The democratic movement in Asia

Foreword

The following chapters, now brought together with many revisions and with the addition of much new material, were first printed in Asia. The theme was developed in a lecture which the author was invited to deliver before the members of the American Asiatic Association on the subject of Foreign Missions and World-Wide Democracy. The fact that the material thus collected and presented was acceptable to Asia and to the American Asiatic Association is striking evidence of the interest and favor which the subject has won for itself. It is only within recent years that a secular magazine and an association which has no relation whatever to religious propaganda would have found the facts with reference to foreign missions worthy of so much consideration. It must also be evident that the point of view of the author is detached and impartial, rather than either partisan or critical.

The facts were gathered in the course of two extensive tours through Japan, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, and India. They are the observations of a tourist who merely took the trouble to turn aside from the usual routes of. travel to make investigations at first hand. A large place has been given to the narration of incidents and stories, because each bit of evidence

FOREWORD

is cumulative rather than conclusive. It has been the repeated impact of these situations described here at length which has produced the convictions out of which these chapters are written.

The photographs from which the book is illustrated were, with two exceptions, taken by the author.

A complete list of acknowledgments is impossible. The author is grateful to a host of friendly people throughout the countries visited for their never-failing hospitality and their sympathetic understanding of the purposes of the quest. It is not unfair to make special acknowledgment of the inestimable assistance received from Galen M. Fisher, of Tokyo, and George A. Fitch, of Shanghai, in the way of introductions to their distinguished friends among the Japanese and the Chinese peoples. Special thanks are also due to the editors of Asia, at whose invitation the chapters were first prepared and with whose enthusiastic cooperation they were completed.

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Contents

Chapter Page

Foreword v

I. Asia in the Family of Nations ... 1

Chapter I Asia In The Family Of Nations

Perhaps half the causes of the European War were not in Europe at all, but in Asia. Certainly half the consequences will be there. At the end of another half century this fact will be more evident than now. Likewise, it will then be clear that when the United States became a world power it also became an Oriental power. It is quite likely that, great as are the present contributions of America to Europe, even greater will be her contributions to the cause of freedom and justice in the East.

The United States actually became an Oriental power when it came into possession of the Philippines, although we did not then fully realize it. The American occupation and administration of the Islands, in turn, prepared the way directly for the leadership which President Wilson was able to assume when he made the first declaration of Allied war aims and pronounced for the principles of self-determination. If the American policy in the Philippines and elsewhere in the Orient had been other than it was, such a declaration would have had little influence in the councils of Allied policy.

Coincident with and even antedating the po- [3]

litical entrance of the United States into Asia was the steady growth of American influence in China. The Open Door policy and the remission of the Boxer Indemnity were merely two incidents in a long series of friendly and disinterested acts which won the confidence and affectionate regard of the Chinese.

Meanwhile the American traders and the American missionaries were extending their influence. They were relatively few in numbers, yet potent in leadership throughout the entire Eastern Hemisphere. Neither of these unofficial representatives of the American people were the unrepresentative types which they were sometimes reported to have been. Barring real exceptions, the American business man in the Orient has been a clean-cut, cleanliving, clean-dealing agent. He has won respect. The missionary also has carried with him a typical American spirit, touched with a persuasive idealism. He seldom made enemies, for it was his primary purpose to make friends, and every friend he made was also a friend for the nation which had sent him out there to relieve suffering, teach the illiterate, and enlighten the superstitious.

The combined effect of these diverse influences has been to elevate the United States to an unique place in the estimation of the Asiatic races. China became a republic. The first republican leaders had been bred in the American missionary school, even though the teacher had been quite unconscious of the role which he was preparing his pupils to play. India demanded Home Rule.

THERE IS HARDLY A VILLAGE IN ALL CHINA TO WHICH THE NEWS- PAPER DOES NOT SOME TIME PEN- ETRATE. THESE MEN ARE READING FROM A PAPER PUBLISHED BY ONE OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND POSTED FREELY ON BULLETIN BOARDS.

Why? There were many influences at work, but one must not overlook a most important one: India had been observing the American policy in the Philippines. Other nations and races also were stirring when the European War came to claim their attention and to teach them its lessons. Now they are asking: How does the war for the defense of the rights of weak nations affect us who are politically the weakest of all?

Democracy is not merely a catchword of the War; it has become the watchword of the world. The War has accentuated the ideal and accelerated its growth; but, long before the War began, the ideal had thrust down its roots in many soils where republican institutions were plants of exotic growth.

