China and the West

Baring, Maurice. With the Russians in Manchuria [ID D32572]. (1) [Auszüge].
The next thing I remember was being wakened at sunrise by a furious scuffle. A party of Chinese coolies — for all I knew then they may have been mandarins or yamen — had invaded the train. They were drunk, and spat and slobbered, and the soldiers with one voice cried, "Get out, Chinese."…
At Manchuria Station the commercial gentleman, who had regarded correspondents with suspicion, informed me that it was very doubtful if we should be allowed to cross the frontier into Manchuria…
The journey to Kharbin passed off without any incident. Some excitement was caused by the announcement that a band of Hun-hutzes had been seen, and that they might very likely attack the train. This, however, did not occur; but a whole crowd of Chinese officers boarded the train at one station and filled up the spare seats, especially the top-seats, from whence they spat, without ceasing, on the occupants of the lower seats, much to the annoyance of a French lady, who remarked that '' les chinois sont impossibles." From Manchuria Station to Kharbin the journey lasted three nights and two days. I arrived at Kharbin on the 18th May after a journey of seventeen days from St Petersburg…

Kharbin and Mukden [Harbin (Heilongjiang) and Shenyang (Liaoning)].
From the conversation of some of my fellow-travellers from Manchuria Station I had obtained the impression that Kharbin resembled one of those huge American cities that grow up in a night. I pictured to myself a town somewhat like Vienna, with asphalt pavement and electric light. On arriving all that I saw before me from the station was a sea of mud, deep, thick swamps which did duty for roads, a few houses in the distance, and a certain amount of scaffolding. There were no Vehicles to be got, except a Chinese peasant's cart, which consists of a large board and huge solid wheels like the carriages pictured in "prehistoric peeps." Later on, after driving round the town to find rooms in a hotel, it became evident that on the whole Kharbin is a large place ; the town proper, the old town, which is called Pristan, is three miles away from the station ; the new town consists of government offices, a church, a hotel and some hospitals, and the Russo-Chinese Bank. That was true then ; but now all is changed. You arrive at a gigantic station built in the art-nauveau style, which has spread like a disease from Germany over the whole of Russia. The old station has been converted into a hospital. In front of the station is a spacious boulevard leading to the bank, and you have at once the impression that you are in town. When I arrived in May I felt that I had come to the house on the marsh. I eventually found rooms in the Hotel Oriant, which I think must be the most expensive hotel in the world; it is kept by two ex-convicts, with squinting eyes and a criminal expression ; and the prices of food and lodging were exalted beyond dreams of Ritz.
The bedroom was damp and dirty, and cost 15s. a day, without the bed. I have with me now a bill for a small supper, which, for two people, amounted to 72 roubles. The population of Kharbin consists almost entirely of ex-convicts and Chinamen. This fact did not surprise me, and I agreed with a Frenchman who said to me, "On a raison de dire qu'il faut avour tué père et mere pour venir vivre dans un tel pays."
The cab drivers were all ex-convicts, and fearful tales were told one of how, if dissatisfied with their fares, they merely killed you and threw your body into the street. On the return home an officer told me how a cabman driving him home had thanked him for driving with him, and when the officer asked why, had explained that the presence of an officer was a guarantee of safety, and that the night before he had been set upon by two thieves who had beaten him till he gave up all his money, warning him that if he screamed he would be stabbed. They had then proceeded to strip him, and finding a watch concealed in his sock they had beaten him again. The authority of the police in Kharbin seems to be non-existent.
Kharbin is now called the Chicago of the East. This is not a compliment to Chicago. I only stayed there a week on the way out, and not at all on the return journey; but from accounts I heard it is now a changed city, full of Greeks, who do an enormous trade, and theatres and
music-halls. It was the Cape Town of the war. When we arrived at Kharbin we were told that it was impossible to go any further; that the correspondents at Mukden were on the point of returning, and that Admiral Alexieff himself was expected. This was a fact. I was told that the plan of campaign was a general retreat to Kharbin, which was to become the headquarters of General Kouropatkin, and that he would not advance thence until he had what he considered to be a sufficient number of troops.
A week later a meeting took place between General Kouropatkin and the Viceroy at Mukden, and whether or not it was the result of this interview the forward movement south was begun which ended in the battle of Wa-fan-go.
