Confucius, I understand,
says nothing about iron mines;[107] therefore the old-fashioned Chinese
did not realize the importance of preserving them. Now that they are
awake to the situation, it is almost too late. I shall come back later
to the question of what can be done. For the present, let us continue
our survey of facts.
It may be presumed that the population of China will always be mainly
agricultural. Tea, silk, raw cotton, grain, the soya bean, etc., are
crops in which China excels. In production of raw cotton, China is the
third country in the world, India being the first and the United States
the second. There is, of course, room for great progress in agriculture,
but industry is vital if China is to preserve her national independence,
and it is industry that is our present topic.
To quote Mr. Tyau: "At the end of 1916 the number of factory hands was
officially estimated at 560,000 and that of mine workers 406,000. Since
then no official returns for the whole country have been published ...
but perhaps a million each would be an approximate figure for the
present number of factory operatives and mine workers."[108] Of course,
the hours are very long and the wages very low; Mr. Tyau mentions as
specially modern and praiseworthy certain textile factories where the
wages range from 15 to 45 cents a day.[109] (The cent varies in value,
but is always somewhere between a farthing and a halfpenny.
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