Asia is moving toward democracy in international affairs and also toward republican ideals of government at home. Many of these ideals have been borrowed directly from America or from Americans. India has, of course, drawn impartially from the great stream of political idealism which runs through our common English and American literature and history, but the Filipino and the Chinese each has learned directly from the United States.

In the face of this democratic drift of the Orient we must recognize that the Asiatic races are not at all prepared for many of the privileges of self-determination which they are demanding and which they have in part received. Those who follow current Chinese history are almost in despair for the future of the new republic. England has committed herself to a policy in India which will leave a huge unfinished task long after the map of Europe has been redrawn on lines of justice and stability. The United States is not yet able to withdraw from the Philippines, and none is so rash as to prophesy a date when withdrawal can be accomplished without the defeat of the very principles to which America has dedicated herself in these far-off lands.

The key to an understanding of the Oriental problem as it is and as it is likely to remain for generations is the comprehension of the fact that Asia itself is a unit, which does not lend itself to division into the Philippine, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Siberian, or the Indian problems. Furthermore, Europe and America are as much a part of that unity as are China and India. This unity cannot be dissolved until the problem itself is solved.

All the nations and races of Asia are now standing on end like a circle of dominoes. If any one of them is knocked over or disturbed in any way, the resulting commotion is immediately communicated to all the others. The Japanese policy in China or Siberia, for example, is not to be considered apart from Home Rule in India or Filipino independence, any more than it can be separated from the future of Malaysia or Russia. But it is even more important for us to realize that this Oriental Question includes more than the Orient.

A NEW SPIRIT OF LIBERTY HAS 8EIZED UPON* INDIA, AS THE FREE STRIDE OF THESE GIRLS AT THE ISABELLA THOBURN COLLEGE TESTI- FIES.

If we think of Asia as a circle we find elbowing each other on its circumference the United States, England, Holland, France, and Russia, as well as Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, and India. I omit China from the list of nations on the circumference because she is really the very center of the whole problem. The position of China at present is so unique that one is warranted in saying that as China goes in the next few decades so goes the Orient, and perhaps the world, for the next few centuries.

Notice the line-up on this circle: Russia at present a passive quantity; Japan still an imperialistic power; France with a not very creditable colonial policy and a very discreditable diplomatic policy in South China; Holland with none too fine a score for humanity and justice in Java; the United States embarked upon a policy of administration and control which has already extended to the Filipinos a greater degree of autonomy than was ever before given to a subject race; Great Britain now introducing revolutionary measures in India which put her in line with the American policy in the Philippines. Then notice that the political conditions in large parts of the rich Malay Peninsula are as yet almost entirely unmade, that Siam is as plastic as wax, that China is as fragile as a cracked lacquer bowl.

Hitherto the Oriental question has been approached by Americans chiefly from three distinctly different angles. The statesman, who

m has sometimes been merely an international politician, has sought to steer a course which would keep the United States from being involved in vexatious international disputes. The banker and business man has surveyed Asia as a field for exploitation, where risks were extra hazardous and where other nations were already well entrenched. The foreign missionary, and those who sent him to his task, defined his transcendent purpose as one of redemption of souls, in which the Hindu, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Confucianist, or Shintoist would be converted to Christianity. Meanwhile, the great majority of citizens had no interest whatever in the prosecution of any one of these three purposes.

Many factors must combine or cooperate to lift the races of the Orient to the point where they can meet, on democratic terms, the powers of the West at the council tables of the world. The purpose of this book does not include more than the enumeration of some of these factors, nor is it the desire to claim more importance for any single one than the facts warrant. It must be perfectly clear, however, that the traditional attitude of the European toward the Asiatic races must give way before new policies and methods, in keeping with the ideals for which the war in Europe is being fought.

The United States has now become a world power and has assumed a place of leadership among the nations which will involve more and more concern for the political welfare of Asia.

WHEN THE AMERICANS CAME TO THE PHILIPPINES THEY INTRODUCED A NEW SPIRIT AS WELL AS A NEW THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. BASE- BALL DISPLACED COCK FIGHTING AS THE NATIONAL SPORT. ALMOST

EVERY ALLEY IN MANILA NOW HAS ITS BASEBALL TEAM.

This new relation to the backward races will in turn demand that the United States shall assume its proportionate responsibility, which must be very large, for such economic development of these peoples as will be necessary to fit them for international partnership in production, trade, and politics. Meanwhile the missionary must view his task from the wider angle, and see himself as a national representative and as an international agent in preparing nations and races for the responsibilities and privileges of self-determination.

