Once during the past century the Tsar tried to mend matters by his famous decree liberating the serfs. But the system remained but little changed. The landlords still held the property and the tenants were held to terms which permitted them Hess than the actual necessities of life. In contrast wit of Russia at that time the average Chinese farmer in many of the wealther provinees lives in Iuxury. There is poverty and injustice in China, but Russia knew nothing but Poverty and cruelty.
Then came the Russian Revolution that killed off all the rulers and wealthy classes and made way for the poor to come into thei was a greet ideal. But leal that has never worked, not working for good in Russia. When the agitator comes to the farmer and tells him the land belongs to the nation and that he will be permitted to use it, the story sounds very plausible, But when the government is found to be even more exacting and overbearing than the former landlord the farmer finds that he has been de-Now, instead of a human landlord, who might have a heart concealed about his person, a heart= Jess, cruel system has taken its place, and all the rosy promises are found to be delusions, Contented, Induitrious Peasantry How much better the ardent Chinese system is. Asa matter of 2 it is superior to the system has developed in most of the European countries, Only in the United States and the British Pominions do we find conditions. favourable for the farmer as they are in China, And the fruit of hiv favours is such that China has ported a population now running '0 the hundreds of millions. Fear country could never do that. China is rich—marvellously rieh.in, the products of the farm alone, And the farmer owns his land, We not mean that there are n> tenants in China—there are plenty of them. And they are often held to terms that are very severe, that it is dificult to make any hes way, But this one fact needs to be emphasized: China's wealth is not in the hands of a very few, but is widely. among the entice Instead of one max of property as large as ordinary hsien in China, the tax office of every' district will show that there are thousands of people which means" that wis of people own the Iand.
principle of Communisnt worked out in Russia was a protest agi injustice and cruelty and the. reformers everything as far back as they could. That is human nature. But Com: annism has no more appeal to Chit than it has to the people of Utop (if we can find them).
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.