Among business men whom I met» there was a certain feeling of relief that the war had broken out, that the uneasiness and suspense had been put an end to, and that the matter would be settled one way or another. They criticised, however, the manner in which the negotiations had been carried on most violently. One man said to me if you carry on negotiations in such a manner you should have 100,000 men ready to back you up, whereas in the whole of Manchuria, when the war broke out, there were not more than 60,000 men." It appeared that after the battle of the Yalu General Mischenko had only eighteen sotnias, and there were only a few regiments of infantry at Liaoyang.
In fact, the Japanese might have marched to Mukden and taken it without risk and without loss. That they did not do so is, I suppose, to be attributed to the fact that they thought they would capture the whole of the Russian army at Liaoyang, and had made their plans accordingly, and considered consequently that the more troops the Russians poured into Manchuria the better.
After staying a week in this depressing centre I travelled to Mukden in great luxury owing to the courtesy of General Holodovsky, who gave me a place in a first-class carriage, which was reserved for him. He was a charming and cultivated man, with a passion for out-of-door sports and oriental china. He was also responsible for the admirable fortifications which were constructed at Liaoyang, and further south between Liaoyang and Ta-shi-chiao. It only took a day and two nights to reach Mukden. On arriving at Mukden one is aware that one has left the Western world ifar behind one ; Kharbin is a great modern abortion ; Mukden is an oriental masterpiece. It is said to resemble Pekin on a smaller scale, to be a miniature Pekin. It is a large square town surrounded by an extremely thick dilapidated wall, round which you can walk. Inside it are masses of closely-packed one-storied houses divided up into innumerable small alleys, and intersected by two or three main streets, in which the shops riot in an extravagance of oriental sign-posts ; huge blue and red boots, bespangled with gold stars, hanging in front of the bootmakers, golden and vari-coloured shields and banners hanging in front of other shops ; theatres, each with a great clanging gong sounding incessantly to attract the passer-by; add to all this, the sunshine, the brilliant colouring of the people's clothes, the "tinkling temple bells and the spicy garlic smells," and even if you have never been further than Mukden, when you return to the damp and drizzle of London, the wet pavements, the rawness, the fog, and the half-light, you will hear the East calling — "you will long for the day and the dust and the ecstasy."
The palace, which is deserted and yet contains a collection of priceless art-treasures, jewels and china and embroidery and delicately illuminated MSS. locked up in mouldering cupboards, is exquisitely beautiful. Its courtyards are carpeted with luxuriant grass, its fantastic, dilapidated wooden walls, carven, painted and twisted into strange shapes such as you see on an oriental vase. The planks are rotten and mouldering, the walls eaten with rain and damp ; and one thanks Heaven that it is so, that nothing has been restored. Nothing lives for ever ; is it not then better that the shapes and buildings whose transitory existence delights the eyes of mortals be left in their beauty, left to live and grow ever more beautiful as they decay in obedience to the gradual change of time than to suffer the affront and the mutilation of man's brutal and hideous rejuvenating process ?
Mukden reminded me of Hans Andersen's fairy tales: its buildings and its inhabitants, the shops, the temples, the itinerant vendors in the street, the sounding gongs, the grotesque signs and quaint fantastic images, seem to belong to the realm of childish troUdom. Here it was, one feels, that the Emperor of China, of whom Andersen tells, sat and sighed for the song of the nightingale, when his artificial, metallic singing-bird suddenly snapped and ceased to sing. Still more enchanting in the same order of things are the tombs of Pai-ling and Pu-ling : here the delicate, gorgeous-coloured, and fantastic buildings which protect the remains of the Manchurian dynasty are approached by wild wood-ways, paths of soft grass and alleys of aromatic and slumber-scented trees.
The high, quaint towers and ramparts which surround the tombs — in China all the houses are of one story, and the sacred monuments are high, for the reason that the Chinese say that only spirits can live in high buildings — are in the same state of semi-dilapidation ; the brilliant colours are half-faded, the stairways are rotten, and overgrown with moss and grass. Here one feels that in some secluded attic at the top of a creaking stair, among the cobwebs and the dust and the starved wild flowers, surely here the sleeping beauty of the wood is slumbering, obstinately slumbering, lest she awake to hear the noise of shrapnel, and to see to what base use men can employ their energy and their ingenuity.
