It is often assumed that when China becomes aroused to the need of equipping herself with the tools and technique of America and Europe, there will be a great and rapid industrial and commercial advance comparable with that of England, Germany, and the United States during the last century. Her supposed untold wealth, in uvast resources” of raw materials and man power, when organized, is to produce, we are told, both the fiercest industrial competition the world has ever seen and the greatest potential market. The Industrial Revolution of the West, it is forebodingly asserted, is only the curtain-raiser for the vaster drama of the twentieth century to be played in Asia, where “the stage seems set for catastrophe.”
