Note 79 — Chapter VII · VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

As an indication of how widely sundered are the theory and practice of East and West in the matter of social organisation, D. G. Ritchie's Natural Rights (1903 ed.), pp. 259-60, may be consulted. "No real or positive equality in social conditions," says that writer, "can be secured so long as individuals are looked at in any respect as members of families, and not in every respect as members of the State alone." Yet in China, where individuals are in almost every respect regarded as members of families, and never dream of claiming to be members of the State alone, there is far greater equality in social conditions than there is in the individualistic States of the West! Let us hope for China's sake that this fact will not be overlooked by those young patriot-reformers who are casting about for ways and means of raising their country in the scale of nations.