Looking at the Far East

Looking at the Far EastOres and Industry in the Far East. The Influence of Key Mineral Resources on theDevelopment of Oriental Civilization. by H. Foster Bain; W. B. Heroy; Edwin F. Gay; FactoryWorkers in Tangku. by Sung-ho Lin; The Guilds of Peking. by John S. Burgess; The LaborMovement in China. by S. K. Sheldon Tso; China's Millions. by Anna Louise Strong;International Rivalries in Manchuria. by Paul H. Clyde; China and the Occident. The ...Review by: Maurice T. PriceSocial Forces, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Mar., 1930), pp. 462-465Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2570199 .

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46z SOCIAL FORCES

To live life as a science is impossible because the moral and religious standards for that science are gone; to live life as an art is to create an anarchy of confused styles and values. Nature may yet save man but only by bidding him embrace some new illusion. If ours is a lost cause we should prefer rather to die as men than to live as animals.

With the brilliant, epigrammatic analysis and the alert and persuasive style of which he is always capable, Walter Lippmann presents a perspective of our dissolving ancestrial order of moral authority that is at once moving and profound. That, unfortunately for the science of ethics, is the best part of the book, for when he attempts to propound the new humanism he shows what we have always known- that to analyze disintegration is easier than to synthesize it. That the high religion of the sages, the "disinterested- ness" of the philosophers, and the "ma- tured personality" of the psychologists are to coalesce in a system of morality that will at the same time make for individual happiness and social survival is, to put it mildly, doubtful. The fault is not in Mr. Lippmann; through his volume shines the clear and radiant influence of Graham Wallis, William James, and George Santayana. It lies in his mate- rials.

Is it possible to have rational morality without metaphysical and religious sanc- tions? Krutch says no. To him social

values are simply an anarchy of the confused customs of mankind. One can feel throughout these three volumes the dis- turbing influence of Sumner's work on Folkways. To some observers the whole field of ethics appears to be ready for a definite shift from the domain of philos- ophy to that of sociology. To thumb through the textbooks in ethics is to find that though they begin with Plato they close with the data and conclusions of modern sociologists. Durant Drake is willing to regard ethics as worthy of being scientific, experimental, and pragmatic. But here comes the rub: sociology seems to regard ethics as purely relative-relative to the group and its culture. The mores Sumner long since announced can make anything right. Herein lies coihfu- sion to an inductive science of ethics; not only to ethics but to the scientific and artistic sense as well. It may be simply noted that neither chemical elements nor electrons have a peculiar code of behavior for each region in which they are found. Hence a science of physics and another of chemistry. Before sociology can lay logi- cal claims to the privilege of nurturing social ethics it must accomplish two tasks. It must out of the storehouse of cultural studies extract and examnine the folk values. With these at hand it must trace through laborious periods of cultural change Sumner's hint that there exists in the mores a strain toward consist- ency.

LOOKING AT THE FAR EAST

MAURICE T. PRICE

ORES AND INDUSTRY IN THE FAR EAST. The Influ- ence of Key Mineral Resources on the Development of Oriental Civilization. By H. Foster Bain, with a chapter on Petroleumn by W. B. Heroy, and a preface by Edwin F. Gay. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1927. xii + 2Z9 pp.

FACTORY WORKERS IN TANGKU. By Sung-ho Lin. Peping, China: Social Research Department, China Foundation for the Protnotion of Education and Culture, i9z8. xiv + i28 pp. Mex. $I.50

cloth and $i.oo sewed. THE GUILDS OF PE3KING. By John S. Burgess. New



LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 463

York: Colutnbia University Press, i92.8. 2.70 pp. $4.00.

THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN CHINA. By S. K. Sheldon Tso. Shanghai, China: (privately printed), i92.8. vi + 2.30 pp. Paper.

CHINA'S MILLIONS. By Anna Louise Strong. New York: Coward-McCann, i92.8. xiv + 413 pp.

$4.00. INTERNATIONAL RIVALRIES IN MANCHURIA. (ad. Ed.

Rev.) By Paul H. Clyde. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, i92.8. Xviii + 32.3 PP. $3.00.

