]
CHAPTER XIV
INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA
China is as yet only slightly industrialized, but the industrial
possibilities of the country are very great, and it may be taken as
nearly certain that there will be a rapid development throughout the
next few decades. China's future depends as much upon the manner of this
development as upon any other single factor; and China's difficulties
are very largely connected with the present industrial situation. I will
therefore first briefly describe this situation, and then consider the
possibilities of the near future.
We may take railways and mines as the foundation of a nation's
industrial life. Let us therefore consider first the railways and then
the mines, before going on to other matters.
When railways were new, the Manchu Government, like the universities of
Oxford and Cambridge (which it resembled in many ways), objected to
them, and did all it could to keep them at a distance.[99] In 1875 a
short line was built by foreigners from Shanghai to Woosung, but the
Central Government was so shocked that it caused it to be destroyed. In
1881 the first permanent railway was constructed, but not very much was
accomplished until after the Japanese War of 1894-5. The Powers then
thought that China was breaking up, and entered upon a scramble for
concessions and spheres of influence. The Belgians built the important
line from Peking to Hankow; the Americans obtained a concession for a
Hankow-Canton railway, which, however, has only been constructed as far
as Changsha.
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