates. It may be that we who discovered gunpowder and the fact 
 that the magnet inclines to the pole shall yet discover the reaction 
 which produces gold. When we do you shall have gold to your 
 heart's content ; but, as a result, you will find how quickly you will 
 correct your notion that foreign trade consists of an exchange of 
 goods for gold. 
 
 You will then learn the great and universal truth that trade is 
 barter, an exchange of goods for goods. You will learn, too, this 
 potent and sadly overlooked fact, that the more goods that come into 
 a nation the more goods must go out to pay for them. Consequently, 
 that heavy imports are much to be desired ; and all limits and restric- 
 tions upon them which impair their free ingress should be as far as 
 possible swept aside ; for, as the night follows the day, heavy imports 
 nto your country must be followed by heavy exports. 
 
 Mr. Young does us Chinese a keen injustice by his inference that 
 we would send any goods without demanding a full and adequate 
 return ; and he is entirely wrong when he supposes that we want 
 
nothing that you have. On the contrary, the Chinese want avast 
 number of things. No people have desires pitched higher; no people 
 are more eager to advance. What does Mr. Young suppose to be the 
 incentive which forces the lowest born coolie to strive in salt mines 
 or to pack burdens day by day over long and tedious roads, if it is 
 not that he desires to better himself? Wherever the Chinese have 
 gone they have become distinguished, not alone for industry but also 
 for the wealth which attends it. Where the Chinese have settled, in 
 all of those kingdoms and communities adjacent to China, they are 
 foremost among the men of wealth and influence. In Corea, the 
 Straits Settlements, and the Philippines they have long constituted 
 the very backbone of commerce and finance. 
 
 It is wrong, too, to say that the Chinese do not desire or enjoy 
 luxuries. Mr. Young does not understand us. Our ideas of those 
 things are different from his, but they are none the less expensive- 
 He thinks that because we do not wear starched linen and silk hats, 
 and because our women do not wear lingerie, we consume little. But 
 the gentleman is mistaken. The garb of the ordinary Chinese 
 about equals in cost that of the Americans. Your negroes working 
 in the rice fields of the South are scarcely better clad than our coolies 
 in similar occupations. Among the upper classes your dress does 
 not compare in cost with ours. If your gentleman of leisure pays 
 $100 for a suit of clothes his habit may be considered expensive: with 
 us the very embroidery on the breast-piece of the jacket frequently 
 costs more. Mr. Young must not think that because we do not 
 follow Western styles we have no luxurious tastes. There is nothing 
 in Western styles to tempt us. I have myself donned the European 
 garb on several occasions, and I have always found it stiff, tight and 
 awkward. It encases the body with an inconvenience which would 
 be intolerable if the wearer knew better. 
 
 Mr. Young must not forget that progress in China does not mean 
 our forsaking national habits in such things as clothes and modes of 
 life. In a thousand things we do not bow to the West. Your effects 
 may be different from ours ; but they are not superior. We were a 
 civilization more powerful than Rome at her best, in a day when the 
 hills of Rome were pasture, and when the only peoples of the wilder- 
 ness which is now your land were savages. You cannot expect forms 
 which the wisdom of thousands of years has confirmed to be swept 
 away because you have another fashion. Mr. Chester Holcomb, who 
 was for years a member of the United States Legation at Peking, 
 speaking of our poorer classes in his work, " The Real Chinaman," 
 p. 311, says: " The Chinese do not live poorly because they desire 
 nothing better. Like all other men they live as well as their earnings 
 or resources will allow. A wealthy Chinaman dresses as expensively, 
 
IO 
 
 though in a different style, has a table as luxurious, though his taste 
 may be esteemed peculiar, and generally maintains the same elegance 
 as his Western brother. There, as everywhere else, income must 
 control the expense."* 
 