CHINA AND THE OCCIDENT. The Origin and Develop- ment of the Boxer Movement. By George N. Steiger. New Haven: Yale University Press, 192.7. xxii + 349 pp- $3-50-

CATHOLIC NATIVE EPISCOPACY IN CHINA, being an Out- line of the Formation and Growth of the Chinese Catholic Clergy, I300-i92.6. By Pascal M. D'Elia. Shanghai, China: T'usewei Printing Press, Sicca- wei, 192.7. vi + 107 PP. Paper pamphlet.

A SHORT HISTORY OF CHINA. By Edward T. Williams. New York: Harper, i92.8. xx + 670 PP. $4.00.

The social scientist immersed in the culture of our rapidly changing industrial civilization, has been turning for perspective to the cultures of primitive peoples and the Orient. The comparative use which he can make of their cultural phe- nomena is limited in any given case by the degree to which he has some familiarity with their historical roots and development on the one hand and, on the other hand, by their functional relationships at any one period. This, I take it, is the point of view from which factual studies from other cultures are to be envisaged- supplemnented, of course, by recognition of any new concepts or hypotheses proposed.

In the first research publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the most widespread misinterpretations of the industrial trends in China is corrected. This able engineers' report summnarizes the evidence on mineral deposits in the Far East. It shows that the only consider- able mineral supplies in that entire area seem to be China's coal (as to which, esti- mates differ greatly), antimony and

tungsten, and two other countries' tin; that the quantities of copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver seem incomnparable with those underpinning other industrial civi- lizations; and that none of the countries bordering on the Western Pacific has important supplies of iron ore. Among the arbiters of nationalism and international- ism, none may prove more potent than nature's equipment for economic inde- pendence or dependence.

From the Social Research Department of the China Foundation, and financed by the Institute of Social and Religious Research, New York, comes a report of Factory Workers in Tangku, a town of five thousand people a few miles from Tientsin. Though it contains certain naivetes incident to the beginnings of research in any country, it is a distinct contribution to the few studies available on actual living and working conditions in China. The man- ner in which two Chinese factories man- aged by men of modern technical education and of experience in factories of other countries, maintain the traditional personal and paternalistic attitude toward their employees, retain the old customs of a half dozen and more sets of presents or bonuses in addition to regular low wages, grant special leaves of absence for fam-ily events and personal undertakings instead of periodic days of rest (in spite of Geneva labor conferences), experiment with the eight-hour day, and apparently encourage welfare, sanitary, and cooperative efforts as their workers seem ready for them- this is the sort of data presented with statistical, objective, and observational evidence.

The Guilds of Peking, by an associate pro- fessor of Sociology in the union missionary University in Peking, is more ambitious, includes more elusive material, is neces- sarily less precise. Standing next to the clan and village as a basic form of Chinese



464 SOCIAL FORCES

social organization, the guild has never- theless had the scantiest treatment in the historical records of China, as Burgess shows. Moreover, the individual guild's own records, like the clan's, are usually sealed books so far as the outsider is con- cerned; and many of its functions are folkways carried out so automatically that the informants do not think to mention them. The present study builds upon Morse, MacGowan, and Gamble; makes its contribution in an intensive though far from exhaustive study of guilds in the one area, Peking; and is a good safe piece of work until it deals with imponderables like the relationships, function, value, and trends of the guilds and the emergence of modern labor movements in China.

With Tso's thesis, the industrial inter- est broadens out to wider reaches than Lin's or Burgess'. Unfortunately it is but an elementary journalistic compilation of existing statistics and other misinforma- tion upon the "Chinese labor movement," placed in a historical setting emotionally presented, inaccurately described, and characterized by political concepts which do not apply to that setting

Even more reckless, but less culpable because it does not pretend to be more than journalistically descriptive, is a vivid first-hand account of experiences in China's revolutionary center and beyond, during 1927. A once judicial student, Anna Louise Strong, now dominated by an obvious set of prepossessions regarding workers' readiness and ability to remake the social order at will and upper classes' monopoly on injustice and pretense, her narrative is fortunately pervaded by a prop- agandic naivete that puts the reader on his guard. Keenly sympathetic with. the destitution of a bandit-scorched people, and enthused with the adolescent heroism of a number of youthful Nationalists and Revolutionaries, she witnesses the most

suave of characteristic Oriental deception (between Feng Yu-shiang and the Hankow group) and yet believes implicitly her revolutionary informers; she sees "the entire labor code of the Soviet Union" used as strike demands in order "to acquaint the workers with the ultimate program which lay before them" (p. 40), yet seri- ously discusses platforms and resolutions of unions as representing the genuine in- sistent conviction of China's peasantry and workers; she admits the baiting, coer- cive, epidemic nature of "unionizing" (40 et. al.) yet seems to regard the rolling up thus of a 3,ooo,ooo membership as being a bona fide indication of a truly spontane- ous workers' and peasants' revolutionary labor movement (ch. vi.). Rightly used, it is a valuable book!

