University of Nanking - Linguist Yearbook (Nanking, China)

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THE OLD INDUSTRIAL ORDER AND 'PHE NEW 45 replaced by labor unions which aim to use the strikes as a weapon to get higher wages. Often the manufacturers are in league with the authorities. and the police imprison or intimidate the strikers, as recently at Cheioo and Hankow. It is notable, however, that the strikes have been markedly successful in achieving their purpose in Several instances, doubtless because public attention is thereby called I0 the shamefully low wages. 'In the ship ing strike at Hongkong the workmen won a real victory in the struggle for an approach to a living wage. A ' The stage is all set forthe same bitter conflict that has attended the industrial revolution of western nations. Must all the horrible stages be passed through again: strikes, lockouts, bread lines, starving families, possibly dynamite and riots? We can expect all of these unless the principles of Christ are applied, and the relations of em- ployers and men are placed on the plane ol brotherhood and justice. Christianity can aid China in establishing working conditions which will be humane and racticable. Christianity can teach the need of, and lead in establishing laws for guarding life, governing working and living conditions, setting a minimum wage, and maximum hours of labor, excluding women and children from unsuitable work, as Well as safe-guarding the employer. A start has been made in setting H social program by the National Christian Conference. Indeed good results are already following, for the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Elt Chefoo. a large manufacturing city, agreed to adopt the minimum Industrial standards ser by the confcrenceh While China is in her present state of Hux is the time to urge a program of social justice. ,Phe Chinese have become keenly critical, and the Christian program If presented in its practical aspect must appeal to them by its justice Und basic soundness. But the opportunity for genuinely Christian S0Cial engineering and guidance is simply boundless. OswALn GOLTLTER.

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44 H THE LINGUIST 'i Westerners and Orientals alike are busy exploiting this mine of labor. Already the great chimneys of giant factories have appeared on China's skyline. Canton, Shanghai, Tientsin and many other centers are rapidly developing great manufacturing industries. Not only does China offer an unlimited supply of cheap labor, but in the future will also produce an exhaustless supply of raw material. With her four hundred millions of population rapidly developing a demand for all kinds of manufactured articles, from mechanical toys to railway locomotives there is tooa market that offers boundless possibilities. Truly a field to delight the unscrupulous manufacturer, where incon- venient minimum wage laws, child-labor laws, accident compensation and other factory laws are unknown ! ' The results are almost too pitiful for words. Dr. Eddy recently found that the usual hours of labor per day are twelve or more, with night shifts.' Many factories work their hands far beyond twelve hours a day. Usually there is no rest on Sunday, but the grind goes on until the human machine breaks down and is cast on the scrap heap of derelict humanity that abounds in every oriental city. Dr. Eddy found thousands of boys and girls, of from seven to fifteen years of age, at work in factories: they get only a pittance for their work, from six to fifteen cents a day. Women, with babies strapped to their backs orleft to play beside the machines, labor all night in the ill lighted buildings. Even men get but thirty cents a day and skilled labor only from forty to sixty cents. When it is remembered that these figures are in the Mexican dollar, which is about half of an American dollar, one sees how shockingly low the wages are. They are low even for Oriental standards. A description -of working conditions fills one with indignation. Boys working in match factories are compelled to use a cheap grade of phosphorus which causes a decay of the bones of the face. In the silk factories little children, manipulating the cocoons in scalding water suffered from steamed eyes, but were not protected in any way. No attention is paid to the moral conditions of women and girls in the crowded factories. It is totally impossible for the workers to provide decent. living quarters on the low wages, and as a result they live in crowded hovels unfit for animalsto herd in. Unguarded machinery leads to permanent crippling of child workers, but no provision is made for compensation for these cripples. Manufacturers excuse themselves by saying that they must compete with the cheap products of the home manufacture with their long hours and bad working conditions, and sadly enough there is some truth in what they say. And in justice it must be added that there are factories which offer exceptions to the conditions noted above. Little wonder that recently there were fifty-two strikes in Canton and thereabouts in nine monthsz. The old labor guilds are being 1. Sherwood Eddy: The Social Gospel in Chinn.the Chinese Recorder, Feb. 1923. 2, The Living Age, May 6, 1922,

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46 THE LINGUIST THE NEW LEARNING AND THE STUDENT. just as the spirit of the old classic scholar was characteristic of old China, so the Student Movement at present is the most significant evidence of her new day. The student has dominated China in her sleeping, and he is also leading her in her awakening. What could be more typical of that ancestor-bound China of only a few decades ago than the slavish confinement of the student to the ancient Classics of Confucius and Mencius? Generation after generation memorized the words of these remote sages and none dared the sacrilege of a new idea. From time to time they repaired to the now fabled examination halls, there to shuffle the phrases of the Classics into new arrange- ments, and for this accomplishment to receive their degrees, only to return and teach their children that they in their day might repeat the endless round. That was education, as China knew it, until about twenty years ago. But today, how ditiferent! Today there are 10,000 students in twenty-hve modern colleges and universities throughout the country, the growth largely of the last decade. Each year increasing numbers of students are going abroad to continue their study, and even those who remain at home are satisfied with nothing less thana world scope in their thinking. Such men as Haeekel, Bergsen or Tolstoy are referred to with scarcely less familiarity than Motzu, Yang Chu or Hsu Ch'ing. Probably nowhere else in the world would John Dewey and Bertrand Russel have been givena larger welcome or a more eager hearing than that accorded by the Chinese students. The college libraries and reading rooms are continually occupied, and more than live hundred student magazines, touching on every subject under the sun, havesprung up almost overnight. China is experiencinga true Rennaissanee. , While the old scholars dared to question nothing, those of the present leave nothing go unquestioned. The family, the most sacred institution in all Chinese life, is held up and examined just as fearless- ly as the questions of industry, or philosophy, or government., And we may be sure that in such an atmosphere the religions are receiving their shareof attention,-- and especially Christianity, for it is the religion of 'the West, the religion of largest present interest to China. In this examination there is not the restraint of reverence fer an established order, nor is there the tolerance which with us grows out of the gradual development of our views from childhood onward. The questions cover anything from the existence of God to the truth of the Scriptures, and often begin with a query as to the need for any religion at all. Under such scathing examination, the Church, the Scriptures, and every phase of Christianity is being tested, with, we hope, ultimately good effect. Itis interesting in this connection to see how the person of Christ stands out unscathed in the attack, and is being made the rallying point of Christians throughout the Student world,