After I had stayed a week in General Holodovsky's railway carriage, daily apologising for so protracted a visit, I moved into the town, to the Der-lung-djen, which means the inn of the dragon. It consisted of a spacious courtyard, full of horses, surrounded by a low storied series of rooms, right against the southern wall of the town, and close to the southern gate. Here I engaged a Chinese boy and a mafoo (groom), and lived for sixteen days. Several of the war correspondents lived there also, and it would have been a period of delicious ease had one not been aware that exciting events were happening just out of one's reach, and had we not been tormented by the desire to be there also. My first impressions of the Chinese consisted of respect mingled with wonder at their extraordinary dexterity, cleverness, and competence. My Chinese boy informed me, after he had been with me a day, that I ought to raise his wages, since he came from Canton, and was therefore clean, whereas he said "Chinese man dirty." His name was Afoo ; he spoke Pidgin- Russian. I saw from the first that he thought the idea of going further south to Liaoyang or anywhere near the front was silly. The Chinaman is essentially a man of peace. War he considers the greatest folly under the sun. A soldier — that is to say, a fighting man — is to him the scum of the earth. (The Duke of Wellington made the same remark about the rank-and-file of the British army.) To fight is to be guilty in his eyes of the worst form of vulgarity. It is no wonder, then, that, when he heard I was intending to go to Liaoyang, he remarked that his father was ill at Kharbin, and his wife not so well as might be expected at Tientsin, and asked leave to visit them, which I refused. He was clever, but casual ; capable, but obstinate ; and urbane without being rude. One day I told him he was stupid. "Of course" he answered, "I am stupid. If I were not stupid I should not be your servant, but a mandarin."
I have certainly never at any period of my life been so well looked after, nor had my needs ministered to, my unspoken wants guessed, and my habits divined so well as during these peaceful days at the Der-lung-djen by Afoo. It was when the correspondents gave a dinner-party that the Chinese boys displayed their talents. Then all their pride came out; their desire to show they were better and more capable than the servants of our guests ; then their quickness, agility, and dexterity were manifest in their highest degree.
The question which one is at once asked is, what was the attitude of the Chinese towards the Russians and towards the war ? Their attitude towards the war was simple enough, but their dealings with the Russians and what they felt about them is, I think, a more complicated question.
When I arrived at Mukden the population there was deriving great profit from the war. They were selling corn and carts and every conceivable commodity to the Russians at fancy prices. The educated Chinese used to tell me that it was neither the Russians nor the Japanese thatthey feared, but the possible breaking loose of the Chinese army.
The situation was, therefore, as if Scotland had been occupied by France and invaded by Germany, and the Scotch people were vaguely hostile to the French and guardedly friendly to the Germans, but quaking with terror at the thought of Glasgow and Edinburgh being looted by the Scots Guards.
The Russians have behaved as cleverly in theory as one can behave to the Chinese, and yet the result has not been altogether successful. I will try and point out why.
The Russians have in no way interfered with the internal justice or administration of China. Chinese justice pursues its uncompromising course. It is not more unjust than occidental justice, but it is different. Its object is to punish crime. As all oriental races, the Chinese are indifferent to death and impervious to the minor forms of legal torture, such as mere flogging. The law, therefore, is necessarily severe, and less sentimental than ours. They have a rule, that for every crime which is brought to the notice of the law a criminal must perish, or someone must perish — one crime, one criminal ; one criminal, one head off somewhere. If the criminal chooses, however, he can procure an understudy, who suffers in his stead.
''The difficulty is to find
A trusty friend who will not mind.''
It is not as a matter of fact very difficult, and can be done if you are willing to spend a little money.
It is impossible for a Chinaman to be condemned to death unless he confesses that he is guilty of the crime of which he is accused, and the accused is tortured daily — there are many exceptions and grounds of mitigation — until he confesses, then his head is cut off. The advantage of this system is that a thing like the Dreyfus case, which dismembers and convulses a whole nation, is impossible, and the main object is achieved. The Chinese have recognised the fact that ideal justice is impossible, that it is very difficult to lay hands on the true offender, that human things are so complicated that to apportion the right measure of blame is a task too high for man, and that since things are so, and crime must be repressed, crime itself must be punished, and it is. The only competent judges of the question, i.e. men who have devoted their lives to the study of Chinese institutions, say that Chinese law is better adapted to ensure the punishment of a greater number of guilty persons than the English law; and that although innocent men may be occasionally punished (a case which sometimes occurs in Europe also), the well-being of the mass is better preserved than by a system in which sentiment plays a larger part.
Again, the Chinese penal code has been characterised as being remarkable for the conciseness and simplicity of its style, its businesslikeness and absence of verbiage.
