IV .sx In Chapter III it was briefly stated that the nation is to be the basis of the new society .sx This foundation is being laid by the training of national consciousness and the practice of national control .sx The Unions are organized bodies of opinion , which , by persistent propaganda , by their prominent share in political demonstrations , and by their close connection with government through the Ministry of Labour , may become organized national ( and nationalist ) opinion .sx Each Union as it is formed applies to the government for registration , and in labour disputes the government is regarded as the friendly arbiter .sx Thus the foundations of the new society are being laid .sx But what is being built upon them ?sx It is too soon yet to talk much of positive and permanent achievement , for good or ill :sx Nationalist and Communist still strive , and the work of the one is in danger of being pulled down by the other .sx The nation is not yet built , nor is the foundation itself secure .sx Construction is still at the experimental stage .sx It is difficult to talk of positive achievement for another , and more final , reason lack of information .sx Especially is this true of the village communities .sx Stories which find their way back to the coast have to be unusual to get here at all .sx Of the more moderate Peasants' Unions we know little .sx With regard to town life , an official survey of the local Labour Movement was published in Canton in the summer of 1927 .sx This was the work of a commission appointed by the civil government , and under the direction of Mr Y. L. Lee of the Y.M.C.A. As Canton is the home of this social revolution , as of the political revolution , its conditions are of more than local interest , and from this report we may glean some answers to our question , What is being built ?sx Is it Communism ?sx The Labour Unions of Canton are almost all affiliated with one of two federations , and only twenty-two per cent belong to the more radical one .sx Has the standard of living been raised ?sx As many of the union members are either casual labourers or engaged on piece-work at home , some unions cannot report on this matter .sx The average wage of those reporting , however , is $23 .sx 25 ( nearly two pounds ) a month .sx This means a tremendous increase .sx On the other hand , the cost of living has advanced by leaps and bounds ( the commission is instructed to enquire into this subject next ) , and twenty per cent of the union members are unemployed .sx The reasons for unemployment reported are :sx Thus , much of this unemployment is due to the same revolution which produced the rise in wages .sx Have hours been shortened ?sx Again casual labourers and piece-workers seem for the most part unaffected , and two such unions report a twenty hour day .sx On the other hand , thirty-four trades are .sx reduced to ten hours , and twenty-six to only six hours .sx Of these reductions some are caused , not by the need for leisure , but because of the little employment for many hands to share .sx Is there sound leadership ?sx This question only future history will answer , but three considerations from this report will convince you of its importance .sx First , finance .sx Take , for example , the Ricksha-men's Union .sx It has , from its levy of one copper per man per day , an income of about four thousand dollars a month , while its members are men who live on the borderline of starvation .sx Whence come committeemen who will stand against so great a temptation ?sx Then , literacy .sx Ninety-four and a half per cent of the union members cannot read even a newspaper .sx Who is to direct the growing powers of this ignorant mass ?sx Who is to shape the uninformed opinion of this mighty public ?sx Lastly , politics .sx Of union members twenty-five per cent are also members of the Nationalist Party ; and what is more , labour is the best organized section of the new community which government has to consider .sx In what direction will its influence be felt ?sx What is being built ?sx An attempt to answer that question results only in the raising of many more questions of politics and of economics , which all over the world are making members of parliaments scratch their heads , and chambers of commerce tear their hair .sx To them no construction is going on at all :sx young China is fulfilling long-established expectations , and is raising nothing but gigantic question marks !sx But this is primarily a social revolution , and , whatever the vagaries of militarists and politicians in the unknown future , whatever of financial stability or economic chaos the future may bring , the one change from which there can be no going back is this regrouping of society .sx Philosophers spend their energy discussing the complexities of modern life , and whether a more primitive form of existence is not nearer the ideal .sx But surely it is impossible to put back the clock .sx Sociologists , and some of us too humble to aspire to any such high-sounding name , occupy themselves with details of industrial change , such as conditions in the cotton mills of Shanghai .sx But this is such a small part of the whole problem .sx It is necessary to strain out gnats , and it is highly inadvisable to swallow camels , but there is one other question , not so wide as the whole issue of industrialism , nor so narrow as .sx the details of its workings here and there , which should engage the minds of Christian men who think of China :sx Is class organization going to make for the Kingdom of God or against it ?sx V .sx Whence came the plans for this rebuilding ?sx From Russia ?sx There is no doubt that Russia is responsible for much of the excesses and extremes of the Labour Movement's beginnings .sx But as a nationalist article declares , " Russia has increased , not caused , the perplexities of the situation .sx " She has contributed not only to the amazing speed of the changes , but to local variations of the scheme .sx The allies from the start .sx worked with common means but at cross purposes .sx For the scheme of the majority of nationalist leaders was not to follow the Russian plan .sx When Sun Yat Sen said , " I must awaken the masses , " were his eyes turned towards the half-starved masses of Russia , or towards the great democracies of the West ?sx Let a Chinese writer answer :sx The underlying essence of The Three People's Principles was conceived in the mind of Sun Yat Sen while he was suffering in London a somewhat misleading reference to his being kidnapped by the Chinese Legation , London , 1898 .sx At this time he made an exhaustive enquiry into European methods .sx In that case Russia was twenty years late upon the scene !sx Sun himself writes :sx My Principles are a compilation of foreign theories as arrived at in the course of world history .sx .sx .. They are in line not only with history but with the trend of events in the modern world .sx The facts are that the plans came from the West , that the new society , growing up with even greater speed than factories like ours , is meant to be a copy from , an extension of , an improvement upon , the principles of our own social system :sx a copy in that organization is that of class and class ; an extension in that national control is to be wider , and the nation more definitely the basis of life ; an improvement in that it has been introduced in time " to prevent future society from suffering the evils of extreme poverty and extreme wealth .sx " The main plan ofrebuilding came from the West .sx .. from the Christian West .sx For the old society there was the old morality , and in those days it mattered little to China how we conducted either our homes or our industries .sx For while society was based on family China was sure that " filial piety is our countrymen's peculiar virtue , to whose heights no other country can aspire " ( Sun Yat Sen) .sx But what now , when family is no longer all in all , and our own class organizations are appearing in China ?sx Change , sudden change , has meant a loss of balance :sx the old morality no longer fits and the new has not yet grown .sx A time of no morality ( or even immorality ) in social intercourse does not mean that China is " going red .sx " Ultimately the new order must attain to a new morality and the plans from the West surely include the Christian morality of the West !sx It appears very well on paper , but look at the facts :sx the facts in China , and , no less , the facts in the West .sx What do the plans from the West include ?sx A few weeks ago I was cross-examined most unexpectedly on the station platform of an obscure village .sx The young booking clerk wanted to know all about the British coal dispute and its settlement .sx And I , with the memory of the failure of Christian arbitration ( deemed the meddling of busybodies by the masters , and rejected in favour of " fight to a finish " by the men ) , could find no text for a Christian sermon .sx A man in constant touch with government officials here asked a friend of mine , just back from furlough , how many were shot down in the London streets .sx during the General Strike of 1926 .sx " Well , of course your newspapers would not be allowed to say so , " was his sceptical comment .sx Christian morality ?sx The Labour Movement is being zealously flooded with anti-Christian propaganda , and it is not all young China's blame .sx When he looks to the West , he does not see us as we are :sx he looks through a war-cloud of propaganda , he judges by the measure of the " war-mentality " that is abroad .sx But if we were a little more in line , his vision could not be quite so distorted .sx I am no economist , and I feel too ignorant of home affairs even to be a partisan , but this is how it seems to me in China :sx The foundation of the new structure , young China's nationalism , is , if not a copy , at least a caricature of our own , with all our tendencies exaggerated .sx And some of us , who came nearer to 1914 than any of young China , can hear voices from the grave which still are saying , " Patriotism is not enough .sx " Ours is a nationalism which all the holy water of Holy Church has seldom altogether sanctified .sx Similarly the new society , which is being built on this foundation :sx that too is a caricature of our own , with all its lines extended in their inevitable direction class strife more bitter than we have known , a struggle of the fittest to survive such as we have never allowed except in our philosophy .sx Our industrialism has gone for a century unbaptized .sx And our industrial society , the organization of class and class in mutual rivalry , and the spirit that exists about them , between them , and within them , arestill far distant from the consecration of the Christian Church .sx .. or of Him who was Himself a working man , from the farming district of Galilee .sx This is the plan of society as young China has seen it .sx It is for us to say whether this is the plan of society as society should be .sx CHAPTER VI .sx REBUILDING THE RELIGION ( 1 ) .sx THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT AND THE .sx CHRISTIAN CHURCH .sx I .sx MOST of China's important happenings seem to belong to the spring of the year , showing that , in China at any rate , there is no knowing to what a young man's fancy may turn .sx Again we must mark the months of April and May , this time of the year 1922 :sx it was then that the Anti-Christian Movement was beginning its stormy career .sx In April the World Student Christian Federation met in Peking ; in May that encyclopaedic review , The Christian Occupation of China , was published ; the same month saw the first National Christian Conference gather in Shanghai ; a little later there were set forth in The Report of the China Education Commission statesmanlike Christian plans for the future .sx It is well to remember that the factors leading to the organization of the Anti-Christian Movement , whose purpose was to demonstrate the weaknesses of Christianity , were none other than these sure signs of the strength of the Christian cause .sx