Early in the scheme which made for the nationalisation of the railroads it was seen that Szechuen would not pull with the other provinces--Hunan was another. It was one of the unaccountable phenomena of the times in several of the central provinces of China that the gentry and the _literati_ were impressed in a manner the reverse of satisfactory over the loaning of money by the Powers to China. Several places had been on the verge of a revolt as a result of the Government's decision, and in some places there was a marked dislike to the Imperial methods of opening up the country. The first thing that impresses the observer of social conditions in China to-day is the magnitude of the industrial forces that are everywhere at work--the man who does not work finds little to eat. In seven-eighths of this enormous Empire the bulk of the country's work is performed by the energies of human beings and beasts of burden. China--that is, the common people of the country--has not learned the lesson of harnessing to the chariot of industrial progress one of the great natural forces, and they are taught from the cradle to believe that when once a labour-saving machine is introduced, that exact number of people whose combined work is accomplished by the machine will commence to starve. The ordinary Chinese looks out of {239} his almond-shaped eyes, but does not see wherein lies the wealth of the land. That the United States of America increased its mechanical horse-power from two million in 1870 to roughly twelve million in 1900, and has enjoyed greater wealth with its increase--and that his own country could do the same, mattered not to the ordinary Chinese. He argues in a very elementary manner. He has so many mouths to feed; there is so much work to be done; when all the work that there is to be done is done by hand labour, even then there are thousands of mouths that cannot be filled, and if labour-saving machinery is introduced, what will become of the millions who will be thrown out of employment? So argues the ordinary Chinese, and for fear of making matters worse than they are, he votes plump against the introduction of foreign machinery. This was the spirit of the proletariat towards the opening of the country by railway lines. But the change was bound to come, and although the people of Szechuen showed plainly that they intended tooth and nail to fight against this that they little understood, the Government seemed to show most strongly that it intended to push the building of the lines. The question was, of course, of thrilling interest to China as a nation, and of vital importance to the whole of the East and the West. In former times the people themselves had had the opportunity to build their own railways, the same as private companies did in Europe and America. They stolidly refused, they believed such an innovation of the devil to be directly against the welfare of the country. For