Another good point is that the judge, if not influenced by bribery, may endeavour to give a common-sense verdict; he is not bound by precedents, and he can overrule the custom if he sees his way to a reasonable course of action. To try and make the Chinese adopt occidental methods — to give them the benefit of the Code Napoleon, or the beautifully simple system of English or Scotch law, would be disastrous. This the Russians have recognised. They have grasped the great fact that nobody can govern the Chinese but the Chinese, and have acted upon it.
Secondly, they have absolutely forbidden all religious propaganda.
There is nothing but praise to be said on the subject of our missionaries at Mukden or Liaoyang : they are men for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration ; men who, this winter, have done great and admirable work among the refugees driven to Mukden from their devastated homes. But treating the question in the abstract the Chinese cannot fail to appreciate facts such as the German occupation of Kiaw-chaw; they must have learnt by now that the missionary is the first step in a sequence of things, the ultimate stages of which are gunboat, concession and occupation ; and it may be doubted whether it is not rather presumptuous on our part to try and convert the Chinese, for are we so sure that the life led as the result of our methods, our morality, and our religion, is superior to theirs ? However that may be, I think one can safely say that if you wish to get on well with the Chinese the less you try to convert them the better, and the Russians have never made the slightest effort in that direction.
Thirdly, the Russians have no racial antipathy to the yellow race. The Russian soldiers and the Chinese fraternise as people belonging to the same race and the same class, and not only the soldiers, but the officers treat the Chinese lower classes, and let themselves be treated, with great and good-natured familiarity. This seems to me to account for the success of the Russians in getting on with the Chinese, and for their failure in making themselves respected.
The main facts about the Chinese in Manchuria are, firstly, that they are hostile to any foreign occupation, and that they regard Russian-man, English-man, German-man as one and the same — namely, robber-man or Hun-hutze. That is the principal point, the rest is merely a question of detail. To the Japanese they are, and will be, favourable according to how far they consider they will be successful in turning the Russians out of Manchuria, but I do not fancy they would like a Japanese occupation, and during the Chinese War the Japanese although they behaved better than the Europeans because their troops were better disciplined, were nevertheless unflinchingly severe towards the Chinese.
Secondly, the situation has been altered by the change in the circumstances by the fact that occupation in times of peace and occupation in times of war are two separate things.
On the whole the Russians treat the Chinese exceedingly well. Russian soldiers who rob or molest the Chinese are treated with extreme severity. A soldier who is convicted of twice having robbed a Chinaman can be hanged. It is said that the familiarity with which the Russians treat the Chinese lowers their prestige. This is no doubt true, but does not seem to me to be of great importance. Mr Whigham, in his book on Manchuria, says that no one will persuade him the Chinaman prefers justice to sympathy or likes to be pushed off the pavement into the middle of the road. The situation is now different owing to the fact of the war. The war is, to say the least of it, a nuisance to the Chinese, and the Russians are the outward and visible sign of the war.
Considering the fact that the Chinese are hostile to the Russians in the war question, it seems to me marvellous that so few cases of friction occurred. I imagine this is due to the extraordinary cleverness and supple adaptability of the Chinese to the circumstances. I was buying a shirt one day in Liaoyang, a thin silk shirt such as the Russians all wore in the summer. The shop-keeper thought at first I was a Russian soldier, and patted me on the back and said, "Shang-ho hodjia,'' which means good old fellow. I then said I was an Englishman, upon which his manner became deferential, and he said, ''Englishman good man, Russian man bad man''.
The missionaries tell me, and I have frequently repeated the argument as if it was my own idea, that what the Chinese object to is not the familiar treatment they experience at the hands of the Russians, but the inconsistency of the treatment. That they are arm-in-arm with them at one moment and kick them the next.
But if this is true of the Russians it is equally true of the English, and it comes about in this way. I have seen this occur also over and over again. The Englishman is treating the Chinaman with what he thinks, and with what is, perfect fairness and friendliness. The Chinaman suddenly ex-asperates him beyond all endurance, and then the Englishman kicks him. The net result of this is that the Englishman kicks the Chinaman if he is angry, and does not ever go arm-in-arm with him. The Russian goes arm-in-arm with the Chinaman, and does not kick him if he is angry, but only if he is drunk ; and if he, drunk or sober, maltreats a Chinaman he is liable to be hanged.
The result ought to be that the Chinaman should respect the Englishman more and like the Russians better. This would be true in times of peace, but it is the Russians and not the English who are making war in China.
