The past history of Weihaiwei is not such as to justify very high expectations of a dazzling future. It has never tasted the sweets of commercial prosperity and perhaps it is hardly likely to do so in days to come. Its situation near the eastern extremity of Shantung is such that the ports of Chefoo and Tsingtao are almost inevitably bound to intercept the greater part of the trade that might otherwise reach it from west or south, while ocean-borne merchandise is not likely to find its way into the northern provinces of China through the gateway of Weihaiwei when there are ports, more favourably situated as distributing centres, a few scores of miles further westward. Weihaiwei has a valuable asset in its harbour, which is superior to that of Chefoo, though its superiority is hardly so great as to neutralise its several disadvantages. Yet the very unsuitability of the port for purposes of commerce tends to increase its potential value as a naval base—if, indeed, all naval bases do not become obsolete in the rapidly-approaching era of aerial warfare. The Chinese naval officer of the future may congratulate himself on the fact that here can arise no conflict of naval and mercantile interests, such as is bound to occur from time to time in ports like Hongkong. The deep-water anchorage of Weihaiwei is not large enough to accommodate a squadron of battleships as well as a fleet of ocean liners, and if Weihaiwei were to develop into a great naval port it is difficult to see how in any circumstances it could show much hospitality to merchant shipping.

The naval authorities of China, therefore, would have it "all their own way" in one of the best harbours of north China. They could build forts, carry out big-gun practice in the neighbouring waters, land men and guns for martial exercises at all points along the coast, establish naval depÔts and dockyards on the island and the mainland, all at a minimum of cost and without in any appreciable degree interfering with vested interests ashore. All this was recognised by the Chinese Government long ago, when Weihaiwei was, as a matter of fact, a military and naval station second only in importance to the Manchurian fortress of Port Arthur.

The conspicuous and not inglorious part played by Weihaiwei during the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-5 has already been mentioned. Many of the guns which, it was vainly hoped, would effectually protect the approaches to the eastern entrance to the harbour, are still lying amid the ruins of a chain of forts extending from the village of Hai-pu to that of Hsieh-chia-so. The fine military road that connected the forts is now in many places barely traceable, for its masonry has been carted away by unsentimental Chinese farmers for use in the construction of dwelling-houses, and here and there the road itself has actually been ploughed up and made to yield a scanty crop of sweet potatoes,—for even so does the prosaic spirit of agricultural enterprise avenge itself upon the pomps and vanities of wicked warfare. But forts can be reconstructed, heavier and more modern guns can be purchased, military roads can be rebuilt; and this is what doubtless will take place when China has decided to undertake the task of creating a fleet of warships and of re-establishing Weihaiwei as a naval base.

But, the bewildered reader may ask, where does Great Britain come in? Is not Weihaiwei a British Colony? If forts are to be built, will they not be British forts; if war-fleets are to ride at anchor in the harbour of Weihaiwei, will they not be British fleets? The answer to this is that the British Government had given up all idea of fortifying Weihaiwei even before the result of the Russo-Japanese war and the fall of Port Arthur had drawn attention to the merely temporary nature of the occupation of Weihaiwei. Moreover, Weihaiwei is not officially recognised as an integral portion of the King's "dominions beyond the seas"; it is occupied and administered by Great Britain, but its inhabitants—as we have already seen[421]—are not, with technical accuracy, to be described as British subjects. Weihaiwei has never been ceded to the British Crown, and when it is restored to China the British Crown will suffer no diminution of lustre, though doubtless unjustifiable murmurs will be heard concerning the damage to British prestige. As to when rendition is to take place, this is entirely a matter for international agreement; though it will be remembered that the date of the expiration of the original Russian lease of Port Arthur will not take place until March 1923.[422]

As the trade of Weihaiwei is (at least from the point of view of European mercantile interests) almost a negligible quantity, it may be said that the place is useful to Great Britain only as a summer resort for her warships stationed in Far Eastern seas: and it may be observed that as the port is totally unfortified the interests of the British Navy would hardly suffer if the whole of the mainland territory were unreservedly restored to China and only the island of Liukung and the right to use the waters of the harbour retained in British hands. An arrangement of this kind, however, would only be welcomed by China so long as she was without a navy of her own.

A question that is often asked by Western visitors to Weihaiwei is one that does not directly concern the Government either of China or of Great Britain. Are the people of Weihaiwei pleased with British rule? Would they be glad or sorry to pass once more under the yoke of Chinese administrators? That the people appreciate the benefits directly or indirectly conferred upon them by the British occupation there is no reason to doubt.[423] That trade—external and internal—is brisker, that the people are more prosperous, that money circulates more freely and more abundantly, that roads and other means of communication have been greatly improved—all these things are fully realised. But though the shopkeepers and contractors on the island and in Port Edward would undoubtedly vote—if they had the chance—for the perpetuation of present conditions, I have no doubt that if the matter were to be decided by a secret ballot among all the people of the Territory a very great preponderance of votes would be given for the resumption of Chinese rule.

