CHAPTER I
THE CHINESE PROBLEM

Actual position of the Far Eastern Question—The Sick Man of Peking—The wealth of his heritage—The immense resources of the soil and subsoil of China, the latter of which is still virgin—The results which may be expected from the opening up of China—Change in the attitude of the Powers towards the Celestial Empire since the Japanese victories revealed its weakness—The origins of the Far Eastern problem.

The decisive victory which Japan obtained over China five years ago revealed to the civilized world the existence in the East of Asia of another Sick Man, an even greater invalid and infinitely richer than the better known patient at Constantinople. Four times the size, and twelve or fifteen times more densely peopled than the Ottoman Empire, China contains a much smaller proportion of deserts, her resources are greater and far more varied, and her inhabitants are not only more industrious, but more peaceful and apparently much easier to govern. Therefore, at the end of the nineteenth century—when the material wealth of a country is of far greater importance than its historical memories, and men are more eager to discover fresh openings for enterprise, new lands to cultivate, or mines to exploit than relics to preserve or peoples to liberate—Europe abandons the bedside of the Grand Turk to occupy herself with her chances of inheriting far greater riches from the Son of Heaven. The Sick Man on the shores of the Bosphorus may be afflicted with some dreadful convulsion or crisis in his illness, but the nations pretend not to perceive his contortions, and joyfully welcome any evidence of even a feeble return to health; in a word, they only seek to prolong his existence. If the preservation of peace in Europe has its share in this attitude, the wish not to be disturbed in the work which she pursues in China has also its share in the position which Russia and more than one other Power have assumed with regard to the Chinese Empire.

The fact is, the nations have promised themselves a booty in the Middle Kingdom as precious as it is easy to obtain. China from this point of view is worth a great deal more than Turkey, or even Africa, which Europe has so eagerly sought to divide. Although less extensive than the Dark Continent, China is much more thickly peopled, and the climate is less unhealthy, access easier, the rivers more navigable, and the soil far more fertile. The patient and laborious Chinese will eventually facilitate the exploitation of the wealth of their vast territory, which is more than can ever be expected from the barbarous, ignorant and indolent peoples of Africa.

The resources of China are greater than those of Africa, and many of them are still absolutely undeveloped. The Chinese peasants, moreover, are among the best agriculturists in the world. As evidence of this assertion, it should be remembered that, by the perfection of their method of cultivation, they extract from the soil of their plains sufficient to enable their rural population to multiply in a manner unknown in the Western world. Certain provinces in the Valley of the Yang-tsze-Kiang—Shan-tung, Hu-pe, Kiang-su, and others—in spite of their being purely agricultural, are as densely peopled as Belgium, and we may further observe that, as is the case throughout the Far East, wherever rice dominates, the mountain regions are almost uninhabited. If the soil is admirably cultivated, the subsoil, on the other hand, is absolutely neglected, and only an insignificant quantity of coal is extracted from the immense coal-beds which cover over 40,000 square miles on the banks of the Yellow River, in the plains of Hu-nan, and under the terraces of Shan-si, which, together with those equally important in the basin of Shan-tung, were so highly extolled by the celebrated traveller Richthofen. The coal-beds in Central China appear to be even more extensive, and the carboniferous basin of Sze-chuan, where there is also petroleum, covers an area equal to half France. The coal-beds of Hu-nan are also very considerable, and minerals are equally abundant. The copper-mines of Yunnan are so rich as to have proved one of the chief inducements that attracted the French to Tongking. Mines of precious ore are known to exist in many other places, but, notwithstanding their very ancient civilization, the Chinese have scarcely touched the wealth beneath their feet. In this respect they have proved themselves inferior to the classical nations of antiquity, and have left their riches to be garnered by foreigners.

We can form some idea of the development of which China is susceptible by considering the example of two other Asiatic nations placed in much the same conditions—British India and Japan. India, with all her dependencies, is about a sixth larger than China proper, but contains only about three-quarters of the number of her inhabitants; yet although her subsoil is much less rich and her population far more indolent than the Chinese, she carries on double the trade with Europe that the Chinese Empire does. Japan, nine times smaller and nine times less peopled than China, but reformed by an enlightened Government and by the introduction of European methods, has seen her commerce rise in thirty years from £5,000,000 to £44,000,000, more than three-quarters higher than that of her enormous but stationary neighbour.

Unfortunately, an imbecile Government, as corrupt as it is absurdly exclusive, impedes the progress of China with far greater obstinacy than do the prejudices of her people. So long as the illusion lasted as to the power of this unwieldy Empire, no one ventured to tear from it by force what it was imagined could be obtained by persuasion, and the nations resigned themselves to permit the immense resources of the interior to remain untouched, contenting themselves merely with the opening of a few ports to commerce. But in 1894 the brilliant victories of the Japanese revealed to an astonished world the weakness of the colossus, its corruption, and utter incapacity to regenerate itself; hence the reason why the Chino-Japanese War may be rightly considered one of the greatest events in contemporary history. From it dates the change in the attitude of the foreign Powers towards the Celestial Empire. They now command where formerly they begged, and have mustered up courage to force the Son of Heaven to put a price on the treasures of his Empire, or else to allow them to do so in his stead. If they have not already divided up his territory, they mortgage portions of his provinces, and obtain mining, railway, and all sorts of other concessions. In the eyes of the Powers China is no longer a country to be counted with as a probable ally, but merely one which they may one day reduce to vassalage.

In 1895, after the conclusion of the war, Russia inaugurated the new policy with respect to China. She was at that time the only European nation that seemed to have any idea of the weakness of China, and was already preparing, by the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, to play an important part in the Far East. Germany, France, and England in 1897 obtained the ‘leases’ of various strategical points on the coast and the recognition of what they were pleased to call ‘spheres of influence.’ Russia now returned to the game, and Japan also took a part in the struggle. From the middle of 1898 a lull has occurred, which recent events, however, have disturbed and proved that the Far Eastern problem is far from settled. It would certainly have surprised men who were living at the beginning of this dying century if they had been told that it would close before the Grand Turk was driven out of Europe, and yet the destinies of Eastern Asia are even now far from being determined. The problems which rise round the future of the Celestial Empire are neither less grave nor less complicated now than they ever were. Although China is infinitely less heterogeneous than Turkey, she runs the same dangers from internal disturbance; for she is governed by a foreign dynasty and honeycombed by secret societies. The Central Government is feeble and without cohesion. On the other hand, the rivalry which exists between the European Powers, to whom should be added the United States and Japan, is not less active in the East than it is in the West of Asia. The only, but still enormous, result which has been more or less definitely obtained consequent upon the events of the last five years—the end of the isolation from Europe in which China has hitherto existed, and her being brought for the first time since the beginning of her history into contact with a civilization which has developed quite independently of her own—creates a situation of the intensest interest. If the lack of military qualities among the Chinese and the insufficiency in numbers of the Japanese renders the Yellow Peril, comparatively speaking, little to be feared from the war side of the question, many people, and among them the most enterprising representatives of European civilization, the Americans and Australians, are greatly exercised over the matter from the economic point of view. It would, however, be presumptuous to attempt to prophesy what would be the consequences of the dissolution of the Chinese Empire through internal disorder, or of its partition amongst the Powers in consequence of an international treaty, or after a war which would be sure to become universal, or even of the reawakening of this oldest State in the world by the introduction of Western ideas and methods, or finally of a struggle between the White and the Yellow races; but it is comparatively easy, now that the question poses itself for the first time, to determine its multiple elements, to study the relative position of its diverse factors, the near prospect of their action, and the situation of the patient round whose sick-bed eagerly press the many doctors and heirs of so wealthy an invalid as China.

The coasts of Pe-chi-li and the mouth of the Pei-ho—Ta-ku and Tien-tsin—From Tien-tsin to Peking by rail—Peking: the Forbidden, Imperial, Tatar and Chinese cities; the walls, streets, houses, shops and monuments—Behaviour of the natives towards foreigners—Decadence of the capital and of the whole Empire.

If one enters China from Eastern Siberia by the Gulf of Pe-chi-li after a long voyage round the Korean Peninsula, the first impression of the Celestial Empire is distinctly unattractive. The contrast between the shallow waters where the vessel casts anchor, some miles distant from the mouth of the Pei-ho, and the noble port of Vladivostok, or the enchanting Bay of Nagasaki, with its verdant shores and blue waters, enlivened by the picturesque sails of the fishing-junks, is, to say the least, extremely depressing.

Nearly all the ports of the Celestial Empire are thus formed, and can only be entered during a few hours of the day. Even the mouth of the great Blue River is encumbered with shoals, and its famous rival, the Yellow River, in its lower basin, is divided up into such a multitude of channels that meander through the marshy lands as to interrupt all direct navigation from the sea. The Gulf of Pe-chi-li, which may be described as the port of Peking, although situated closer to the Equator than the Bay of Naples, or the mouth of the Tagus, seems, with its choked-up estuaries, its storm-beaten shores, its fogs and icy coat in winter, thoroughly typical of China and her traditional inhospitality, and her eagerness rather to repulse than to invite the stranger within her gates. From the anchorage outside the bar it is difficult to discern the lowlying coast; and the first objects to attract attention are mud forts, mud houses in mud villages, and mud heaps marking the graves in the cemeteries. This uninviting place is Ta-ku, beyond which, a little higher up, at Tang-ku, the Pei-ho ceases to be navigable for vessels of any tonnage. On landing, a surprise awaits you—the railway. Commenced by Li Hung-chang, for the purpose of transporting the coal from his mines at Kaiping, a few miles to the north-east, branches have been added, and since the summer of 1897 it takes the traveller to Peking vi Tien-tsin. An hour and a half after leaving Tang-ku, I alighted at the former town amid a mob of noisy coolies, who pounced upon me and my luggage. We crossed the Pei-ho in a sampang instead of the ordinary ferry-boat which conveys the Celestials, packed together like sardines in a box, and stuck, apparently immovably, in the most extraordinary postures. From the landing-place, we were trotted in a jinrikisha drawn by a Chinaman through the Rue de France, up Victoria Road to the Astor House, an American hotel kept by a German; opposite it is a garden, over which a white flag with a crimson circle in its centre, the emblem of the Rising Sun, announces that the garden and the house belong to the Japanese Consul. Thus was I first initiated to the cosmopolitanism of a foreign concession in the Far East.

Tien-tsin is the biggest open port in North China and the third in rank in point of activity and commerce in the whole Celestial Empire. It is, moreover, an immense Chinese city of nearly a million inhabitants, but its European concession is very inferior to that of Shanghai, and as a native city it is of little interest in comparison with Peking, Canton and many other towns. It is from here that travellers used, in former times, to begin the disagreeable journey to the capital, either on horseback or by junk up the Pei-ho. The river route was usually performed partly by sail and partly by oar, but occasionally the boat had to be towed by men. The junks took two or three days to ascend the sinuous course of the river. Sometimes, however, when the wind was to the north, and the shoals numerous, the journey occupied from four to five days before Peking was reached. Now the daily express, which speeds along at the rate of twenty miles an hour, takes three hours and fifty-three minutes to cover the ground which separates Tien-tsin from the station at Peking.

The country through which it passes is very flat, and it is only just before arriving at its terminus that the blue outline of some rather high hills come into sight towards the north-east. In the month of September, when the rains are over and are replaced by a drought that lasts until the end of winter, the environs of Tien-tsin, including the cemetery, are entirely under water, and as we looked from the train window, we could see a coffin floating about, and another like gruesome object stuck on the embankment of the line, which led us to reflect that, though the Chinese make such a fuss over their ancestors, they apparently care very little for their graves. The inundation at first stretched as far as the eye could see. Presently the land began to peep out. If you expect to find the soil from which the waters have just retired uncultivated, it will only be an evident proof that you know very little about the indefatigable industry of the Chinese agriculturist, and the great care and skill which he brings to his task. All that emerges has already been carefully sown, even down to the very brink of the water, and at a few steps from the limits of the inundation, the future harvest which has sprang up under the hot September sun from the moist but rich soil begins to make its appearance. The mud villages now succeed each other rapidly, and presently the traveller reaches an admirably cultivated country where not an inch of soil is wasted, and where the wheat and sorghum fields are alternated by kitchen gardens and orchards.

The temporary station at Peking, built of planks and galvanized iron, stands in the midst of this landscape. Very little is to be seen of the high walls of the city, which are almost entirely hidden by trees, and by a slight rising in the land. Nothing indicates that the gates of the capital of the oldest Empire in the world are so near. In order to traverse the mile which separates the station from the entrance to Peking, it is necessary to exchange the most highly perfected of human conveyance for the most barbaric. The Chinese are unwilling that the stranger should dispense, in order to enter their most holy capital, with a thorough jolting in their national carriage, unto which the Siberian tarantass may be compared as the most luxurious of vehicles. Two enormous wheels, covered with iron and garnished with a triple row of nails, support this shapeless waggon, which is protected by a blue awning, and is dragged along by two mules harnessed one in front of the other. Whilst the driver sits in front under the awning, the hapless traveller has to accommodate himself on the floor, with his legs stretched out in front of him. Now begins the torture, for one is literally jolted about against the wooden sides of the cart like a pill in a box. Presently the wheel goes over a huge stone, only to fall into a deep hole, or stick in a rut. Meanwhile, the diabolical waggon behaves in a most abominable manner, to the unutterable agony of its wretched inmate, who lives in terror of being either precipitated into the mud, or of having his brains knocked out by the collapse of the whole structure. Of this latter catastrophe there is little or no likelihood, for about the only good quality this appalling conveyance can boast of is solidity: nothing could break it. About twenty minutes after leaving the station a high battlemented wall, surrounded by a mud-filled moat, is reached. Next, you pass over a bridge, beyond which a gate admits into a sort of half-moon surrounded by walls, beyond which is yet another gate admitting to the city proper, where, after another hour’s jolting, the unhappy traveller alights at a hotel in Legation Street kept by a Frenchman.

Although not the most ancient city in the Celestial Empire, Peking is an epitome of the rest of China, together with its ancient civilization and its present stagnation and decadence. It belongs to a very different type from the cities of Europe, or even of the Moslem world, and the sight of its immense wall and successive enclosures, which divide it into four distinct parts, reminds one of Nineveh or Babylon. In the centre is the ‘Forbidden’ or ‘Purple City,’ about a league in length from north to south, and a quarter of a league in width, containing the palaces of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, and the gardens and the residences of a swarm of parasites numbering, it is said, between six or eight thousand persons, inclusive of guards, concubines, eunuchs, functionaries, gardeners and other attendants upon the Imperial harem. The only Europeans who are allowed to cross the sacred threshold of the Purple City are the members of the Diplomatic Corps, to whom the Emperor gives audience on New Year’s Day, as well as since quite recently on the occasions of their arrival or taking leave. Around the Purple City extends the Imperial City, its walls painted pink, which in its turn is surrounded by the Tatar City, a rectangle of 4 miles in length, by 3 miles in width, whose sides face the cardinal points. Its colossal walls are 50 feet high, and at their summit are 50 feet wide. Their external fronts consist of two strong brick walls, rising from a substructure of stone. The interior is filled up with earth, and the summit, covered with flagstones, forms a walk bordered by embattled stone parapets. Bastions project outwards, and huge pavilions built of brick, pierced with many balistraria, and coated with highly varnished coloured tiles, ornament its four corners and gates. It rises only 99 feet above the ground, beyond which height it is never allowed to build, lest the flight of the good spirits might be inconvenienced thereby. This magnificent rampart, which to the north-east and to the west rises abruptly from the midst of the country, Peking having no suburbs, presents a most imposing aspect; and it is not less impressive when beheld from any one of the half-moons, which are very vast, and are built before the various gates, but which, owing to the height of the embattled walls which surround them on all sides, each of which is surmounted by a massive brick pavilion, look like wells.

To the south of the Tatar City is a group of less imposing walls surrounding the lengthy rectangle which includes the Chinese City, the commercial part of Peking. The broad street that intersects it from north to south, and cuts it into two equal parts, especially close to the Tsieng-Men Gate, by which you pass into the Tatar City, is the most animated artery of the city. In the central walk, paved with magnificent flagstones, not one of which is now in its right place, and which apparently only serve as stumbling-blocks to pedestrians, and are covered with mud a foot deep in summer, and by a pestilential dust in winter, circulate in the utmost confusion the ever-present waggons, already described, palanquins, sedan-chairs, whose colours vary with the dignity of the owner, chairs drawn by mules, men riding on small Manchurian ponies, indefatigable asses, which are the best means of locomotion in the place, enormous one wheeled barrows, coolies struggling under the burden of huge baskets filled with fruit, vegetables, and other comestibles, fixed to the end of a very long pole slung across their shoulders—all this busy world bustles along, filling the air with shouts and cries of every kind, from the croaking of the porters to the stentorian shouts of the waggoners. Occasionally a long string of huge two-humped camels, a cord running from the nostrils of one animal to the tail of the other, and led by a Mongolian urchin, adds to the incredible confusion. All this crowd, together with beasts and vehicles, has to content itself with what, under ordinary circumstances, would be a very broad roadway, if at least a third of it were not encumbered by a sort of permanent open-air fair, carried on in rows of booths, some of which are used as restaurants, others as shops of every description. These booths turn their backs to the middle of the street, and thus hide the line of shops beyond, of which, from the centre of the road, you can only perceive the enormous and innumerable signboards hanging from a veritable forest of gaily-painted poles.

Beyond the Tsieng-Men Gate is situated the Beggars’ Bridge, always thronged by groups of wretches clamouring for alms and ostentatiously displaying the most appalling mutilations, with all kinds of loathsome diseases added to their sordid misery to excite compassion. The narrow side-walks, which are bordered on the one hand by booths, and on the other by big shops, are filled by a motley gathering of small shopkeepers, each plying his business in the open-air barbers, hairdressers, and fortune-tellers, among whom the crowd has no little difficulty in threading its way. Here you see men in light-blue blouses, with long pigtails; Chinese ladies with their hair dragged back magpie-tail fashion, who balance themselves painfully as they go along on their tiny deformed feet; Tatar women, whose hair is puffed out on each side of their faces, and who, like their Chinese sisters, stick a big flower behind their ears. Not being crippled by bound feet, like their less fortunate Chinese sisters, these women strut along with as firm a step as their high-heeled clogs will permit. Their faces are bedaubed with rice-flour, and their cheeks painted an alarmingly bright red. Children with their heads shaved in the most comical manner, dotted about with little tufts, that have a very funny appearance, being cut according to the taste or caprice of their parents, also run about. Among the well-clad children of a better class are others, stark-naked, looking for all the world like small animated bronzes, so dark and warm-coloured is their polished skin. In order to avoid being mobbed, one has occasionally to seek refuge in a shop, which usually opens on to the street, and is without windows. In the back the shopkeepers are peacefully seated behind their counters smoking long pipes, whilst exhibiting their goods and listening to the bargainings of their customers. These shops are always very clean, and the goods are arranged with great order and even considerable taste. A bowl with goldfish, or a cage full of birds, adds not a little to the charm and peacefulness of the scene, which is peculiarly refreshing after the noise and dirt of the streets.

All the great arteries of Peking are equally filthy and closely resemble each other, excepting that not one of them can equal, either in the size of the shops or wealth of their contents, the famous High Street that leads to the Tsieng-Men Gate. In summer, after the rains, a coating of mud some two feet and a half deep covers both road and footpath, which when the weather dries again is converted into thick clouds of dust. The sideways, always lower than the central road, are usually filled by pools of green water, whence arises the most horrible stench of decayed vegetables and rotting carcases of animals, in addition to the accumulated offal of the neighbouring houses. The wonder of it all is that the entire population of Peking has not long since been swept away by some appalling epidemic.

Leaving aside the few broad streets, one frequently comes across immense open spaces, whose centres are generally occupied by a huge dunghill. The narrow little streets that branch out in all directions can be divided into two classes—those which border on the three or four principal commercial thoroughfares, which, like them, are lined with shops, but are scarcely broad enough to allow of the passage of a single cart, although they are thronged from morning to night by a seething, noisy crowd; and the silent and deadly dull private streets, where the dwelling-houses are to be found. On either side runs a gray wall, whose monotony is broken at intervals by a series of shabby little doors. If any one of these happens to be open, one can only perceive from the street a small courtyard a few feet square, and another dead wall, beyond which is the inner courtyard, shut off from all observation, and on which open all the windows of these singular dwellings, not one of which is more than one story high, and always protected by a gray double-tiled roof, usually ornamented at the four corners by some grotesque stone beast or other, but never turned up at the ends as are invariably those of the temples and the monuments. There is no movement whatever in these streets. A few children play before the doors, a dog or so strays about in the road, and now and again a coolie or an itinerant merchant, with two baskets suspended from a pole across his shoulders, breaks the silence by a shrill cry; sometimes a donkey or a cart passes along but fails to enliven the deadly quiet of the street, which is so still and monotonous that one might almost imagine one’s self in a village instead of in one of the most populous cities in the world.

The scene changes entirely when Peking is seen from the heights of the walls which form the only agreeable promenade in the capital, to whose summits ascends neither the mud nor the stench of this dirtiest of cities. The eye wanders pleasantly over a forest of fine trees, for every house has one or two in its courtyard, and barely a glimpse of the offensive streets is to be had: only the gray roofs of the little houses; and thus Peking looks for all the world like an immense park, from whose midst rise the yellow roofs of the Imperial Palace, and to the northern extremity of the city, a wooded height called the Coal Mountain, surmounted by a pagoda.

As to monuments, there are very few in Peking worth the seeing, and into these foreigners are never allowed to enter. Twenty-five or thirty years ago visitors were admitted into a great number of the temples: that of Heaven, which is now being restored, and where the Emperor goes annually to make a sacrifice, and the Temples of the Sun, the Moon, and of Agriculture, and they were even allowed to peep into the Imperial Gardens; but since the entry of the Anglo-French troops into Peking, in 1860, the Chinese have been very reticent with respect to their monuments, doubtless a consequence of the salutary lesson they then received, which they are philosophical enough to endeavour to forget, as all wise folk should do things that wound their pride. To-day the people affect to believe the official story invented on that occasion to save appearances, wherein it was stated that the Emperor Hien-feng, instead of fleeing before the allies, merely went on a hunting excursion in his park at Johol in Mongolia. Their usual insolence towards foreigners had completely returned, to be modified, however, so soon as they heard of the successes of the Japanese, and they were seized with absolute terror at the prospect of beholding the Mikado’s army marching through their gates.