Hitherto the business man has seen in Asia merely a field for exploitation; the missionary has been primarily impelled by the urge to preach the Gospel to all nations. These two motives can no longer be considered exclusive of or opposed to each other. Both business man and missionary are really engaged in a common task to develop the latent resources — physical, intellectual, and moral — of backward peoples, without robbing them of any thing or any quality essential to the preservation of their independent national life. The American people must replace the not uncommon distrust of the American business man who does business abroad with confidence that he has not lost his integrity merely because he has chosen to be in business where his neighbors are unable to observe his actions. They must see in him a man who is rendering an important international service. Likewise, we must recognize that, in addition to the religious imperative which has projected foreign missions into the non-Christian world for more than a century, there is now the international imperative which the immediacy of the Oriental problem has revealed, although it would be regrettable if the missionary were to lose his religious idealism in proportion as he becomes conscious of the immense economic, social, and even political consequences of his work.

The missionary, as an interpreter, is extremely valuable. He is constantly explaining and illustrating the American people to his constituents. To most of his neighbors he is first an American, and only secondarily a missionary. His letters about his work, addressed to the constituency at home which supports him, are an invaluable medium for transforming parochial Americans into internationally-minded citizens. When he opens a school he succeeds to the honorable estate of teacher among peoples who have always given their greatest reverence to wise men and sages. His hospital creates infinite good will. His superior education and his altruistic purposes immediately elevate him to a place of leadership in matters of social reform and not unfrequently of government. He creates new markets and new industries of immense direct and indirect value to international trade.

Meanwhile, his entire work becomes an underpinning for the new civilization which alone will admit the backward races to democratic fellowship with the Western nations. The missionary's influence is all the greater because actually he has no relation whatever to government, politics, or commerce, and is controlled only by motives which admit no other purpose than to elevate the people for their own good, by emancipating them from their spiritual bondage.

It is plain, then, that merely an enlightened self-interest on the part of the United States is quite sufficient to justify the presence of the American missionary among these Asiatic races.

en]

Chapter II The United States In Asia

To a degree not at all realized by most Americans the United States has already become an Oriental power, or, if one prefers, a Western power with tremendous commercial, political, and moral leadership in Asia.

Not long ago the Ford general sales-manager dropped into Bombay and found the trade in a panic. The police commissioner had recently purchased a new motor car, British made, one of those fine machines which England used to delight to make before the War. It had seventeen coats of varnish and an engine which would run ten years without developing a knock — you know the kind. The commissioner ran his car around for a few days and came quickly to the conclusion that he was quite an authority on automobiles. His next conviction, deduced from an admiration of his own machine, was that the American flivver was entirely unsafe. Forthwith he drew up a recommendation that the Fords be deprived of their licenses as taxis.

The sales-manager called on the commissioner. Yes, the official mind was made up. The car had been examined; it was unsafe. But, being as good a sport as are most of his countrymen, he agreed to hold up the recommendation until the following Saturday, when the sales-manager promised to give a public demonstration of his far-famed contrivance. On the appointed day, by official permission, a platform four feet high was erected on the Maidan. It was announced, in ways not novel to American publicity men, that there would be a public test and demonstration of the American car. Needless to say, the crowd was there, including the police commissioner.

The American drove his car out upon the field and up on to the platform. He jumped out and tinkered with it a moment for dramatic effect. Then he backed off, loaded up with a crowd of curiosity-eaten Marathis, threw in his clutch, gave the engine some more gas, drove up on the platform, off the other side, landed in good order, and rolled proudly across the field through an aisle of dumb-stricken Indians. There was never any renewal of the proposal to bar this or any other American car from the streets. Such methods of doing business outpicturesque even the picturesque Orient. They do not add greatly to the popularity of the American among the other foreigners, but they do appeal tremendously to the natives.

"America must be the sun and moon to the Orient," said one of India's greatest industrial and financial leaders to me not long ago. It is the kind of statement which I should expect to hear in China. One might possibly gather up such a remark in Manila or in Singapore, but when one hears it in Bombay, it becomes extremely surprising and significant.