It is perhaps unnecessary to cast about for reasons why this should be so. Many Europeans ridicule the notion that the Chinese possess the virtue of patriotism. Even if there be no patriotism (a very rash assumption after all) there is certainly a strong racial feeling in China: and when race and nation are one it may perhaps be plausibly argued that racial sentiment and patriotic sentiment come to be interchangeable terms. Granting that patriotism or some analogous sentiment does exist among the people of China, surely no Englishman need look further for a reasonable cause why the evacuation of Weihaiwei should be welcomed by the people.[424] The Chinese of Weihaiwei do not like to be ruled by foreigners any more than the average Englishman would care to see Spanish rule—let us say—established in the Isle of Wight, quite irrespective of the merits or demerits of the foreign rulers and their system of government.

Too much stress should not be laid on the alleged racial antipathy between White and Yellow, inasmuch as there is no strong basis for the too common view that the people of East and West are so differently constituted that they must always remain spiritually and intellectually sundered. What is often mistaken for a barrier of race is in many cases, I believe, merely a barrier of language. The number of men—Chinese or English—who can be said to have a scholarly knowledge of the two languages is still astonishingly small.[425] Yet there is unfortunately little doubt that the antagonism between Europe and Asia, whether the causes be racial or merely political, is in some respects steadily growing stronger, and it is difficult to see how we can expect that antagonism to diminish so long as present political conditions subsist. Asiatics, rightly or wrongly, are acquiring the notion that European dominion in the East has been due not to any intrinsic superiority (biological, intellectual or moral) of the white races, but chiefly to temporary and (speaking unphilosophically) accidental circumstances that will soon cease to exist. One noble Asiatic nation has definitely and probably for ever freed herself from "the White Peril," and it is not unnatural that other nations in Asia should aspire to do the same.

"The real cause of unrest," it has been recently said,[426] "is not Indian at all, but Asiatic. The unrest is the most visible symptom of that resentment of prolonged European domination which is affecting the whole continent of Asia. For 300 years the tide of European dominion has flowed eastward, but the ebb has now set in. Liao-yang and Mukden, the driving back of the legions of the Tsar, gave it a stimulus far more potent than if Bengal had been administratively divided into forty pieces. It would probably have arisen even if Japan had still remained in chain-armour, and had never emerged from the control of her Tycoons and her Samurai. It became inevitable from the day that steam and quick transit broke down the barriers of India's isolation, and her yielding people began to cross the seas. It is part of a great world-movement, the end of which no man can foresee. No concessions, however sweeping, will conjure it. We have to reckon with its continued—and most natural—increase and growth, and to shape our course accordingly."

This is not very pleasant reading for English—or indeed for European—ears, but if the facts are as stated there is nothing to be gained by ignoring them.

Setting patriotism and racial prejudices aside, there are other reasons why British rule could never become really popular in Weihaiwei or in any part of China. With every wish to rule the people according to their own customs and their traditional systems of morality, it is not always possible to do so without a surrender of much that a European considers essential to good order and a proper administration of justice. The different views of East and West on a matter so fundamental as the rights and duties of individuals as compared with the rights and duties of the family or clan are alone sufficient to give rise to a popular belief that the foreign courts do not always dispense justice. Then the Chinese believe that our courts are much too severe on many offences that they consider venial, and not severe enough on offences such as burglary, piracy and armed robbery. They also detest our insistence, in certain circumstances, of the post-mortem examination of human bodies. Again, they totally fail to understand why men who have been charged with a crime and whose guilt in the eyes of the "plain man" is a certainty should sometimes get off scot-free on account of some technicality or legal quibble. If Englishmen are sometimes driven to think that "the law is an ass," we may be sure that the Chinese are, at times, even more strongly inclined to the same opinion.

If one were to ask a native of Weihaiwei what were the characteristics of British rule that he most appreciated one would perhaps expect him to emphasise the comparative freedom from petty extortion and tyranny, the obvious endeavour (not always successful) to dispense even-handed justice, the facilities for trade, the improvement of means of communication. It was not an answer of this kind, however, that I received from an intelligent and plain-spoken resident to whom I put this very question. "What is it we like best in our British rulers? I will tell you," he said. "Our native roads are narrow pathways, and very often there is no room for two persons to pass unless one yields the road to the other. When our last rulers—the Japanese—met our small-footed women hobbling along such a path they never stepped aside to let the women pass, but compelled them to clamber along the stony hillside or to stand in a ditch. An Englishman, on the contrary, whether mounted or on foot, always leaves the road to the woman. He will walk deliberately into a deep snowdrift rather than let a Chinese woman step off the dry pathway. We have come to understand that the men of your honourable country all act in the same way, and this is what we like about Englishmen."

