as in Seoul, Korea, the men plaintively sat around for hours.
In Cairo, a certain hotel charged me on the supposition that
because I was an American, I was a millionaire or a fool--perhaps
both. True, we have hack-drivers and hotel-keepers in
America who are equally rapacious, and a New Yorker in particular
need not go away from home to be overcharged. But
it is just because we have become so accustomed to this careless
profusion at home that we exhibit it abroad.

But it is useless to protest against the increased cost of living
in Asia. It is as much beyond individual control as the tides.
The causes which are producing it are not even national but
cosmopolitan.

Nor should we ignore the fact that this movement is, in
some respects at least, beneficial. It means a higher and
broader scale of life and such a life always costs more than a
low and narrow one. This economic revolution in Asia is a
concomitant of a Christian civilization which brings not only
higher prices but wider intellectual and spiritual horizons, a
general enlarging and uplifting of the whole range of life.
There are indeed some vicious influences accompanying this
movement, as brighter lights usually have deeper shadows.

But surely it is for good and not for evil that the farmers of
Hunan can now ship their peanuts to England and with the
proceeds vary the eternal monotony of a rice-diet; that the
girls of Siam are being taught by missionary example that
modesty requires the purchase of a garment for street wear
which will cover at least the breasts; that the Korean should