When I was in Peking in the autumn of 1897 Europeans were very rarely insulted in the streets. Before the War it was otherwise, and I myself, like many another, did not escape the impertinence of the Chinese at Canton. All the same, they took good care to close their monuments to the inspection of the ‘foreign devils,’ and the only temple now open for our inspection is that of Confucius, an immense but rather commonplace hall with a steep roof supported on pillars painted a vivid red. Foreigners are also permitted to visit the place where the literati undergo their examinations. It consists of some thousands of little cells lining several long, open corridors, wherein the unfortunate candidates for law and medicine are shut for several days while they answer the questions set them. Then there is the old Observatory, wherein are two series of highly useful instruments. The first dates from the time of the Mongol Dynasty in the thirteenth century, and lies scattered half buried among the weeds at the bottom of the courtyard; the second series is less antiquated, having been made under the direction of the Jesuit Verbiest, who was astronomer to the Emperor of China in the early part of the seventeenth century. They are shown on the walls. After seeing these thoroughly up-to-date astronomical instruments, one has visited all there is to be seen in the Imperial city of Peking.

It must be confessed, however, that walking in the streets, or at the foot or on top of the enormous walls, is far more interesting and instructive than visiting temples and palaces. At every step the observer is struck with the activity and energy of the Chinese people in contradistinction to the systematic stagnation of its governing classes, and he soon comes to the conclusion that China is in a state of decadence strongly resembling in many details that of the Roman Empire at the time of the invasions of the Barbarians. This erstwhile magnificent capital is now only the shadow of its former self. The number of its inhabitants, 700,000 to 800,000, is gradually decreasing, and many houses are already in ruins. Some of the best streets, which must at one time have been splendidly paved, are now almost impassable, the result of neglect; drains, which at one time were covered in, now run open through the streets, and are choked up by nameless deposits which are never removed, and even immense blocks of the celebrated walls are occasionally allowed to crumble to ruin. Now and again an effort to repair them is started, but as half the money intended for the work usually remains in the hands of the officials and contractors it is never well done, great care being taken not to do the repairs thoroughly, for fear of preventing fresh disaster and losing a chance to do it all over again. On the other hand, on the rare occasions when the Emperor betakes himself and his court to some summer residence or other, or to make a sacrifice at one of the temples, things are furbished up a bit, to make him believe that his capital is well looked after. The ruts and the mud-heaps in the streets through which the procession passes are hidden under a thick coating of sand, and everything likely to offend the eye of the Son of Heaven is covered over; even the miserable booths which encumber the streets are removed, and the half-moons in the rampart have their walls painted white, but only so high as the Imperial eyes may be lifted as His Celestial Majesty passes by, lolling back indolently in his magnificent palanquin.

From Peking to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall of China—The temples in the hills—Striking neglect of monuments and public works—Remains of ancient and well-paved highroads, now replaced by wretched ones, which are only temporarily repaired when the Emperor or the Empress Dowager passes—The manner in which useful works are neglected in China, and her treasure wasted.

A tour in the environs of Peking, to the Great Wall and to some of the temples built on the hills to the west of the town, confirms the bad impressions received in the city. This excursion occupies between three and four days, and can be performed with relative comfort, and in ordinary times without the least danger. A ‘boy,’ that is to say, a domestic servant—a combination of guide, interpreter, valet and cook, and who is often, by the way, a very expert disciple of Vatel—a donkey and donkey-boy, a waggon, drawn by two mules, and a waggoner, are the staff necessary for this journey, which is usually performed partly on foot and partly on donkey-back. This suite may be considered somewhat numerous, but no other human being but his own master would get a Chinese donkey to budge a step forward, and the same may be said of the mules. As to the ‘boy,’ he is the indispensable party into whose hands you must trust yourself absolutely, even to the extent of handing over your purse, so that he may settle your accounts at the various inns and give the expected backsheesh to the servants or to the guides and bonzes in the temples. Needless to say, he perfectly understands how to take care of himself in the matter of reserving for his own benefit the ‘squeezee,’ as they say in pigeon-English. All Europeans who travel in the Far East are obliged to have a retinue, which adds to their importance, and in which every man has his particular function to fulfil, and will not undertake the least share of his fellow-servants’ work.

On leaving Peking by the Northern Gate, one crosses a sandy and barren space, occupied in the thirteenth century by a part of the town, which has now disappeared. Then come some outlying towns, mainly inhabited by merchants, succeeded by the admirably cultivated plain which extends from the north of Peking to the foot of the hills. It is more barren to the south, and trees only grow close to the villages, which are invariably surrounded by groups of weeping-willows. In this region the soil and the climate are too dry to allow of the cultivation of rice, but a crop of winter wheat is obtained, and I have seen it sown, and even appearing above the ground, in the month of October. It does not freeze in the very dry earth, although the thermometer falls twenty degrees, and the snow is never very deep. This crop of wheat is harvested during May. Presently you see fields of sorghum, millet, the staple food of the people in these parts, and also of buckwheat. On all sides the peasantry are hard at work, usually alongside strong waggons, better built than those of the Siberian mujiks, and drawn either by two mules or two horses, or sometimes by three little donkeys. In the villages you can sometimes see the grain thrashed or the long leaves of the sorghum being bound in sheaves, which when dried are made into mats and screens. The women help in the latter work, which invariably takes place close to their doors, for they are never seen in the fields. The roads are generally very bad, but have not always been so. Many of the bridges are still in a superb condition, although the fine flagstones with which they are paved are in a shocking condition. Others, however, are in absolute ruin, and the rivers which they once spanned have consequently to be forded. Everything points to the fact that we are passing over a once magnificent highroad, and effectively it leads to the Tombs of the Mings, which explains why it was built in such a sumptuous manner by that Dynasty, as well as the state of abandonment into which it has fallen since it has come into the hands of the Manchus, who dethroned the Mings in 1644.

Very few places that I have ever visited have produced upon me a greater impression of grandeur than the amphitheatre formed by the lofty hills on whose last slopes stand the Tombs of the thirteen Emperors of the Ming Dynasty. Each of these monuments is formed of an aggregation of buildings shaded by magnificent trees, that present a striking contrast to the usual gray barrenness of Chinese hills. The broad road which leads to them, once paved but now in ruins, passes under a superb triumphal arch into the silent valley, which seems deserted, although in reality it is highly cultivated; the little villages clustering at the foot of the heights, too, are, as a rule, difficult to make out. After passing under numerous elegant gateways, supported by winged columns, we at length arrive at a gigantic alley of colossal monoliths, representing figures of animals and monsters alternately sitting and crouching, and statues of famous legislators and warriors. Roads radiate towards each of the Tombs, of which I only visited that of the first Ming Emperor who reigned in Peking.

After having passed through a high wall by a porch with three badly-kept gates, we crossed a spacious courtyard planted with trees, and presently entered the great hall. Before the whole length of the faÇade extends several flights of marble steps with exquisitely sculptured balustrades. The hall itself is not less than 200 feet long by about 80 feet wide and 40 feet in height. It is nearly empty, and at first you can only perceive the forty gigantic wooden columns, each formed of the trunk of a tree, that support the roof, and which two men cannot embrace. These columns are said to have come from the confines of Indo-China. In the midst of them, half hidden away, is a small altar, ornamented with a few commonplace china vases, which are crumbling to pieces and full of dust. Beyond the altar, enclosed in a sort of tabernacle, is the tablet inscribed with the deceased Emperor’s name in three Chinese characters. His body lies beyond, at the end of a gallery a mile long, which penetrates straight into the heart of the hill, but is walled up a short distance from the entrance, which one reaches through two courtyards separated by a portico. From the lofty tower that rises over this entrance, the walls of which, by the way, are embellished with names which numerous Chinese and a few Europeans have been vulgar enough to scratch on the walls with the points of their knives, the view includes the whole semicircle of hills, as well as all the Tombs, which, by reason of the very simplicity of their design, create an impression of extreme grandeur. Their erection must have cost as great an amount of labour as that which was bestowed by the Egyptians upon the sepulchres of their Pharaohs.

The Great Wall of China is another colossal undertaking, in order to reach which you take the high road to Mongolia that passes through the Pa-ta-ling Gate at the extremity of the pass of Nan-kow. This highroad, which for centuries has been daily traversed by long caravans of camels, engaged in the traffic between Mongolia, Siberia, and China, was formerly paved with blocks of granite, of which no trace is now to be seen, either on that part of the road in the little town of Nan-kow, or in the difficult mountain pass, and the traveller may therefore conclude that they have either been used in the construction of houses or washed away by some torrent. Nan-kow is a walled town, like almost all those in the neighbourhood of Peking, including the curious old suburb of Chao-yung-kwan, over one of the doors of which there is an inscription in six languages, one of which has not yet been deciphered. Everywhere on the mountain sides towers and picturesque ruins of fortifications manifest how great has ever been the fear of the Chinese of the Tatars and Mongols, for protection against whom the Great Wall was built. It is divided into two parts, the inner and the outer wall, the first of which extends for nearly 1,560 miles, from Shan-hai-kwan on the Gulf of Pe-chi-li into the Province of Kan-su on the upper Yellow River. Built two hundred years before our era, needless to say, it has been often repaired and rebuilt. Near the sea it is constructed of stone, but brick has been used on the inland portions. In thickness it varies from 16 feet to 20 feet, and is about the same in height, but to the west it is nothing like so lofty.

The inner wall, which dates from the sixth century, was almost entirely reconstructed by the Mings in the sixteenth century, and is 500 miles long. This is the wall to be seen from Pa-ta-ling, passing over the hill, and then proceeding right and left to climb in zigzag fashion to the very summit of the mountains. It is constructed after the model of the walls of Peking, on a substructure of stone, with two rows of brick battlements. The top is paved, and forms a roadway 11 feet in width. Its height varies, according to the irregularity of the land, between 12 feet and 20 feet, and at about every 300 feet there are towers twice the height of the wall, also surrounded by bastions and battlements. Although less imposing than the Wall of Peking, the Great Wall of China does not deserve the flippant remarks that have been made about it. Against an enemy unprovided with artillery, and horsemen like the Mongols and Tatars, it must have presented a very serious obstruction, and if occasionally they have been able to scale it, it has generally resisted every attempt at invasion. Although it has not been used under the present Dynasty, which is of Tatar origin, it has remained, thanks to the care bestowed upon it in former times, one of the best preserved monuments in China.

It is otherwise with the greater number of the temples scattered over the hills, which stand amidst groups of magnificent trees, whose green foliage contrasts so pleasantly with the gray, barren hills which the Chinese, like all other peoples of the Far East, never cultivate. Visitors are pleasantly received in the temples near Peking, some of which are used as summer residences by European diplomatists tired of being shut up in the city, whose pestilential miasmas occasionally reach even their houses, although they are surrounded by parks. Some of them are only wooden structures, with dwellings for the bonzes surrounding courtyards on to which open the various sanctuaries. The use of wood in the Far East for building purposes does not prevent a certain display of magnificence and art, and the Japanese temples at Nikko and many other places are marvels of richness and beauty, although they are entirely built of wood. Unfortunately, unless they are very carefully looked after, they are naturally apt to deteriorate much quicker than stone buildings. Needless to say, the Chinese temples are in a very dilapidated condition. I cannot say that I was impressed by the amazing collection of Buddhas, some life-size, others colossal, some gilded and others painted, no two of which are said to be exactly alike; or by the crowd of horrible monsters with ferocious faces and abominable gestures who guard the entrances to these temples. They one and all filled me rather with disgust than with the slightest impression of awe. This degenerate Buddhism is very different from that which exists in Ceylon, and among certain Japanese sects. The only traces of the original character of the religion, or at any rate of the land from which it sprang, are to be found in the lovely stone pagoda of the Pi-Yuen-Sse, whose style is pure Hindu, and contains some exquisite bas-reliefs representing scenes in the lives of Sakyamuni and his saints, or, again, in the even more beautiful sculpture to be admired in the Temple of the Yellow Tower.

The Summer Palace, which, by the way, was not a genuine Chinese building, but erected under the direction of the Jesuits in the eighteenth century in the style of Versailles, has not been rebuilt since its destruction by the Allies in 1860, and all access to its ruins has been prohibited. Not far distant is the summer residence of the Empress Dowager, surrounded by magnificent gardens. The road which leads to it is well kept. For the matter of that, as the Empress was about to make a pilgrimage to a neighbouring shrine at the time I passed that way, all the roads were being tinkered up for her advent. Hundreds of coolies were working under the direction of mandarins of the second or inferior rank, with the white or gold button, who were dashing on horseback hither and thither, giving orders and generally superintending so that all irregularities were rapidly disappearing under cartloads of sand. These costly repairs were, however, only ephemeral.

The Chinese Government never hesitates about wasting money on trivialities. On one occasion, a river happening to upset certain arrangements in one of the Imperial gardens, it was, at enormous cost, drained from its bed, and allowed to inundate and ruin hundreds of farms belonging to the unfortunate peasants. On another occasion, with a view to worthily celebrating the sixtieth birthday of the Dowager Empress, the money intended for the reorganization of the army in Pe-chi-li was squandered on processions, illuminations, and fireworks. Whenever money is needed for anything but the gratification of the greed and vanity of the Court officials, it is never forthcoming; and every traveller who has been to China will corroborate what I have said concerning not only the neighbourhood of Peking, but also of Canton and Shanghai. The highroads have practically ceased to exist, and the bridges are rapidly crumbling to ruin. The Imperial canal, one of the most magnificent works of past generations, which goes from Hang-Chow to Tien-tsin, a distance of over 940 miles, and unites the Blue, the Yellow, and the Pei-ho Rivers, and also the capitals of the middle provinces, whence are obtained the best provisions, is now at many points choked up with sand and stones, and in others it is only a few inches deep, and can only be used for local traffic. China of to-day is but a shadow of what she has been, for her sole object in existence is to deceive, and her administration is rotten to the core. This decadence dates centuries back, but it culminated five years ago, when an Empire of 400,000,000 inhabitants was obliged to humble itself to a nation ten times its inferior in population and resources.

The literati or governing class—How it is recruited from the mass of the people through examinations—Bachelors, Masters of Arts and Doctors—Enormous number of candidates—The functionaries exclusively selected from the literati—Most of the posts sold—The syndicate for the exploitation of public offices—The gravest defect of the system, the examinations, the subjects selected being merely exercises in rhetoric and memory about an immense quantity of nonsensical matter supplied by the Chinese classics and ancient annals—Abortive attempts to introduce small doses of Western science into these examinations—Superstitions of the literati—This stupid system of examination the principal cause of Chinese isolation—Complete disappearance of the military spirit resulting from the same fatal cause—Hostility and contempt entertained by the literati against all European progress—Difficulty of suppressing or reforming the mandarinate.

The curse of China and the main reason why her remarkable people, who once deserved to be compared with the ancient Romans, have sunk to the degraded condition in which we find them at present, is the mandarinate, which she has the misfortune to consider one of her chief glories. It is this corrupt and antiquated system that is destroying the Celestial Empire. It has often been observed that nations generally have the Government they deserve, and it is undoubtedly true that the administration of China is, in a measure, the logical result of her geographical situation and singular history, to which might be added the peculiar character of her people. On the other hand, there is no question that the worst traits of the national character are accentuated in the mandarin class which governs the country, and saps its activity and energy.

Theoretically, the Chinese Government is based on paternal principles; as a matter of fact, it is entirely in the hands of the class known as ‘literati,’ from whose ranks all the State officials, or mandarins, are recruited; and if we wish to understand the primary causes of the misgovernment of the Celestial Empire, we must become thoroughly acquainted with the origin and manners of the mandarins, who are not hereditary, but recruited from the mass of the people in the most democratic manner in the world by means of public competitive examinations. These examinations confer three honorary degrees, which might be likened to those bestowed by our Universities: Bachelors, Masters of Arts, and Doctors. The degree of Bachelor is competed for in each district (there are sixty districts per province), and that of Master of Arts in the eighteen provincial capitals; that of Doctor, on the other hand, is only to be obtained in Peking. One may imagine the esteem in which these degrees are held by the people when I mention that in 1897, when I was at Shanghai, no less than 14,000 candidates came up for examination at Nanking, with only 150 honours to be distributed amongst them. It is considered a great honour for a family to include a literate amongst its members, and his obtaining his degree is celebrated throughout the entire province which enjoys the privilege of being his birthplace. Should he be fortunate enough to obtain his laureate at Peking, he is welcomed on his return to his native town as a veritable conquering hero. It is quite true that, in order to pass his examination, he has to go through an amount of physical suffering and patient endurance which would deter any but a Chinaman from the attempt. Each candidate is shut up for three whole days in a box-like cell four feet square, in which he cannot even lie down, with no other companions than his brush, paper and stick of Chinese ink; and barely an examination passes without some student or other being found dead in his cell. According to popular rumour, it is said that the all-pervading corruption penetrates even into these cells, and that not a few candidates succeed less through their merits than through the golden gate; and it has even been observed that the sons and near relatives of existing high functionaries are pretty sure to pass; but as a rule, however, it seems that merit generally obtains its reward. It is, however, after the examinations that begin the real difficulties of those who are not rich and are without influential friends. One might naturally expect that after the trouble, fatigue, and expense of the examination were over, some post or other would surely be forthcoming to recompense the efforts of the candidate; but the contrary is the rule, and many a man has had to wait a lifetime before obtaining the reward for which he has striven so hard. Nevertheless, those students who seem to possess exceptional ability generally push themselves forward in the following manner: a syndicate has been formed which advances the funds necessary to assist the aspirant in mounting the first rung on the ladder of fame, and to help him further, until he is in a position to return the money borrowed, either in cash or kind, with a very handsome interest. The idea of exploiting public offices as a sort of commercial concern is, to say the least, ingenious, and, what is more, it seems to be occasionally exceedingly remunerative. On the other hand, the expense and the intrigue that such a pernicious system must necessarily involve can better be imagined than described. As an instance in point, I was assured that the position of Tao-tai or Governor of Shanghai, worth, for not more than three years, a salary of 6,000 taels, or £900, a year, was recently bought for over £30,000.

Even worse than the purchase of public offices, and the favouritism shown at examinations, are the subjects chosen for competition, which are exclusively selected from Chinese classical and scholastic literature. The works of Confucius, those of his disciples, of Mencius and of other philosophers who enlightened the world two thousand years ago, and a mass of quaint lore derived from the ancient Chinese chronicles, form the subject of these extraordinary examinations, and the students have to learn some hundred volumes as nearly as possible by heart, memory being the one thing most highly prized by the Board of Examiners. The student is expected to quote certain extracts word by word as they appear in the books, and his examination papers must, moreover, be embellished by a great quantity of quotations—the more the better. An elegant style is obtained only through acquaintance with as many of the 60,000 Chinese characters as possible, from which the student is expected to make an appropriate selection, and, as each sign means a word, and not a few of these are almost unknown, and only to be found in some hidden corner of an ancient volume, the waste of time is appalling. The preparatory instruction, therefore, simply consists in cramming the wretched candidate with a knowledge of as great a number of signs or characters, and quotations from the Celestial classics, as possible. One of the most curious features of the Chinese is that, although everybody knows how to read and write a little, no one can do so perfectly, for the simple reason that no Chinaman has ever been known to completely master the voluminous alphabet of his country. The most ignorant has acquired some ten or a dozen characters relating to his trade, and sufficient for his purpose. When a man has mastered 6,000 or 8,000 he is considered learned, and, when we come to think of it, there must be very few ideas that cannot be expressed by so many thousands of words. Many of the higher literati manage to acquire even 20,000 words, and the state of the mind of that man may safely be left to the reader’s imagination, especially if we reflect that he must have passed his entire youth studying by rote thousands of signs only distinguishable from one another by the minutest strokes, and in acquiring a prodigious amount of obsolete knowledge from classical books and annals whose authors lived in remote antiquity. Of late years a slight modification has been introduced in the shape of certain concessions to what is officially called the ‘new Western culture.’ To the usual questions selected from the works of Confucius and other philosophers have now been added the identification of names mentioned in modern geography, and since the Chino-Japanese War the examiners at Nanking ask their candidates some very grave and informing queries in astronomy, as: ‘What is the apparent diameter of the sun as seen from the earth? and what would be that of the earth as seen from the sun or from some other planet?’ The following sage question is typical of the intellectual condition of both examiner and examined: ‘Why is the character in writing which represents the moon closed at the bottom, and the one which represents the sun left open?’

In the capital of a province near Shanghai the learned examiners wished to encourage the study of mathematics, and, accordingly, prizes were offered for competition and a solemn circular sent out to encourage young men to take part in the examination. Some young fellows, who had been educated in the missionary schools, solved most of the problems offered fairly well, and in accordance with the rules of modern elementary education. Others, on the other hand, who were better acquainted with the Four Books and the Five Great Classics than with Western geometry, made the remarkable discovery that the problems were explained in an old work written many centuries ago, with the result that they simply copied word by word the fantastical solutions therein formulated, and, of course, carried off the prizes. In the following year one of the professors of a foreign missionary college asked leave for a competent European teacher to be included in the examining committee in order to assist in the preparation of the papers and to pronounce a verdict upon the answers sent in. Needless to say, the demand was refused and the questions were sent out without the least attempt to insure their being loyally answered. Among the questions asked at a competitive scientific examination in Chekiang in 1898 were the following: ‘How are foreign candles made, and in what consists their superiority over those manufactured in China?’ ‘Name the principal ports touched at by the steamers running between Japan and the Mediterranean.’ ‘To which of the new sciences and methods which people are endeavouring to introduce should the greatest importance be attached?’ ‘Write an essay on international law.’ Comment is needless.

These foolish innovations, of course, do not change the fundamental scholastic and rhetorical character of Chinese examinations, and the usual themes for the compositions remain identical. Here are two examples quoted by Mr. Henry Norman: ‘Confucius hath said, “In what majesty did Chun and Yu reign over the Empire, as though the Empire was as nothing unto them!” Confucius hath said, “Yao was verily a great sovereign. How glorious he was! Heaven alone is grand, and Yao only worthy to enter it. How exalted was his virtue! The people could find no words wherewith to qualify it.”‘^[22] This was the theme that had to be developed by many a flower of rhetoric. It is only through the study of these books, written twenty centuries ago, and encumbered by parables and affected maxims, and of ancient annals crammed with fantastic legends believed in as absolute facts, that are selected the members of the class who are expected to govern China!

