The Awakening of Asia
by Henry Mayers Hyndman (9781458859921)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III CHINA IN THE PAST Although no accurate census has ever been taken of China, the generally accepted estimate is that there are fully 350,000,000 people in the Chinese Empire as now delimited. This appears to be correct, even after taking account of the annexations of Chinese territory by France in Cochin China and Tonquin, by Russia in Manchuria and Mongolia, and by Japan in Korea, the Liaotung Peninsula and Formosa. Such an enormous population has never before been gathered together under one rule in the history of the world, and its numbers are believed to be steadily increasing. Though the inhabitants of many of the Provinces cannot understand one another's speech, the written language is the same all over the Empire. As the communications between the most populous districts are being rapidly improved and general education is spreading, it is quite probable that, within fifty years from the present date, there will be as little difference between the districts of Northern and Southern, or Eastern and Western China as there is between the talk of ordinary Yorkshiremen and that of the agricultural labourers of Devonshire and Somersetshire. The Chinese, though devoted to their local autonomy, as members of this or that province, have a clear conception of the unity of their race. They have fully recognised for centuries, and even for thousands of years, that they all belong to the same great Empire. Their "Brotherhood of the Four Seas" is a very ancient formula of theirnational aspirations. Though no more than ideal to-day, it is still cherished almost unconsciously in the hearts and minds of the people. This ideal, therefore, may quite conceivably be realised, as the patriotism of common race and common nationality is aroused, either by pressure from without o...

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