It may seem strange that a native should draw attention to a trivial matter of this kind rather than to some of the admirable features—as we regard them—of British administration, yet there is very little just cause for surprise. A year or two ago the correspondent of a great newspaper indulgently referred to Weihaiwei under British rule as affording a conspicuous example of the ability of individual Englishmen to control—without fuss or display of force—large masses of Orientals. Let it be granted that the English people, or rather some Englishmen, are endowed with the twin-instincts to rule with justice and integrity and to serve with industry and loyalty—for it is only the union of these two instincts or qualities in one personality that distinguishes the good administrator: but to regard Weihaiwei as an example of the English power of successfully ruling hordes of alien subjects shows a misapprehension of the facts. Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen have carried out such splendid administrative work in other parts of the world that there is no need to give them credit for work which they have not done. What makes the people of Weihaiwei law-abiding, peaceful, industrious, punctual in the payment of taxes, honest in their dealings one with another is not some mysterious ruling faculty on the part of the three or four foreign administrators who are placed over them, but something that has existed in China from a time when the ancestors of those administrators were painted savages and England was not even a name: it is filial piety, it is reverence for law and respect for those in authority, it is the cult of ancestors,—it is, in short, Confucianism. "The same readiness with which we serve our father," says one of the Chinese classics, "we should employ in serving our Ruler, and the reverence must be the same for both. To honour those who are in a high position and to respect those who are in authority is our first duty." Again, we are told that "Confucius said, the Ruler is served with observance of hsiao [filial piety] and elders are served with such submission as is due from a younger brother to his elder brothers, which shows that the people should make no distinction."[427]

If the Weihaiwei Government deserves any commendation at all it is only for its acceptance of Confucian principles as the basis of administration. Confucianism, indeed, is the foundation of the civil law that is administered in the British Courts, Confucian customs are wherever possible upheld and enforced by the officials in their executive and judicial capacities, and it is by the recognition of Confucianism that the Government has been able to dismiss its armed force. Philostratus, about seventeen hundred years ago, wrote a book in which he tells us how Apollonius of Tyana was one day walking with his friend and disciple Damis when they met a small boy riding an enormous elephant. Damis expressed surprise at the ease and skill with which the youngster could control and guide so huge a beast; but Apollonius succeeded in convincing him that the credit was due not to the small boy's skill, but to the elephant's own docility and self-control. Should we be far wrong if we were to regard the people of Weihaiwei as the elephant and the local Government as the little boy that rode it? Perhaps, indeed, the parallel might be applied to British dependencies greater and more important than Weihaiwei.

The people of this corner of China are so ill-acquainted with the politics of their country—for there is no local newspaper, and if there were it would have but few readers—that they possess but the haziest notion of the probable destiny of their port in the event of its rendition to China and the creation of a modern Chinese navy. But indeed even Europeans could hardly enlighten them as to the probabilities of the future of Weihaiwei unless they were furnished with some clue to the solution of a much vaster problem—the future of China herself.

It is most earnestly to be hoped for China's own sake that her rulers do not seriously intend, at present, to place naval expansion in the forefront of their numerous schemes for reform. The subject is one upon which a section of the native Press has become somewhat enthusiastic, and the recent visit to England of a Chinese Naval Commission, under the leadership of an Imperial prince, naturally leads one to suppose that the Government is actually about to undertake the exceedingly difficult, dangerous and most costly work of securing for China a place among the Naval Powers. Many of China's Western sympathisers—especially those who have not lived in the East—probably regard this as the best possible proof that China is "pulling herself together" and is already far advanced on the road of regeneration. But there is hardly a man among China's foreign friends and sympathisers resident in the East who does not regard the navy scheme with dismay and disappointment. At some future date the Chinese may be fully justified in acquiring a great navy, but to build a really serviceable modern fleet at the present time is to invite a financial and political disaster of appalling magnitude. Even if the project comes to nothing it is a bad omen for the future that the Chinese Government should give it serious consideration at a time when all the energies and resources of the Empire should be devoted to internal reform and development. If China's responsible rulers do not realise the precarious position into which the country has drifted and the pressing necessity of administrative reform, they are not fit to hold the helm of the State. Common sense—if they are devoid of the higher qualities of statesmanship—should tell them that until the existing departments of Government have been thoroughly reorganised, corruption stamped out, and a spirit of loyalty and patriotism infused into all ranks of the Civil Service, the creation of a great spending department, such as an Admiralty or Naval Board, will merely add enormously to the financial burdens of the country without providing it with any reliable safeguard or protection in the event of war.

