Jan. 9.
In the reports published in Friday's "'North-China Daily News" of the friendliness of the Chinese farmers and countrymen in the vicinity of Shanghai when the holiday houseboaters wended their way along the canals and in the lakes of adjoining country, there was more of an atmosphere of old times when Chinese and foreigner jested on the weather and cheered each other on, That atmosphere was the healthy China untouched by Communist doctrines and by the slogans of the Kuomintang. The masses of the Chinese are a friendly, lovable people who are generally on good terms with the foreigners in the land, missionaries: and business men, and even casual tourists, It used to be true that only in the large cities, where the impact of differing civilizations was perhaps more startling, did ordinary human attitude the zest for accentuating differences, That urban attitude expresses itself mort. bitterly in the returned students and in the class-conscious revolutionists who have dominated Chinese politics during the past three years, Ordinarily men do not hate each other. They have to be taught to hate, and in fact hav to be spurred on to hate. Ordin arily the rule of live and let live domin: motives, particularly among the peasantry of any country who have sufficiently hard time earning their daily provender without thinking of broad political or racial problems. As long as one does not interfere with one's household gods, as long as none of the highways are disturbed, as long a3 the women and the family system is kept sacred, it matters little whether the person is a native or some exotic being who: spends. his days in houseboats rather than in the comfort of his couch. It is only when people are stirred over grievances, real or imaginary, that they come to believe that the devil is really carnate the being who fishes and shoots wild ducks. The Chinese are hardly different from othe Babies were told in their cradles to beware of the "foreign davit" and perhaps they really Delieve that we are evil just any other spook might do him harm, but, on the whole, the Chinese views the foreigner and our ways as curiosities like the calf with a double head and the blued-eyed (Chinese whom hho occasionally sees or hears about from story tellers.
Among all peoples, particularly primitive peoples, there is the tendency to exclude the foreigner because of the insistent tendency toward racial hhomegeneity. Even in the Bible, there is the constant prohibition among the Jews against intermarriage, against even eating and drinking at the tables of the Gentiles. Keep the race pure at any cost, was the iden of the ancient "Israelites, and that attitude is evident everywhere the world today. The inistence upon a Nordic culture in the United States, the closing of the doors to the immigrants and the strong racial antipathy toward coloured peoples, are only another expression of this same exceedingly primitive view toward the foreigner. But this attitude seldom expresses itself in boycotts and strikes, in stone-throwings and even in murder mong any people except upon instigation by propagandistic organs. In China, this attitude of racial self-preservation has been ever-present, although at various times foreigners were welcome in the country and even held high office under. the throne. In the Tang Dynasty. foreigners were particularly valued and in the Mongol and even in the Manchu dynasties, they were given honours by the throne and they were undisturbed by the people. It is only when the force of nationalism is applied to hatred, when the masses are first taught to fear and then to hate, when the violent forms of hatred are encouraged by those in authority, that such events as the Nanking outrage become possible.
AS soon as the officials cease insisting upon mass demonstrations of racial hatreds, the people become normal and hope to sell a chicken to a houseboat, For the mas the Chinese people, like the masses of any other people, do not want to be bothered about all the intricacies of high international politics. And that leads one to the mass attitude towards the foreigners. Certain Chinese, but much more so their foreign' protagonists and propagandists, have been secking to establish it as a historical fact that the whole Chinese people are anti-foreign and particularly that they are anti-British. That fact cannot be established because it is not true. There are some Chinese who are anti-foreign and there are some who are anti-British.
But the vast masses of the po ple are ordinarily friendly with everyone and the British usually find that in normal cireumnees they get along with the Chinese very nicely. The recent bitterness was not normal, It has not a sound historical background. It might have been anticipated that in certain circumstances the time would come when the Chinese would want their treaties revised and changed completely, but such a desire need not have taken on the form of hatred and bitterness which has been witnessed in this country. That attitude on the part of the Chinese people was partly the result of the Russian inspired propaganda which commenced in 1923 and was partly the result of the decision of the Kuomintang on January 1, 1924, to. concentrate the enti force of the attack on the foreigners on one Power and that And the reason for that attitude was not that the Chinese hated Great Britain more than any other Power but that the Kuomintang determined to strike at the most powerful, the most important, of the Powers in China. The campaign of hatred then not psychological but political. Tt was not based upon psychological experience but upon 8 definitive political programme. Perhaps the day of that hatred is passed. Perhaps the new governments will not continue to foment such a sentiment among the people. At any rate, even the casual observer can note that there is no animosity among the ordinary masses in the vicinity of Shanghai and that denotes that conditions are perhaps returning to something like normal.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.