- from 'the War Illustrated' 27th July, 1918
- 'Little Journeys to the Great War'
The East in the West
Chinese labor batallions on the Western front : taken from 'Illustrated War News 2'
'"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet"
THE thought embodied in this hackneyed line of Kipling is but one of many accepted conventions which the Great War has challenged. They who talked rather vaguely at first about a "world war" have long since been able to talk definitely. In a way which they could not dimly have visioned, during the earlier months of the struggle, it has truly developed into a world war, wherein East and West have been fated to "meet."
As we read of State after State, from China to Nicaragua, declaring against the breakers of the world's peace, we get a mental concept of the world-wide ramifications of the war. It is difficult to get my visual impression of this, yet a journey through the British zone in France offers such a varied spectacle of international re-operation that one might almost claim to have seen all the world at war there. Most of the races of mankind are represented ; the meeting of East and West is an accomplished fact.
ON my first war-time crossing of the Channel, among the ships of the convoy were two steamers from whose upper decks multitudes of strange folk looked across at us. They were all dressed alike in long, loose-fitting cloaks of ruddy brown material, and they wore little caps with cat-flaps not unlike those donned by our airmen when aloft. Their hair was jet black, their strange, expressionless' faces berry brown. They were Manchurians nearing the land of war to give their labour to the cause of Britain—for a sound, commercial consideration be it premised.
At that time one had heard vaguely about "Chinese labour," but here was its embodiment in these two shiploads of grinning Orientals, who looked so curiously alike that one seemed to see the same man a hundred times over. They reminded me in this of the Amarais of Bolivia, of whom a Mestizo remarked to me one day in La Paz that they had ‘only one face among the lot’ — himself proud of the drop of Spanish blood that distinguished him from the rest. I was to see more of these far-travelled Children of the Dawn in my next day's journey, as I had arranged to visit the main camp, where they are received and whence they are drafted to the sectors where their labour or their craftsmanship is most required.
Few things that I have seen in the British zone impressed me more favourably with the British genius for organisation than the handling and bestowal of these Chinese labourers. Even now it may not be permitted to enter too minutely into the details of this bold measure for the maintenance of man-power at the front ; but enough can be told to interest and encourage the reader to believe — as I sincerely would have him believe — that the tiresome talk about the Hun's superiority in organisation is largely the result of accepting a boaster at his own estimation. The British genius for organisation has nothing to learn from the Hun. They who have brought, by the thousands, those lusty labourers of Northern China, over the wide waters of the Pacific, across the mountains and prairies of Canada, and by the Atlantic and devious ways to the ports of France, shepherding them safely to the Army bases in the British war zone, can teach the whole world how to organise.
Chinese labor batallions on the Western front : taken from 'Illustrated War News 2'
What a romance of labour is here ! Figure what it means to sign a contract for three years' work at a place over six thousand miles away from your home ! And those Chinamen, when I first saw them at a Channel port, might have been on a day's outing, if one could have judged by the unruffled calm of their faces.
By extraordinary good luck, when I arrived at the labour camp the two boat-loads I had seen the day before were just detraining, and were going through the preliminaries of their reception. In long files they slowly moved up to the finger-printing huts, each man carrying two large paper forms on which his name was written in Chinese characters and in English. Various, personal details were already entered, such as his native town, date of engagement, state of health at embarkation, and the like. But most interesting were the twelve spaces for his finger-prints.
In the sheds were rows of finger-printers, Chinese trained to the work, each of whom stood at a bench beside a lithographic stone which he frequently inked from a printer's roller, and as each new arrival came up the printer swiftly took hold of his right hand, pressed the tip of the little finger on the inked stone, then upon the space reserved for it on the paper, and so with each finger of both hands in turn, finally bunching the five fingers together and printing the group as one. This was repeated on the duplicate sheet, the whole process involving no fewer than forty- eight inkings and impressions, and yet was it accomplished with such celerity that I have taken longer to describe it than these dexterous Chinamen took to effect it.
One of the papers would be filed for reference—a work involving a large staff of Army clerks and an extensive equipment of vertical filing apparatus—the other kept by the labourer as his identity certificate. The camp doctors were now busy putting the men through a searching examination, especially for trachoma, that plague of China. To prevent the communication of diseases, those found to be suffering from any malady that did not interfere with their capacity for work, would be grouped together and kept out of contact with those in full health. From the moment they joined the British labour service, away there in their native Manchuria, these men came under better conditions of healthy life than they ever knew before, and the war which has brought death to so many Occidentals, will have brought new lease of life to not a few of these Orientals. Their food ration, as I saw it at the camp, would have made many an English housewife envious.
