Land and Labour in China

Abstract

PROF. TAWNEY has written an excellent review of social, economic and educational conditions in modern China, taking the land and labour on the land as his starting point and the central core of the problem of future development. His book in part is based on his own observation and in part is an analysis of recent literature, of which a considerable proportion is by Chinese authorities. The special feature and chief source of interest in Prof. Tawney's work is its grasp of the Chinese attitude of mind towards Western civilisation and the recognition that in the final solution of the conflict of West and East now proceeding, in all probability it will be anything but a mechanical adoption of the machinery of progress, which in the long run will satisfy the Chinese temperament. As Prof. Tawney indicates, where we think in years or generations, the Chinese think in hundreds and thousands of years. Hence their tolerance of conditions which another people would feel to be unendurable, but also their faith in an ultimate solution.