The unfortunate thing is that every warning of this kind received by China from her foreign friends is received by her with doubt and suspicion. She has realised that in one foreign war after another her military and naval weakness has led her—or has helped to lead her—through the dark shadows of defeat and humiliation, and she is intensely desirous of making such provision for her own protection that in future foreign wars she may not be foredoomed to disaster. When she is advised to content herself, for the present, with a small though well-equipped army and the most modest of coast-defence fleets, she suspects that her advisers wish to keep her in a state of perpetual weakness, so that they may continue to help themselves, from time to time, to treaty-ports, trade privileges, sites for churches and other missionary buildings, mining and railway concessions and cash-indemnities. At the present time the Power which she regards with a more friendly eye than any other is undoubtedly the United States of America—the only Great Power that has occupied none of her territory and the one against which she believes herself to have least reason for complaint. A few years ago many Western dwellers in China were inclined to predict that a powerful offensive and defensive alliance would be entered into by China and Japan, or that Japan would assume the hegemony of the Far East and having created a reformed China would draw upon the immense resources of that country to help her in establishing the supremacy of the Yellow Race in the Eastern hemisphere. One does not often hear this view expressed to-day, not only because of the repeated occurrence of serious disputes between the Chinese and Japanese Governments with reference to Manchurian and other problems, but also because it is now seen that the growth of a really strong and progressive China cannot be regarded without grave alarm by the far-seeing statesmen of Japan. The whole of the Japanese Empire, be it remembered, might be packed into one of China's provinces; the population of Japan is only about one-tenth that of China, and her natural resources are meagre compared with those of her huge neighbour. If the development of China proceeds on the same proportionate scale as that of Japan (and the Japanese themselves realise that this is no impossibility), it is difficult to see how Japan can reasonably hope to maintain her present international position.

We have heard a great deal lately about the momentous change in the European balance of power caused by the great advance of Germany in population and wealth: let us give a loose rein to our imaginations and suppose that the German Empire by skilful diplomacy or other means has further succeeded in annexing Austria, Denmark, Belgium and Holland, and by successful warfare has reduced France, Italy and Russia to a state of military imbecility. The position of Great Britain in these circumstances would, to say the least, be precarious and unenviable. If she did not become the "conscript appanage" of a "stronger Power" (to use the warning words of a British Cabinet Minister) she would at least be in a state of chronic peril, and subject to periodical panics that might end in the disorganisation of all industry and the demoralisation of the people. England's position as opposed to that of a vastly-magnified Germany would be similar in many ways to that which Japan would occupy relatively to a reformed, united and progressive China. Indeed, Japan would be in a worse case than England: for England has beaten one Napoleon, and, by again championing the cause of the down-trodden states of a heterogeneous Europe, she might conceivably beat another; whereas Japan would perhaps find herself faced not by a single powerful tyrant, under whose dominion vassal states writhed and groaned, but by a vast homogeneous people who through careful discipline and wise statesmanship had learned to sink provincial rivalries in a splendid realisation of racial solidarity and national patriotism.

Thus we need not be surprised if during the years of China's education and growth Japanese diplomacy in respect of Chinese affairs is to some extent characterised by petulance, hesitation, vacillation, and occasional displays of "bluff."[428] The policy of Japan must necessarily hover between two extremes: she does not wish to see China partitioned, for this would mean a strengthening of European influence in Asia which might be disastrous to Japanese interests; nor does she wish to see China become one of the Great Powers of the world, for this would inevitably lead to her own partial eclipse. China is now well aware of the delicate position of the Japanese Foreign Office, and it is on the whole improbable that she will readily consent to a Japanese alliance, even if she finds herself seriously menaced by the armed strength of Europe—happily a most unlikely event. She knows that the differences of opinion between Japan and the United States are not yet a forgotten chapter in international politics,[429] and this fact, perhaps, will make her all the readier to throw herself into the arms of the great American Republic. It is well to remember, however, that racial and industrial rivalries between China and America may some day become dangerously acute. Even now, while such rivalries loom no larger in the political firmament than a man's hand, there are whispers of storms to come. Meanwhile, China is beginning to realise that the most wide-awake of modern states does not propose to hamper her own freedom by watching over a nation that has hitherto been regarded as the most somnolent in the world. Even the strong matronly arms of the United States might grow weary of carrying about so bulky an infant as a China that only woke up in order to experience the luxurious delight of going to sleep again. The Chinese dimly understand that until they have raised themselves out of their present condition of political helplessness they cannot expect to get more from the United States or from any other Great Power than amiable professions of goodwill.

THE COMMISSIONER OF WEIHAIWEI (SIR J. H. STEWART LOCKHART, K.C.M.G.), WITH PRIEST AND ATTENDANTS AT THE TEMPLE OF CH'ÊNG SHAN.