On the other hand, the family which is exceedingly careful, cautious, and economical survives. Such a family stays at home, sleeps till the middle of the morning so long as there is no work, eats a single scanty meal at noon, and lies down again in the middle of the afternoon. Famine workers describe exactly this process again and again:—the more active people moving to the cities or to other regions, the slow, conservative, economical, thrifty, and hardy ones remaining behind to build up the next generation, and the weaker people dying. Thus the famines have helped to produce some of the best racial qualities of the Chinese as well as some of the defects which play so important a part in determining the business relations of the Far East.
In South China, where famines are rare, the Chinese are much more progressive and active than in the north, which is one reason why most of the Chinese in America are Cantonese. This also helps to explain why foreign trade is more active in the south than in the north, although relative nearness to India and Europe is also important. In the revolutionary troubles after the establishment of the Chinese Republic, North China was consistently conservative and reactionary, and wanted to restore the old imperial regime, while South China was progressive.
In Japan the geographical environment has acted in quite a different way. The protection of the ocean has allowed Japan to develop without being overrun by nomads as has happened to China. The presence
of the ocean and the many fine bays, combined with the rough character of the land, has also made the Japanese take to seafaring far more than has been the case with the Chinese. People who go to sea upon stormy waters such as those around Japan gradually become relatively bold and adventurous. They seem to have a gift of leadership and the abil ity and willingness to follow their leaders, partly perhaps because those who have not these qualities are more likely than the others to perish in storms. A process of natural selection seems to give an advantage to the seafaring people.
Again while Japan sometimes suffers from poor crops, its rains are derived from cyclonic storms at all seasons as well as from the monsoon rains in summer. Hence there are never famines of such severity as in China, and there is no such severe process of natural selection whereby the energetic ones are driven out, and the thrifty, conservative people remain. Moreover, as we saw in Chapter VI, Japan is the one country of Asia which enjoys a climate which approaches that of western Europe and the United States in its healthful and stimulating qualities. Thus Japan has a great many advantages which give her energy, leader ship, and the power to expand and to dominate other people, while China's fine qualities, although perhaps equally valuable, tend toward the quieter virtues and make it hard for her to introduce new methods, and stand up against energetic foreigners.