The result of this method of education was exemplified as late as 1897, two years after a war which had brought the Celestial Empire within an inch of ruin, when a censor, one of the highest officials in the Empire, addressed a document to the Emperor, wherein he protested against the concessions made to the inventions of the Western barbarians, which he did not hesitate to qualify as calculated to disturb the peace of the dead. Instead of constructing railways, he gravely insisted, it were wiser to offer a handsome reward to the man who should recover the secret of making flying chariots to be drawn by phoenixes which certainly existed in the good old times. A little time previously a member of the Tsung-li-Yamen had lifted his voice to protest against the various railway embankments and the nails that studded the lines, which, he believed, were likely to inconvenience and wound the sacred dragons who protect the cities of the Empire, and who dwell beneath the soil. The strange superstitions of the feng-shui geomancy dealing with the circulation through the air of good and evil spirits, and with the prescribed height to which buildings may be erected, and the exact positions of doors and other like grave matters, which, it seems, unless they be properly attended to, are apt to upset and offend the flying spirits in their progress through space, exercise a greater empire over the minds of Chinese officials in the very highest places than matters which we should consider of the greatest importance.

The fact that the mandarinate is recruited from the democracy renders it even more pernicious than if it constituted a hereditary aristocracy, for, as it stands, nobody has any interest in overthrowing it. The most intelligent people try to enter it, and it attracts all the most gifted men in the Empire, but only to corrupt them. The literary class enjoys an enormous prestige, and the poorest man lives in the hope of seeing his son one of its learned members. It, therefore, does not excite any of that hatred usually provoked by caste privilege, and thus does not stand the least danger of being upset. On the other hand, the condition to which it has reduced the Celestial Empire is a condemnation of the system of examination for Government office, and many a Western State might do well to study this question and to take its lesson to heart. That its effects have been more accentuated in China than elsewhere is undeniable, being the result of diverse historic and ethnographical circumstances peculiar to that nation. The Chinese reached a high state of civilization long before our era, and being more numerous and intelligent than their neighbours, so soon as they were cemented into one compact nationality they proceeded to subjugate Indo-China and Korea; and so it came to pass that China had no dangerous foes to disturb her, Japan being isolated in her island Empire, and she was separated from India by a formidable mountain barrier and from the West by immense deserts. From that time the Chinese had nothing to trouble them, and had but to live in quiet admiration of the labours of their ancestors, who were the authors of the perfect peace which they enjoyed, and thus little by little they accustomed themselves to look upon them as superior beings and as types of perfection. More advanced than any of their tributary subjects, and having nothing to fear from competition, they became lost in self-admiration, or, rather, in the admiration of those who had made their country what it was, and ended by believing that no further progress was either necessary or possible, and thus are now absolutely non-progressive.

The isolation and the want of emulation in which China has existed for so many centuries have destroyed whatever energy and initiative she might otherwise have possessed. It should be remarked, however, that the Roman Empire was in very much the same condition, and for the same reason, at the time of the invasion of the Barbarians, and that outside the moral revolution effected by Christianity—which, by the way, only obtained its fullest developments by the overthrow of the Empire—no further progress was being made. The sterile admiration of bygone greatness, therefore, is the foundation-stone of the doctrines of Confucius. The Chinese people, who are essentially practical and positive, and less given, perhaps, than any other in the world to study general questions and lofty ideals, soon deteriorated under so retrogressive a system, and eventually lost all sight of the origin of many of their most important institutions. Religion and morals were reduced to mere rites and ceremonies that only conceal the emptiness of Chinese civilization, and so the nation came to the conclusion that the one thing in this world worth the doing was to save appearances, and conceal corruption beneath a flimsy mask.

The isolation of China and her superiority over her neighbours produced another very grave consequence—the ruin of that martial spirit which has obliterated all idea of duty and sacrifice. The military mandarins are despised by their civil colleagues, and their tests consist almost exclusively of physical exercises such as archery and the lifting of heavy weights. ‘One does not use good iron to make nails, nor a good man to make a soldier,’ says the Chinese proverb, and thus it is that the Chinese army is recruited from a horde of blackguards and plunderers, whose only good qualities are their contempt for life and physical endurance, which might under proper management turn this raw material into an excellent army.

The Celestial Empire is quite as incapable of resisting the advance of modern civilization as it is of assimilating it. From the literati who govern the land nothing is to be expected, for they will neither learn nor forget anything. Their prejudices are so strong as to prevent their accepting any great movement of reform, even if it were in their interests, and in the stagnant position in which China is at present, aided by the lack of intercommunication between the provinces, the mandarins do exactly as they please. The Peking Gazette, the official paper, described quite recently in the most glowing terms the suppression of a revolt, showing at the same time the expenses incurred and the rewards offered to those who had aided in its suppression. The real truth of the story was that no revolution whatever had taken place in the district mentioned, and the only unusual event which had occurred was the pursuit of a runaway thief by three soldiers. Such an instance could not possibly occur in a well-regulated State, and naturally the men who profited by the lie will not be very desirous of a change in so profitable a system. ‘Those who despair most of China are those who know her best,’ once said a missionary to me; and his words have been confirmed by nearly every traveller in the Far East with whom I have spoken on the subject. No reform can be expected in the country from within, and a proof in point will be found in the history of the Palace Revolution of September 9th, 1898. The question, therefore, which presents itself is whether external pressure can be brought to bear on China with a view to reforming her Government without causing the dislocation of the Empire.

Great antiquity of China’s national existence—Stagnation of her organization as well as of her social, religious and administrative institutions—Unity of Chinese civilization notwithstanding varied surroundings, differences of language and of racial origin, it being much more inflexible than that of the Western world—Some of the principal characteristics of the Chinese—Love of false appearances—Gulf that divides the theoretical from the practical in all matters of Chinese administration—Corruption of the Chinese Government and its determination to impede progress—Lightness of the taxes—The mass of the people apparently happy under distressing circumstances—The good-humour and liveliness of the Celestials—Pity said to be absolutely excluded from the Chinese character—Why the Chinese make bad soldiers—Organization of the family and position of women—Vices of the Chinese: love of gambling, opium, filthy habits and superstitions—Their better qualities—The people themselves not in a state of decadence—Primary effects of contact with Western civilization.

The Chinese are at one and the same time the most numerous and the longest existing nation in the world. The annals of the Celestial Empire date as far back as those of Egypt, and twenty centuries ago, when States which now rule the earth were in process of formation, China, having undergone several evolutions, was already constituted as she is to-day. The Chinese have never been subjected to any of those marked and repeated changes which, during the last two thousand years, have so profoundly modified the social organization and the manners and customs of other countries; and even the introduction of a new religion did not produce in the East anything comparable to the revolution which, at about the same time, occurred in the West through the spread of Christianity. Buddhism did not modify the Chinese people, but the Chinese people modified Buddhism after their own image and likeness, without, however, permitting the doctrines of Sakyamuni to exercise the least influence over their character, or change an iota of their ideas concerning life and morality, which were determined by Confucius and other sage Celestials, being in reality derived less from the meditations of philosophers or the inspiration of prophets than from the intuitive instinct of the race. The institutions of China have not altered the mental habits or method of life upon which they profess to be modelled, any more than has the theoretical principle of family existence altered the Imperial Government; for the Chinese even now often qualify their high officials by the endearing epithets ‘father’ and ‘mother.’ Political revolutions have not made a deeper impression upon the fossilized organization of the Chinese Government, than has religion on the character and manners of the people. The various dynasties that have succeeded each other have changed nothing, although some of them have been of foreign origin: the Mongolian in the thirteenth century and the Manchurian in our own time; but they effected no variations in the system of Government, and only placed certain functionaries to watch over the mandarins, precisely as the Tatar marshals are instructed to spy upon the officials of nowadays.

China has always been governed after Chinese methods, and although she has occasionally been conquered by foreigners, she has invariably absorbed them into her own civilization, and obliged them to observe her traditions. The Chinese care very little about the future, the greatness or the independence of their country; but they cling with extraordinary tenacity to their old manners and customs, and thereby offer a striking contrast to their neighbours the Japanese, who, notwithstanding their intense patriotism, will make any sacrifice, even that of religious principle and most cherished tradition, if they think that they may thereby benefit their Empire. The Japanese have almost the same conception of patriotism as Europeans, but not so the Chinese, with whom this virtue is merely a racial affair, which in the hour of danger invariably proves of little or no avail, especially against adversaries of a kind never previously encountered.

Does there exist, beyond this intense love of old customs and of an immutable civilization, any bond of union among the three or four hundred millions of human beings who constitute the population of China?^[23] At first sight no people could possibly appear more thoroughly homogeneous than the Chinese; but it is not necessary to stay long among them to perceive that even from the physical point of view there are certain racial differences which make it more difficult at first to note the dissimilarity which separates their race from our own. Even more striking are the diverse dialects spoken in the Empire, several of which are not mere patois, but distinct languages, rendering it impossible for a native of Canton or Foochow to make himself understood at Peking; and in many provinces these idiomatic peculiarities are very interesting. In Fo-kien no less than three patois are spoken—the Amoy, Swatow, and the Foochow, which are utterly different from each other. Between the cities of Peking and Tien-tsin, scarcely thirty leagues apart, there is already a marked difference in the matter of dialect. It is also a noteworthy fact that very little sympathy exists among the Chinese from different provinces, who keep aloof from each other even when circumstances oblige them to live in the same town. Very marked, too, are the divergent characteristics and temperaments observable between the inhabitants of the North and those of the South, the former being much the most energetic and enterprising, but at the same time more hostile to foreigners. The Central Government is almost unknown by the multitudes outside of Peking, and it would be a comparatively easy task to raise an army in one part of China to fight against the inhabitants of another.

The question may now be asked whether China, which covers an area equal to that of Europe, and is even more thickly peopled, is less homogeneous than our own Continent. Does there exist between the various Chinese provinces the same differences that mark each of the nations that in the aggregate form Europe? From the geographical and climatic point of view it is evident that the difference is not very great, although China possesses very high mountains only on her Western frontier, and her plains are much more extensive and continuous. But from the ethnical point of view it would be an exaggeration to state that there is much analogy between China and Europe, since the former is certainly much the more homogeneous. The different countries of our Continent are inhabited by peoples who are only remotely related to each other, and who are merely united by the ties of a common civilization, whereas amongst the subjects of the Son of Heaven the ties are much stronger and the physical resemblance is more marked. I am, of course, speaking of the inhabitants of China proper only—of the eighteen provinces, to which might be added a nineteenth, Ching-king, or Southern Manchuria, now in process of colonization by the Chinese. The various tributary peoples belonging to the Celestial Empire, such as the Mongolians, the Thibetans and the Turki in Eastern Turkestan, are absolutely distinct from each other and from the predominant race; but although the dependencies which they cover constitute two-thirds of the surface of the entire Empire, they only form a twentieth of the entire population, and do not share in its Government.

It should be observed that the absence of any sympathy between the inhabitants of the different Chinese provinces might have been found quite recently exemplified in Europe, not merely between nation and nation, but between province and province in the same country, and that linguistic variations are still noticeable even in the most homogeneous countries. History is full of instances of intestine troubles which have existed in nearly every European nation, and it is but thirty years since the Germans were at war with each other.

I have often heard related the misadventures of two Celestials, natives of different provinces, who, whilst travelling in Europe, met one day only to discover that their sole means of making themselves understood was by speaking English. But does not this story recall the recent Slav Congress in Austria, whose debates had to be held in German in order that they might be followed by all the delegates? The existence of patois and dialects results from the inhabitants of certain districts having neither the time nor the money to go beyond their village further than the nearest market-town. Then, again, education in China does not tend, as in Europe, to produce unity of language, since its writing is quite independent of pronunciation, and the innumerable letters of its alphabet represent, not sounds, but ideas. The lack of any spirit of patriotism may be largely attributed to this state of absolute isolation, to which may be added a general and very profound ignorance. But patriotism as we understand it is, after all, a matter of modern sentiment, therefore not to be looked for in so antiquated a nation as the Chinese.

It matters little whether there be a common origin or not, since our notions of race are very difficult to define, and modern anthropological and ethnographical discoveries tend more and more towards the acceptance of the theory of the existence of distinct races. Whereas the patois of the ten northernmost provinces are merely dialects of the Manchurian languages, those of the south, especially of Fo-kien and Canton, are totally different, and apparently confirm the theory that the Chinese invaders who came from the north-east found the land already inhabited by a people whom they assimilated, precisely as they are doing in our time in Manchuria, and as did the Romans in ancient Gaul.

The entire population of China, excepting a few obscure mountain tribes, the remainder, possibly, of the autochthones of the South, whatever their origin, have for centuries moulded themselves on a civilization that penetrates far deeper into the details of every-day life than any known in Europe. The result is a greater uniformity among the people who have adopted it than will be found among men who follow a less rigid code that permits of greater latitude and affords a freer scope for the exercise of individuality. Many peculiarities in the Chinese character appear at first contradictory, even to those who have lived long in the country, and who assert that no European can ever thoroughly understand a Chinaman because his mind is so differently constituted.

The most striking characteristic of the Chinese, says Mr. Arthur H. Smith, an American missionary who has lived twenty-two years in China, in his admirable book ‘Chinese Characteristics,’ is their remarkable manner of ‘facing’ a thing. To save appearances, or to ‘face’ a difficulty cunningly rather than boldly, is the endeavour of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of the Son of Heaven, and is the key, moreover, to a great many other matters that might otherwise appear incomprehensible. Every Chinaman considers himself an actor, whose public words, acts, and deeds have nothing in common with reality. The most praiseworthy and even the most innocent of actions, unless it be performed in a certain way, will only cover its author with shame and ridicule. If a fault is committed, the guilty party is expected to deny it with the utmost effrontery in spite of convincing evidence, and on no account must he confess himself guilty, even if he is obliged to repair the injury done. From the highest to the lowest, the Chinese entertain a profound respect for shamming. A boy caught stealing will slip the coveted object up his sleeves, stoop down and pretend to pick it up, and with the smile of an angel present it to his master, saying, ‘Here is what you have lost.’ A little over a hundred years ago the mandarins who were escorting Macartney, the English Ambassador, into the presence of the Son of Heaven, profited by his ignorance of their language to place over his carriage an inscription to the effect that it contained ‘the Ambassador bringing tribute from the Kingdom of England,’ and thus kept up the fiction of the universal sovereignty of their lord and master.

Undoubtedly the observance of a certain amount of etiquette is both useful and praiseworthy, and so considered by all civilized nations; but Chinese etiquette is the most punctilious and complicated that was ever imagined, and never on any account to be neglected for a single instant. This excessive attention to outward forms, which, if they be but observed, may conceal any kind of iniquity, explains the fact that in China there is a deeper gulf between theory and practice than in any other country in the world. That it has always been so may be questioned, but at present the morals of Confucius have long since been lost in a code of etiquette which defines virtue as consisting in the observance to the letter of the three hundred rules of ceremony and the three thousand regulations of conduct, without paying the least attention to the spirit in which they were originally formulated.

It is in the system of Government in China that the contrast between precept and practice becomes most evident. As Mr. Henry Norman remarks with hardly exaggerated severity, ‘Every Chinese official, with the possible exception of one in a thousand, is a liar, a thief and a tyrant!’ Examples confirming this assertion are very numerous, and even the celebrated Li Hung-chang cannot be included in the list of those officials who are noted for their honesty, since he had to disgorge a great part of the immense fortune he had accumulated—twenty millions, it is reputed—to save his head during the Chino-Japanese War, when he had to purchase the goodwill of many Court dignitaries, eunuchs and others, notwithstanding which, money matters still occupy a great deal of his attention. I had the honour while I was at Peking to dine at the French Legation in the company of this exalted personage, on the occasion of the visit of the Admiral commanding the French Fleet in the Far East and several officers of his staff. Li conversed through the intermediary of an interpreter named Ma, to whom he spoke in the Fo-kien, his native dialect; it appears he speaks Manchu very badly. He put to each of the guests several polite questions usual among Orientals, inquired after their rank, their age, and invariably wound up his courteous inquiries by asking: ‘Well, and what is your salary?’ With us the income of an official is a matter of very little importance, but with the famous mandarin it was the essential.

For centuries the administration of China has been as corrupt as it is to-day, but for all this it has never driven the people to rebellion. It is true that occasionally there are local agitations, whose chiefs go so far as to pounce upon offending representatives of authority and convey them to the capital of the district, or province, to demand their degradation, which is more often than not accorded—a fact which inspired an English paper at Shanghai to descant on the ‘democratic manner in which the Chinese participate in their government.’ Oppression tempered by revolt is the rule which prevails in the Celestial Empire, but there is no fear of a general revolution against so degenerate a system. This administrative machine, however, which appears to us to be so detestable, only impedes progress, but does not affect the population, which is accustomed to routine habits hundreds of years old, and has not the remotest idea that a reform is either necessary or practicable. When an enterprising man wishes to introduce even the most insignificant of modern trades, he invariably attracts the attention of the mandarins, to whom he is obliged to apply for permission to carry on his novelty, and will only obtain it after much bribery and a promise to pay such a huge percentage on his profits as to render the returns of his venture too insignificant to be worth his continuing it. But for the uncomplaining and unprogressive, who have nothing to do with administrative affairs, life in China flows easily and quietly enough. The taxes are very light, especially for the peasantry, who live by what they harvest in their fields, or for the workpeople, whose wants are very small They fall, however, heavily upon commercial transactions and the transport of merchandise, are a great impediment to commerce, and though they never affect them directly, for their poverty is far too great to permit of their buying anything, they contribute indirectly to keep the inferior classes in a state of abject poverty. According to the investigations of Herr von Brandt, former German Minister to Peking, and a man who has studied China profoundly, the land tax in China reaches £5,250,000, being about 3s. per acre in the North, with a maximum of 13s. in the South. This is not much when we consider the intense activity of Chinese agriculture, which extracts from the soil almost everywhere two harvests annually. The total of the Budget, according to the same authority, reaches 100,000,000 taels, or £15,000,000. Other authorities estimated it as high as £24,000,000, but even this is not excessive. The following is Von Brandt’s account of the different sources of revenue of the Chinese Empire:

Inland Revenue	£5,250,000
Treaty port Customs (obtained by the International Customs Service)	3,450,000
Right for transit in the interior (likin)	1,800,000
Native Customs and tax on native opium	1,500,000
Salt tax	1,500,000
Sale of titles and honorary distinctions	750,000
Tribute of rice	450,000
Licenses, etc.	300,000
Total	£15,000,000

The public revenues, gathered by the provincial treasuries, are sent on to Peking after deduction of the amount necessary for the requirements of the district. It is stated that only a third of these receipts is disposable for the needs of the Central Government.

The mass of the Chinese people endure, therefore, without much discontent, a Government which in ordinary time weighs very lightly upon them, that meddles very little in the affairs of their villages or communes, always very strongly constituted in the Far East, and, above all, never disturbs their ancient customs. Exceedingly poor, and only able to live by dint of hard work, and having a very severe struggle for life, the people have no time to waste on philosophical reflections, and, moreover, possess no standard of comparison to assist it to judge of the hardness of its fate. In addition to this, we must not forget that the Chinese are endowed by nature with an excessive spirit of conservatism and a patience and perseverance quite beyond praise, to which must be added a jovial good-humour that enables them to endure an existence which to the people of any other country would appear intolerable. Peasants and workpeople alike have no hope of ever seeing their humble condition improved, and their prospective existence is one of absolute monotony, entirely passed in sowing and reaping, in carrying heavy burdens, in the turning of looms, or in labouring the earth, without having, excepting on a few feast-days, a moment’s rest, save what is absolutely necessary for meals and sleep. None the less, they always seem very happy, complain very little, and thoroughly enjoy their few pleasures, and apparently absolutely ignore their troubles.

This happy spirit of resignation explains why the Chinese, notwithstanding their poverty, are one of the most contented people in the world, and, consequently, one of the happiest; but, unfortunately, they are exposed from time to time to dreadful calamities: an inundation, an epidemic, or a bad harvest, which brings about inevitable misery and famine to the entire population, who are left without any resources because their work has not been sufficiently remunerative to enable them to put anything by for a rainy day. Not a year passes without a dreadful calamity occurring somewhere or other in the immense Celestial Empire, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, so that, notwithstanding the astonishing number of children born, the population apparently does not increase. Here, then, we have a striking application of the doctrines of Malthus; for in this society, into which no ray of progress is admitted, men multiply quicker than their means of subsistence, but natural calamities re-establish the balance by annually overwhelming a prodigious number of men, women and children.

The exaggerated sense of conservatism and the improvidence of the administration are in part responsible for the occurrence of these grave calamities, which are generally accompanied by a recrudescence of that chronic piracy and brigandage which is peculiar to China, being the sole means of gaining a livelihood left to many ruined wretches. Sometimes, however, the agents of the Government, after having done nothing either to prevent a catastrophe or to mitigate its consequences, increase it in times of famine by their avidity in seizing the rice, and thus provoke a rebellion, as happened in 1898 at various parts of the Yang-tsze-Kiang. But beyond these cases, in which the authorities are manifestly guilty, the Chinese people submit with the utmost resignation to calamities which they foresee and consider as merely natural, and which, when they happen, barely ruffle their habitual placidity. Death to such a people cannot have the same terrors it has for us.

Europeans are of all the civilized peoples of the earth those who complain most of life, but yet who hold most dearly to it. The people of the Far East, the Chinese as well as the Japanese, on the other hand, consider it least. Indifference to death seems to be with them almost a physical characteristic, the result of the singular insensibility of their nervous system. With respect to this last, we have plenty of evidence. The doctors in the European hospitals where natives are treated relate with amazement how their patients undergo the most painful operations without a murmur and without the necessity of having to resort to anÆsthetics. In every-day life, too, the same curious apathy is to be observed in the extraordinary facility with which they can fall asleep whenever they choose, even in the midst of the most awful din and noise, and they can, moreover, remain for hours in one position without making the slightest motion. The reverse of the medal is that, although they are so indifferent to their own sufferings, they are without the slightest feeling for those of others, and can watch the writhing agony of a human being without expressing the least horror or sympathy. The dreadful custom of binding the feet of women in such a manner as to push the heel forward and double up the toes under the sole of the foot, inducing a sore that is never healed, is but one out of many examples of Chinese cruelty. The various and horrible tortures inflicted by the judicial tribunals are another illustration of the same dreadful instinct. The idea of bargaining with a person in danger of death, or with a man who has fallen into the water before attempting to rescue him from drowning, are things which would never suggest themselves to a European, but they come naturally to the Chinese.

The little value in which human life is held in the Far East is exemplified by the frequency of suicide, merely to vindicate a point of honour which in many parts of Europe would be settled at the point of the sword. The hara-kiri is not restricted to Japan, or to the upper classes of Chinese society. A Chinaman, even of the lowest order, will commit suicide out of vengeance, spite, or even through what he considers a matter of honour. Sacrifice of life is common even among women, if we may believe the following narrative extracted from a Chinese newspaper:

‘One day a sow belonging to a certain Madame Feng, having done some slight injury to the door of a certain Madame Wang, that lady forthwith demanded compensation with interest, which was refused, whereupon Madame Wang announced her intention of committing suicide. This dreadful threat proved altogether too much for Madame Feng, who there and then determined to beat her enemy with her own weapon by flinging herself into the nearest canal.’^[24] Suicides are by no means rare among the upper classes of the literati, and quite recently a censor, a high functionary who possesses the privilege of addressing petitions to the Sovereign, awaited the passing of the Imperial cortege and then killed himself as a political demonstration, in order to add weight to a memorial he had presented concerning some promise of the Government which had not been fulfilled. The innumerable public executions form a pendant to the equally numerous cases of suicide.