 But the fact that Chinese have their own ideals and models does 
 not mean that there is nothing used in Western life that they 
 want. They want, as I have said, thousands of things you have. It 
 is not anticipating too much to opine that the modern American 
 house, with its conveniences and comforts, will be the future house 
 of China. Her cities will be sewered and paved, lighted with electric 
 lamps and threaded with electric car lines. They will have water 
 works and fire departments and spacious public edifices. The mate- 
 rials for many of these thingsmustcome from the West. But Mr. Young 
 must not forget that before we can procure these things we must first 
 have something to buy them with ; and the only things with which 
 we or any other people have to buy are the products of our labor. If, 
 then, our products are of slight value, reckoned upon the unit of popu- 
 lation, our exchanges must be correspondingly small, and our trade 
 must be worth little. 
 
 This must always be the case so long as China produces by hand 
 labor and not by machines. What is a machine in relation to labor ? 
 It is a multiplication of the power of the hand that runs it. A cobbler 
 will make one pair of shoes in two days. Give him a machine and 
 the skill to run it, and he will make twenty pairs of shoes in the 
 same time. What is this but a multiform increase of the potentiality of 
 his hand. With his bare hands and his tools he had one pair of shoes 
 at the end of two days with which to buy food, clothes and furniture; 
 with his machine he has twenty pairs, less cost of materials, to devote 
 to the same end. Chinese labor is cheap, but only because its effect- 
 iveness is small. Let this be magnified with the power of machines, 
 and it will be dear enough. Chinamen will be prompt to demand 
 their full share of the wealth which their hands produce after they 
 have been potentialized by the machine, just as Mr. Young correctly 
 
 *In John Thompson's book, "Through China with a Camera, "there is on page 258 the following 
 description of a Chinese gentleman of today and his house : "Mr. Yang was a fair sample of the 
 modern Chinese savant fat, good-natured and contented. His house, like most others in 
 China was approached through a lane hedged in by high brick walls on either side, so that there 
 was nothing to be seen of it from without save the small doorway and the small brick partition 
 about six feet beyond the threshold. Within there was the usual array of courts and halls, reached 
 by narrow vine-shaded corridors; but each court was tastefully laid out with rockeries, flowers, 
 fish ponds, and pavilions. Really, the place was very picturesque and admirably suited to the 
 disposition of a people affecting seclusion and the pleasures of family life. Its proprietor was an 
 amateur, not only of photography, but of chemistry and electricity, too ; and he had a laboratory 
 fitted up in the ladies' quarter. In one corner of this laboratory stood a black carved bedstead, 
 curtained with silk and pillowed with wood ; while a carved bench also of black wood, supported 
 a heterogeneous collection of instruments, chemical, electric and photographic, besides Chinese 
 and Kuropean books. The walls were garnished with enlarged photographs of Yang's family and 
 friends. In a small outer court there was a steam saw mill, with which the owner had achieved 
 wonders." 
 
II 
 
 remarks that, as toilers in the West, they have come to " enjoy better 
 wages than most of the purely laboring classes of the Western world." 
 Mr. Young, in common with his school, overlooks a salient fact. 
 He concludes that the demand for labor arises from a scarcity of 
 labor's products. Hence, if abundance comes into a nation from 
 abroad, there are consequent congestion and idleness within. It is 
 doubtless this mistake that causes Mr. Young to fear the onslaught 
 of goods which, he argues, will come from China into the United 
 States in free gift and without value exacted in return. The idea of 
 there not being u enough work to go round " was the idea of ancient 
 China, just as it is the present idea of Mr. Young's school. It was 
 this that tabooed machines " because they produce so much that there 
 would be nothing left to do ; " consequently, dearth was cherished as 
 a national necessity. But such modern statesmen as Prince Ching, 
 Yung Lu, 14 Hung Chang, and Wu Ting-fang have perceived differ- 
 ently. With a vision unaffected by interests other than truth, they 
 discern that the greatness of the West exists because of its machines 
 and that, as the effect of the machine is to multiply produce, so the 
 produce thus created in turn calls upon other mechanisms and other 
 labor. 
 
