lost rights in Manchuria without fighting. Should this plan fail, the late Li Hung Chang's shrewdness foresaw the possibility of driving out the two aggressors by means of the influence of the United States. This idea is referred to in his interesting diary while being welcomed in America on his way home from Europe. Washington diplomacy, on the other hand, readily embraced the opportunity of removing the offence it had given to China through the exclusion act, and of improving American trade with her vast population through various means of befriending China or of thwarting other powers. The gallant American now found an upper-dog in Japan, who had been an under-dog with regard to China and Russia. Hence the inevitable result of America and Japan becoming at cross purposes over China's affairs.

American diplomacy has ever been welcome and successful where the abstract principles of humanity and justice are concerned, and when it has been free from the bare suspicion of self-seeking. This was notably the case in the timely declaration of the open-door policy in China and her territorial integrity-as also in inviting Russia and Japan to come to terms after their sanguinary struggle. In matters touching the practical interests of other peoples, however, American diplomacy would seem sometimes to put other nations into an attitude of mutual sympathy and common defense, and to weaken their respect toward the Monroe doctrine. For it is on the implicit understanding of America's non-interference with other continents that the continental republic is left free of outside interference. But the United States of America has now secured the necessary stepping stones (the Hawaiian Islands, Guam and the Philippines), across the Pacific Ocean to reach China and claim a due share of influence over her destinies. It is impossible to reconcile two such contradictory measures. In order to make its position tenable in world politics, American diplomacy must needs choose between the horns of an awkward dilemma. It must either sacrifice the Monroe doctrine, or restrict its application within a much smaller sphere of influence, or return to its traditional avoidance of foreign

entanglement by staying on the high plane of international morality.

Whichever general course America may eventually decide to take, it is evident to candid observers that America will not antagonize other powers out of a Platonic affection for China, that China realizes no nation but herself can work out her own salvation, and that Japan must be friendly with the teeming millions of China for commercial and other reasons. It would also be to China's advantage to utilize, at least for the present, the political and military supremacy of Japan in the Far East, as it would be Japan's wisdom to keep China always on her side. Commercial rivaly there is and will ever be, it is true; and some European or American business men, who have lost ground through German or Japanese competition in China, may continue to agitate against their rivals. But broad statesmanship discerns on the horizon unmistakable signs of a unanimous desire that all outside nations should coöperate for the peaceful consolidation of China's nationality, be it called a republic or a monarchical confederacy; and that, above all other things, America, China and Japan should work together for the preservation of tranquility on the shores washed by the Pacific waters. China with its dependencies is far more extensive in territory and far larger in population that the whole of Europe. Its social, political, economic, religious and racial differences may also be as great as those of Europe, or even greater. Its history is certainly much longer than that of Europe. It cannot, therefore, be through a recognition of this leader's republicanism, or that statesman's rule, or through the lending of money by a group of nations, or by private individuals singly, that the destiny of the four hundred million souls shall be guided from without. Each province, each dependency, each race of China is a problem by itself, which requires a life time's careful study. That person or nation who thoroughly understands China as a whole, not any one region or party, is alone entitled to a voice in the parliament of men for furthering the cause of China for the Chinese themselves.

SOME OF CHINA'S PHYSICAL PROBLEMS

By Charles K. Edmunds, Ph.D., President of the Canton Christian College and Observer in Charge of the Magnetic Survey of China Under the Auspices

of the Carnegie Institution of Washington

Physical well-being is the basis of national, as well as of individual life, in all its other aspects. China today faces an almost overwhelming gamut of problems, political, economic, social, industrial and educational. Many of them demand immediate solution, or at least, immediate attack. Some of the most pressing of these are what I would call physical.

There is not time, and I would not be qualified if there were time, to give anything like a comprehensive discussion of the various physical problems that China faces. But in journeying widely throughout China during the last nine years, I have observed some of the surface aspects of several of these problems. These I shall try to present to you chiefly by means of the photographs I have secured.1

The primaries of an individual life are food, shelter and raiment. The primaries of a national life are these for all the people plus ways of communication and transportation.

