The Sunday Oregonian., September 21, 1913, MAGAZINE SECTION, Page 6, Image 84

SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE
TEAM-WORK
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At
nW& THE FLOWERY REPUBLIC fit
Chin?s? 'Guides for T
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4.N PURSUIT of a story about a
langtsze Kiver flood 1 wandered
one day through the narrow streets
of a Chinese city. The flood was
lapping at the city walls and had
submerged some of the lower
streets, but none of the -prominent
citizens on whom. I called knew any
of the details. They agreed with
me that there was a flood, but at
that point the interviews ended. I
was about to dismiss the interpreter, there being no
one else to interpret, when he, for the first time, did a
sensible thing and took me to see the head beggar.
He was a very intelligent and capable old man,
with a venerable grey queue, and while answering
my questions about the flood he told me a great deal
about the profession of begging as it is conducted in
China. He had been chosen for his office by all the
beggars of the city and became their autocratic head,
acting as their business manager and official repre
sentative in all dealings with the police and trades
people. Here, as in most other Chinese cities, beg
ging has been thoroughly systematized. The beggars
are apportioned between the streets under separate
chiefs and all are under the control of the head
beggar. No beggar is allowed off his own street in
his professional capacity, nor can he beg there ex
cept on the first and the fifteenth day of each month.
This arrangement was made by the head beggar after
many conferences with the merchant guilds, and he
is very proud of his achievement, as it enables his
people to loaf on all except two days of the month,
and gives the least amount of annoyance to the shop
keepers. On the appointed days, the beggars, in
company, canvass their street, and the proprietor of
each shop gives their chief the money to be divided
between them. The amount given depends on the
size of the shop, according to a well regulated scale.
IT was because of this admirable arrangement that
the head beggar was so keenly interested in the
flood and so well able to give me the details for which
I had been searching. The flood had submerged a
number of neighboring villages and many farms,
sending the refugees scurrying toward the larger
cities for shelter and food. They were encamped in
large numbers just outside the city gates, while many
of them had entered and were in the city itself, de
tailing to every passer the story of their misfortunes
and threatening to die on the spot unless aid were
forthcoming. This the head beggar naturally re
sented, and he grew very indignant as he told of the
way in which these unorganized, non-union beggars,
were playing havoc with his own organization.
"The shop-keepers are all complaining to
me," he said, '"but what can I do? These
refugees are competing with my own people
and I can't get any protection from the offi
cials, who throw open the city gates to any
vagabond who wants to come in and beg. They
do not belong to our guild, have
no business here, and ought not
to be allowed in the city." He
made his grievances so convinc
ing that I agreed with him.
In Amer
ican eyes a
beggars'
7f
guild may appear as absurd as a comic opera situa
tion, but it is only a part of that great system of
guilds which, in China, links competition and co
operation. The Chinese recognized the wasteful
ness incidental to competition when ancestors of
American monopolists were clouting each other over
the head in petty tribal wars, and have for centuries
been working with that idea of co-operation to which
America is giving more and more attention.
If there are fifty tea dealers in a Chinese city, the
tea guild will consist of fifty members. It is one of
the traditions of every trade that all shall belong to
the appropriate guild. There is no hanging back,
and soliciting of members by the secretary or the
membership committee, as in the case of American
organizations of business men. The guild member
ship is as much a part of the business as the sign in
front of the shop, and so jealous are the guild mem
bers of the prestige of their organization that they
do not hesitate at very strong measures to uphold it.
A Cantonese restaurant keeper set up in business in
Shanghai two years ago, and for some reason de
cided to keep out of the local guild. For a few weeks
his business showed no ill effects; then the restaurant
began to attract a strange lot of customers. They
came in just before each busy hour and filled all the
tables. Many of them brought their own food and
bought nothing but an occasional pot of tea. More
over, they lingered so long that no one else was able
to enter the restaurant until after the regular dining
hour. They came regularly, and if one went away,
his place was immediately filled by another, who also
ordered nothing but tea. Now no restaurant keeper
can make money selling tea at one cent a pot, and
the Cantonese was soon within speaking distance of
failure. Then he did what he should have done at
first. He asked all the members of the restaurant -keepers'
guild to a dinner and a theatrical perform
ance. They elected him to membership, and the next
day his strange customers had disappeared.
