This aversion to debt, perhaps, accounts
for the fact that these four hundred millions of people had not a
penny of national debt until four years ago. But they have just
made a loan of $12,000,000, I believe, the first ever made by
China in all its thousands of years' history. This may be taken,
perhaps, as another proof that the empire is influenced by Western
ideas, but one cannot help regretting that her long reign of
freedom from debt should at last be stained, even for so paltry an
amount. If I were a Chinese statesman, I would never rest until
the last farthing of this debt was paid off. The fashion nowadays
in America is to urge that it is paying off its debt much too
fast. I am sorry for this. What an example to all lands we shall
give when the last bond of the nation is cancelled at Washington
amid public rejoicings! A republic's part is to give less advanced
nations, still under the influence of feudal institutions, such
lessons as this will be. Do not let us, however, underrate
England's part in. such a work. She has reduced her public debt
wonderfully, and the next twenty years is to see seventy millions
sterling more extinguished, unless legislation now existing for
this end is interfered with.
The general government of China is a very economical one, its
total revenue being only about $125,000,000 (L25,000,000).
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