Note 82 — Chapter VII · VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

It must be understood that what is referred to is "custom" rather than law, and that these remarks are not always applicable to the business relations between Chinese and foreigners at the treaty-ports, where commercial intercourse is to a great extent conducted on Western lines. When an English banker declares (as he has declared) that the word of a Chinese is as good as his bond, he is paying a compliment not so much to the character of the Chinese people (who as individuals are no more though perhaps no less trustworthy than average Englishmen), as to the fundamental soundness of the Chinese social system. If that system is subverted, through the efforts either of foreign advisers or of Chinese reformers, the moral results may be disastrous beyond conception. Let there be evolution by all means; not revolution.