The Chinese
would not have had the energy to starve the Viennese, or the
philanthropy to keep some of them alive. While I was in China, millions
were dying of famine; men sold their children into slavery for a few
dollars, and killed them if this sum was unobtainable. Much was done by
white men to relieve the famine, but very little by the Chinese, and
that little vitiated by corruption. It must be said, however, that the
efforts of the white men were more effective in soothing their own
consciences than in helping the Chinese. So long as the present
birth-rate and the present methods of agriculture persist, famines are
bound to occur periodically; and those whom philanthropy keeps alive
through one famine are only too likely to perish in the next.
Famines in China can be permanently cured only by better methods of
agriculture combined with emigration or birth-control on a large scale.
Educated Chinese realize this, and it makes them indifferent to efforts
to keep the present victims alive. A great deal of Chinese callousness
has a similar explanation, and is due to perception of the vastness of
the problems involved. But there remains a residue which cannot be so
explained. If a dog is run over by an automobile and seriously hurt,
nine out of ten passers-by will stop to laugh at the poor brute's howls.
The spectacle of suffering does not of itself rouse any sympathetic pain
in the average Chinaman; in fact, he seems to find it mildly agreeable.
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