The United States has entered upon, without seeking, although not without some preparation, an active leadership in the affairs of Asia. This leadership, while active only in the sense that the Asiatic races have accepted it even though it was not directly offered to them, is none the less very real. It is more political and moral than commercial, although American business interests are rapidly extending themselves. Its beginnings date back to the time when the United States followed up the occupation of the Philippines with shiploads of school-teachers and the promise of ultimate independence. A new and hitherto unknown political and colonial theory was thereby introduced into the Orient and its influence has been most pervasive. I have seen a letter written by a most distinguished Indian to the prince of a well-known native state suggesting, in response to a request for advice, that the prince create a post of Councilor, "such as Mr. Lansing held before he became Secretary of State. This person should, under the present circumstances, be a foreigner, preferably an American." Ex-Governor Forbes of the Philippines was suggested as a possibility for the place. "It would be the duty of such a person to compare the system of a given state with that prevailing in the Philippines or Hawaii. He would see the enormous work for good done by the

Americans and would ask what prevents a repetition of that work in India."

"I am a nationalist in sympathy," said a distinguished gentleman of Bombay, "although I do not join in the slander that England impoverishes India. There is an old statement that our country is being drained of her wealth. Let us assume that seventy-five millions of dollars goes to England in trade. This is hardly one dollar per family, per year. Account is not taken of the fact that if the English civilians who come to India were cattle they would be valued at enough per head, as imports, to offset the other account. In return for the Home Office charges which go for administration and pensions, India is receiving services which are immeasurably great.

"Nevertheless, when I visited the Philippine Islands I found that the people are far more prosperous than the Indians. America has taken a new spirit to the Islands which the conservative Briton has not brought here. The Filipinos have had revealed to them new ways of developing their resources. When I asked Americans in Manila to explain why the Islands have prospered so much, they were unable to do so. I believe the cause to be the American spirit."

"The chief cause of irritation in India," said Sir Stanley Reed, editor of the Times of India (Bombay), "has been that England has been so slow in granting simple and urgent requests. There is so much red tape, so much delay, so

THE AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE HAS BEEN WELL INTRODUCED INTO INDIA WHERE IT IS VERY POPULAR BE- CAUSE OF ITS CHEAPNESS. ONE CANNOT BE MANY HOURS ON ANY GOOD ROAD WITHOUT SEEING AT LEAST ONE AMERICAN CAR.

much ponderous machinery to move, that when India does receive what she asks for, the grant has been so long delayed that the favor seems to have been given grudgingly. Thus England loses the good will which she might have gained/' Many people confirmed this statement. "Our great complaint," said B. J. Padshah, financial advisor to the great Tata group of industries, "is that England has been so conservative; so unwilling to adopt new ideas." Then he added, with a twinkle in his eye, "It seems funny, doesn't it, that the Indian should criticize the Englishman for being conservative."

In China the United States is regarded not only as a powerful friend, but also as an ideal.

In 1861 President Lincoln appointed Anson Burlingame of Massachusetts to represent the United States in Peking. He immediately proposed to his diplomatic colleagues "a policy of cooperation, an effort to substitute fair diplomatic action in China for force." Professor Willis Fletcher Johnson, in his "History of American Diplomacy," records the story of how six years later Burlingame was released from his post, presented by the Emperor with a commission engrossed on yellow silk, and sent out with almost unlimited powers to "attend to every question arising between China and the western nations." He made a treaty between the United States and China and then began a tour of the European capitals in the interests of his new client, dying suddenly in Petrograd.

From that period until now, Chinese respect for and confidence in the United States has grown, with but slight set-backs, until now it is enough to make the most thoughtless American hold up his head a little higher, and yet tread softly.

I was in China during those weeks of debate as to whether she should send home the German minister and enter the War. The Chinese were bewildered in the midst of the diplomatic tangles. They could not understand what it was all about. German influences were very active. Japan did not favor the move, at least not in the earlier weeks of the discussion. China had some old scores against nearly all of the Allies. On the whole, their longer record in China was less inspiring of confidence than even that of Germany. China could not see why she ought to enter the War and yet the United States recommended it. That was sufficient to turn the tide.

"We know," said very many Chinese to me, in many different parts of the country, "that America has no sinister motive." China would not have entered the War were it not for her confidence in the United States.

The Chinese like American candor, even though they prefer for themselves more devious ways of address. China is still smiling over the remark of an American engineer made in the Russian Chancery at Peking. This gentleman had been sent out to build railways which are being financed by an American banking corporation. He is one of our real native products, the kind which comes from Minnesota, never went to school after he was eight years old, and learned his profession by swinging a pick, although one would never guess it to talk with him. He had been having trouble in finding routes which had not already been preempted by some one else. One day he went over to the Legation Quarter to learn how he stood with reference to Russian concessions.

