[Footnote 91:  Author of a book called If Japan and America Fight.]

[Footnote 92:  The attitude of white labour to that of Asia is illustrated by the following telegram which appeared in The Times for April 5, 1922, from its Melbourne correspondent:  “A deputation of shipwrights and allied trades complained to Mr. Hughes, the Prime Minister, that four Commonwealth ships had been repaired at Antwerp instead of in Australia, and that two had been repaired in India by black labour receiving eight annas (8d.) a day.  When the deputation reached the black labour allegation Mr. Hughes jumped from his chair and turned on his interviewers with, ’Black labour be damned.  Go to blithering blazes.  Don’t talk to me about black labour.’  Hurrying from the room, he pushed his way through the deputation....”  I do not generally agree with Mr. Hughes, but on this occasion, deeply as I deplore his language, I find myself in agreement with his sentiments, assuming that the phrase “black labour be damned” is meant to confer a blessing.]

CHAPTER XI

CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION CONTRASTED

There is at present in China, as we have seen in previous chapters, a close contact between our civilization and that which is native to the Celestial Empire.  It is still a doubtful question whether this contact will breed a new civilization better than either of its parents, or whether it will merely destroy the native culture and replace it by that of America.  Contacts between different civilizations have often in the past proved to be landmarks in human progress.  Greece learnt from Egypt, Rome from Greece, the Arabs from the Roman Empire, mediaeval Europe from the Arabs, and Renaissance Europe from the Byzantines.  In many of these cases, the pupils proved better than their masters.  In the case of China, if we regard the Chinese as the pupils, this may be the case again.  In fact, we have quite as much to learn from them as they from us, but there is far less chance of our learning it.  If I treat the Chinese as our pupils, rather than vice versa, it is only because I fear we are unteachable.

I propose in this chapter to deal with the purely cultural aspects of the questions raised by the contact of China with the West.  In the three following chapters, I shall deal with questions concerning the internal condition of China, returning finally, in a concluding chapter, to the hopes for the future which are permissible in the present difficult situation.

With the exception of Spain and America in the sixteenth century, I cannot think of any instance of two civilizations coming into contact after such a long period of separate development as has marked those of China and Europe.  Considering this extraordinary separateness, it is surprising that mutual understanding between Europeans and Chinese is not more difficult.  In order to make this point clear, it will be worth while to dwell for a moment on the historical origins of the two civilizations.