A whole volume could be devoted to the marvellous organisation of this labour, and such will doubtless yet be written. Here, a paragraph must suffice.
It is a success—one of our real .war successes. These Chinamen can and do, work well, and thus augmenting the labour power behind the lines, release men for the fighting-front. They are not all mere unskilled labourers. Many of them are craftsmen, and these are carefully sorted out and put to superior work, receiving special pay.
Everywhere about the vast camp, where the men were quartered in large tents, the utmost precautions had been taken for combating Oriental indifference to Western ideas of sanitation, and as the Chinaman is the aptest of pupils, those many thousands of his race who have come to earn in the British war zone a little fortune—as they esteem riches— will surely return to the Far East imbued with many of our notions of efficiency. What they think of the war is another matter.
Chinese labor batallions on the Western front : taken from 'Illustrated War News 2'
Underneath that mysterious mask of a face, who can guess what thoughts are passing ? It was odd to notice that some of the new arrivals were a little excited at seeing for the first time in their lives a flight of aeroplanes over the camp, while others blinked an eyelid at them for a moment with no more concern than if they had been a flock of gulls. What must they, whose grandfathers fought with bow and arrow, and wore hideous masks to frighten their enemies, think of the monster howitzers ? The gas-mask, perhaps, might seem to link them up with their own military past !
Personally, I attribute no profundity of thought to them, for they are as children. The only one I saw unhappy for a moment had a touch of childish temper. He had journeyed all those thousands of miles with his companions, had passed all the perils by sea, the fatigues of railway travel, the searching examinations, and was now to rest, like the other good children, in a tent, where a score or so of his kind were already stretched at case. But he stood by the tent and sobbed as though his heart would break. A British overseer tried in vain to comfort him, and an interpreter was brought to find the cause of his weeping. He didn't like his tent ! That was all, and after a word or two from his fellow-countrymen, his tears dried up and he went within like a good boy. His age might be thirty years. The sergeant overseer had not seen any of the thousands take on like that before."
Basutos I saw in their encampment, — shiny-skinned fellows from our African Dominion, splendidly housed and plentifully fed, great ovens full of "mealies" preparing for them ; Egyptians, Fijians, Hindus ! When we consider, also, the motley throngs of yellow and black races lending their labour to the French, we shall see that on the fields of France to-day almost the whole human race could be studied close at hand.
Most of all these Chinamen interested me. I felt that East and West had met, and, working as they were to a common end, though differently impelled, there would be some interfusion of thought which would in a future day help towards a kinship of humanity where Kipling saw only a cleavage.
Chinese labor batallions on the Western front : taken from 'Illustrated War News 2'
- Note : the following text is given as was originally printed, without any modifications. Please note that word usage changes over time and that nothing pejoritive need be seen in this short article, which appeared in a very reputable magazine at the time. This was simply the way of things at the time.
- from ‘the War Illustrated’ 9th November 1918
- 'With the ''Chinks'' in France'
- by an Officer, Late of the Chinese Labour Corps
Stories of Loyal Helpers from the Far East
Very engaging and friendly are the coolies of the Chinese Labour Corps in France. No exalted notions of the dignity of labour trouble these cheery Orientals. If it is piece-work they will go at it with unexpected energy, lifting and carrying the heaviest sacks with an apparent ease and goodwill that is amazing. But see them when it is time-work — a shipload of hay at the quayside, for instance, and derricks and slings on the task all day. Listlessly the Chinks drift about — they never walk or run on these occasions, but simply drift — with many a visit to the clock, and wistful glances at the slow passage of the hours. Somehow the stuff does get removed from the slings to the hanger or railway trucks, but not before the dock officers, N.C.O.'s, and other persons in authority have lost all patience and exhausted all available strong language.
In vain to lose patience and attempt to drive the Chink. He will not be driven, nor will he be moved by threats or curses. Quickly responsive to a joke, and with a whimsical humour of his own, he may be led by a jest, and encouraged to "buck up" by staff when the sternest admonitions have failed utterly to impress.
Very clannish, too, are the Chinks. "Damn sight worse than a trade union to deal with," was the summing-up by an officer with long experience of British dock labour at home.