The poverty of the people is one of the most striking aspects of life in China. Yet their industriousness is almost quite as striking. For most of them it is a tremendous struggle with no leeway. This results partly from the over emphasized necessity of producing progeny to do honor to the family ancestors, leading to the practice of early marriage and of polygamy, giving rise to over population without any disposition to migrate to less populated areas, nor indeed are there the facilities to do so or the knowledge of other parts that would invite such migration. These factors, combined

1 The lecture was illustrated by a hundred slides mostly taken by the author.

with a ruinous policy during many centuries of using up all available timber, so that now almost everywhere the hillsides are not only bare of trees but are literally scratched for roots each season, have so decreased the margin which the people have between a state of enough and that of utter want, that when the floods come, which they do almost annually in certain sections as a result of this ruthless deforestation, vast numbers are subject to actual famine.

The remedy is threefold: First a reduction of the birth rate as general education advances and a saner sociology prevails.

Secondly, a comprehensive system of reforestation, for from a physical point of view the primary fact about China is that she has used up her trees. Reforestation on a small scale has been begun in some parts but much more needs to be done and the need for it must be made clear and appropriate measures approved and financed.

Thirdly, improved methods of agriculture must be introduced. What is needed is more extensive farming. The Chinese farmer is altogether a gardener. He is the world's best expert in intensive farming, and we can learn from him in that line; but he seems to know little of extensive farming as we know it in the West, or of the ways of improving varieties. Modern agricultural schools are being established and some large agricultural development schemes have been formed. We may expect to see considerable progress in due time. I would commend to you the late Professor King's "Farmers of Forty Centuries," and G. W. Groff's pamphlet, "Agricultural Reciprocity between America and China."

I believe that one of the best examples of re-forestation is given by Denmark in which in the course of twenty-five years, a considerable area has been given full-grown trees of a quick-growing variety and the rainfall has already been markedly affected. It is not likely that the same conditions exist in China so that it will be at least two or three generations before the conditions with reference to re-forestation

? Either of these can be secured from the Trustees of the Canton Christian College, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York.

can be adequately altered. There must, in the meantime, be a survey of flood-subjected areas of the rivers involved so that the adequate measures of protection may be carried out. During one of my recent trips in Anwhei Province, one of the regions of chronic famine, I met the American engineer, Mr. Jameson, who had been sent by the Red Cross Society for the purpose of determining in what way such protective works might be carried out, and I have noted recently in the press that President Taft has commended Mr. Jameson's report to President Yuan Shih Kai. But this task of determining what should be done for the control of the rivers and canals is a gigantic one and needs the attention of the world's best experts.

Chief among the rivers needing such control is the Yellow River, "China's great sorrow." This is but little inferior to the Yangtsze in length, being nearly 2500 miles, running from southwest to northeast. But is is one of the most unmanageable rivers in the world and of little utility. It is a characteristic river of the loess region, with a broad shallow course which is apt to change. It owes its color and name to loess sediment. During the whole known historical period, this river has frequently changed its course for the last 350 miles. These changes have swept over a fan-shaped areas of 60 degrees in one of the most densely populated and highly cultivated regions in all China, and have, consequently caused great loss of life both directly by flood, and indirectly by consequent famine through destruction of standing crops as well as of stored food supplies.

Throughout its whole lower course, its waters run through the plain where it is most to be dreaded, because the mud and sand carried down by its stream have actually raised the bed of the river until it is several yards above the level of the surrounding country. Consequently there are few important towns on its banks. At its crossing with the Grand Canal, its bed is 16 feet above the level of the Canal.

In 1642, the city of Kai fung, 350 miles inland, was submerged 20 feet, and 200,000 persons are said to have perished. In 1854 the river flowed into the Yellow Sea in latitude 34 degrees N, but in that year it diverted near Kai fung fu, into