cial people becomes accustomed to railways and gets to moving
freely upon them, stupendous things are likely to happen,
both for China and for the world.

And so the foreign syndicates relentlessly continue the work
of railway-construction. Trade cannot be checked. It advances
by an inherent energy which it is futile to ignore. And
it ought to advance for the result will inevitably be to the advantage
of China. A locomotive brings intellectual and physical
benefits, the appliances which mitigate the poverty and
barrenness of existence and increase the ability to provide for
the necessities and the comforts of life. In one of our great
locomotive works in America I once saw twelve engines in construction
for China, and my imagination kindled as I thought
what a locomotive means amid that stagnant swarm of humanity,
how impossible it is that any village through which it has
once run should continue to be what it was before, how its
whistle puts to flight a whole brood of hoary superstitions and
summons a long-slumbering people to new life. We need regret
only that these benefits are so often accompanied by the
evils which disgrace our civilization.




PART III

The Political Force and the National
Protest