China, Japan and the U.S.A. Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing on the Washington Conference

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Excerpt: ...there was little preparation on my part for the spectacle afforded in Canton during the week of May 5th. This was the only demonstration I have seen in China during the last two years which gave any evidence of being a spontaneous popular movement. New Yorkers are accustomed to crowds, processions, street decorations and accompanying enthusiasm. I doubt if New York has ever seen a demonstration which surpassed that of Canton in size, noise, color or spontaneity-in spite of tropical rains. The country people flocked in in such masses, that, being unable to find accommodation even in the river boats, they kept up a parade all night. Guilds and localities which were not able to get a place in the regular procession organized minor ones on their own account on the day before and after the official demonstration. Making all possible allowance for the intensity of Cantonese local loyalty and the fact that they might be celebrating a Cantonese affair rather than a principle, the scene was sufficiently impressive to revise one's preconceived ideas and to make one try to find out what it is that gives the southern movement its vitality. A demonstration may be popular and still be superficial in significance. However one found foreigners on the ground-at least Americans-saying that in the last few months the men in power in Canton were the only officials in China who were actually doing something for the people instead of filling their own pockets and magnifying their personal power. Even the northern newspapers had not entirely omitted reference to the suppression of licensed gambling. On the spot one learned that this suppression was not only genuine and thorough, but that it meant a renunciation of an annual revenue of nearly ten million dollars on the part of a government whose chief difficulty is financial, and where-apart from motives of personal squeeze-it would have been easy to argue that at least temporarily the end justified the means...