 The starched linen of which Mr. Young speaks would not exist if 
 you would not produce more corn and potatoes than you require for 
 food. Take away your steam ploughs, cultivators, diggers, and shel- 
 ters, and if any one wears starched linen some one will have to go 
 hungry to allow it. It is the presence of wealth that creates a demand 
 for wealth. The human mind is so adjusted that as soon at it is gratified 
 it begins to evolve visions of further desires. Demand breeds upon 
 what it feeds; it can never be surfeited. Take your Indian out of his 
 canvas tepee and build him a house, he will forthwith want it f urnfshed ; 
 put carpet on his parlor floor, and he will crave a piano; give him 
 china dishes, he will abolish jerked beef and require ragouts. This 
 quality is an instinct of nature and exists in all peoples, including the 
 sensitive, alert, calculating, and eager Chinaman. 
 
 It is not we who are the adherents of uniformity; it is Mr. Young and 
 his class. Through the installation of monopoly, which seeks to con- 
 trol certain lines of production within the country, Mr. Young would 
 have a crystallized condition that nothing could disturb; and you 
 would go on purchasing the products of your combine which, secure 
 and absolute in its market, would have no need to regard the world's 
 progress in its utility, and would continue indefinitely to supply you 
 with whatever it might please. We, on the other hand, seeking a 
 market for our like product, would be constantly watchful to cheapen 
 its cost and to increase its merit. Left to itself the world of produc- 
 tion is constantly changing, constantly working toward higher 
 
12 
 
 planes; being unceasingly drawn into accord with the higher reaches 
 of human thought. It is only when its action is obstructed by such 
 "barriers interposed to competition" as Mr. Young asks for, that it 
 subsides into static quiescence. Left to itself it will follow man in all 
 his ideals; interfered with by "barriers" it becomes paralyzed. 
 
 After all, what are utilities, or these things we call "goods," which 
 we import an export? They are no other than expressions of human 
 thought impressed upon matter. Looking to your imports and not 
 beyond them, from which countries do you get evidences of the high- 
 est civilization from Europe or from Africa, from England or from 
 Turkey? You do not have to look beyond what a people puts forth 
 to fix its position in the scale of being. In truth, by such alone may they 
 be judged; for goods are acts; and, as men or nations act, so are they 
 high or low in the domain of thought. The reason why China is 
 behind the United States in material achievements is, that our masses, 
 as compared with yours, have little potential thought. Our govern- 
 ment understands this. It is our effort now to acquire for our people 
 a measure of your knowledge, for that means ascension over nature; 
 and a people is great and powerful just in the degree that it possesses 
 the ability to turn nature in all her departments to the gratification 
 of human desires. 
 
 But, aside from these abstractions, we have only to look about us 
 to find refutation of the hypothesis and fear of Mr. Young that "the 
 Western world will not be benefited by Chinese development." A 
 few years ago, when our neighbor Japan a much smaller nation than 
 our own, and, therefore, more sensitive to Western influences mani- 
 fested signs of the revival which has since so distinguished it, Mr. 
 Young attacked that kingdom just as he is now assailing us. He had 
 then the same fears that the United States would be swamped by the 
 goods of Japan, just as he now expresses fear that it will be deluged 
 with the products of China. If his doctrines had been believed they 
 would have driven Japanese trade away from San Francisco through 
 the erection of those "interposing barriers" which he so much desires 
 to be built against China with the result that there would have been 
 lost to the city and country about $15,000,000 of sales to Japan a 
 year. But his alarms were not heeded; and the trade with Japan 
 increased, because, by the introduction and use of machines, the 
 country, which produces little or no gold, came to have something to 
 buy with. In 1898, it bought 40,000,000 yen worth from this country, 
 though only four years before it could buy but 6,000, coo yen worth- 
 In 1898, you took from them 47,000,000 yen worth of goods ; so that 
 you have shown a disposition to increa.se your purchases just as they 
 have increased their imports from you. 
 
