But this does not belong to
contemporary politics; it is possibly an affair of the Chinese
army of 1925 or 1935. Some day China will fight for Manchuria, if
it is impossible to recover it in any other way,--nobody need
doubt that. For Manchuria is absolutely Chinese--people must
remember. No matter how far the town-dwelling Japanese may invade
the country during the next two or three decades, no matter what
large alien garrisons may be planted there, the Chinese must and
will remain the dominant racial element, since their population
which already numbers twenty-five millions is growing at the rate
of half a million a year, and in a few decades will equal the
population of a first-class European Power.
When we reach Group III we touch matters that are not only
immediately vital but quite new in their type of audacity and
which every one can to-day understand since they are politico-
industrial. Group III, as it stands in the original text, is
SIMPLY THE PLAN FOR THE CONQUEST OF THE MINERAL WEALTH OF THE
YANGTSZE VALLEY which mainly centres round Hankow because the vast
alluvial plains of the lower reaches of this greatest of rivers
were once the floor of the Yellow Sea, the upper provinces of
Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi being the region of prehistoric forests
clothing the coasts, which once looked down upon the slowly-
receding waste of waters, and which to-day contain all the coal
and iron.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134