Many quote against the Chinese the familiar lines-- ``----for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar.'' But whoever reads the whole poem will see the force of the London Spectator's opinion that it is a ``satire of the American selfishness which is the main strength of the cry against the cheap labour of the Chinese,'' and that ``it would not be easy for a moderately intelligent man to avoid seeing that Mr. Bret Harte wished to delineate the Chinese simply as beating the Yankee at his own evil game, and to delineate the Yankee as not at all disposed to take offense at the ``cheap labour'' of his Oriental rival, until he discovered that he could not cheat the cheap labourer half so completely as the cheap labourer could cheat him.'' It is common for people to praise the Japanese and to sneer at the Chinese. All honour to the Japanese for their splendid achievements. With marvellous celerity they have adopted many modern ideas and inventions. They are worthy of the respect they receive. But those who have made a close study of both peoples unhesitatingly assert that the Chinese have more solid elements of permanence and power. The Japanese have the quickness, the enthusiasm, the intelligence of the French; but the Chinese unite to equal intelligence the plodding persistence of the Germans, and the old fable of the tortoise and the hare is as true of nations as it is of individuals. Unquestionably, the Chinese are the most virile race in Asia ``Wherever a Chinese can get a foot of ground and a quart of water he will make something grow.'' Colquhoun quotes Richthofen as saying that ``among the various races of mankind, the Chinese is the only one which in all climates, the hottest and the coldest, is capable of great and lasting activity.'' And he states as his own opinion: ``She has all the elements to build up a great living force. One thing alone is wanted-- the will, the directing power. That supplied, there are to be found in abundance in China the capacity to carry out, the brains to plan, the hands to work.'' IV A TYPICAL PROVINCE