To the Editor of the "Norra-Cama Dairy News."
Sm,—Views that we have held for some time and which have have been expressed in an article as yet unprinted so jorgely coincide with those elucidate ed in Mr, Bertrand Russell's book "The Problem of China," although on a modified scale, that we are tempted to enter the lists in friendly debate with J.D. the reviewer of this book in your Book Page" of Monday the twentieth.
'At the outset, "'as yet unprinted' will avail J.D. of the opportunity of leading with a thrust that but for a great name signed to any such views oblivion were their due. One does not quarrel with views in so far only as they may upset or give momentum to real progress, and Mr. Bertrand Russell invokes not censure for his work, nor tolerance of the kind that accepts with a gesture of bland urbanity. There is in it, judging from "The Times Literary Supplement" of September 21 (Page 592) and other reviews we have read, the quality that calls for sober reflexion. For this any author deserves a degree of approbation.
Victor Hugo says, "Thought is power. All power is duty." The power of Mr. Bertrand Russell's views lies in his portrayal of a dignified civilization vigorously contrasted by what must seem to nearly all unprejudiced thinkers the foppery of crazed commercialism. It is evident that duty governed the appearance of The Problem of China."
Obsessed by our daily affairs, the business man with the marketing of Western ingenuity, the teacher with his love for inculcation, the evangelist with his ardour for the saving of souls, the doctor with his urge to save life which Nature, secking to deal with a too reckless fecundity, must now by other means than flood, famine and pestilence, oppose, those of us who are engaged in these pursuits are prone to disregard Chinese Civilization, to lose sight of its remarkable concern for the contentment of the fittest of its living majority. Until modern civilization can show, can actually prove on its emergence from the crucible, other selfish aggrandisement spurred by lust for luxury, Chinese civilization cannot be said to deserve substitution for what we have to offer. These are generalities to be sure, but J.D. will no doubt be able to accept them without, straining for proofs. The point is that though modernism may be moulding, as it gropes, ai civilization that will supersede all others in its actual benefit to a virile majority, into the crucible there must be laid those ingredients of a civilization that Mr. Bertrand Russell correctly shows, we think, to be at the present time, as in the past, superior, In his book "China, Japan and! Korea,"' Mr. J. O. P. Bland draws
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.