As the delineations of cultural change thus recede and disappear beneath the waves of one-sided interpretation of con- temporary social conflicts, and we find no mass of restrained reports on the recent situation, we turn to sifted accounts of older conflicts. Clyde's exposition of the objectives, intrigues, and tactics of the Eastern and Western powers underlying the occurrences from i689-i9zz in that key position of the Far East, Manchuria, cuts clean below local irritations, provoked unrest, and the pawns of the game. It is the most balanced, scholarly, succinct account of major interests contending for power in that area.

In a measure the same may be said of Steiger's study of the Boxer rebellion of I900. Claiming at the outset that "the fundamental causes of conflict between China and the West are to be found in the character of the Chinese state," he actu- ally abandons such political monism for realistic investigation of that "'midsum- mer madness," returning to the possibly prior attitude that the West was chiefly culpable for not penetrating behind the



LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 465

drama to a clear understanding of Oriental society. Aside from such limitations, it stands out as a noteworthy and timely study of one of the most important political-cultural conflicts in recent Asiatic history. Its bibliographical note is excep- tionally good.

In contrast to the record of Catholic missions' influence on the "awakening" of China which we need, the English reading public is here offered a brief reply to Protestant intimations that the recent appointment of six Chinese bishops was merely a concession to claimant nationalism. From the Aurora University, Shang- hai, assurance is here given that the appointment is the natural flowering of China mission policy and is in line with all Catholic mission programs.

And finally, a brief reference history. Histories of China in English tend, if comprehensive, to devote only a couple

hundred pages to the general history of early China, or to restrict their scope to the political aspects of the modern period. Williams runs true to form. Even so, it is better to supplement the material on the earlier period and round out that on the latter by his own China Yesterday and Today than to take one or two professedly social-political histories of an inferior quality. His political treatment of the first European contacts and the Anglo- Chinese ("Opium") Wars should be sup- plemented, however, by Morse-MacNair or others; and his generalizations on the immediate future of China should be taken with reserve. While, as usual, not entirely free from prepossessions, this book by a judicial scholar of long residence in China, may be highly recommended with his other one as a minimum requirement for giving the student a perspective on current culture and change in China.

ORIGINS IN FOLKLORE

KATHARINE JOCHER

HOW THE GREAT RELIGIONS BEGAN. By Joseph Gaer, New York: McBride, I929. 424 PP. $3.00. Il- lustrated.

THE LONG BRIGHT LAND. By Edith Howes. Bos-

ton: Little, Brown, i929. 2.07 PP. $2.50. Il-

lustrated. FOLE TALES OF BRITTANY. By Elsie Masson. Ed. by

Amena Pendleton. Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, 1929. 191 PP. $3.00. Illustrated.

LEGENDs OF THE SEVEN SEAS. By Margaret Evans

Price. New York: Harper, I929. i68 pp. $X.5o. Illustrated.

AMERICAN FOLK AND FAIRY TALES. Sclected by

Rachel Field. New York: Scribner, 1929.

302. pp. $3.00. Illustrated.

NEW FOUND TALES. By Joseph B. Egan. Philadel-

phia: John C. Winston Co., 1929. 352. pp. I-

lustrated. AFRICAN MYTHS. By Carter G. Woodson. Wash-

ington, D. C.; Associated Publishers, I918. I84 pp. Illustrated.

In the Book League's introduction to Joe Pete by Florence E. McClinchey (Holt,

1929), the author is quoted as writing, "one never knows the Indians familiarly for they are too reserved. But they have come to know me and have told me much of their tales and legends. These were what I really was after until I realized that their lives were better stories than any they were telling me." This is per- haps true of any primitive folk, yet it is through their tales and legends, so inti- mnately bound up with their everyday lives, upon which we must rely to get the picture of life as they see it. Doubtless there is much in the theory that folklore, and magic, and religion were the prede- cessors of modern scientific thinking and that man's intellectual development mnay be said to pass through Comte's three stages of the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific, and that even now all



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Looking at the Far East