It must be remembered that, unless you have spent all your life in China, it is difficult to treat the Chinese consistently owing to the fact that they are certain at some time or other to exasperate you to madness.
The Russians consider our treatment of the Chinese brutal, and it is true that I only once saw a Russian kick a Chinaman, and he, the Russian, was drunk. I was, on the other hand, constantly amazed at the way in which the soldiers allowed themselves to be positively bullied at times by the Chinese. The truth of the matter is that the Russians get on perfectly well with the Chinese — whether the Chinese respect them more or less than Englishmen or others is neither here nor there — but no amount of getting on well will compensate for the fact that the Russians are not only occupying their country but making war in it. Therefore the question of treatment has become a question of detail sunk in the larger fact of the war. I think the Russians have often been inconsistent in their treatment of the Chinese, or rather that this inconsistency is carried further in their case owing to the fact of the war, and the Chinese, being an element of that fact, the Russians have, I think, often behaved far too leniently to the Chinese when these have shown themselves openly hostile to them and then exasperated at the result they suddenly adopt a severer method which affects the innocent rather than the guilty. Whenever I saw a Chinaman arrested for complicity with the Japanese or the Hun-hutzes he invariably escaped. The matter can be briefly summed up as follows : — The Chinaman has no inborn hatred of the stranger, but detests the foreign occupation and foreigners who come with a purpose, such as to obtain concessions or other things, which they know in the long run mean occupation. The Russians get on well with the Chinese, who accepted their rule, which was easy and light, quietly and cheerfully in times of peace ; but now that they are the outward and visible manifestation not only of occupation, but of war and all its horrors, they wish them at Jericho. It is very difficult to get the Chinese to express an outspoken opinion on such things. One Chinaman told me he considered all the foreigners who infested Manchuria — including the Japanese — as robber-men. The Chinese suffer also greatly at the hands of the interpreters who have taken service with the Russians. These men are rascals of the lowest form. They extort money from the wretched peasants under the threat of denouncing them as Hun-hutzes, and I have no doubt that they frequently betray the Russians whenever an occasion occurs. I saw one of these men who returned to Mukden from Liaoyang after the Japanese occupation of that city. He was asked by an officer what was going on at Liaoyang. "The Japanese," he replied, "have burnt most of the houses."
"What Japanese general is in command ?" asked the officer. "His name in Chinese is the following," he replied, saying a long and unpronounceable concatenation of syllables. Now, if his name had been Nodzu or Oku, it would have been the same in Chinese. He merely wished not to say. There was one interpreter who was attached to the battery with whom I subsequently lived, named Mishka, whom I could not help liking. I have no doubt he was a scoundrel, but a sympathetic scoundrel. One day he led two Cossacks into temptation, and took them to a place where they drank and looted.
He was told on the morrow that he must be beaten, and was given the choice of being sent to the Chinese magistrate or being beaten by a Cossack. He said he would rather neither course were adopted. When he was told that it was absolutely necessary he chose to be punished by the Cossack.
For a week afterwards he avoided the officers and would not come near the colonel. At last, on being asked the reason, he said : "My ashamed" (moia stidno). The Chinese peasants showed extraordinary patience in the manner in which they bore the deprivations and sufferings which were the result of the war. These sufferings were very great, especially in the villages south of Mukden, which are now all deserted, the inhabitants having filed to the town. While a fight was actually going on the Chinaman used generally to dig a hole in the ground — a small catacomb — and thatch it with kowliang, and there conceal himself with his wife and his family until the fight was over, creeping out every now and then to make tea. The interpreters who followed the troops were perfectly used to the firing, and did not care a fig. They were tough individuals, and I saw one — he was quite small — give a big Cossack a tremendous thrashing. I am convinced that if the Chinese were organised, and ceased to think fighting vulgar, they would make excellent troops.
While I was at Mukden I had an interview with the Chinese Viceroy, and conversed with him through an interpreter. He refused to express any definite opinion, even on the subject of the weather.
When asked if the war would last long he replied, "War is an expensive business."
The day after my visit to the Viceroy, I and Mr de Jessen, a Danish correspondent, were invited to luncheon at the Chinese Foreign Office.