In America, the development of trade might often
be epitomized: competition, organization, monopoly.
In China, thanks to the guild system, it is: organiza
tion, co-operation, competition. Business men in the
same line compete with each other, but there is a
point beyond which the individual cannot go. By
liard work, economy, and careful attention to busi
ness, he may build up a large trade and grow wealthy,
as many of them do, but he must observe the golden
rule. The unwritten law is that he cannot do anything
which would discredit the guild as a whole or injure
the business of a fellow member. China has no anti
trust laws and no trusts. The guilds insure fair com
petition, and in that way they solved the trust prob
lem centuries before it was born in the Western world.
A Japanese merchant moved into a city in Central
China, grew a queue, learned to speak Chinese and
became a member of the guild. When he felt that
he was rather firmly established, he advertised a bar
gain sale of old and shop-worn goods. Crowds came
and the sale was a great success, for no race more
dearly loves a bargain than the Chinese. In Amer
ica, the opening gun of such a trade warfare would
immediately be answered bya volley of bargain sales
conducted by other merchants, and thus the battle
would wage, to the diminishment of profits and the
enrichment of the purchasers' wardrobes.
Not so, however, in guild-governed China. The
guild to which this Japanese merchant belonged
called a meeting and here he was confronted by his
accusers, fellow members of the guild. His bargain
sale had attracted many customers, who had bought
goods at less than the cost price. The other mer
chants foresaw seriously lessened profits and a fatal
New Year day when they would be unable to meet
their obligations. The Western ideas which the Japa
nese possessed had passed through several Oriental
minds before they reached his own, and he was un
able to defend them against the guild traditions.
Nothing more of the kind was to be allowed, decided
the guild members, but they conceded to the ambi
tious disciple of the West a certain amount of per
sonal liberty. He might hold his bargain sales, pro
vided he notified the members of the guild before
hand, showing samples of the goods, stating the prices
at which 'they would be sold and outlining in detail
his plan of advertising. This would enable all other
members of the guild to advertise similar bargain
sales, nullifying any attempt of the insurgent to get
more than his share of the trade. Since then the
dry goods business of that city has followed its ac
customed course, undisturbed by removal sales, in
voice sales, or the January white sale.
Every guild is a very efficient machine, and is
equally able to discipline its members and to fight
battles for the good of the order.
My friend, the head beggar, told me of a very ef
fective way in which his own guild won a fight for
what it believed to be its rights. Sometime after he
had completed his arrangements for the semi-monthly
contributions by the shopkeepers, a few of them de
clined to continue their assessments. The guild was
quite ready to meet just such an emergency and a
beggars' strike resulted, in which the usual strike
conditions were reversed. Instead of begging on
only two days of the month, they begged on every
day, early and late, disturbing the city with such
loud waitings and making themselves so generally
disagreeable that pressure was brought on the stub
born shopkeepers and. peace restored with the re
sumption of the semi-monthly contributions.
BEGGARS have no more standing in China than
they have in America, but no Chinese would
think of questioning their right to organize. Even
the thieves have their guilds, and when 1 was last in
the Tung Ting Lake region, two guilds of pirates, one
under a red and the other under a black flag, were
fighting for the monopoly of piracy on the lake.
Probably the greatest reason why China is so slow
about abandoning the useless and ridiculous queue,
is because of the determined opposition of the barber
guilds, one of the strongest organizations of the kind
in China. The cutting of queues has been offi
cially sanctioned many times, but some of the &l
officials who sanctioned it have not had the
courage to follow the reform they approve, be
cause of their fear of the barbers' and allied
guilds, whose members do not hesitate to de
fame the character of one who
deprives them of trade by aban
doning his queue.
Occasionally foreign trade,
pushing its way farther and far-
ther into
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on Page 11)
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