Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/71

Rh 421,956,496 ''Hk. Tls.'', equivalent to £69,500,000. It is, indeed, a vast commercial emporium at which the products of European and American factories are first collected before being distributed to the consumers of China, and for this very reason it is not here that the would-be investigator will find material for forming a just estimate of the future of China, commercial, industrial, or political: Shanghai, in other words, is not China, it is an exotic which flourishes because it is not subjected to Chinese conditions. To form any adequate idea of China, the inquirer must leave the foreign settlements which dot the coast-line and travel into the interior of this vast empire. There he may observe for himself the manner of life of the real Chinese,—the teeming millions who live the immemorial life of China, as distinct from the men of the coast, who rub shoulders daily with peoples thinking other thoughts and observing a different mode of life from themselves. He will live among the Chinese people and learn for himself the nature of their requirements, and their ability or otherwise to satisfy them. He will come into contact, to