In deference to the European guests the meal was semi- European. It began with tea» and then there followed about seventeen courses, consisting of small dishes of meat, each one almost exactly like the other. There came a moment when I refused a dish ; the meal then immediately ceased. It was evidently managed on the plan of feeding your guests till they showed signs of disinclination for food, and then stopping. On the following day the mandarins who had been present left cards in the morning to say they were coming to see us, and arrived in the afternoon and paid an elaborate visit.
On the whole the impression one gathered from the Chinese was that they had accepted the war, as they accept everything else, in a philosophical spirit, and were resolved to make the best of it by letting no occasion slip of making some profit.
As to the question of the "yellow peril" I certainly would not be so rash as to make any prophecy. The question is, I suppose, will the Chinese ever adopt Western methods, as the Japanese have done, in order to drive foreigners from their country and to assume a leading and threatening part in the affairs of the world.
In order to do this they would have to cease being what they are at present They would have to become "patriots" in the sense of organising themselves into a competitive machine.
Philosophically the Chinaman is an individualist in that he prizes the quality of the individual life lived more dearly than the place of his country in the arena of nations ; but practically the individual does not exist in China.
The unit of society in China is not the individual but the family; the members of the family are fractions of the whole; a family is responsible for the good behaviour of its members,* a neighbourhood for its inhabitants, and an official for those whom he governs; the conservation, preservation, and perpetuation of the family are the aims of human society. The Chinaman, therefore, is a patriarchalist, and his aim is peace.
Nevertheless the victory of the Japanese over European troops may very likely produce a change of some kind Monsieur Anatole France, in his latest book, wittily says that what we have to fear from the yellow peril is nothing in comparison with what the Chinese have to fear from the " white peril," and that so far the Chinese have not yet looted the Louvre, nor has a Chinese fleet bombarded Cherbourg. I should say that the yellow peril will depend for its reality and extent entirely on this: how seriously the Chinese will consider the " white peril" to be? and how obnoxious will Europeans make themselves to the Chinese ? If the Europeans appear to them to step over the limit of what is bearable, they will take measures accordingly.
But the war has introduced a new and serious factor into the case. The Chinese have now realised that so far from the white races being invincible owing to their guns, their engines, and all the attributes of their superior civilisation, they can be thoroughly well beaten by yellow men who use the implements of the white race with far greater effect and skill than they do themselves.
There is also in China a Young Chinese party which is all for reform and for following the example of the Japanese. The British encourage this party and imagine that such a reconstruction would be of great advantage to Europeans and especially to the British ; not long ago one of the newspapers wrote an article called "The Arming of China" and " increase of British Prestige," making these statements as if the second part was the logical result of the first One of the most competent observers of Chinese affairs told me that he considered this point of view to be erroneous. " There are," he said, "two anti-foreign parties in China, the Boxers and the Young Chinese party, but both are agpreed as to one fundamental tenet, and that is "China for the Chinese." Should the Young Chinese party be ever successful in getting the upper hand and enforcing reforms, so far from there being any increase of British prestige there would be a universal tendency to kick every foreigner out of China, after having previously cut off their noses, and then the Chinese would return to their own avocations." But," he added, "it is a very difficult matter to force such an idea into a British head, because the British think that reform must necessarily be accompanied by enlightened and generous ideas such as the partition of China and the exploitation of its wealth by the British, open doors and a parliament, a habeas corpus act and concessions. "But believe me," he said finally, "Chinese reform means the end of all European prestige. If China is ever powerful in the way that Japan is, the Chinese will make very little difference between the British, the Germans, the Belgians, and the Hun-hutzes."
People say airily "the Chinese are so backward, poor things " ; my advice to such people is to go and see. They will find that the Chinese arrived at a certain level of civilisation centuries ago and remained there, because they saw nothing in the progress of other countries which tempted them to imitate it They anticipated our so-called civilisation and deliberately discarded it, since they did not consider that it would tend to greater happiness in the long run.
They are not ambitious and they are satisfied with a little. To them the important thing is not the quantity of things achieved in life, but the quality of the life lived. They are not in a hurry ; for that reason they fail to see why a motor-car is a better vehicle than a rickshaw, because if no one is in a hurry, there is no disadvantage in proceeding in a leisurely fashion.
They see us spending our whole lives in hurrying after something, in aiming at being somebody, in kicking others aside in order to get somewhere. They continue the game for the sake of the game and not for the sake of winning any concrete prize. They are honest and hard-working, cultivated, intelligent, good - mannered, and good-tempered. They hate fighting, brawling, noise of all kinds, drunkenness and bad manners. Are they so very backward ?