 If Mr. Young's conclusion, that the development of one nation is 
 
13 
 
 harmful to the condition of another nation, were correct, you would 
 naturally expect to find the part of the United States nearest the 
 developing' nations showing the worst effects of the blight. What 
 part of your country has the most industry, business, finance, devel- 
 opment, the side that fronts Europe, or the side that faces quiescent and 
 undeveloped Asia? If you could put the United States on a turntable 
 and twist it around until the Golden Gate opposed the English Chan- 
 nel and New York was before Hong Kong, would San Francisco be 
 benefited or damaged by its contiguity to Europe? Would New York 
 benefit China or would China sink back from her rising evolution? 
 Obviously, Mr. Young's theories are thin indeed; he has against him 
 the proved experiment of unfolded Europe. Since 1888 England has 
 advanced prodigiously. You are now taking from her vastly more 
 than you took then; yet, in 1888 you sold to her but $32,000,000 
 worth, while in 1898 this amount was increased to $74,000,000. Ger- 
 many has kept full pace with Europe's advance, a fact made mani- 
 fest in the great increace of her exports to the United States. Yet in 
 1878 you sold her $16,500,000, and in 1898, $32,700,000. England and 
 Germany and France and Italy have increased in their power to buy 
 from you; and the size of their purchase bills has promptly manifested 
 this enlargement of their ability. Their power to purchase, however, 
 is not the power to send gold, which would be all drained out of their 
 countries in one year's buying, but the power to send to you the 
 things which your civilization desires. 
 
 So will it be with China. The trade which now only amounts to 
 some thirty-two millions both ways is so small because of China's 
 inability to make larger purchases. When we multiply the things 
 you want, that same variation will excite in us a desire for the things 
 you have. If our goods are cheap, so much the better for you. We 
 thereby bring you more of labor than you return to us. The teamster 
 gives to the lawyer the product of thirty days' toil for an hour of the 
 lawyer's thought. Both are benefited; but, in the aspect of things, who 
 acquires the higher advantage from the transaction? We may give 
 you abundance of our goods for little of your goods; but you will be 
 the more favored. 
 
 Mr. Young takes a narrow view when he measures the possibilities 
 of the Chinese Empire by the little group of people in San Francisco's 
 Chinatown. They consume little of American wares, it is true; for 
 few expect to remain here permanently. Most of them look foward 
 to the time when, gathering their accumulated stores, they can return 
 to China. This is caused by two considerations: (1) the hostile 
 feeling that exists against the Chinese here, due to the agitations of 
 labor leaders and political charlatans; and (2) the obstructive legisla- 
 tion influenced thereby, with the result that their freedom is curtailed 
 
M 
 
 and their peace and property are made insecure. Moreover, the 
 difference in the purchasing power of their money here and in China 
 impels them to aspire to live in the country where their wealth will 
 give them more return. All of these conditions will undoubtedly 
 cease to exist. 
 
 I do not believe that the American people will always be deluded 
 as to the value and necessity of Chinese residents, or that the types 
 of men who now influence thought on that subject w in continue to 
 find credence; and I am very sure that, in not many years, the China- 
 man's money earned in the United States will buy but little more in 
 China than here. For, the cost of living will rise with the rate of 
 wages; and in China both will presently reach the American standard. 
 I do not expect this change to take place slowly. The movement 
 now progressing in China has attained marvellous speed; and, with 
 the aid of the kindly offices of the Western peoples, especially the 
 people of the United States, and under the guidance of the present 
 sagacious and efficient government of China, we shall continue our 
 progress, advancing ever upward, making ourselves more and more 
 fitted to be a benefit to the world and to merit the highest esteem in 
 the family of nations. 
 
 Personal reference to Mr. Ho Yow by the editor of the Forum. 
 