"This," said the attache, "is a map of China colored to show the various spheres of influence." The engineer studied it a moment. Shantung and Southern Manchuria had one color for Japan, Northern Manchuria and Mongolia had another for Russia, the Yangtse Valley was tinted for England, and liberal sections of the South appeared to be mortgaged to France. The map looked like a Joseph's coat. The Chinese like the direct and even abrupt way in which the American brushed aside the niceties of diplomatic language and exclaimed, "Then where in

is China?" The question was, and is and

will be, until the peace conference settles it, a pertinent one.

Not long ago I happened to be at a semipublie dinner in Shanghai, at which Dr. P. W. Kuo of the Normal Teachers' College of Nanking made an address. He had just returned from a government mission to the Philippines, where he had inspected the school system. Turning to the Americans present, he said with great earnestness: "You Americans have every reason to be proud of your country's work in the Philippines." He also expressed the greatest sympathy with the Filipino desire for complete independence.

Each year a steady stream of Indemnity students returns to China. There are usually more than sixteen hundred Chinese students in school in the United States. They will all return raw, inexperienced, not very useful at first, but fairly saturated with American social and political ideals.

The contribution of the United States to Asia has been a gift of idealism. This idealism has most recently found expression in President Wilson's definition of our war aims, but it had already been fanned into a flame in the East by the breeziness of Uncle Sam, and its sparks were scattered all over Asia. These sparks found plenty of tinder for the fire on ground already prepared by the penetration of the trader and the missionary, and by grievances of the people arising out of the arrogance and rapacity of the various Powers. Incidentally, the United States has backed up its idealism in the Philippines by the investment of a great deal of money and devotion. It has also recorded many times its intention of retiring from the Orient as soon as the Filipinos demonstrate their ability to go their way unaided. But the success of the American experiment in the Islands is entirely contingent upon whether it can eventually be repeated elsewhere in Asia. If the republican experiment fails, for example, in China, either because of aggression from without or through internal weakness, no part of Asia can be safe for democracy. If China were to become the feed, fuel, and mineral box of any imperialistic or autocratic power, the democratic drift of the Orient would be blocked.

If the Oriental problem did not include a movement toward democracy it would be much simpler. The Philippines have most nearly arrived at their destination, but Great Britain is initiating measures in India which will throw heavier responsibilities for self-government upon the Indians than they have ever had before. London seems disposed to make changes much faster than the foreigners in India believe wise. One must also remember that during the war hundreds of thousands of Indian soldiers and Chinese coolies have been transported abroad and given a world view which is likely to put them even more than before on the side of seK-determination for their national affairs.

Asia, outside of Japan, is already committed to republican experiments which can be successful only under the most favorable conditions. The Philippines and India have been governed by experts. We must be prepared to see a lowering of efficiency as public affairs are passed over to republican control. Such is the price of democracy. A mobilizing of the forces of the world to make democracy even respectable may yet be necessary.

The plain facts of the case are that Asia, speaking broadly, is not at all ready for the exercise of the rights which she is demanding and has already in part received. China is from ninety-two to ninety-seven per cent illiterate; India, averaging the ten per cent literacy of the men with one per cent for the women, is in no better condition. The desire for Home Rule is now reaching down into the villages of India, but the ryot, in the same breath in which he assures one that he wants it, will say, "But what is Home Rule, anyway?" In his mind it is associated only with the improvement of his economic condition. It may mean that he can have a pukka house of brick, instead of his mud hut. The forty million outcastes fear that they will have their lawsuits tried before a Brahmin judge, and are already protesting against the proposed new order. The present maladministration in China is increasing, not decreasing, the burdens of the people.

The following incident, told to me by a missionary in one of the remote cities of China, gives one several angles of vision on the present internal economy of the new republic. In a certain city the magistrate's yamen was burned, no cause for the fire being evident. The next day the magistrate called together all the wealthy men of the city and said,

"You know who burned my yamen last night.''

The men protested that they did not know.

"Well, at any rate, it seems peculiar to me [24]

that my yamen was the only building to burn. It looks suspicious. I believe that you men are in secret league with the bandits and that you told them to burn me out."

Again the men protested, but the magistrate continued :

"Here are plans and specifications for a new yamen. I shall expect you to see that it is built immediately. Otherwise I shall know that you are in league with the brigands and shall report you as such to the military governor of the province."

The new yamen was erected forthwith.

A few weeks later the missionary was asked by the military governor to go up into the mountains and arrange a compromise with the brigands, by which the latter would agree to lay down their arms and return to peaceful life. The military authorities have been utterly unable to cope with the situation, so that for several years anarchy had prevailed. The missionary exhorted the robbers to forsake their evil ways, whereupon they replied: