d that the
average number of children (dead and living) per family was 2.1, while
the infant mortality was 184.1. Other investigations are quoted to show
that the birth-rate near Peking is between 30 and 50. In the absence of
statistics, generalizations about the population question in China must
be received with extreme caution.]

[Footnote 36: I repeat what everybody, Chinese or foreign, told me. Mr.
Bland, _per contra_, describes Chang-tso-lin as a polished Confucian.
Contrast p. 104 of his _China, Japan and Korea_ with pp. 143, 146 of
Coleman's _The Far East Unveiled_, which gives the view of everybody
except Mr. Bland. Lord Northcliffe had an interview with Chang-tso-lin
reported in _The Times_ recently, but he was, of course, unable to
estimate Chang-tso-lin's claims to literary culture.]

[Footnote 37: Printed in _China in 1918_, published by the _Peking
Leader_.]

[Footnote 38: _Musings of a Chinese Mystic_, by Lionel Giles (Murray),
p. 66. For Legge's translation, see Vol. I, p. 277 of his _Texts of
Taoism_ in _Sacred Books of the East_, Vol. XXXIX.]

[Footnote 39: Waley, 170 _Chinese Poems_, p. 96.]

CHAPTER V

JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION

For modern China, the most important foreign nation is Japan. In order
to understand the part played by Japan, it is necessary to know
something of that country, to which we must now turn our attention.

In reading the history of Japan, one of the most amazing things is the
persistence of the same forces and the same beliefs throughout the
centuries. Japanese history practically begins with a "Restoration" by
no means unlike that of 1867-8. Buddhism was introduced into Japan from
Korea in 552 A.D.[40] At the same time and from the same source Chinese
civilization became much better known in Japan than it had been through
the occasional intercourse of former centuries. Both novelties won
favour. Two Japanese students (followed later by many others) went to
China in 608 A.D., to master the civilization of that country. The
Japanese are an experimental nation, and before adopting Buddhism
nationally they ordered one or two prominent courtiers to adopt it,
with a view to seeing whether they prospered more or less than the
adherents of the traditional Shinto religion.[41] After some
vicissitudes, the experiment was held to have favoured the foreign
religion, which, as a Court religion, acquired more prestige than
Shinto, although the latter was never ousted, an