 "Mr. Ho Yow, Chinese Consul-General to the United States, was born in 
 Hong Kong, in 1869. Graduated in 1885 at the Incorporated Law College of 
 London, with the degree of Solicitor in Chancery. Some years ago, came to the 
 United States, and was for one year secretary to His Excellency Wu Ting-fang, 
 Chinese Minister at Washington. Left that post to accept the vice-consulateship 
 in San Francisco, where he was sent to settle a dispute which had arisen between 
 the See Yups and the Sam Yups, rival Chinese clans in California. The success- 
 ful solution of that difficulty and the restoration of order procured for him pro- 
 motion to the Consul-Generalship, which office he has since held, having been 
 Vice-Consul one year and Consul-General two years. The Consul Generalship 
 of the United States is the most important office in the consular service of China, 
 and Mr. Ho Yow is the youngest man in that service. His great effort has been 
 to give to the people of the United States a correct understanding of China, its 
 government and people, as well as to expand the trade relations between the two 
 countries." 
 
Comments of the Press. 
 
 Owing to the number and length of the newspaper comments which have 
 been made upon the foregoing article it would be impossible within the limits of 
 these pages to notice all, or to give in full the few that are noticed ; excerpts, 
 from the following, however, are selected : 
 
 A LIGHT FROM ASIA. 
 
 There is a most remarkable article in The Forum for March that should be 
 read by every thinking man in America. It is from the pen of Ho Yow, Chinese 
 Consul- General to the United States, and it puts before the world a specimen of 
 high economic thinking that puts to shame the tawdry compositions generally 
 produced upon economics. There are eternal principles of human development 
 written in this Chinaman's essay, which are an undiscovered country to half the 
 members of our Congress, and unfamiliar to the pages of our magazines and 
 politics. The article as a whole is a fit introduction to the study of the practical, 
 political economy that awaits the Americans of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 The Consul-General is answering a recent argument made in The Forum by Mr. 
 John P. Young of San Francisco, who sought to establish that China's develop- 
 ment bodes ill to the United States, because the Chinese will undersell us as 
 competitors and fail of increasing demands as buyers. Mr. Young's misconcep- 
 tions have been abundantly refuted, but by none so admirably as by this gifted 
 Chinaman. He takes up the errors, one by one, and puts them alongside the 
 ascertained truth of experience in a way that leaves them without a shadow of 
 support or excuse among thinking men. 
 
 We have countless statesmen and scholars in the United States who could, 
 with profit, be sent to school to this sagacious Chinaman. In the mind of every 
 man who reads his article the name of China must stand for something higher 
 and better than before. We are getting familiar these days with the evils that 
 flow from the pernicious activity of the half educated. They muddle our finances, 
 they distort and encumber our trade, they block out the pathway to a high place 
 among the nations. But it is little short of humiliating to receive a lesson in 
 liberality and clear thinking from a representative of the very people whom we 
 aspire to teach and elevate. Portland Oregonian. 
 
 i 
 
 LIGHT FROM THE ORIENT. 
 
 The Chinese Minister recently made some very pointed observations at a public 
 dinner in New York, and at the dedication of the Law School building in Phila- 
 delphia he not only exposed some of our inconsistencies with refined sarcasm, but 
 clearly carried off the palm of oratory from our speakers. And now comes the 
 Chinese Consul General with an article in the March number of The Forum, in 
 whim he elucidates the protectionist theory of foreign trade with a logic which 
 would bafccruel but for its delicate humor. 
 
 Mr. Ho Yow, not without guile, entitles his article, " Western Benefits Through 
 China's Development." That is the proper way to attract the hard-headed men 
 of business who take a practical view of our mission in the East and mean, as Mr. 
 Grosvenor of Ohio says, to make all the money they can out of expansion. 
 11 What is there in it for us ? " is their cry, and when the Consul-General of China 
 begins to talk of "Western benefits" they naturally prick up their ears. But as 
 he proceeds to unfold the conditions on which these benefits are to be obtained, the 
 agreeable anticipations of these readers will be painfully dispelled. Such benefits 
 
i6 
 
 are not to be had for nothing, our Chinese adviser assures, usj> and if we are to 
 enlarge our exports to China, we can do so only by allowing the Chinese to enlarge 
 their exports to this country. 
 
