6… THE MAY FOURTH MOVEMENT CH.I INTRODUCTION .7 maintained that the period lasted to "the present,"writing in 1938.In this answer this,even partially,it is necessary to mention the changes in China's study,since the movement is treated as a phenomenon with many facets,its cconomic,social,and political situation and international influences on China time span is regarded as variable,not strictly or uniformly fixed.Nevertheless, after the beginning of World War I. an examination of the main currents of the movement reveals that most of China's economy was agricultural and preindustrial in nature before she the important events in it took place during the five years from the beginning came into contact with the modern West.In this economy most of the wealth of 1917 to the end of 12.In 197 the new thought and new literature reforms was owned by landlords and merchants.They ordinarily accumulated it started to gather momentum due to the rallying of the new intellectual leaders through four main channels:by buying more land with their profits from land around New Youth(Hsin ch'ing-nien)magazine and the National Uniyersity products,by trade,by moneylending,and by the emoluments,legal and illegal, of Peking.After Ig2r,the movement revealed itself more in direct political of bureaucratic position.As the economy continued to be agricultural through action,and for a few years intellectual and social reforms were more or less the two thousand years before this century,the second and third methods of neglected.Therefore,the May Fourth period may be reasonably defined wealth accumulation usually depended on agricultural production.Conse- asinclusive,which period may be divided into two phases separated quently traditional Chinese economic thought was dominated by the concept by the May Fourth Incident proper.During the first phase,some new intellec- of capital accumulation in the form of land investment,a concept which was tuals concentrated on instilling their ideas in the students and youth of China. well illustrated by the proverbial folksong,"It is as impossible to be rich During the second phase an all-out attack on tradition and conservatism was without possession of land as to kiss through a piece of glass."The abolition launched principally by students,and the movement was carried beyond purely of the institution of primogeniture in the third century B.c.prevented the intellectual circles. overconcentration of landownership or the large accumulation of wealth.12 The period however cannot be strictly limited to these years.Some of the Family and village became basic economic units and were self-sufficient.Handi- nationalist sentiments and new thoughts started to take hold at least as early craft establishments,which were maintained by apprenticeships and served as as 195,the year when a feeling of national humiliation was aroused by the homes as well as shops,were the only industries.Production and exchange Twenty-one Demands,when some students started to consider more seriously were for the most part fixed by local guilds.All these practices kept the domestic than ever before the national problem,and when New Youth was established. market from expansion and prevented large-scale development of industry. Nor should the movement be considered as coming to a full stop in Igzr. This self-sufficing agrarian economy began to change after the opening of Ideological controversies developed in the period are still a part of the contem- China by the West during the last century.In 1863 China built her first factory, porary Chinese scene.The polemics on Eastern versus Western civilizations, a state-owned arsenal.Yet in the latter half of the century her industry still and on science and metaphysics,which took place in 1922 and 1g23,were direct had little opportunity to expand,partly because foreign manufactured goods results of the movement.The latter cannot be fully understood and evaluated, of lower price and better quality were dumped into Chinese markets under the if the polemics of this later period are left out of consideration.At any rate, privileges obtained by the Great Powers either by force or by diplomatic means. the movement must be considered as a stage of a whole historical development, The pressure of foreign commercial competition never eased until the out- in fact one of the most eventful and crucial stages in the long process of China's break of World War I,when the Western Powers became preoccupied with transformation to adjust herself to the modern world after the Western im- military production.From that moment Chinese national industry and com- pact in the last century. merce obtained a breathing space and an opportunity to grow,owing to the lowered excess of imports.Native production by textile and four mills and Economic,Social,and Political Background other light industries developed markedly from 14 to 120.These years of If this understanding of the movement is acceptable,the question may be prosperity have often been considered in retrospect the Golden Age of Chinese raised:why was the process of adjustment accelerated during this period?To industrial history,at least by comparison with the previous situation.a Because of this expansion and the long-term penetration of the forces of Western capi- mionths.The incident and its consequences bore some marks of the May Fourth Movement and exerted deep and far-reaching political inence on Chinese socicty. talism,the collapse of China's traditional self-sufficing agricultural and village