The decision of the National Government that Chungshan Hsien should be developed into 'a model district and the appointment of a Committee headed by the veteran Mr. Tong Shao-yi to carry out the enterprise has stirred the imagination of the Chinese people and aroused the keenest interest among foreign: ers, Here was a statesman who been the first Premier of the Kepublic, who had held the highest civilian rank during the Ching Dynasty, returning in his oh age to his native village As a magistrate, the lowest possible position in point of rank, the highest possible usefulness from the standpoint of the people. Mr, Tong, upon his appointment, went down to the village of Tongkawan and remained there for some time, but the Kuangsi war intervened, all schemes were. in abeyance, money was used for: civil warfare and Mr. Tong returned to Shanghai to gaze upon his priceless curios and be-;|wonder the stupidity of this restless age.
Now, the experiment is again to be undertaken and on May 31 Mr. Tong will again trudge down. to. Tongkawan, his ancestral village, to go through with his wonderful modernizing projects.
thirty years ago, when he wi great official of the Imperii Court, it occurred to him that his ancestors had cut down all the trees about Tongkawan anil so he planted a forest. To-<di that wooded region is not only an area of beauty, attracting it the migratory birds of Asi but also a source of wealth to the people. "He also found that the oyster beds of the region required improvement; to-day' the beautiful archipelago on. which the village is situated is the home of an important oyster, industry. Similarly some orange groves were planted.
Hsien an many remarkable Chinese. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was born there, when the place used to be called Heungshan and now the district has been named after him.
Tongkawan, there are two families, the Tongs and the Liangs, and they are so intermarried that many Liangs have the familiar and distinctive Tong. features. Mr. M. T. Liang, who started the negotiations for th Retrocession of Weihaiwe comes from there. Mr. Tong's uncle (I presume he was in some way also a Liang) built the first railway in North China, opened the Kaiping mine and employed young American engineer, who} now the President of the United States. Most of the chinese who went to the Sand: wich Islands originated in this district and they have sent back to it enormous wealth, so that officials have always had a mer canary eye on it. There are about 2,000,000 mow of rice land there, not to speak of other agricultural wealth and the outlet is towards Macao which is itself a prosperous region.
Numerous but simple will be the governmental ex. periments. Mr. Tong, for in stance, likes to point to the fact that in his place, of about 10,000 souls, there are 12 policemen, who are really un formed watchmen and who' have little more to do than to gossip about the weather. For no one even commits a much worse crime there thaw stealing chicken, and that is very soon discovered. As in most Chinese districts, village life is com: munistic and property is veloped with little regard to private ownership, It is the clan that owns and the elders who direct. Tongkawan, for instance. has become a garden spot because so many of the great men of the South have come from the two families, the Tongs and the Liangs. Each generation has done something for the little place and now, even after the exigencies of civil war and banditry, the district is rich and prosperous and progressive.
Tongkawan is to be made w free port, which means that there will be a certain commercial and industrial development there. Exactly what the procedure will be nobody quite knows, because that will have to be worked out by Customs experts, but the policy has been approvedsby the Government and will be made effective in the near future, If Chungshan Hsien can have five years of peace and the direction of Mr, Tong Shao-yi, it will indeed become a model district, an example to great men who seek for something to do in their old age. And that leads one to ruminate somewhat onthe beauties of the character of the older gentlemen of China: they seem to have a breadth of view, a dignity of democracy which the bustle of a more democratic age is pounding out of men with pneumatic hammers and the whir of wheels. While the great men of the day are planning empires, the older men can think in terms of villages and what a happy country this would be if every village were happy!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.