 With these and even more forcible arguments, the Chinese Consul-General 
 " wipes the floor u with the unfortunate Mr. Young, and in view of the audacity 
 of his proceeding, it is pertinent to ask whether the Chinese Exclusion Act should 
 not be extended so as to keep out laborers in the field of oratory and literature. 
 When American audiences desert the hall while eminent citizens are holding 
 forth, and throng it with delighted enthusiasm and applause when the Chinese 
 Minister opens his mouth, and when prominent editors are held up to the derision 
 of all reasoning mankind in the pages of our magazines, it is time for sincere 
 protectionists to protest. Perhaps the wily Oriental may find that his specious 
 plea for the free admission of the products of his country has undone his cause ; 
 for if our leading editors find themselves excelled by Chinese writers, protection 
 will be demanded by our press wit 1 ! a zeal hitherto unparalleled. New York Post. 
 
 HO YOW ON "DEVELOPING CHINA." 
 One of the noteworthy evidences that China is coming out of her .shell is the 
 greater readiness with which her representative men in other lands frankly 
 express their opinions on current topics of interest whether they concern Cathay 
 or more "modern " nations. Of course, this is another indication that the men 
 of affairs in that ancient empire are beginning to wake up and to realize that not 
 alone the world of the distant past concerns their country, but the world of the 
 present, and above all, the world of the future. 
 
 The inquisitive questions and bright comments made by Li Hung Chang during 
 his late visit to this country have not been forgotten. It is realized that they 
 came from a real thinker, however different his "point of view " might be from 
 that of the average American. 
 
 Since Li's visit, the diplomatic and consular representatives of China in this 
 country have manifested a willingness to express themselves fully, here and in 
 England, on various topics, with a frankness and freedom which are pleasantly 
 notable. The Chinese minister at Washington has made more than one notable 
 address of late. 
 
 And now Ho Yow, Chinese Consul- General to the United States, deals in the 
 March Forum with the suggestive topic, "Western Benefits Through Chinese 
 Development." He begins his article by acknowledging that the leavening of 
 the vast Chinese Empire, begun within the past quarter of a century, by Western 
 thought, is now strongly felt throughout the realm. Under the fostering 
 influence of a wise and progressive government, it is effecting in a nation of over 
 400,000,000 souls marvelously beneficent changes. That the development of 
 China can possibly operate to the harm of the nations with which it trades, if 
 trade be left open between them, Ho Yow strenuously denies. Boston Globe. 
 
 THE BUGBEAR OF ORIENTAL COMPETITION. 
 American working men who see peril to their interests in the annexation of 
 the Philippines and the competition of Asiatic labor, would do well to read the 
 masterly paper in The Forum for March from the pen of Ho Yow, Chinese Consul! 
 General to the United States, on "Western Benefits Through China's Develop 
 ment," It is interesting to find this brilliant Oriental taking substantially the 
 same ground as that taken in several articles printed on this page, notably one 
 which appeared February 4th on "Oriental Competition with American Labor." 
 He declares in substance, etc. * * * If you could put the UnitedJStates on a 
 turntable and twist it around until the Golden Gate opposed thejftSnglish 
 Channel and New York was before Hong Kong would San Francisco'e bene- 
 fited or damaged by its contiguity to Europe?" That question, put by 
 the Chinese Consul-General, is apt to be a poser to those who imagine that a 
 sleepy, inactive population facing us across the Pacific is a safer thing for 
 American interests than will be a roused, eager, aspiring population. In point of 
 fact, as the Pioneer Press has heretofore pointed out in other words, if we can fill 
 the Orient with an European hunger even the marvelous development of 
 American industries witnessed in the last fifty years will have to be surpassed to 
 meet that hunger's demand. St. Paul Pioneer Press.