The western mind has long looked upon China as given over to hopeless inertia and stagnation, but China has awakened at last.  In one year the importation of illuminating oil rose 50 per cent., of window glass 58 per cent., of matches 23 per cent., and needles 20 per cent.  In six years the tonnage of vessels discharging in Chinese ports rose by one-third.  While these lines are going through the press Li Hung Chang is in Europe negotiating for a loan of 400,000,000 francs to be expended in internal improvements, and he gives the weight of his very high authority to the statement that China is no longer opposed to the introduction of railways.

Consul-General Jernigan reports to the Department of State that the prospectus of a new industry is now before the public at his station, Shanghai.  It is called the Shanghai Oil Mill Company, and purposes to manufacture oil from cotton seed.  It is the logical result of the cotton mills at Shanghai, and the consequent stimulus given to the cultivation of cotton in China.  Since 1890 there have been forty-five new manufacturing plants established in Shanghai.  They are all in successful operation, especially the cotton factories, in which large capital is invested.  He adds: 

“The area suitable for cultivation of cotton in China is almost as limitless as the supply of labor, and labor being very cheap, there can be no doubt that China will soon be one of the great cotton-producing countries of the world, and that this product, produced and manufactured in China, will command serious consideration in all calculations with reference to the cotton market.  It will not be safe to discount the cotton of China because it now grades low, for it is certain to improve.  At present it is estimated there are 3,000,000 tons of cotton seed, equal to 90,000,000 gallons of oil, now yearly lost to commerce which would find a ready market.  The company will start with a capital of 250,000 Mexican dollars.  One company has already ordered its machinery from the United States.”

The population of the Chinese Empire is estimated at 400,000,000, but Li Hung Chang declares, and experienced western observers confirm it, that the country with modern improvements could sustain more than twice its present population in a very high state of comfort.

Of all the popular errors, however, the greatest is that of regarding India as an overpopulated, stagnant, and unprogressive land.  Suffice it to say here that the population has trebled under British rule, and that the country is abundantly able to sustain in great comfort twice its present numbers by agriculture alone; that the extension of the railway system has recently been rapid, and along with this has gone on a growth of manufactures that is simply amazing.  Only recently Burmah borrowed in London $15,000,000 for railway construction, a sum that was subscribed in that market five times over.  In these vast fertile regions, which in comparison with what they