Chinese laborers from the New World
Impromptu Defence
Never at a loss when charged with some "crime" or misdemeanour, the Chink is apt to be at times disconcerting in his ready defence. Amazing are the impromptu defences offered. I had occasion one morning to summon before me in the orderly-room a coolie who had failed in showing respect to a brother officer of another C.L.C. Coy. The coolie had, in fact, been insolent and impertinent over some trivial matter. To my inquiry what the devil he meant by being rude to a British officer, the coolie answered blandly and promptly (through the interpreter) that the officer was "very rude and very drunk." And the offence had been committed at eight o'clock in the morning, and the British officer was not only a teetotaller but a Baptist missionary, who had left China to take up a commission in the C.L.C.
At another time four coolies had left the railway truck they were loading and simply disappeared, thereby delaying the good work for some considerable time. When charged with leaving work the ready answer came from each without hesitation or shame.
Unmoved by " Tabs "
- No. 1 declared he was sick, and obliged to retire.
- No. 2 had espied some friends at a distance and just went off for a few minutes' talk.
- No. 3 felt the need for tea, and slipped away to get it.
- No. 4 was forlorn at being left alone, and left to escape the solitude.
Extremely disconcerting was the joint reply when the O.C. had occasion to rebuke half a dozen "gangers " (Chinese N.C.O.'s) for slackness. Eloquently he addressed them, and they listened all attention. On the conclusion of the O.C.'s exhortation a babel of sound poured out from the delinquents. "What are they saying ?" said the O.C. to the interpreter (a graduate of Peking University).
"They wish to say, sir," said the interpreter, " that they all like you very much !"
Loyal and devoted to officers who win their respect and regard — very quick is the Chink to discern the pukka officer, the officer who is at once a fearless sahib to be obeyed and a father with a sympathetic understanding to whom every Chink can take his complaints, sure of a patient hearing — the coolies are without reverence for rank or high position. A "brass hat" is nothing to them, and the sight of tabs leaves them unmoved. A Great Man at the docks visiting the working- parties attracted the Oriental attention by his earnest remarks to the subaltern in charge. The Great Man was merely pointing out that the work might be done more expeditiously, and the coolies not understanding a word, clearly grasped the purport of the remarks. On the G.M.'s departure, the coolies jerked their thumbs in the direction of the receding figure, and smilingly observed, " Him no------good ala " ("Ala" is the suffix that rounds off every sentence). But the Great Man fortunately heard nothing of the comment.
There is a pathos sometimes in the requests and complaints brought to the orderly-room. A melancholy coolie once asked to be allowed to make a complaint to me.
"I wish to be sent back to the depot," the Chink said mournfully. "The coolies in my hut here are wicked men."
"How's that ?" I asked.
"I am a Christian, sir."
"Very good," I said. "I hope I am one, too."
"But I am a Presbyterian, sir, and at the depot there were others of that religion, and we could have service together. In my hut now there are no Presbyterians, and all are wicked."
Alas ! I could not send him back to his fellows of the Scottish faith, but could only urge the sorrowful Chink to make the best of his surroundings.
To satisfy a coolie that he has been justly punished for some offence there must be no curtailment of speech at his trial. Probably to the officer (and equally to the coolie) the guilt or innocence is so quickly manifest that it seems no time need be wasted over witnesses. But that wouldn't do at all. For an hour or more the prisoner and his friends, the prosecutor and his friends, and any casual witnesses interested must be allowed to say all they want to on the subject, without any close regard to the laws of evidence.
celebrating Chinese New Year
Success in the C.L.C.
The guilty Chink will then take his punishment without resentment or ill-will, satisfied that justice has been done. And an innocent coolie wrongly convicted will bear no malice if the white man, after hearing everybody at length, misjudges the case. But haste and curtailment of speeches are to the Oriental the denial of justice, and no Chink will have confidence in an officer who once is suspected of injustice.
The British officer must be just, sympathetic, well-mannered, firm; and at all cost be possessed of a sense of humour and the ability to turn away evil by a timely jest if he is to succeed in the Chinese Labour Corps. And his success will be measured not only by the amount of work performed by the coolies of his company but by the discipline and good feeling in the company. Winning the affection of his Chinks he may accomplish much, and there will be genuine regret on his going. I remember a colleague of mine, promoted to command a labour company in another part of France, spoke a few words on parade to his Chinks on saying "good-bye."
When he had finished, the gangers (who had served in the Chinese Army) all stepped forward, saluted, and said, "We wish you, sir, to forgo your promotion and stay with this company." Of course, the wish could not be granted, but the appreciation and goodwill expressed were a pleasant send-off to my friend.
J. C.
from a Dutch magazine- 'Nederlandse Illustratie' - Chinese laborers on the French front