The reader may be somewhat surprised that a people fearing death so little should make such bad soldiers; but, after all, however lightly a man may hold his life, no one sacrifices it unless it be for some ideal or other. If the Celestials care so little about existence, they care still less for the grandeur of their country, patriotic feeling being absolutely absent from their nature. During the French campaign in Formosa it was no uncommon thing to see Chinese prisoners refuse to do tasks which they considered beneath them, and which they could only be induced to perform after having seen the heads of a few of their comrades fall under the sword. These very people who prefer death rather than derogate from their dignity are the same who have often been seen throwing down their arms on the battlefield. It is but fair to add that it is the military mandarins or officers who generally give the signal for a stampede. Possibly, if commanded by other officers, the Chinese, with their wonderful power of enduring privation and callousness for death, would eventually form an admirable army which, even if it were unable to defend China against foreign Powers, would certainly prove a valuable ally to one or other of them.^[25]

The practice of infanticide, especially of female infants, is another example of the different ways in which the Chinese and Europeans regard life and family ties. With us the love of parents for children is often greater than that of children for their parents; but in China it is quite the reverse. According to Confucius, filial piety was the noblest of virtues, indeed, the fountain-head of them all, and it is the one which his compatriots still practise most assiduously. Among the lower orders, however, this virtue is confined to the support of parents; but this is a duty never neglected. Among the twenty-four famous examples of filial piety is mentioned the case of a man who, at the very moment that he was about to bury his little three-year-old girl alive because he could not afford to keep her as well as his old mother, had his infant saved by the unexpected discovery of a treasure purposely placed in the intended grave by a good genie, who was eager to reward so beautiful an instance of filial piety. A still greater sin against this virtue is that of not possessing male posterity; for then the family becomes extinct, and the ancestors are deprived of those sacrifices to which they have a right, and which it is the first duty of every well-thinking man to offer them at regular intervals. Marriages are contracted very early, and there is no stronger evidence needed against a wife to obtain her divorce than that she has not had a son. The doctrine of filial piety as it is understood by the Chinese, and the worship of ancestors, which is its highest expression, have their good as well as their bad side. It forms the principal mainstay of that useless system of admiration of an irrevocable past in which everything is supposed to have been better than it can possibly be to-day, and which of necessity turns the people of the Celestial Empire from all desire for progress, because to do so would be an outrage to an ancestry whose wisdom can never be surpassed.

If this belief produces unfortunate social consequences, it at the same time serves to consolidate family ties; but ever so it is pernicious, especially with respect to the condition of women. The lot of Chinese women is certainly not a happy one. Lodging rather than living with her husband, under his parents’ roof, the young wife is never allowed to see her own family, excepting at certain fixed periods prearranged by custom. In their earlier years married women in China are exposed to the caprices and rebuffs of a shrewish mother-in-law, who is the tyrant of the family, and whose humble servants the daughters-in-law are expected to be. For all this, they enjoy a certain amount of liberty, for they are neither cloistered nor veiled; but they very rarely leave their house, a state of semi-seclusion which does not prevent their morals being often very indifferent. ‘In a district near mine,’ an American missionary at Fo-kien assured me, ‘there are very few husbands who are not deceived by their wives; and in the one which is under my direction the state of morality, or rather of immorality, is pretty nearly the same.’ Theoretically speaking, adultery in a Chinese woman is considered a very grave crime. As for the husband, he is not expected to practise fidelity. The average Chinaman delights in obscenity, and revels in improper stories and jests; and when he has a little money to spare, spends it very freely in the loosest company. Those places of entertainment where Venus reigns supreme are not, as in Japan, situated in the best and most brilliantly lighted quarter of the town, for such of my readers who have visited Canton may possibly remember to have had pointed out to them the ‘flower-boats’—floating constructions two stories high, whose internal decorations are of the most magnificent.

The national vice of the Chinese, however, is gambling, and it is one very few of them can resist. In his interesting monograph on Peking, Mgr. Favier tells us how the beggars in rags will stake their last scrap of clothing. Certain fanatics will stake their wives and children, and men have been known to wager away their finger-joints. A young Christian, who was an inveterate gambler, on one occasion staked and lost his wife, who was only twenty years of age, for the large sum of 15s. The missionary paid the debt and returned the young woman to her mother. A few months afterwards she rejoined her husband, and, adds the author, with the authority of his thirty-eight years of missionary life in China, ‘in all probability he has staked and lost her again.’

Intemperance, on the other hand, is extremely rare; but those who would be drunkards in Europe, Mgr. Favier assured me when I was in Peking, are opium-smokers in China, where he estimates that about one-fifth of the population of the towns give themselves over to this horrible practice. In the country districts the number is very much less, and another missionary, who lives at Fo-kien in Southern China, estimates it at not more than five per cent. The habit of opium-smoking is very widely spread among the upper classes and the literati; but its effects are not so pronounced among the rich as among the poor, who, by reason of bad diet, are less prepared to resist its effects, especially as they generally indulge in this vice in their leisure hours in the most dreadful dens, and, moreover, smoke a very inferior quality of opium. A young man who begins to indulge in this pernicious habit in his twentieth year usually shuffles off this mortal coil before he is twenty-two. The vices of the Chinese do not particularly shock foreigners who live among them, for they are not obliged to see them; but it is otherwise with their universal and repellently filthy habits and intense love of all kinds of horrible noises, which they indulge in on every possible occasion, be it a sad or merry one, a marriage or a funeral, at festivals as well as at fires. What exasperates a European, however, more than anything else are the vulgar superstitions which replace among the Celestials the spirit of religion, which is quite absent, and which constitute another hindrance to progress. Their strange ideas with respect to feng-shui, or geomancy, often upset the least attempt at introducing any improvement even in European concessions or in such cities as Hong-Kong and Singapore. Then, again, the disposition of the Chinese mind does not admit of general or abstract ideas, and repudiates all sense of the ideal, and, in a word, is sterilized by such absolute materialism as to shock even the most cynical of Europeans. Take them for all in all, therefore, the Celestials may be described as a not particularly seductive or sympathetic people, all the less so as their ugly appearance is not compensated for by the charm of manner which renders the Japanese so agreeable and which enables them to gild even their vices.

The Chinese, however, have certain great qualities which are not precisely amiable, in spite of their extreme politeness, a matter rather of ceremony than of sincerity. These qualities are of a serious nature: patience, perseverance, hard work, the greatest aptitude for commercial pursuits, industry, economy, singular resistive power, and respect for parents and old age, to which may be added a remarkably contented frame of mind. Therefore, even if the Chinese Government presents every indication of decadence, it would be unjust to say the same of its energetic and hard-working subjects. Unquestionably the Government is not the only thing that needs reforming in China. There is the secular habit of always looking to the past for a type of perfection, which produces a certain atrophy of the Chinese intelligence, depriving it of all elasticity, originality and power of invention, and making it only capable of servile imitation, lacking even discernment—a fact which is admirably illustrated in the well-known story of the tailor to whom a European sent an old pair of breeches in order that he might copy them. This he did so conscientiously that he cut a hole in the exact place where there had been one in the well-worn pair which had been entrusted to him. In the same order of ideas is an instance supplied me by the Jesuit Fathers at Sicawei, near Shanghai, who showed me some drawings executed by young Chinese students, intended for the plates to be introduced in a publication on the fauna of the Far East. They included some drawings of the skeletons of animals, which, however, were disfigured, notwithstanding the entreaties of the Fathers, with certain accidental blots and marks that appeared upon the models. It is not impossible to induce the Chinese to learn new habits, but it is almost impossible to induce them to correct those which have been bequeathed to them by their ancestors. It is possible to teach them how to work modern machinery, but no power, human or divine, could teach a Chinese carpenter to work otherwise than he has been trained to do. At the orphanage at Sicawei, under the direction of the Jesuits, I was shown over the carpentry department, and was surprised to find each bench occupied by only one workman. The Father who showed me over the school informed me that it was absolutely impossible to induce two workmen to occupy the same bench. The younger orphans saw the older children and the adults who had remained in the service of the mission working thus, and insisted upon doing likewise.

The awakening of any sense of originality or invention in the mind of this people, by whom these qualities have been lost for the simple reason that they have been systematically trained to look backwards rather than forwards, will be a work of centuries, and only brought about by prolonged contact with the peoples and ideas of the West, and this contact is only now beginning. Before it produces its full effects upon the race it will doubtless do so upon the land of China itself, if permission can only be obtained to exploit the great natural wealth which lies undisturbed beneath the soil of this enormous Empire, and is thus lost to humanity. If the work of developing the economic resources of China be undertaken in a spirit of selfish interest, it will nevertheless very considerably ameliorate the lot of the Chinese people, if only by extending their field of activity, which is now limited to agriculture and small industries. It will allow them, for example, to exploit the subsoil, which is as much neglected in the Celestial Empire as the soil itself has been perfected by exceedingly skilful farming. If, as we believe, the great industries resulting from modern scientific discoveries have really contributed to better the condition of the people of Europe, surely their introduction into China should be most beneficial to the inhabitants of that vast Empire.

Concessions successively made by China to foreigners after the Wars of 1842, 1858–60, and 1895–98—Increasing tension between the Chinese and Europeans in consequence of the latter desiring to extend their action—Refusal of Europeans to conform to Chinese usages—Frequent breaches made by them against the rules and traditional customs of the Chinese—Contempt in which Western civilization is held by the Chinese notwithstanding their acknowledgment of its power and material advancement—This hostile spirit more marked among the literati, who direct public opinion, than among the people.

The position of foreigners in the Middle Kingdom has been defined by various formal conventions, the first of which was the Treaty of Nanking, signed between England and China after the war of 1842, known in history as the Opium War. This was followed in 1844 by other treaties upon the same subject with France and the United States, and still later with other nations; in 1858 the treaties of Tien-tsin, which were concluded with France and England after a short war, but which were not ratified until 1860, after a much more serious campaign and the entry of the allied troops into Peking, greatly ameliorated the condition of foreigners in the Celestial Empire. Lastly, in 1895, the treaty of Shimonosaki, imposed upon China by victorious Japan, gave fresh facilities to foreign commerce. It is a characteristic fact, however, that no serious concession has been obtained from China until after a disastrous war, the Government of Peking never ceding to persuasion, only to force.

Since the sixteenth century Europeans have been able, as the Arabs and Malays had before them, to carry on commerce with Canton without being molested, simply because they did not show any intention of extending their commerce further. But in the second quarter of the present century they became more numerous and exacting, and tension began to manifest itself. The pride of the Westerners, who were more than ever convinced of the superiority of their civilization, and whose progress at home was making giant strides, burned to impose their ideas upon the whole world, and thereby wounded the equally great pride of the Chinese, stubbornly attached to those very ancient customs so haughtily despised by the barbarians, as they were pleased to call us. The port of Canton, consecrated by tradition as the exchangemart between foreigners and natives, no longer sufficed for European ambition, and a clamour was raised to get rid of the twelve merchants, or hongs, to whom the Chinese Government had conceded the monopoly of trading with the outer world. The foreigners, moreover, demanded the right to deal with whomsoever they pleased, and refused to submit any longer to the arbitrary taxation and treatment to which they had hitherto been subjected by the local authorities. These demands and others of a similar character, which appear to us perfectly reasonable, were considered exorbitant by the Chinese. To our incessant protests they answered exactly as they had done twenty—nay, fifty—years before, that we wished to compel them to do in their own country exactly as we chose, whereas, considering that we were their guests, the contrary should be the case, and that we ought to submit to their ways, however objectionable they might seem to us, and even contrary to the interests and development of our commerce. This is precisely what Europe to-day, as then, refuses to admit, unless the Chinese very considerably mend their ways, being of opinion that so vast a country has no right to refuse to allow its wealth being exploited for the benefit of humanity, and that if it cannot, either through want of goodwill or of the necessary means, turn it to account itself, it should allow others who possess implements perfected for the purpose to use them. In short, Europe demands the right not only to trade, but also to exploit, and she intends to have it, whatever may be the consequences.

This radical difference in looking at the same thing is the origin of every difficulty that exists between the Powers and the Celestial Empire. The peoples of the West, once they have made up their minds that a thing is likely to further their interests, insist upon its being carried into effect whether the Chinese like it or not, and care very little whether they offend the prejudices or even the sanctity of Chinese tradition. It is not merely in matters of commercial transactions that foreigners behave thus, but also with regard to religion. We profess the most profound admiration and respect for those men who at the risk of their lives bring the Gospel to those who know it not, and who sacrifice everything in the hope of saving souls, and we are thoroughly convinced of the vast superiority of the teaching of Jesus Christ over that of Confucius. Christianity, however, upsets not only the traditions, but also the foundations of Chinese society. No Government of Europe would tolerate a religion which advocated polygamy, and that of the United States rigorously opposes the spread of Mormonism. We must not therefore be surprised if the Chinese do not behold with a friendly eye a religion which opposes their great doctrine of the cultus of ancestors, and if they consider it nothing short of sacrilege and well calculated to overthrow morality and law, and infinitely worse from their point of view than polygamy is from ours. The employment of female missionaries by certain Protestant sects is another scandal, and the sight of young women living under the same roof as men who are not their husbands gives rise in their minds to a train of thought the reverse of edifying. It matters little that the worship of ancestors is but mere outward form, and that the lives of the missionaries are without any reproach: ancient traditions and customs are violated, and to these the average Chinaman holds far more tenaciously than he does to the truths they conceal.

The utter disregard paid by Europeans to even the most cherished customs of the Chinese, and the vast difference which exists between the two civilizations, together with the sense of superiority which both peoples with perfect good faith entertain for themselves, is doubtless at the bottom of that bitter feeling of contempt that causes every Chinaman to despise as well as to hate the intruders. They look upon them as so many barbarians, although Article 51 of the Treaty of Tien-tsin officially ordained the proscription of the particular character describing foreigners by this objectionable word. Our most complicated and wonderful scientific instruments are not considered by the Chinese as criterions of our superiority, and they recognise us to be skilful workmen and clever jugglers, but otherwise only vulgar and ill-educated fellows, and our lack of acquaintance with their ancient lore and literature brings a smile of pity and contempt to their bland countenances. They attach little or no importance to our inventions. ‘I quite understand,’ said Prince Kong to a foreign Ambassador who had just explained to him the theory and practice of railway travelling, ‘that in Europe you should employ iron rails to transport you from one end of your country to another. Here we obtain the same effect with our waggons. We may not travel so expeditiously; but, then, we are never in such a hurry.’ This quaint observation was spoken twenty-five years ago, but it might easily be made to-day: the condition of mind which inspired it is identical and unchanged.

The Chinese may bow to our power, but it does not inspire them with the least awe. They entertain for us about the same agreeable sentiment that the traveller does for the footpad who suddenly puts a pistol to his head and demands his money or his life. And as this same ill-used traveller, in order to avoid a repetition of the assault, if he has to pass that way, procures the same arms as his aggressor, so the Chinese now and again appropriate some of our weapons of defence without knowing how to use them; but, nevertheless, they remain thoroughly convinced as to the superiority of their civilization. There can be no doubt that if they were left to themselves, and European influence and pressure suddenly ceased, the Chinese would quickly pull up the telegraph-poles and the few miles of rail which with infinite patience and trouble have been laid, close their ports, and efface every trace of the detested innovations of the ‘barbarians.’

This would naturally be the act of the Government. As to the people, it will continue to use the facilities introduced by Western civilization. The boats which ply along the coasts and up the Yang-tsze-Kiang are crowded with native passengers, who apparently enjoy the trip, and who pay the better share of the profits made by the various steam navigation companies, and the trains between Tien-tsin and Peking are always crowded. The Chinese also know perfectly well how to appreciate European administration, and three hundred thousand Chinese live upon the French, English, and American concessions at Shanghai, two hundred thousand at Hong-Kong, which was only inhabited by a few fishermen before the English occupation, and all the large towns belonging to the European colonies in the vicinity of China—Vladivostok, Manila, Saigon, Singapore, Batavia—are practically Chinese towns. They like to have their property and their commercial interests protected, and strongly object to being exploited and harassed as they are under their own Government. At the time of the occupation of Manchuria by the Mikado’s troops, an English missionary who had long resided in the country assured me that the Chinese were very glad to escape from the ‘squeezee’ system, and from the many vexations to which they had been subjected by the mandarins, and were amazed to see the Japanese pay for everything they required.

The Chinese are not, therefore, unappreciative of our civilization, and since we afflict them with our presence, they think it wise to profit by the material advantages which we have introduced among them; but, with few exceptions, doubtless they would prefer the loss of these advantages to our company, and they never cease to despise us. From the moment that they can read they go to their old books as to a fountain-head, whence they drink intoxicating draughts of pride and vanity, and of profound contempt for all that is not of the wisdom of Confucius.

After all, it is not by means of the ignorant classes, but through the initiative of a few thinkers, that progressive ideas gradually filter into a country and reform it. Unluckily, in the Chinese Empire, owing to a defective system of education, the very class which ought to benefit their fellows—the literati—is precisely that which is the most obstinately retrogressive.

The gross superstitions, too, which are entertained by the people in the interior of China against foreigners form another barrier to an advance movement. That the lower classes should believe that the missionaries pull out the eyes of little children and use their bowels as the ingredients of infernal and magical concoctions, or that our doctors spread the pest whenever we want a war, is not much to be wondered at, for the same things have been repeated in Astrakhan and in some of the Russian provinces whenever there has been a rumour of an epidemic. But what is really very grave is that the literati, who are so all-powerful in China, foster these superstitions, and even spread them broadcast among the people in order the better to keep up the feeling of hatred which they ought to attenuate. At the bottom of all the risings against the missionaries are the mandarins and the literati. The great influence which these men exercise over the people, and their abhorrence of Western civilization, is the real cause why no progress has hitherto been made in the Chinese Empire.

The privileges of foreigners in China—The open ports and the concessions—Great extension of privileges granted to foreigners by the treaty of Shimonosaki (1895)—Opening of fresh ports—Facilities conceded to commerce, and the right of establishing factories in the Treaty Ports—The speedy effects of these concessions—Silk industries—Chinese workmen: rise in their salaries—Prospects of Chinese industry—Fresh concessions granted in 1898—Opening of the waterways—Railways and mines—Great expectations resulting from these additional treaties—The likins, or native Custom-houses—Their oppressive exactions—Slow development of foreign commerce in China—Necessity for Europeans to penetrate into the interior and take their affairs into their own hands—Chinese resistance to this proposal.

Foreigners who live in China, with the exception of the missionaries, are at present penned up in the twenty-six open ports, to which may be added six other towns or markets, situated on the frontiers of Indo-China, assimilated to the free ports, but doing a very limited trade. In each of these so-called open ports^[26] spaces have been let on long leases, or even sold to foreign Powers—England, France, the United States and of late years even Germany, who has acquired a concession at Tien-tsin, where, by the way, Japan also has one. Although these concessions are on Chinese territory, they are considered as so many small republics, independent of the native authorities, and administered by Europeans, who reside there under the protection of their Consuls, who hold both judicial and executive powers. In these ports, protected by European law, is concentrated the whole foreign commerce of China.

The appearance of these treaty ports varies according to their importance, from the few houses surrounded by walled-in gardens, built on the sands of Pakhui to the flourishing cosmopolitan port of Shanghai, whose aspect is admirably calculated to flatter the vanity of Europeans. Once the bar of Wusung is passed, after some hours’ journey down the Blue River, whose shores are covered with monotonous rice and cotton fields, the traveller might easily imagine that he was in Lancashire, so great is the number of factory chimneys that come into sight. The landing-place, or Bund, the principal thoroughfare of the town, which follows the quay, is lined on the one side with trees, and on the other by magnificent houses, built in the European fashion, the offices of the principal banks, steamship companies, etc. The other streets, inhabited by Europeans, although not very straight or broad, run either parallel to the Bund or else meet it at some point or other. Further inland is the Chinese quarter (within the concession), with its open shops, monstrous and gaudy signboards, and its fragile paper lanterns, fairly well kept, however—thanks to European supervision—and forming a marked contrast in this respect to the other native quarter beyond the concession, which is absolutely filthy. Once outside the town, we cross the cricket-field, the racecourse, the lawn-tennis court, and reach Bubbling Well Road and other wide avenues, fringed with the beautiful villas, surrounded by gardens, belonging to the wealthy European residents.

Before the Chino-Japanese War foreigners only had the right to carry on their commercial undertakings in the open ports, and had to have a passport in order to travel in the interior. Isolated as much as possible from the native population, they could traffic with the Chinese only on the condition that they never attempted to alter any of the native methods of production, or introduced any European innovations, or endeavoured to exploit a single one of the innumerable natural resources of the country.

On the other hand, nothing was to be expected from private initiative or from the Government, which latter would unquestionably have vetoed any improvement, and only reluctantly permitted, on account of its political value, the creation of the telegraph-line connecting Peking with the extremities of the Empire. In 1877 the Europeans had actually to pull up the rails laid down on the short line between Shanghai and Wusung, and though the Chinese since 1889 have pretended to consider the construction of a line from Hankow to Peking, it has only been with the object of misleading the Europeans. No progress is possible in China under these unfavourable conditions, and the antiquated methods of the natives continue to hamper all commercial and financial prosperity.

The treaty of Shimonosaki, signed in 1895 at the close of the war between China and Japan, effected some very important changes in this respect, and in virtue of the most-favoured-nation clause, inserted in the treaties with the Powers, opened out a better prospect for foreigners of every nationality, who were thus able to benefit by the advantages conceded to the Japanese. Article 6 of this important document stipulated the opening of several new ports, and permits steam navigation along the coasts and up the rivers and canals leading thereunto. It goes on to declare that foreigners may visit the interior to purchase or sell merchandise, and that Japanese subjects may establish depots for the same wherever they like without paying any extra tax, and erect factories of all sorts in the Chinese open towns and ports, and import into China all kinds of machinery on payment of a fixed tariff. Goods manufactured by Japanese subjects on Chinese territory should be placed on the same footing with respect to inland and transit duties and other taxes, charges, and facilities for warehousing, etc., in the interior, as goods imported into China by other foreigners, and enjoy the same privileges.

This clause is of very great importance, since it permits the combination of highly-perfected European machinery and cheap Chinese labour in the production of articles the raw materials for which, especially silks and cotton, can be obtained in the immediate neighbourhood of the free ports. The clause above cited may appear at first somewhat extraordinary, and in any other country but China it would be superfluous to stipulate that goods manufactured in the country itself should not be treated with less consideration than similar articles imported. But the Japanese negotiators understood their men, and are perfectly aware that if they had not inserted these special clauses, the advantages obtained would have been annulled by the Chinese authorities by a system of arbitrary taxation and other vexatious measures.

No very long time elapsed before the advantages of Article 6 of the Shimonosaki Treaty were made strikingly evident. In three years’ time an entire district of Shanghai was occupied by not less than nine large cotton factories, working 290,000 spindles, which in 1898 were increased to 390,000, and close to them presently rose some thirty silk factories, which, in due time, will be considerably increased both in numbers and importance. In the other ports this industrial impulse has not yet been much felt, except at Tien-tsin, where a woollen factory has lately been established. In that great centre of industry, Shanghai, a certain falling-off has been observed in this extreme briskness, due to over-production, and also to a very legitimate desire to watch the results of industries already existing before launching into further speculations. Then, again, there was a fear that wages might presently rise to an exaggerated extent.

The labour market of China is undoubtedly enormous, but the supply does not respond as readily to the demand as in Europe, because the distances are great and the means of communication correspondingly few and difficult. However, the labourers living on the banks of the Yang-tsze, who are called ‘Water-fowls,’ constantly flock into Shanghai in search of work. They belong to that class of poor creatures who crowd the great Chinese cities, and whose only home is their sampang, in which an entire family accommodates itself in a space that would barely suffice for a single European. One can see their floating huts moored alongside the arroyos that furrow the suburbs of Shanghai. Once they begin to earn a little, they build a hut on shore, using up the material of their old boathouse, until they can erect something better by way of a dwelling. Salaries are distinctly rising in Shanghai, and when I was there in 1898 the factories were wrangling over their workmen and women—who are in the majority—in consequence of certain enterprising but unscrupulous managers of rival firms intriguing, by offers of higher wages, to induce the most skilled to leave their employers and come to them. The quality of the labour at Shanghai appears to be satisfactory, at least, so say the different managers, and in the manufactories which I visited I noticed that everything was scrupulously clean and orderly, quite as much so as in any average European or American factory of the same class. The workgirls do not live, as in Russia and Japan, and, indeed, as they did formerly in England and in other manufacturing countries, in a building near the place of business set apart for the purpose, and at the expense of the firm, but at home with their own families. Many of them are married women, and a great number, instead of leaving their little girls over ten years of age at home, request that they may be employed, so as to remain under their supervision. They are usually engaged on very light work, such as shifting the cocoons in the boiling water for the weavers. In the silk factories I visited they were allowed half an hour every day for what was known as ‘school,’ during which some senior workwoman—the mother or the elder sister—taught them the rudiments of their work. This system is excellent, and the managers declare themselves highly pleased with it, as it is likely to train good workers.

The working hours at Shanghai in the silk factories are usually from six in the morning to six in the evening, including an hour and a half for meals. In the silk manufactories the little girls earn 1¼d. per day at first, which is increased to 2½d. after a short time. A clever workwoman gets about 9d. In 1891–92 the wages in the same factory, which was then on a very small scale and under a Chinese name, were about 30 per cent. less. In the larger factories the children got 2½d. a day and the women from 6d. to 7d. During the first few months that elapsed after the signing of the Treaty of Shimonosaki salaries were on an average about 5d. As exchange has not varied much since then, the rise is very considerable. ‘The women and children now working in the better factories here,’ says the British Consul at Shanghai in his Report, 1897, ‘can now earn from 10s. to 30s. a month, which is quite a fortune for people who in the native factories rarely make more than 4s. a month, although they work hard all day!’ The same Report observes that in certain branches of industry the Chinese workwomen earn more than would the same class in Italy. The under-manager who took me round one of the Shanghai factories, a Peruvian by birth, and, I fancy, a coloured man by origin, judging from his curly hair and high cheekbones, told me that in his boyhood in Peru he had earned 2½d. a day at the same business, which is what is paid to child-workers in Shanghai.

It is, therefore, a distinct mistake to imagine that China is destined to remain the land of low salaries. Some considerable time may elapse before wages reach the high figure obtained in Europe, but there is every prospect that in the course of time a very considerable rise will take place, especially as industry improves, and the demand for skilled labour increases. The Celestials are pretty sure to look after their own interests in the matter by forming trades unions. Strikes are not unknown either in China or Japan.

These facts tend, I think, to dissipate, if not entirely, at any rate in part, the illusion about the famous ‘Yellow Peril’ which has so greatly disturbed certain worthy people. That ‘peril’ seems to me to be still remote, for, even if the people of the Far East did succeed in producing nearly all the articles which they now import from Europe, it would necessarily follow that the trade in them, being infinitely greater than it now is, would increase their profits likewise very considerably. It is equally certain that the first effect of the introduction into China of European industries must lead, as it already has done, to the bettering of the condition of the Chinese labouring class, both by augmentation of wages and consequent improvement in manner of living. If, therefore, European export trade may apparently suffer from the manufacturing of goods hitherto imported by the Chinese, such as cottons, for instance, matters will balance themselves eventually for the simple reason that, the richer the Chinese get, the more they will buy. Japan has already shown how the introduction of machinery has created a new branch of import of great value.

In order to realize these brilliant prospects, several very drastic alterations in the present position of affairs are needed. The permission, granted at the instance of Great Britain in 1898, allowing European navigation on the inland waters of China, and the concessions for the creation of railways and exploitation of mines, may subsequently lead to very remarkable results, but up to the present they have not been entirely successful. Industrial activity is still limited to the free ports and their immediate vicinity. The reasons for this state of affairs are worth examining, especially as they illustrate the determined opposition of the Chinese authorities to all measures of reform, and also indicate many points against which Europeans should complain.

The Chinese Custom-house duties were determined according to the treaties as much as possible 5 per cent. ad valorem. They may therefore be safely described as comparatively light, and are collected with great regularity for the Imperial Government on the European system by a staff admirably organized by Sir Robert Hart.

The undesirability of exposing foreign merchants to the arbitrary and corrupt methods of Chinese Custom-house officials led to the formation of an international staff of officers, which works perfectly and gives universal satisfaction. On the other hand, the great native firms are most scrupulously honest in all their transactions, having discovered from experience that ‘honesty is the best policy,’ and European merchants can only praise their way of transacting business. It is, therefore, neither on entering nor leaving China that difficulties occur, whether for importation or exportation. The trouble arises in the transport between the open ports and the places of consignment or expedition; the principal grievance arises through the system of likin, or of inland Customs, whereby an arbitrary and variable scale of taxation is exacted on goods passing through towns or over the frontiers of the various provinces, or even at certain determined places on the highroads and rivers. This pernicious system is a great drawback to the expansion of European trade, and gives rise to endless bother and expense.

‘Let us suppose,’ said a gentleman, thoroughly acquainted with commerce in the Far East, at a meeting of the London Chamber of Commerce in 1898, ‘that a train going from London to Newcastle had to be stopped three or four times on the way, so that goods might be overhauled and examined by officials whose main object is to extort as much as they can in their own interests, and who value goods arbitrarily at sight. Imagine, for instance, a consignment of skins getting damaged by the rain through careless packing, and on being weighed found heavier than declared in the invoice: the result is, that the luckless owner is charged, not according to the increased weight, but fined according to his personal property, say £50 or; £100 on £1,000! Or, finally, what would become of British trade if we had to put up with likin officials, one of whom examines goods once in every three days, and another announces his intention of only doing so when ten trains have arrived?’

There is a remedy for the likin system, and that is a ‘transit pass’; but more often than not, as with most things in China, this is merely a theoretical improvement. On payment of a sum equal to half the original entry duty, all imported goods should be considered free of inland duty. But this regulation does not work, and no one avails himself of it, since the Chinese very ingenuously manage to evade it by charging ‘a duty on arrival at destination,’ which comes to the same thing.

It is not therefore surprising that, with all these drawbacks, in addition to a very rudimentary monetary system, Chinese commerce only attains £50,000,000, of which £27,200,000 represents imports, which is very small when one considers the enormous size of the country and its great wealth. The half of this commerce is divided up between four articles: £8,000,000 cotton and £4,800,000 opium (imported), and £8,000,000 silk, and £5,000,000 tea (exported). The last figures are inferior to what they formerly were, Indian tea having greatly affected Chinese tea as far as England is concerned. Its preparation still follows the old system, and its lasting quality is distinctly inferior to Ceylon and other teas grown in India. This is another example of the vast importance of introducing into China better and more scientific methods.

The export trade of China must inevitably remain very limited so long as foreigners are prevented from penetrating into the country and directing the exploitation of its resources. Whilst it was a mere matter of opening a few ports, the Chinese Government made no very serious opposition; but only the realization of its incapacity to resist pressure induced it to permit the introduction into the Celestial Empire of foreign capital, machinery, and industrial methods. Well may we ask, Can the Sick Man of Peking endure such violent treatment? Will he not succumb to the very powerful remedies that are being administered to him, and thereby fulfil the secret wishes of those who are anxious for his legacy?

The Question of the Far East unexpectedly brought to an issue by the defeat of China—Foreign misconception of Chinese power, and the amazement of European diplomacy at its collapse—The new state of affairs created by Japanese victories—The aims of the various Powers in the Far East and their policy—England seeks an ally against Russia—Her sudden change of policy in 1895—She abandons China for Japan—Russia covets the whole of Northern China—Japan’s wish to conquer the Celestial Empire—The treaty of Shimonosaki—Opposition of Russia to Japanese policy—Russia becomes the interested protectress of China—The convention between the three Powers, France, Germany, and Russia—Attempt to bring about a reconciliation between China and Japan—Substitution of a powerful Russian influence for that of England.

The Chinese Question presents many difficulties, not only because the details are extremely complicated and the rival pretensions which it has created difficult to reconcile, but because of the unexpected manner in which it was thrust on the attention of Europe, at a time when diplomacy had no ready remedy.

The present position in the Far East is not the result of a gradual chain of events, but of the absolute surprise created by the unexpected results of the Chino-Japanese War. No doubt the collapse of China in 1894 was only the last act in a long drama of decadence, but it revealed to astonished Europe the utter incapacity of China either to reform or to defend herself, a fact for which we were quite unprepared. Japan alone knew the truth, and profited by her knowledge of her colossal neighbour’s almost incredible weakness. Russia had suspected it, but was not sufficiently convinced to venture on carrying her conviction into effect. Thanks to the astuteness of the Chinese and their remarkable aptitude in all arts of deception, and the effect mentally created by the prodigious multitude of her population—between three and four hundred million souls—China had systematically fooled both Governments and public alike, who shared the same illusion as to her power. Certain events had, it must be confessed, conspired to maintain this illusion, notably the bold resistance which the French army had met in Tongking, under, no doubt, peculiar circumstances, but, nevertheless, such as induced people to forget, at least for the time, the facile victories of the Allies in 1860. Certain far-seeing writers—Mr. Henry Norman and Mr. Curzon, the latter one of the most brilliant young statesmen of the United Kingdom—had indeed realized that under a smooth surface there existed in China amazing weakness and corruption. But they preached in the desert. The war had only just broken out, when one of the best-informed organs of the English press, the Spectator, stated: ‘We think the weight of opinion is with those who believe, as we do, that, if necessary, China could organize a most formidable army.’ This was the illusion universally entertained in Europe, and, strange to relate, shared by the majority of foreigners living in the Far East.

By dissipating these illusions and exhibiting to the world the truth concerning China’s decrepitude, the Japanese victories produced almost the effect of an earthquake. European diplomacy had foreseen that the war was likely to give rise to trouble, and Lord Rosebery even proposed to the Powers at the beginning of the conflict to come to an understanding with a view of stopping hostilities; but if the Queen’s Prime Minister feared that complications in Korea might lead to Russian intervention, the other Powers were not less unfavourably disposed to see a naval demonstration in Chinese waters in which England should take the lead. It was therefore resolved that European diplomacy should remain inactive and watch proceedings, everyone believing that Japan would soon be expelled from Korea, and that both the Japanese and Chinese fleets, weakened in one or two naval battles, would collapse altogether from sheer lack of combatants. When, however, the Chinese forces were annihilated in the autumn of 1894, Europe was taken aback with amazement, so great was her surprise, not to say consternation. By the spring of 1895 the Powers had recovered from the shock they had received, but their policy had consequently to be changed with respect to a Power which they had believed to be formidable, but whose weakness was now revealed.

England, with perhaps excessive frankness, turned her back on her old ally China. At the beginning of the conference she had been the champion of the Celestial Empire, and the newspapers related at the time a curious incident which happened before Wei-hai-wei, which the Japanese squadron was about to attack. The British fleet upset their plan by saluting Admiral Ito, contrary to all precedents, before sunrise, whereby the sleeping Chinese were warned of their danger. On more than one occasion the English did not hesitate to threaten the Japanese, especially after the latter had fired on a British merchant ship conveying some Chinese troops.^[27] There was no mistaking the peremptory tone of England when she gave the Japanese to understand that she had no desire to see the war extend to Shanghai and the region of the Yang-tsze.

But the battle of the Yalu and the taking of Port Arthur in one morning by the troops of the Mikado opened the eyes of the Cabinet of St. James’s. What Britain desired in the Far East was, on the one hand, a political prop, and even a military one, if necessary, against the Empire of the Tsar—‘a bolt to fasten the door against the ambitions of Russian expansion,’ to use the significant expression of Herr von Brandt, and, on the other, a wide opening for her commerce and capital. Once convinced that Japan, firmly established in Korea and on the northern coast of the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, would become a far more efficacious ‘bolt’ than China, England began to favour the Japanese, and at the same time to advise the Chinese Government to abandon Peking, and establish itself nearer the centre of the Empire. If the Middle Kingdom was no longer a useful ally, it might still become a splendid prey, a field of extraordinary economic activity, so that the transfer of the capital to some point on the banks of the Yang-tsze accessible by sea—to Nanking, for instance, would have placed China at the mercy of the supreme mistress of the seas. The English, moreover, fully intended to force China to open her ports, and their commercial superiority and the influence which they have already established over the peoples in the Far East would soon have enabled them to profit largely by this revolution.

If, however, the consequences of the Chinese defeat were realized in London, they were no less so in St. Petersburg, and subsequent events proved that Russian diplomacy was equal to the occasion. The Government of the Tsar had beheld the war with quite as much displeasure as England, and would have preferred the Far Eastern Question remaining in abeyance until the termination of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The object pursued by Russia in the Far East is, it should be remembered, absolutely opposed to that of England, and concentrates itself on the one issue—the securing of open sea. The vast Empire of the Tsars possesses no port in Europe, where the ‘keys of the house’ are in the hands, so to speak, of other Powers, and England barred her way to the south fifteen or twenty years ago in Afghanistan and Beluchistan. In the Far East somewhere in the middle of the century Russia contrived to descend from the Polar Sea of Okhotsk and to advance at the expense of China as far as Vladivostok; but this port remains closed for two months on account of the ice, and Russia has always considered her provinces of the Amur and of the Littoral merely in the light of temporary stations, whence she intended on some future and favourable occasion to push her way further south. Between 1880 and 1886 it was reported that she was about to obtain a concession somewhere in the Bay of Korea, or even in the isle of Quelpart, which is in the strait separating that country from Japan. A little later she seemed to covet Port Arthur or Talien-wan, which are free of ice, and are situated at the extremity of the peninsula of Liao-tung, which would provide her access to an open sea at the back of Korea and other advantages. At the narrow entrance to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li and only 50 miles from the opposite coast of Shan-tung, are ports which offer great advantages as naval stations, whence a rapid transport fleet could easily convey troops in twenty-four hours to Ta-ku, and thence in four days’ march to the Chinese capital. Once established at Port Arthur, and having plenty of elbow-room in Pe-chi-li, Russia could exercise over the Chinese Government, in its present capital, even a more irresistible pressure than could England have done had she been able to induce the Imperial Court to transport itself to the banks of the Yang-tsze.

Unquestionably the dreams of Russian aggrandizement have become much more ambitious since she has discovered how very weak the Sick Man of Peking is. She no longer seeks an open port on the Pacific, but apparently pursues her object, unostentatiously however, towards the complete domination of the Middle Kingdom, especially over her vast dependencies in Turkestan, Mongolia, and Manchuria—in a word, over the whole of North China. And as the Muscovite temperament is ever a dreamy one, who knows but that on the shores of the Neva the heir of Peter the Great does not already picture himself on the throne of the Sun of Heaven, commanding the latter’s multitude of subjects, who are accustomed to submit to a foreign yoke, and might obey the Tsar as unresistingly as they did Ghengis Khan, even as to-day they pay homage to a degenerate Manchu, and as indeed they would have done to the Mikado, had not Europe put a stop to further advances on the part of the Japanese? The Mikado, too, who had been driven into the war by the repeated insolence of the Chinese and also by the justifiable desire to protect his commercial interests in Korea, may also, when intoxicated by his surprising successes, have entertained the thought that it might be possible for him one day to annex China. If this war had taken place fifty, or even twenty-five, years ago, when Europe paid less attention to foreign affairs, it is probable that the Manchu Dynasty would have been replaced by that of Japan. Possibly then the ‘Yellow Peril’—the military ‘Yellow Peril’—which to-day is but a mere chimera, might have become a very evident reality. The Japanese, after having thoroughly reorganized and disciplined the Chinese army, might at a given moment have let loose its innumerable hordes upon the Western world; but if in 1895 they had allowed themselves for a moment to dream of placing their Emperor upon the throne of Peking, the Japanese were not allowed to indulge in this pleasant vision for long, and were soon made to feel how intently and jealously their movements were watched by European diplomacy.

By the treaty of Shimonosaki, signed April 2, 1895, the Celestial Empire granted to her conquerors all their demands, recognising at the same time the independence of Korea, and allowing Japan, whose troops still occupied that country, a free hand. If this treaty had been ratified as it was originally drawn up, Russia would have had to renounce for a long time to come all hope of possessing an outlet to the open sea, and would certainly have had to see her influence substituted by a rival at Peking, who would have reorganized China possibly in a hostile spirit. She could not allow this, but she dared take no initiative by herself, fearing lest she might suddenly find herself confronted by England and Japan. She, therefore, before the signature of the treaty of peace, placed herself in communication with France and Germany, and endeavoured to make those Powers understand that the installation of Japan on the coast was as detrimental to their interests as it was to her own. She successfully converted them to her way of thinking, and on April 22 the three Powers addressed a Note to the Mikado, couched in the most courteous terms, begging of his Majesty to renounce his pretensions over the peninsula of Liao-tung, the establishment of his authority in that country being likely to create a permanent danger to the peace, not only of the Far East, but of the whole world. At first the Mikado, so it seems, was determined to resist at any cost, and to refuse to yield. His Government cast an eye towards England, to see if her support could be counted upon; but at that time the Cabinet of St. James’s had not made up its mind whether it would openly espouse the cause of Japan or not. Possibly it was influenced by the absolutely anti-Japanese feelings entertained by the vast majority of English subjects living in the Far East, and it is also by no means improbable that she did not wish to assist a Power that might eventually become a dangerous rival to her own commercial supremacy. Perceiving at last that England would neither join the three great Powers nor back the Mikado in his pretensions, the Government of Tokio very wisely consented, at the time bearing great ill-feeling towards England, who now found herself isolated in the Far East. Nevertheless, resentment against Russia was so powerful, and the feeling of alarm entertained by the two insular Powers at the spectacle of the progress made by Russia so great, that in a short time a reconciliation was effected between them.

The intervention of what is known in the Far East as the New Triple Alliance resulted in consequences quite as grave and durable as the war itself. Its immediate effects dominated the politics of the Far East until the end of 1897, and even now continue to do so. The essential features of the new situation were the substitution in China of Russian influence, now become all-powerful, for that of England, the antagonism which has risen between Russia and Japan, and the friendly feeling which now exists between this last Power and England. The mandarins and the Court of Peking, whilst never ceding an iota of their pride or their firm belief in the superiority of their civilization, were, nevertheless, obliged to admit the irremediable weakness of the military power of the Celestial Empire. If the majority did not care much for China as their country, they one and all considered her to be their prey, and consequently required a protector against the Japanese, and they proceeded from Legation to Legation in quest of one; as their situation was desperate, they were obliged to take what they could get, and, Russia being agreeable, they accepted her friendly offer, even though their new ally might eventually become a domineering master. This gave them time, and they counted upon their cunning, when a favourable opportunity presented itself, to set the Powers by the ears. Probably at heart they entertain less dislike for the Muscovite Empire than for any other European country, and, indeed, China has less friction with the Russians than with any other nationality. Russia can enter the Celestial Empire over her land frontier through countries very thinly populated by inhabitants not of Chinese race, who are not hostile to strangers; whereas the other Europeans coming by sea are brought into immediate contact with the turbulent crowds of the seaport towns, where the least act of imprudence may give rise to grave incidents. Moreover, the subjects of the Tsar exhibit a greater degree of forbearance than the peoples of the West. They do not experience that innate contempt for men of colour, they are more tractable to the habits of the countries in which they establish themselves, and are not so forward in protesting against petty annoyances. The Orthodox Church, too, scrupulously abstains from all propaganda in China, and the Russian Legation is therefore spared those delicate questions concerning the rights and the wrongs of missionaries which so greatly irritate the Chinese. All this facilitates the substitution of Russian influence for that of the English.

We must, however, seek for the causes which induced France and Germany to enter, under the Russian auspices, into an unexpected alliance outside the question of the Far East. The harmony that exists between these two Powers is due to their desire to gain the good graces of the Tsar. Rivals in endeavouring to please him, they both answered all proposals which came from St. Petersburg favourably. Germany had no political interests in the East of Asia, and France only those of secondary importance connected with Indo-China, and therefore these nations never hesitated to regulate their line of conduct in the Far East in accordance with their political aspirations in Europe, and, the better to please Russia, forthwith modified their previously somewhat hostile attitude. During the war both Powers had been more or less favourable to Japan.

This change of conduct involved a considerable sacrifice, especially in the case of France, and signified the rupture of her old friendship for Japan, whose army had been formed by a French military mission, and whose battleships and arsenals had been in great part constructed and organized by Frenchmen, services which the Japanese recognised shortly after the victory of the Yalu by sending to the eminent naval engineer, M. Bertin, the grand cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. France had not obtained great advantages from this friendship, but if she did not do so, it was more or less because she did not wish it, for it is certain that the alliance of the Mikado was offered to her in 1884 on the condition that she conveyed to the coasts of Pe-chi-li a Japanese army corps, intended to march on to Peking. France had also the right to expect after the war some commercial advantages, notably some important commercial orders to her great industrial firms, for the renovating of the fleet, much damaged by the war. By placing herself on the side of China, whose friendship might have been useful, the more so as she was a neighbour, although she was constantly wrangling with her, France gave up an alliance with the one country in the Far East which represents progress and has a future, and, what is more, she literally pushed her into the arms of England, who may one day make use of her against the French.

The sacrifices made by Germany were less important, for she could not expect in the Far East any considerable advantages. To begin with, she had seized the opportunity to play a political part on a stage where she had never appeared before, but being much more commercial than France, she had more to gain from the concessions which China would be obliged to make, and she could thus include this vast market in the sphere of her industrial activity and commercial enterprise. By mixing in the affairs of the Far East the youthful German Empire only obeyed the instinct of foreign expansion which obliges her to watch over her political and commercial interests in all parts of the world.

On the other hand, the action of the three Continental Powers presented considerable danger, aggravated as it was by the warlike intentions of the commanders of the Russian fleet. A rumour certainly existed in 1896 in the Far East, and, moreover, has since been confirmed to me by most credible witnesses, that between April 25, the day on which the Note of the three Powers was presented, and May 5th, the date on which the representatives of Japan announced their acquiescence, Admiral Tyrtof, who commanded the Russian fleet and who has since become Minister of Marine, invited Admiral de la BonniniÈre de Beaumont to proceed with him to meet the Japanese fleet at the risk of provoking a collision, in which the latter would inevitably have been crushed. The presence of mind of the French Admiral, who evaded the invitation by protesting that he had received no instructions from his Government, and therefore delayed matters as long as possible, prevented an aggression which might have resulted in dreadful consequences, and led to a massacre in Japan itself of Russian and French residents, and, moreover, might have brought about extremely grave international complications. Who knows, too, but that public opinion in England might have been offended by such an act, and that on the morrow of an easy victory over the Japanese the Allies might have found themselves face to face with the British fleet?

It is certain that by taking sides with Russia in a question of only secondary interest to herself France incurred the grave risk of a war not only with Japan, but with England, a war in which her stake was far greater than that of Russia or of Germany, and the consequences of which she would have been obliged to bear alone. Fortunately, the prudence of Admiral de Beaumont smoothed over the angry feeling of the Russian commanders, which, however, manifested itself once more on May 8, 1895, the date on which the ratifications of the treaty of peace between China and Japan were to have been exchanged. On that day the Russian fleet was stationed in the roads off the Chinese port of Chefoo, at the entrance to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, opposite Port Arthur, where the exchange of ratifications was to have occurred, ready for fight in case Japan refused her acceptance, in which case it was agreed between the admirals to oppose the Japanese near Ta-ku, at the mouth of the Pei-ho, close to Wei-hai-Wei, where their fleet was anchored. Alongside of the Russian fleet were two German cruisers, representing the German navy in the Far East; but Admiral de Beaumont steamed away, leaving only at Wei-hai-Wei the Forfait, thereby showing very clearly that he had no intention of taking part in a superfluous demonstration, which would only have resulted in increasing the irritation of Japan against the three Powers.

These warlike demonstrations presented a singular contrast to the extremely courteous tone of the Notes presented to Japan by the Russian, French, and German ministers. They had the effect of convincing Japan that she had in the future to count with the lasting hostility of the Tsar, and that the secret desire of the Government of St. Petersburg was not only to prevent her establishing herself on the Asiatic Continent, but also eventually to completely annihilate her. By a curious right-about-face, Japan now turned towards China, who received her overtures favourably. The fact was that at Peking the pretensions of Russia had created great alarm, and Li Hung-chang opened his heart to the Japanese Consul at Tien-tsin, and begged the Cabinet of Tokio to give a conciliatory answer with respect to the question of Liao-tung, and solve it in a friendly manner, and thereby avoid increasing the responsibilities which weighed upon his shoulders. The Chinese Government, he added, was entirely at the mercy of the Russians, and could only be saved by Japan.

Was this intended on the part of the old diplomatist as a disguised offer of service? It is impossible to say. One thing only is certain—the Tsung-li-Yamen proposed that the Japanese minister, M. Hayashi, should negotiate directly, and offer as a compensation for Liao-tung not an indemnity, but an alliance with China and a concession for the railway to be built between Tien-tsin and Peking. The Government of the Mikado was inclined to accept this solution, but the three Continental Powers—that is to say, Russia—did not view the matter favourably. They wished, for better security—that Japan should not be bound to China only, but that the retrocession of Liao-tung should not be subjected to clauses calculated to prolong matters, and, above all, a cessation of the continuance of the Japanese occupation of Korea. They therefore insisted that the matter should be settled at once by the payment of a supplementary indemnity of 30,000,000 taels, or £4,500,000, payable on November 18th, 1895, the Japanese evacuation to take place within three months.

Japan was obliged to accept these propositions by an exchange of Notes signed on the 19th October, and she, moreover, agreed to withdraw her troops from Korea immediately. The attempt at a reconciliation and an alliance with the Celestial Empire had failed; but since then the language of the Japanese press and of many of her statesmen proves that at Tokio this idea has not been entirely abandoned, and if they have not been able to confiscate China to the advantage of the Mikado, the Japanese wish to see her placed in a position to resist the pressure of other Powers and to exist by her own resources. On the payment of the indemnity, Japan endeavoured to obtain from China a formal promise that she would never cede to any other Power the territories which she had been obliged to restore. But Russian influence was already too firmly established, and the promise was refused. The new political line of conduct which the European Powers and those which had at first come to her assistance were about to follow with respect to China was now openly developed. If the Setting Sun had more worshippers now than the Rising Sun, it is assuredly not the result of any sentiment of chivalrous disinterestedness—quite the contrary.

The immediate results of the war—Issue of an important Chinese loan—Russia becomes guarantee for China, and in return obtains the right to construct the Manchurian Railway—Ability of Russian diplomacy in Korea—Faults and abuses of the Japanese in that country—Revolution in the Korean palace at Seoul—The King of Korea under the protection of Russia—Preponderance of Muscovite influences in the Far East at the beginning of 1897—Important advantages obtained by the Tsar’s allies—Apparent disinterestedness of Germany—Treaty with France signed on June 20th, 1895—Energy of the French Minister—French protectorate over the Catholics of the East—Efforts made by England in 1896 to regain her influence at Peking—Anglo-Chinese Convention, February 4th, 1897—Opening of the West River to European navigation—A few fresh concessions granted to France in 1897.

In the events which have transpired in the Far East since the War, and which have led to the present situation, two distinct phases mark the violent aggression of Kiao-chau. The first extends from the spring of 1895 to the autumn of 1897, and is that in which the Powers, after having come to China’s assistance, obtained from her concessions in return for their good offices, whilst pretending moderation in their demands.

Altogether, the most important consequence of the War was the establishment of a heavy foreign debt. Hitherto China had only contracted in Europe insignificant loans of a few millions of francs. During hostilities her foreign indebtedness rose to £7,000,000, a mere trifle, and, moreover, the lenders were in possession of excellent security; but the War Indemnity and other urgent expenses necessary for the rehabilitation of the country mounted up to £48,000,000, so that now the interest on this debt, taking the rate at 5 per cent., would absorb £2,400,000, and, by adding the arrears of already existing loans, this figure would attain about £2,800,000, equivalent to nearly the whole of the Customs revenue. The Customs duties are paid in silver, but it would be absolutely necessary to stipulate, if a considerable loan is to be floated on the European market, that the interest should be paid in gold. The question, therefore, very naturally arises whether, in view of so small a margin, the fluctuations in the value of silver, which have already caused the hai-kwan taËl to fall from 6s. 7d., its value a quarter of a century ago, to 2s. 10d., the average rate since 1897, will not sooner or later result in the Customs receipts proving insufficient to cover the payment of the arrears. Nobody in his senses would dream of lending money to China on the mere security of her general resources, and she would, consequently, be obliged to assign to her creditors new securities, and place in their hands the administration of new branches of revenue. On the other hand, stripped of about £2,800,000 from the total revenue, which the most optimistic estimate gives at £24,000,000, she would have to look for new channels to add to her income, either by increasing the taxes, or by permitting foreigners to exploit the resources of the country, conceding to them railway and mining concessions on the basis of leases or joint profits. The first proposal ran the risk of unpopularity; the second was more tempting, but it meant the introduction into the country of that very Western civilization which the Chinese Government had opposed with all its might for the last fifty years.

The monetary difficulties of the Celestial Empire brought about a renewed interference by Europeans in her affairs, if only in the collecting of the taxes, and, also, a sort of financial embargo, the dangers of which are sufficiently manifest in countries like Egypt. The Government of Peking was well aware of this, and, therefore, spared no effort in obtaining a reduction on the £34,500,000 War Indemnity, and even attempted to arrive at an understanding with Japan respecting the retrocession of Liao-tung without supplementary disbursement.

The great importance of this money question was nowhere better understood than at St. Petersburg, and one cannot help admiring the boldness and ability of the policy pursued by Russia. That countries like France and England, literally overflowing with money, should have ventured to secure a preponderating position in China by means of financial manoeuvrings is not at all to be wondered at; but that Russia, already heavily indebted with a public foreign debt amounting to over £240,000,000, should have been shrewd enough to subject China to a sort of vassalage, through the pecuniary services she rendered her, was indeed a masterly achievement.

M. de Witte, the Tsar’s Minister of Finance, who devised this remarkable scheme and conducted it to a triumphant issue over the head of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, exhibited throughout the rarest political ability and foresight combined with business acumen. Russia was unable to lend China money, but she was willing to become her guarantor, and thus enable the Celestial Empire, backed by the principal banks of Paris, where Russian funds were at their height, to float a loan of £16,000,000 at 4 per cent. issued at ninety-four—that is to say, at the same issue price at which, before this security was granted, the French and German financial houses had offered to raise a loan at 5 per cent. The annual interest to be paid by China, thanks to Russian intervention, was thus reduced by a fifth, whereby the Celestials, although they obtained a bargain, at the same time committed a grave political error.

In accepting a foreign Power as guarantor, the Chinese Government rendered itself responsible to that Power only, and placed her financial and, above all, her political independence in far greater peril than she could have done had she negotiated directly with individual capitalists of various nationalities, whose pressure, in case of non-payment, would have been considerably weakened by the inevitable differences which would subsist between their Governments. This danger seems to have been thoroughly understood at Peking, where the necessary documents were not signed until the expiration of the last day’s delay granted by Russia, and then only under extreme pressure, because the Chinese Government had evidently failed to find assistance elsewhere.

The Government of St. Petersburg, well pleased with this success, proceeded to strengthen its policy in China by further financial operations, and with the assistance of the Bank of Russia next created the Russo-Chinese Bank, Parisian financiers supplying the greater part of the capital, but leaving the direction of affairs almost exclusively in Russian hands. The Comptoir d’Escompte transferred its agencies in China to Russia, and the new bank established at the same time branches at Peking, Tien-tsin, Shanghai, and Hankow. Since then this bank has continued to be the principal agent of Russian influence in China, and undoubtedly it was at first almost entirely through its mediation that Russia negotiated the concession of the East Chinese Railway, which enabled her to continue her Trans-Siberian Railway southward through Manchuria, thus shortening the original line by several hundred miles, and enabling it to pass within 350 miles of the Gulf of Pe-chi-li. Russia, moreover, obtained the authorization to protect the works by her own troops, whereby she made herself mistress of Manchuria, whence she was able to dominate Peking until events allowed her to occupy Liao-tung.

Whilst she was amply paid for her services by China, Russia made herself no less active in Korea. The Japanese, who had occupied that country, perpetrated error on error. They had attempted to impose upon the Koreans with great abruptness the most varied and radical reforms. Many of these were possibly useful enough, but they ought to have been introduced with discretion; others were unnecessary, and greatly irritated the people by wounding their most cherished customs and traditions. The Koreans, although not particularly clean in their habits, are invariably clad in white, are, moreover, addicted to smoking very long pipes, and to rolling their hair up into a huge chignon, which they surmount by an enormously broad-brimmed hat, whose crown is so small that they are obliged to fasten it to their heads by a long string. The Mikado issued a sumptuary law against long pipes, chignons, and wide-brimmed hats, and, moreover, ordered that the traditional white robe should henceforth be replaced by the dark-blue one usually worn by the Japanese. It is said that this unfortunate incident was the result of a conviction that Koreans, being obliged to hold their pipe with one hand, and to balance their enormous hats with the other, could never become hard workers. Be this as it may, the Japanese sentinels at the gates of Seoul made life unendurable to the unfortunate Koreans. Armed with a big pair of scissors, they pounced upon the unfortunate peasants as they entered the town on their way to market, and cut not only the strings of their monumental hats, but severed their beloved chignons, and shortened by at least three-quarters of their length the stems of their pipes—arbitrary measures well calculated to break their hearts with mortification and vexation of spirit. It is not to be wondered at that such impolitic conduct, added to occasional acts of violence, soon roused the indignation and hatred of the natives, otherwise a very inoffensive and peaceable people. On October 7, 1895, the Korean Queen was murdered in her palace by assassins in the pay of the Japanese, and with the complicity of the Legation. King Li-Hsi, a very poor creature at the best, whose reign has been one tissue of Court intrigue and palace revolution, after the assassination of the Queen, fell into a consternation of abject terror, completely abdicating his regal authority, and became so degraded that he even consented to sign an edict insulting the memory of the late Queen, and accusing her of shameful crimes. Innocent persons were now executed at Seoul as guilty of the murder, whereas the actual assassins were acquitted by a self-constituted Japanese tribunal.

In the meantime Russia very ably exploited the general discontent, and in an underhand manner offered her services to the timid King, who was not only terribly afraid of the Japanese, but also of his father, the Tai-wen-kun, a ferocious old gentleman, whose ambition had disturbed Korea for over twenty years, and who had been raised to power by the natives. His Majesty seemed disposed to accept the Russian proposal, but dared not leave his palace, in which he was kept a close prisoner. A riot ensued, whether spontaneous or provoked has never been divulged, which, on the night of February 11, 1896, offered him a chance of escape. The Tai-wen-kun was killed, and Li-Hsi obtained shelter at the Russian Legation, then guarded by a detachment of sailors fresh landed at Chemulpo, the port of Seoul, without any attempt on the part of the Japanese to prevent them. Li-Hsi, once safe in the house of the Russian Minister, where all the members of the Korean Government had found shelter, acted like a King in a comic opera, and became the plaything of Russia, precisely as he had recently been of Japan. He forthwith revoked all the reforming edicts he had previously signed, and annulled the decree degrading the memory of the unfortunate Queen, the trial of whose assassins took place in a High Court presided over by judges selected from various European nationalities, with the result that the responsibility for her murder was thrown on the Japanese.

The reactionary movement now became violent, and many useful reforms had perforce to disappear. A committee, composed of the highest native functionaries, the British Controller of Customs, and a few Americans, was appointed to study measures of reform, but they only met two or three times, and nothing came of it, so that in a few months all the old abuses reappeared. Nevertheless, by her sagacious conduct, Russia had the ability to win over the foreign representatives in Korea to her side, and Japan, in order to preserve the remnant of her influence in a country whose commerce was mainly in her hands, and where not less than 10,000 of her subjects resided, was now obliged to arrive at an understanding with Russia. The Convention of Seoul, signed May 14th, 1896, by the representatives of the two Powers, completed by that of July 29th, concluded at Moscow at the time of the coronation of Nicholas II., and drawn up by Prince Lobanof and Marshal Yamagata, accorded Japan merely the right to keep 1,000 troops in Korea for the protection of the Japanese telegraph wires between Fusan and Seoul and of her subjects settled in the capital and in the open ports of Fusan and Gensan. Russia also obtained the same rights, and, moreover, a concession to construct a telegraphic line from Seoul to the Siberian frontier.

The two Powers further agreed to lend the Korean Government their support for the reorganization of its finances and a sufficient police force to maintain order, and to permit, as soon as possible, of the withdrawal of their garrisons. In appearance it was a sort of Russo-Japanese condominium that was established in Korea; but Russian influence, now all-powerful with the King, met with no further obstacle after the restoration of that Sovereign to his palace in February, 1897. A decree, ordering that all railways to be constructed in Korea should have the same gauge as that of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and that the debt of £300,000 contracted by Korea with Japan should be repaid, and, moreover, that none but Russian instructors should be engaged in reorganizing the Korean army, was also issued, which Japan considered a distinct breach of the Treaty of Moscow.

Russian influence was therefore, at the beginning of the year 1897, absolutely preponderant in Korea as well as in China. In both countries the Tsar’s Government had played, with extraordinary ability, the part of protector of the conquered against the abuses of the conqueror, and also that of a redresser of wrongs, whereby it won universal approbation throughout the Far East. The Japanese victories now appeared only to have been obtained for the benefit of Russia, who substituted herself everywhere for Japan, in Manchuria as well as in Korea, and thus profited very considerably by the War without having to pay any of its expenses. If at its close Russia had the discretion to perceive the advantages which she might derive from intervention, and if she acted with energy and decision, she also knew how to curb the impetuosity of her admirals, who were eager to commit those very faults into which Japan had fallen, which undoubtedly would have brought about very serious European complications. She therefore at first abstained from annexing the peninsula of Liao-tung and the important stations of Port Arthur and Talien-wan, which she had compelled the Japanese to evacuate, and officially she made no annexations in Korea; but, possessing the right to construct a railway through Central Manchuria and to protect its works by her own troops, and being at one and the same time mistress of the situation at Seoul, Russia was able at the right moment to annex either Korea or Liao-tung, and bring the Trans-Siberian to the open sea through one or the other of these two peninsulas. She hesitated as to which she should select; the first was nearer Peking, the second brought her more directly to the Pacific, whence she could menace simultaneously the mouth of the Yang-tsze and the South-east of Japan. At St Petersburg, however, it seemed that the Government was waiting for the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which was proceeding in hot haste, and which it was expected would reach the Amur in the first months of 1900, ere the psychological moment should arrive to strike a decisive blow.

Side by side with immense advantages acquired by Russia, those obtained by her allies seemed insignificant. Germany had not shown herself exacting; all she asked was a few acres of land at Tien-tsin and other naval ports where she might establish independent concessions intended to satisfy her sense of dignity. The absence of special concessions had not hitherto prevented Germany from achieving an extraordinary commercial success in China, but the future will prove that the German Empire entertains great designs in the Far East, the realization of which are merely postponed.

As to France, she got in return for her services the two Conventions signed at Peking by her Minister, M. GÉrard, on June 20th, 1895. The first of these documents accords divers facilities to the extension of her commerce on the frontier between China and Indo-China; the second ratifies, to her advantage, the frontier limits. A new market—Semao, in the Yunnan—was now added to the towns of Mong-Tze and Lung-Chau, opened to Franco-Annamite commerce in 1887. The customs on goods entering or leaving these markets and passing through Tongking, already reduced to three-quarters of the maritime Custom-house tariff of 1887, were again lowered to about two-fifths of the general tariff, so far as concerned products exported from any other Chinese port, or intended to be re-imported into any one of these said ports. In Article 5 of this Convention the following passage occurs: ‘It is understood that China, in the exploitation of mines situated in the provinces of Yunnan, Kuang-si, and Kuang-Tung, may apply, in the first place, to French merchants and engineers, the exploitation remaining subject to the rules laid down by the Imperial Government in all that concerns national industry. It is agreed that the railways already existing, or to be constructed in Annam, may, after a mutual understanding, be extended on Chinese territory.’ Finally, it was further stipulated that the French and Chinese telegraph lines should be combined. The Convention respecting the frontier definitely extended the French possessions to the eastern shore of the upper Mekong, thereby giving France the territory situated on the border of the Shan State of Xieng-hong. England in 1894 had admitted the right of suzerainty of China over this little principality, as well as over one or two others, thereby creating a sort of neutral zone between her Indian Empire and French Indo-China.

A great deal was made over this Convention in France, and the energetic manner in which the French Minister at Peking had been able to obtain these concessions under the very nose of his English colleague, Sir Nicholas O’Connor. The negotiations closed, M. GÉrard proceeded to the Tsung-li-Yamen on the day arranged for the exchange of signatures, to find, however, only one of the two Chinese plenipotentiaries present. This personage offered profuse apologies for the non-appearance of his colleague. ‘Nothing should have prevented his being here,’ replied the French diplomatist. ‘I pray you find him at once and tell him so.’ A few moments afterwards the second Celestial appeared alone, looking very sheepish. ‘And your colleague, is he coming back?’ asked M. GÉrard. ‘No; I am afraid he is detained, and that he cannot return. Shall I go and fetch him?’ ‘I beg your pardon,’ M. GÉrard shrewdly replied; ‘I will keep you here, and will go myself in quest of your friend.’ At the end of an hour or so the two Celestials were finally brought together, and on being asked to explain their dilatory conduct, stated that the British Minister was in the next room, threatening, if they ventured to sign, forthwith to haul down his flag. M. GÉrard was soon able to convince the Celestial plenipotentiaries that they had nothing to fear, but that they must immediately affix their signatures to the document. Sir Nicholas O’Connor, he assured them, once he was convinced of the futility of his intimidation, would soon turn his attention to other affairs. This anecdote, whilst it reflects great credit on the energy of the French Minister, and displays his knowledge of the Chinese character to advantage, emphasizes the declining influence of England in China in 1895 and 1896, as well as the annoyance experienced by this Power at the ratification of the French frontier and its extension towards Mekong. By confirming it, China violated, it is true, the engagements she had made when England recognised her position at Xieng-hong, but this did not concern France, for the State in question was as much the vassal of Annam or of Siam as it is of Burmah or of China.

What was the real value of the commercial concessions granted to France by China, and concerning which her press had made such capital? The reduction of the duties on all products passing by Tongking would have been of great value if the neighbouring Chinese province had been a rich one, but it is, unfortunately, quite the reverse. It is now time to glance over the region that can be provisioned and exploited through Tongking. It includes the greater part of Yunnan and Kwang-si, the southern half of Kwei-chau, and a small part of Kwang-tung, that long and narrow band of territory which this province projects over the Tongking frontier between the sea and Kuang-si. The Yunnan, the Kwang-si, and the Kwei-chau are the three poorest provinces of China, and cover a fifth of her territory, whilst possessing barely the fifteenth of her population, or, in other words, about 24,000,000 out of 380,000,000. They have been unfortunately devastated by the great insurrection of the Taipings and the Mohammedan revolts, especially Yunnan; the country is really only a conglomeration of mountains and plateaux, some of them 6,500 feet in height, and, moreover, the communications are very scanty, and it would cost an enormous sum to improve them. The report of the Lyons Mission, which explored this part of China in 1895–97, frequently mentions the great difficulties of transport and the steepness of the ascents, such, for instance, as the famous Imperial road of Ten Thousand Steps, which you ascend from the bank of the Red River to the Yunnan plateau, between Manhao and Mong-tze, and which in a distance of only 30 miles rises from 485 to more than 6,500 feet. It also mentions the paucity of population, as contrasted with its superabundance, in the basin of the Yang-tsze-Kiang and the coast provinces. In the Far East the mountains are almost invariably barren, even when there is very little cultivable soil in the plain below. It is said that the Yunnan is extremely rich in mineral ore, but, as once remarked an acute observer, who has recently visited nearly the whole of China, when explorers find nothing worth noticing on the surface of a country, they generally arrive at the conclusion that there must be something worth looking for underneath. Undoubtedly both copper and tin have been exploited for years past in Yunnan, but thus far the actual wealth of these mines is unknown, and it would be mere matter of conjecture to affirm whether they are worth working or not, or whether it would pay to construct a railway 300 miles in length to transport the ore, as these Chinese provinces on the frontier neighbouring Tongking produce neither silk, tea, nor any other valuable Chinese export product, and do not offer a particularly brilliant prospect at present. As to Article 5, relating to mines, if taken in the literal sense, it is simply a truism, but if one wishes to discover in it a disguised engagement, and read ‘ought’ instead of ‘may,’ it is a violation of the clause granted to the most favoured nation inserted in all Chinese treaties with European Powers. France had soon to recognise its futility on January 15th, 1896, at the time of the signing of the Anglo-French treaty relating to the affairs of Siam, by which, it is true, she profited little by the difficult circumstances in which Great Britain then found herself, and the two Governments of Paris and London agreed that all the rights and privileges acquired, or to be acquired, either in the Yunnan or more to the north at Sze-chuan, were to be equally shared.

The profit which France might have obtained from the convention of June 20th, 1895, was thus reduced to little or nothing. During the following year the negotiations which were being persistently pursued at Peking brought about other results. The right to reconstruct the arsenal at Foochow established by the French in 1866, and which they destroyed in 1884 under Admiral Courbet, was again restored to them. Several naval engineers are working there at present, and French foundries are supplying material. Such has been the share derived by France in the concessions made by China, to obtain which the nations made such flattering advances to Li Hung-chang when that astute old gentleman made his recent famous tour through Europe and America. It certainly compensated after a fashion for the loss of the custom of Japan, who at one time gave frequent orders to French factories, but who now deals exclusively with England and America for the ships and cannon necessary for her greatly augmented fleet.

Meanwhile, the French Minister at Peking has exerted himself in a creditable manner for the benefit of the Catholic missionaries. He has obtained the abrogation of those regulations which prohibited missionaries from purchasing estates in the interior of China, and exacted a promise that the next edition of the Ta-tsing-lu-lieh, a collection of laws issued by the Tsing Dynasty, should appear without the list of punishments against missionaries contained in the edition of 1892. Finally, he obtained authorization for the Lazarists to rebuild on the same spot the cathedral at Tien-tsin, burnt at the time of the massacre of the missionaries and nuns during the insurrection of June, 1870.

It is assuredly as the protectress of Catholicism that France has of late years most worthily played her part in the Far East. Possibly she has not known how to convert to her material advantage the influence which ought to be derived in China from her religious position, and doubtless French policy in the Celestial Empire has been lacking in enterprise. She certainly did not derive from the intervention in favour of China a profit proportionate to the risks incurred, and has obtained from China not only less than her ally, Russia, but even than England, and by uselessly opposing the demands of this latter Power she has run the risk of irritating without any benefit that ill-feeling which divides these two great Western nations.

After a period of inaction during the year which followed the War, the British Government, if it has not positively reconquered its former influence, has at least gained a renewed hearing at Peking. Although China trembled before Russia, the presence in her waters of the British fleet did not fail to inspire her with a feeling of profound respect; but, once the first moment of alarm was over, she again bethought herself as much as possible to begin afresh her old game of pendulum between the various Powers. The slow work of British diplomacy throughout the year 1896 fructified in the signing of the Anglo-Chinese Convention of February 4th, 1897, by which China conceded to Great Britain certain important modifications on the Burmese frontier; granted her back a part of the Shan States; recognised her right to establish a Consul somewhere in Western Yunnan, Manwyne, or Chunning-fu; engaged to open the roads leading to these places as well as to others; and finally allowed the railways to be constructed in Yunnan to be united with those of Burmah. Lastly—and this is the most important point of all—a separate article prescribed that the Si-Kiang, or West River, which flows through Canton, should be open to European navigation as far as Woochow, on the Kwang-si and Kwang-tung frontier, 125 miles from Canton. The two river ports Samshui and Wuchow became treaty ports, and European concessions were established there.

This was for England some return for the mortification she had experienced twenty months earlier at the time of the GÉrard Convention. If, therefore, in Yunnan, in spite of the equality of rights existing between Great Britain and France, the advantage was with the latter, by reason of the natural conditions rendering access less difficult from Tongking than from Burmah, the opening of the West River was a check for French policy, which had vigorously opposed it. By this waterway European vessels—that is to say, almost exclusively British steamers coming from Hong-Kong—would, in the first place, be able to trade with the rich valley of the lower Si-kiang, which crosses Kwang-tung, and reascends to the frontier of Kwang-tung, where they would meet the junks which bring to this point at a small cost the varied products of this province, and, moreover, distribute merchandise from Hong-Kong to the extreme navigable points of the West River and its affluents. These points are situated at a great distance in the interior, almost on the frontiers of Yunnan and Tongking, and at Lung-chau, thirty miles from Lang-son, one can see at high tide junks from Canton. Therefore all the commerce of Kwang-si which France had so coveted was to be drained by this new channel.

French diplomacy endeavoured to repair the unfavourable impression produced by this Anglo-Chinese treaty, which effaced the greater part of the advantages conceded to her on the frontier of Tongking, and in June, 1897, it was stated in Paris that China had ceded to France the right to construct a railway from Lao-kai, on the Red River, between Tongking and Yunnan-hsien, the capital of Yunnan, and to prolong it to Nanning-fu and even northward beyond the line projected to Lang-son and Lung-chau. This last concession should reserve for France all the traffic of the western Kwang-si, provided that it is really worth while constructing a railway to obtain it; for unquestionably navigable rivers have a distinct advantage over railways in so mountainous and poor a country. As soon as the former are opened they can be navigated, whereas it will require time to construct the railways, which, moreover, are very costly. In February, 1898, I was able to see for myself that the Si-kiang was already traversed by steamers, whereas the railway from Lang-son to Lung-chau, the concession for which was given in 1896, was not even commenced, on account of the many difficulties that had arisen with the local authorities. The opening in 1899 of Nanning to foreign commerce is well calculated to deprive France even of this little traffic, which will revert to Canton.

Political calm in the Far East during the summer of 1897—Provisionary regulation of the questions that divided the Powers, and the maintenance of old Chinese methods—Landing of the Germans at Kiao-Chau in Shan-tung in 1897—England’s anger at this act, and her efforts to avert the probable action of Russia in Pe-chi-li—Anglo-Chinese Convention of February, 1898—Opening of all the waterways to European navigation—The policy of the ‘open door’—China recognises in March, 1898, the occupation of Kiao-chau and concession of the railway granted to Germany in Shan-tung—Session to Russia on lease of Port Arthur, and the immediate occupation of this port—Franco-Chinese Convention, April, 1898—Divers conventions granted in the Southern Provinces and session of the Bay of Kwang-chau-wan—Irritation of Great Britain, who obtains new and important advantages in June, 1898—Session of Wei-hai-wei at the entrance of the province of Pe-chi-li, and of Kowloon, opposite Hong-Kong—Fresh Anglo-Russian difficulties in November, 1898—Railway and other concessions granted to foreigners throughout the Celestial Empire.

After the diplomatic wrangling which followed the war, a lull occurred in the summer of 1897 in the Far East. Each of the European Powers interested in China—Russia, France, and England—had obtained her share of the spoil. That of Germany was generally deemed modest, but it was believed she had no political interest in the Celestial Empire, and was quite content to develop her commerce. Meanwhile Russia and Japan had patched up their quarrel in Korea. Doubtless their arrangements were not of a definite character, and their mutual ambitions rather dormant than satisfied; but the advantages already obtained, and the preparations which both nations would have to make in order to be ready when they wished to return to the game, seemed to promise a respite for some years to come. Russia was constructing her railway, which, notwithstanding all the diligence brought to bear upon its completion, was not expected to reach the river Amur until the end of 1899, and the Pacific until 1903 or 1904. Japan, whilst preparing for the arduous task of reorganizing Formosa, was arming to the teeth, so as to be ready in case of trouble with Russia, which she feared inevitable. She doubled her army, and ordered a first-class fleet to be built in Europe and America, which was to insure her maritime supremacy on the coasts of China, but which could not be ready until 1904 or 1905. France, having definitely pacified Tongking, was occupied in studying the route of the various railway lines which had been conceded to her. England was hastening the construction of her railways in Burmah, and sending her steamers into the West River, while her capital, amalgamated with that of Germany and America, had the larger share in the industrial movement which had been created in Shanghai, and seemed likely to extend to other ports, especially after the treaty of Shimonosaki.

China herself, profiting by this lull, returned to her old sleepy habits: she had learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing. When her chief statesman, Li Hung-chang, was sent to Europe and America in 1896, it was not only because he was better equipped than anyone else, by his long intercourse with foreigners, to treat with them, but principally because he was in disgrace. This mission had been offered to Prince Kung, and even to Prince Ching, the Emperor’s uncles. ‘What have we done,’ these illustrious personages probably exclaimed, ‘that we should be subjected to this humiliation, and sent on a mission to the barbarians?’ The tour of Li Hung-chang was, therefore, intended as a severe punishment, supplemented by the loss of his peacock’s feather and his yellow jacket. If the observations which are attributed to him with respect to progress are true, his influence must incontestably have diminished, possibly owing to the vicissitudes to which he has been subjected since his return to China. Be this as it may, one thing is clear: he has not hitherto been able to overcome either the Court prejudices or those of the overwhelming majority of the literati.

The only progress made has been permission for the construction, under the direction of English and American engineers, of a line from Tien-tsin to Peking, to slightly prolong beyond the Great Wall the one which starts from Tien-tsin and the mouth of the Pei-ho, and ascends northwards along the coast of Pe-chi-li, and to authorize the reconstruction of the little line from Shanghai to its deep-water port, Woosung. These works organized in those parts of the Empire most frequented by Europeans, in the great open port of Shanghai, where half the foreign population of China lives, and in the capital, the residence of the diplomatic corps, were calculated to create an illusory effect. The English may also have wished to unite Peking to the sea, which they dominated in the Far East as elsewhere, to spite Russia for having installed herself in Manchuria. A longer railway from Peking to Hankow, traversing over 650 miles of the heart of China, had been projected since 1889, and a Chinese railway director named Sheng had been commanded to collaborate in the matter of its construction with Li Hung-chang and his rival, the celebrated Chang-Chih-Tung, Viceroy of Hankow. Much more progressive in all probability than Li Hung-chang, Sheng seemed really desirous of building this line; but he insisted that the material should be manufactured in China, and to this effect he had erected at Hanyang, near Hankow, and his capital Wu-chang, three towns which in reality form one vast city, an immense foundry, which was not likely, at any rate for many years to come, to supply the necessary material. After the War the united efforts of the Ministers of France and Belgium had obtained permission for a Franco-Belgian financial syndicate to construct the line for the Chinese Government, and then to exploit it. Obstacles, however, were thrown in the way, and although the Chinese had commenced the works on the Peking side, they were stopped in the autumn of 1897, owing to difficulties which had arisen concerning the interpretation of several clauses in the contract. It was the old story of Chinese shifty dilatoriness, and nothing came of any one of the reforms proposed, civil or military.

Momentarily satisfied by their newly-acquired privileges, the foreigners ceased, for the time being, clamouring for fresh favours. Everything was calm at Peking, and no one seemed to see any grave event likely to occur in the Far East, at any rate, before the termination of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which would give Russia the chance of making an advance step, when all of a sudden, in the month of November, 1897, Europe learnt with surprise that Germany had landed sailors in the Bay of Kiao-chau, in the Shan-tung Peninsula. The motive for this unexpected movement, we were assured, was to put pressure on the Government at Peking to conclude certain long-standing negotiations connected with the assassination of two German missionaries, and which, as usual in China, dragged unconcernedly along. At first the importance of this matter did not seem to create the impression that might have been expected. Many even believed that it was but an ingenious artifice on the part of the German Emperor to display the uses of a navy, and to force the Reichstag to vote the necessary credit for the increase of the fleet. But when William II. sent into the Far East his brother Prince Henry, in command of a squadron, requesting him at the time of his departure to make the weight of his ‘mailed fist’ felt, if need arose, there was now no possible doubt that the occupation of Kiao-chau was definitive, and that Germany was paying herself, tardily, it is true, but with less ceremony than her allies, for the services she had rendered to China in 1895. She had taken, no doubt, a long time about it, for she was hesitating as to which place she should choose for the naval station she was anxious to establish in the Far East.

If the landing at Kiao-chau had been thoroughly matured, it, nevertheless, appeared that the Berlin Cabinet had not taken the precaution to insure the consent of the other Powers. It was asked if Russia herself, who had her eye on this bay, in which her Far Eastern squadron had passed the winter of 1896–97, had not been caught napping. When the occupation of the bay became known in England, public opinion became violently excited. Although Germany seemed to have gradually detached herself from the Franco-Russian group, and to have approached Great Britain, and although English and German banks combined had agreed in 1897 to float a second Chinese loan of £16,000,000 on the European market, and notwithstanding that the finances of the two countries had often co-operated in China, the cordiality which exists between the subjects of Queen Victoria and those of her grandson were even now strained in the Far East. As soon as the occupation of Kiao-chau became known, there was a positive explosion of invective throughout the English press, soon followed by an avalanche of jokes when William II. toasted his brother, on the eve of his departure for the Chinese Seas, in an amusingly melodramatic speech. The misadventures of Prince Henry, who was delayed by divers accidents, and constantly obliged to coal at English naval stations, added not a little to the general and very ironical merriment.

It was not so much the action of Germany that gave rise to genuine anxiety in England as the fear that the Government of the Tsar might take advantage of it to make another advance in North China. If it mattered little to the English that Russia should occupy a harbour free of ice throughout the year, they were greatly exercised at the prospect of her approaching the capital of the Celestial Empire close enough to obtain direct influence in Chinese affairs. England insisted that a port of this sort should be open to the commerce of all nations, precisely like her own Hong-Kong or the Treaty Ports. Thus, while Mr. Balfour, in the early days of 1898, almost invited the Russians to secure for themselves an issue to the open sea, a few days later another of Her Majesty’s Ministers—Sir Michael Hicks-Beach—declared, amid the applause of the entire press, ‘that the British Government was absolutely determined, at any cost, even at the risk of war, that the “open door” in China should not be closed.’ In order to oppose the quiet advance of Russia, Great Britain anticipated her by appropriating her hitherto successful financial policy, and offered to lend the “Son of Heaven” £16,000,000, which he particularly wanted. This last of the three great Chinese loans was the least guaranteed. The Customs receipts no longer sufficed to assure the interest, and it therefore gave the lender a greater excuse for meddling in the internal administration, and to exercise the stronger pressure on the politics of Peking. The conditions for this loan included the addition to the list of open ports of Talien-wan, in the peninsula of Liao-tung, which Russia had long coveted. By throwing it open to the commerce of all the Powers, its appropriation by any one of them would be rendered very difficult, if not impossible.

The game was certainly very well played, but in order to carry it to an issue, it was necessary to have a sufficient force on the spot to impose upon China the acceptation of its conditions. Now, the season was not propitious; in winter, when the Pei-ho is frozen over, Russia must remain more powerful at Peking than England. Scared by the threats of M. Pavloff, the Russian ChargÉ d’Affaires, the Tsung-li-Yamen dared not accept the demands of Sir Claude Macdonald, the English Minister, notwithstanding the energetic manner in which they were presented.

The direct loan was consequently not concluded, Talien-wan was not opened, and Great Britain had to content herself with an agreement signed at the end of February, 1898, in virtue of which she obtained, however, some very important concessions. European steamers were, after June, 1898, to be allowed to navigate in all the waters of the Empire. No part of the basin of the Yang-tsze-Kiang was ever to be ceded or rented to any foreign Power; a port was to be opened in the province of Yunnan, and the position of Inspector-General of Customs was to be reserved exclusively to a British subject, so long as British commerce should hold the first rank in the foreign commerce of China. The value of these concessions is apparent when we consider that the basin of the Yang-tsze is the richest and most thickly-peopled part of the Middle Kingdom. As a commentary upon this agreement, the House of Commons in March included in the Address to the Throne: ‘That it was of vital importance for the commerce and influence of Great Britain that the independence of China should be respected.’ In the course of the discussion Mr. Curzon, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, declared in the first place that England was opposed to any attack upon the independence or integrity of China, and that in the second she would resist any attempt to close any Chinese port to her commerce, so long as it was open, or to be opened, to the commerce of any other nation, and that, moreover, she was determined to maintain in their integrity all the privileges which she had obtained by the treaty of Tien-tsin in 1858. This was the enunciation of the famous policy known as the ‘open door.’

Meanwhile, Germany, in the same month of March, made China ratify the occupation of Kiao-chau, which had been leased to her for ninety-nine years, and which she hastened, it is true, to declare a free port. An extensive radius of railways was at the same time conceded to her in Shan-tung, which she had constituted a ‘sphere of interest,’ and the right of pre-emption on all the railway and mining concessions which the Chinese Government might grant in that province.

Russia, on her side, alarmed at the Anglo-Chinese negotiations, came to the conclusion that if she delayed her occupation of the peninsula of Liao-tung any longer, she would risk, if not being forestalled by a rival, at least witnessing the creation of international interests calculated to render the execution of her projects more difficult. She hesitated no longer, and on March 27th, 1898, obliged China to sign the Convention ceding to her the lease of Port Arthur and Talien-wan, and the authorization to construct a branch line, uniting these ports to the East Chinese Railway. Thus she obtained her object The Trans-Siberian had now a terminus on the open sea, and could threaten Peking from the entrance of the Gulf of Pe-chi-li. It looked for a moment as though the long deferred struggle between the Whale and the Elephant were really about to take place. Two English cruisers were stationed at Port Arthur when this point was ceded to Russia. They put to sea, but on March 29th the formidable British Far East fleet, which had been immensely increased during the winter, was mobilized, one part steaming towards the north, while the other remained at the mouth of the Yang-tsze, ready to occupy, so it was said, the Chusan Islands, which command the entrance to the river. Russia was exceedingly prudent, and, in order not to add the powerful support of Japan to that of England, on March 18th she renounced all active intervention in Korea, and left that country open, if not precisely to the political action, at least to the economic interest of the Land of the Rising Sun. A conflict was averted, but the inevitable opposition of Russian and English interests, added to an accumulation in China Seas of warships of every nationality, hastily sent there after the affair of Kiao-chau, kept up a well-founded feeling of anxiety and irritation in the minds of the British public, further increased by a Franco-Chinese agreement signed in April. France remained, according to her habitual policy, confined in the poor regions of the south, but obtained from China the promise not to alienate on any account the territory comprised in the three frontier provinces of Tongking, and never to cede to any other Power than France the island of Hainan. To these clauses were added the renewal of the concession of the Yunnan Railway, and finally the cession on a long lease of the Bay of Kwang-chau-Wang, situated on the eastern coast of the Lei-chau Peninsula opposite Hainan, and, moreover, the Chinese engaged to appoint a French Director-General of Posts. This, of course, was an answer to the promise obtained by Great Britain respecting the Director-General of Customs, and it might have been of great importance to the French by placing in their hands the telegraph lines of the Celestial Empire which joined, independently of the British cable, the lines in Indo-China which stretched to the Russian lines in Siberia and thence on to Paris. Notwithstanding the great political interest at stake, this advantage was unhappily allowed to lapse, no Director-General of Posts has been nominated, this post still remaining united to that of the Customs, under the direction of Sir Robert Hart. With respect to the other concessions obtained by France, it does not appear that England or any other Power need be much concerned about them. Hainan may have some importance to France, who could never permit any other Power to establish itself at the entrance to the Gulf of Tongking. As to the harbour of Kwang-chau, which is not of the first rank, the mouth being narrow, it does not extend the French sphere of action, but leaves her mewed up where she was in the far south. It has only brought her annoyances, and is certainly not a strategical point of primary importance, whence she might menace the position of her rivals in the China Seas.

Far more important were the cessions of territory soon afterwards made to Great Britain in compensation for the occupation of the ports of Liao-tung by the Russians. Their value did not consist in their extent, which was not considerable, being merely Wei-hai-wei and a little town in Shan-tung, and 400 square miles of territory in the peninsula of Kowloon, and immediately opposite Hong-Kong. Both were leased for ninety-nine years. The strategical value is, however, of the highest importance. In the peninsula of Kowloon, where the English had up to this time only a small piece of land, they now came into possession of all the heights and bays necessary to shelter the port of Hong-Kong from attack and to insure its extension. Wei-hai-wei, on the other hand, gave them precisely what they had long coveted—a naval station in the North of China, so that when their squadron was in these latitudes it would no longer be obliged to make a voyage of from four to five days in order to take in provisions or seek shelter at Hong-Kong. Wei-hai-wei, the fortifications of which were immediately undertaken, in a measure weakens Port Arthur, the two being exactly opposite each other, with a stretch of sea of only sixty miles between them, and the former is not much more distant from the mouth of the Pei-ho. Needless to say, being in possession of so excellent a station, England with her superior fleet will necessarily during many years to come be in a position to prevent the Russian squadron interfering with her projects, and also, notwithstanding the shortness of the journey, to impede any assistance by sea being afforded to Russian troops who might be operating in the north of China. The English, moreover, can from this position, by a dexterous movement, cut the line of railway between Tien-tsin and the Great Wall.

Notwithstanding these advantages, the insatiable British public was not satisfied, and complained that the Government had allowed Germany to occupy a privileged position in Shan-tung, and had, moreover, promised not to interfere with her rights in that province, nor to construct a railway starting from Wei-hai-wei, and, moreover, to consider this place as a sort of Far Eastern Gibraltar without any commercial pretensions, thereby consenting to the creation of a German sphere of interest in opposition to the policy of the ‘open door.’ When Parliament was prorogued in August, the Chinese Question had been discussed no fewer than eight times, and the Salisbury Ministry had been frequently and very bitterly attacked by its own supporters. The intemperate oratory of certain Ministers, and notably of Mr. Chamberlain, who unhesitatingly accused Russia of bad faith, and even went so far as to say one must remember when dealing with Russia the old proverb, ‘He who sups with the devil must have a long spoon,’ had not a little contributed to excite public opinion in Great Britain. In order to soothe matters a little, the Cabinet declared to Parliament that its Minister at Peking had been authorized to inform the Chinese Government that Great Britain would lend its support in order to resist an attempt on the part of any Power to commit an act of aggression against China under the pretext that she had granted to a British subject the concession of a railway or other public work.

This was a return to the policy of the ‘open door’ to which England attaches so much importance. She refused to admit that commercial privileges should be given to any one Power, or any preference for public works to be executed; in a word, she would hear of no ‘spheres of interest.’ Such stipulations are, indeed, diametrically opposed to the wording of the treaties, but in these times hardly, except by force or the threat to use it, can one expect even the most solemn engagements to be observed. England herself was obliged to concur in the German ‘sphere of interest’ in Shan-tung. In the months of August and September, 1898, it was once more feared that there might be trouble between England and Russia over the matter of the railway from Shan-hai-Kwan to Niu-chwang, a prolongation beyond the Great Wall of the line between Peking, Tien-tsin, and Shan-hai-Kwan. The principal bank in the Far East, the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, was to build it for the Chinese Government and exploit it, reserving as security a first mortgage on the line. Russia intervened, and objected that any railway concession should be given to any other Power than herself north of the Great Wall. After considerable discussion, the Powers arrived at an agreement, and the English company kept the concession, but only retained a lien on the already constructed Peking-Shan-hai-Kwan line to the south of the Wall.

In the midst of all the intrigues and unpleasantness which we have just narrated, Europe has, nevertheless, accomplished at Peking a noteworthy and unprecedented work. She has not only obtained very advantageous concessions for her commerce, such, for instance, as the opening to navigation of all the watercourses on which Treaty Ports are situated, but also the allotment to the European Customs Administration of the collecting of likin in the valley of the Yang-tsze, as a security for the third great loan of £16,000,000. She has also obtained the right to introduce into China the best machinery for the exploitation of her natural resources. The English are about to work the coal and iron mines of Shan-si and Ho-nan, the Germans those of Shan-tung, and the English and French together the mines of Yunnan. Six thousand miles of railway are to be constructed, not only at the extremities of the Empire in the Steppes of Manchuria and on the plateaux bordering Indo-China, but also in the thickly-peopled central and eastern provinces, from Peking to Han-kau and Canton, from Tien-tsin to the lower Yang-tsze, in Shan-tung and around Shanghai, connecting towns of several hundred thousand, and even over a million inhabitants, through countries at least twice as densely peopled as France.

Necessity of proceeding slowly with the Reform movement in China, if the overthrow of the Empire is to be averted—Weakness of the Government at Peking—The Emperor and the Reformer, Kang-Yu-Wei—The Empress Dowager and Li Hung-chang—Palace revolution in September, 1898—Enormous obstacles in the way of the Celestial Empire reforming itself—Reasons why it cannot follow the example of Japan in 1868—The possibility of partition—The interests of Great Britain, the United States, and Japan, partizans of the ‘open door’ policy, and of Germany, Russia, and France—The dangers incurred by partition—Difficulties of effecting it pacifically, and also for Europeans to govern the hundreds of millions of Chinese—The anarchy that might result—Services which might be rendered to progress by the Chinese Government in preventing too rapid a transition—Possibility of converting the Chinese to material progress.

‘Every time that the bones of China are rattled—and they have never been more vigorously than at present’—said a technical English paper, ‘an increase of commerce follows.’ Nothing can be truer; but, at the same time, it might be prudent not to shake the old skeleton too violently, too often, or too long, if we do not wish to see it tumble to pieces. China is a sort of amorphous State whose different parts are joined together by the very weakest ties, concerning which we know little or nothing, and whose main force consists in tradition and in the existence of a governing class of literati, recruited throughout the Empire, even among the very people. On the other hand, germs of serious disaffection do exist; the actual Dynasty is a foreign one, which, at the beginning of the century, the terrible Taiping Rebellion—only suppressed with the assistance of Europeans—nearly ruined, and the descendants of the old national Ming Dynasty are still living. The accession to the throne of the present Emperor was irregular, it seems, according to Chinese procedure, and the country is honeycombed by secret societies, whose object is the overthrow of the existing state of affairs. The mass of the people are totally indifferent to politics, and very rarely exhibit hostility to foreigners, if the latter behave with circumspection, unless, indeed, they are urged on by fanatics or malcontents, when, unfortunately, they are easily roused. In the principal towns of every prefecture and sub-prefecture there exists a heterogeneous mass of soured and fanatical literati, who pursue the humblest trades in order to keep themselves from starvation, who are intimately mixed up with the people, by whom they are treated with great respect, and who will obey their commands to overthrow the Europeans and their innovations.

The Government of Peking is too thoroughly convinced of its external weakness to openly resist any demand imposed upon it by the Powers, but if it be too hardly pressed, and forced to introduce or allow the premature introduction of all sorts of innovations, and in too many places at once, it may run the risk of exciting against it the literati, who regard, and not without reason, any extension of European influence as a menace to their privileges. Such action might easily lead to active opposition to all reform, especially in the central and southern provinces, more backward than those of the north, and, if leaders of the movement can be discovered, lead to the complete disorganization of the Celestial Empire. Trouble has already occurred in Sze-chuan, as well as further in the lower valley of the Yang-tsze. A rather serious insurrection broke out in 1898 in the Kwang-si and Kwang-tung, but without any result. We know that local troubles in so badly governed a country as China of a necessity must become chronic, but in many cases the news concerning them reaches Europe considerably embellished and exaggerated.

It is certain that the elements of disorder are just now greatly excited. Even at Peking rival factions are disputing for power; the events which occurred there in September, 1898, are little, and possibly never will be completely, known, and it would be impossible to relate with any approach to truth the tragedies and comedies that are constantly being enacted within the walls of the Forbidden City.

The Emperor Kuang-Su, a young man of twenty-five, with a sickly body, and, it is said, a weak mind, had been completely won over to the Reform movement by a literate of the new school, named Kang-Yu-Wei, who hailed from Canton. His Celestial Majesty, with all the zeal of a neophyte, was induced during the summer to issue a distinctly revolutionary edict. It was said that he went so far as to presume to wear a European costume, and that he even intended going personally to Japan to observe there for himself the transformation which had been effected in the last thirty years. The Reform party undoubtedly had entertained Japanese as well as English sympathies, and its chief, Kang-Yu-Wei, passed his last night at Peking in the Japanese Legation. Marquis Ito, it is said, discouraged the precipitation with which it was intended to carry out in a few weeks reforms that had taken more than a quarter of a century to accomplish in Japan.

Such an attempt had no chance of success, for it not only opposed many prejudices and interests, but was opposed by all the Manchu functionaries, by Li Hung-chang, who had been recently disgraced, and by the Empress Dowager. His Celestial Majesty pretended to arrest this last-named personage, who is his aunt, and not his mother; but the astute Princess defeated his object. The great majority of the mandarins being hostile to the movement, she soon possessed herself of the necessary tools for her purpose. The Emperor was in his turn imprisoned in his palace, and forced to apologize and sign an edict placing the reins of Government entirely in the hands of the Dowager. The immediate consequence of this act was that all the mandarins of the old school, among them Li Hung-chang, returned forthwith to power; Kang-Yu-Wei took flight on board an English vessel, and most of his partizans were either beheaded or sent into exile, and very soon all trace of their work was effaced.

From this imprudent attempt at reform we may derive a few useful lessons. In the first place it showed the instability of the Peking Government, and also the existence, but at the same time the impotence, of the Reform party among the literati; and in the second it accentuated that dangerous factor in the politics of the Far East, the inflexible antagonism existing between England and Russia. The Empress Tze-Hsi is undoubtedly a very clever woman; she first governed the Empire in the capacity of Regent, but since 1887 she has, with the assistance of Li Hung-chang, who is said to have been a former lover, done so in the name of her nephew, absolutely refusing to abdicate. Her rule has been undoubtedly pernicious to China, for it has invariably been reactionary. As an instance in point, an important Viceroy has been recently reprimanded for attempting to reorganize on the European system the troops in the provinces which he administered. The Tsung-li-Yamen has likewise in a very short time contrived to strengthen the party opposed to innovation, and all sorts of restrictions have been placed in the way of the exploitation of the mines. For all this, be it bad or good, the Government of Tze-Hsi and of Li Hung-chang is nevertheless a Government; but both the Empress and her Minister are aged, and one may naturally ask what will occur when they are no longer of this world.

The Reform party, which seems to have the sympathy of a few high functionaries, does not apparently include many of the mandarin class; the unsuccessful literati, who struggle for existence in the towns of the interior, and who are in immediate contact with the people, apparently remain outside of all notion of progress, being absolutely convinced of the immense superiority of the Chinese over the barbarians. It is therefore very difficult to imagine how a handful of innovators can ever be able to impose their ideas against so much prejudice. A revolution, such as occurred in Japan in 1868, which rushed that Empire into the ways of reform, stands no chance of being effected in China, and even if it were, it would only receive just such another rebuff as happened in 1898, or else lead to anarchy and the dismemberment of the Empire.

The situation in China to-day is essentially different from that of Japan thirty years ago. In the first place the Chinese civilization which gave way in Japan to European was not of domestic growth, but essentially an imported article of extreme antiquity, which never succeeded in stultifying the Japanese people as it has done the Chinese; what is more, ancestors and classics were never held by the Japanese in the same veneration as is bestowed upon them by the Chinese. Far above the traditions of Confucius and of the Wise Men of old stood the Mikado of divine descent and the spirit of national independence. The first object of the Japanese Revolution in 1868 was to restore the Emperor to the plenitude of his power, a result attained by the union of the principal clans, as we have already explained. Although it resulted in the suppression of feudalism and the introduction of European civilization, it was originally not presented in this form, and if the entire nation eventually accepted these innovations, it was because they had been consecrated by the divine Emperor, and, moreover, were approved of by a powerful army which had always been friendly to progress and prompt to resist reaction.

Those advantages that so greatly favoured the Japanese reformers are non-existent in China. There is no military party in Peking friendly to Reform or eager to assist the reformers in seizing supreme power at the right moment and helping them to retain it. The initiative, therefore, cannot come from either the capital or the provinces. Instead of the Japanese daimios, or hereditary chieftains, surrounded by innumerable and faithful vassals, we have in China viceroys who are invariably strangers in the provinces they administer, and are spied upon by Tatar marshals having at their disposal by way of an army a horde of ill-disciplined ragamuffins, whom, even if an attempt were made to transform them into genuine soldiers, a task which would require many years to effect, the Court at Peking, being against the scheme, would soon disband. No martial spirit or feeling of patriotism exists in China to induce the governing classes to give up their privileges, even though it were for the benefit of the country. The tenacious attachment of the Chinese to their very ancient but stationary civilization is their greatest impediment to progress, especially as love of country is a mere empty sound to the vast majority of Chinamen.

Another and very important difference between China to-day and Japan in 1868 is that thirty years ago Europe permitted the Island Empire to accomplish its own revolution without interference, whereas to-day the Powers would assuredly prevent any attempt at a too sudden evolution in the Government of the Celestial Empire, which would only plunge the country into a deplorable condition of turmoil. Even now the Dowager Empress’s party is known as the Russian, and that of Kang-Yu-Wei as the Anglo-Japanese. Possibly this may be an exaggerated view of the case, and that neither party is in the service of any particular Power; but the incorruptibility of Li Hung-chang must be taken with a grain of salt. It is, however, certain that the Legations watch with a jealous eye the intrigues of the various factions, and that the disgrace of Li Hung-chang is looked upon as a victory for England, and each return to power of the Viceroy of Pe-chi-li as a Russian success. No worse sign could possibly exist for a State than the perpetual interference of foreign Powers in its affairs.

‘Are we about to witness the dismemberment of China?’ is a question people are constantly asking themselves. No one in particular wishes for it, since the division of such an inheritance would be disputed by at least five or six claimants, who will only settle their differences at the sword’s point. For the past twenty-five years Europe has trembled at the bare thought of war, and we must not be surprised if she dreads the mere mention of the disruption of China, which would be even more dreadful, since it means universal war, in which the United States, Great Britain, and Japan, as well as the Continental Powers, would each take a share. Even if the matter were settled amicably, what country would care to govern eighty or a hundred millions of Chinamen? Some people say that it could easily be settled by not attempting to govern them at all, in other words, to let things go their way; but no European Power would, or could, do otherwise than rule them methodically, according to our modern ideas of government. To-day, if a band of brigands exists in any obscure corner of China, nobody troubles about it, but once that corner belongs to a European Power, the irresistible desire of attempting to establish order would assuredly lead to an insurrection. The introduction of European methods is certain to upset many of the old customs and traditions to which the Chinese hold with almost pathetic tenacity. It requires an amazing tact to govern the Chinese, a fact made daily manifest in Hong-Kong, and illustrated by the recent serious outbreak in the French concession at Shanghai, where a disturbance took place over the removal of a time-honoured sanctuary to make way for a public road. The difficulties encountered by Europeans in every country imbued with Chinese ideas—those of the English in Burmah, the French in Tongking, and the Japanese at Formosa—prove, if proof were needed, how great is the resisting power and the risks any European nation would have to encounter which attempted to govern even a fragment of the vast Chinese Empire.

On the other hand, each Power, whilst dreading the consequences of a partition, is equally unwilling to behold a rival carry off the lion’s share. It is, therefore, with an eye to an eventual partition that each nation endeavours to obtain a privileged position in certain regions, and to possess itself of spheres of interest by forcing China to make the singular promise never to cede any portion of territory in certain defined provinces to any nation but to the one which obtains the promise. But this sort of promise is fraught with difficulties, and a source of eventual hostilities between nations having pretensions upon the same region, just as it is between the partizans of ‘spheres of interest’ and those of the ‘open door.’

In order to understand the policy of the various Powers in China, in which they see a very important field for exploitation, we must first consider their commercial interests in the Celestial Empire. The British Empire incontestably occupies first place in the foreign commerce of China, which in 1897 stood at 366,000,000 hai-kwan taels, or £54,900,000 (1 tael = 3s.). Of this 236,934,000 taels, or £35,540,100, two-thirds of the whole, belongs, according to the Imperial Chinese Customs Report, to Great Britain. Here, however, we must not be misled, for if we subdivide this sum, we shall see that about £5,500,000 alone belong to England, £5,000,000 to her colonies other than Hong-Kong, through which the remainder, that is to say, about £23,000,000 worth of goods, passes, Hong-Kong being merely a point of transit. Goods imported from Germany, America and Russia into China, passing through this island port, or being exported thence to the four corners of the globe, are put down to England. Then, again, a very important trade is carried on between the North and the South of China through Hong-Kong, and thus it comes to pass that Great Britain gets the credit for commerce which does not really belong to her. If Hong-Kong possessed proper Custom-house statistics, it would be easy to account for the origin and destination of the merchandise which passes through this port; but such statistics do not exist. Under these circumstances, we must turn either to those of the various countries of Europe and America, or to the detailed statistics of the Chinese Customs, which frequently rectify the total amounts, whereby we learn that £692,700 worth of Russian petroleum is imported, whereas the total imports from Russia by sea are only estimated at £485,100. The difference must, therefore, be accounted for as having passed through Hong-Kong. A comparison between the Chinese Customs statistics and those of Germany, the United States, French Indo-China, and other countries, obliges us, however, to admit that three-fifths at least of the trade of Hong-Kong really belongs to the British Empire, which leaves to the latter about £27,000,000, that is, 40 to 50 per cent. of the total foreign commerce of the Celestial Empire. In the matter of imports, the English reign supreme, holding at least three-fourths in their hands, and dominating the market by the two principal articles, opium and cotton. Moreover, their flag floats over 65 per cent. of the total tonnage registered in the Chinese ports; of 636 foreign houses of business established in the open ports, 374 are English; of 11,600 foreigners, 5,000 are British subjects; and English is the language most spoken throughout the ports of the Far East. When we take all these facts into consideration, we are obliged to acknowledge that, having so many interests to defend in this part of the globe, England has a right to let her voice be heard clearly in commercial affairs. We must not be surprised, therefore, if she insists upon the ‘open door’ policy in China. The question now arises, Does she seek territory in the Celestial Empire? She has apparently sacrificed the ‘spheres of interest’ theory by exacting from China an engagement not to cede anything in the basin of the Yang-tsze, and the English Jingoes are already dreaming that Great Britain will be mistress not only from the Cape to Cairo, but from Cairo to Shanghai. ‘Are not the Arabian Coast and the Persian Gulf,’ I recently read in an English paper, ‘already ours, and morally subject to our protectorate? Once we possess the valley of the Yang-tsze, who is to prevent our constructing a rival line to the Trans-Siberian from the mouth of the Nile to that of the Blue River?’^[28] Although just at present it were best not to count too much on the wisdom and coolness of the British, nevertheless, their statesmen seem to appreciate the dangers of so beautiful a dream. They, at least, understand that the peril of the British Empire lies in its enormous extent. The majority of the British would, no doubt, be satisfied if they were allowed to place their capital and their commerce on a footing of equality with that of other countries in the Celestial Empire, if the territorial encroachments of the Powers did not justify the fear of the creation of a protectionist tariff. We may, therefore, hope that Great Britain, having obtained all that she desires in the way of strategic points for the benefit of her naval forces, and also a great number of commercial concessions, will remain contented with her lot, and not dream of attacking the independence of China, but rather be inclined to help her to regain power.^[29]

After England the United States do the greatest business with China. They only figure for £4,500,000 in the Chinese Customs statistics, but their own official publications give £7,840,000. Petroleum and cotton goods are the principal articles of their commerce, which is sure to be enormously increased in the future as the Middle Kingdom requires more and more machinery, which is manufactured to-day much more cheaply in America than anywhere else. The United States are represented in China by thirty-two houses of business and 1,564 citizens; their mercantile marine is, however, very insignificant, but having of late assumed a position among the world’s Powers, and being already installed in the Philippines, they are sure to increase their mercantile fleet very rapidly, and as they aspire to become one day mistress of the Pacific, they watch with a very jealous eye all that happens in the Far East. However protectionist they may be at home, they are resolute partizans of the ‘open door’ in this market, of which they justly hope to eventually acquire a large part through their enterprise. Already a coolness has occurred in their friendship with Russia, and in January, 1900, they obtained a guarantee that none of the Powers should establish differential tariffs in leased ‘spheres of interest.’

Japan takes the third rank with a rapidly increasing commerce, which in 1897 reached £5,850,000. Her spun cotton rivals that of England and India. Seven hundred Japanese are registered as residing in the different ports. The Celestial Empire has no warmer friends at the present moment than the Japanese. The Japanese papers are full of articles which compare the position of the two countries to that of Prussia and Austria after Sadowa, and preach reconciliation, and a close alliance was already spoken of with enthusiasm at the close of the War. Many Japanese statesmen are studying this question, among them the Marquis Ito, four times Prime Minister, and Prince Konoye, President of the Chamber of Peers, who travelled in China, and stayed in Peking in 1898 and 1899. According to certain signs, their overtures have not been altogether fruitless. The Government of the Empress Dowager does not seem to entertain any particular rancour against the Japanese for the sympathies which they expressed for the Reformer Kang-Yu-Wei, and undoubtedly seeks some support in order to withdraw itself from the over-exclusive domination of Russia. If this last Power is feared in Peking, it would seem that Japan is at the present time the most considered, whose counsels are best heard, and who best serves as the intermediary for progress into China. It is from Japan that China obtains instructors for her army, and that the Viceroy Chang-Chih-tung not only borrowed money, but also engineers for his foundry at Hanyang. The cementing of a formal alliance will no doubt be prevented through fear of Russia, and very probably China does not desire it very sincerely. Possibly at Peking they continue to despise the Japanese as much as they do Europeans, although they may have a preference for the former. One thing is certain, and that is, that the relations between the Governments at Peking and Tokio are better than they were before the War. Of the Western Powers, England is most preferred by the Mikado’s subjects, although even with her they are a little suspicious. A feeling of intense resentment is still expressed by the vast majority of the Japanese against Russia. A small minority, however, desire that an understanding should be arrived at with her. This party, however, also wishes for the ‘open door,’ China being the only outlet for their young and already important cotton industry.

These three nations—England, the United States, and Japan—complete the group of the whole-hearted partizans of the ‘open door.’ The British press has often expressed a desire to see an alliance effected between them, and if this were only created between England and Japan it would be very formidable in the Far East. The Japanese fleet is excellent, and whatever may be our opinion of the ability of the Mikado’s sailors, it is certain that, once united to the English fleet under the command of an English admiral, it could soon sweep the China Seas, and it would then be easy to embark an army of a hundred, even of two hundred thousand men, whom it would be difficult, even according to Russian officers, for the Tsar’s army in the Far East to resist. Perhaps Russia has pushed the Empire of the Rising Sun too much and too soon into the arms of England.

Germany, who, according to her own statistics, carries on a trade with China valued at £3,400,000, of which £2,320,000 are imports into China, and who counts 104 commercial houses instead of the 78 in 1892, and registers 870 residents in the Treaty Ports, divides her preferences between the policy of the ‘spheres of influence’ and the ‘open door.’ If she has reserved a right of preference in the public works to be undertaken in Shan-tung, she soothes the irritation of the English by making Kiao-chau a free port; but, notwithstanding the antipathy which exists at heart between the two nations and the progress of German commerce, often at the cost of British trade, and thanks to the more obliging manners and greater activity of the German merchants, a distinct amelioration has taken place since the end of 1898 in the relations between the two Governments, and Germany seems for the present to have turned her back upon the Franco-Russian group in the Far East in order to support British policy. One province alone in China is not enough for her commercial enterprise, and she fears to see protection closing the other ports.

We now come to Russia. Her total commerce with the Celestial Empire does not amount to more than about £3,000,000, half of which passes overland by way of Siberia. Petroleum as an import and tea as an export are the two great articles of Russian trade with the Celestial Empire. There are very few Russians living in China, and those who do so are mainly established in the port of Hankow. Russia’s objects in the East are almost entirely political, and it is very probable that her protective tariff will follow her territorial aggrandizement. Being already mistress of Manchuria, she officially fixed the southern limits of her sphere of influence, at the time of the affair of the Niu-chwang Railway, at the Great Wall. To the north is a vast stretch of land almost entirely desert. In all probability this limit is merely temporary, and possibly none really exists in Russian aspirations; but before declaring her policy she awaits the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Empire of the Tsar, notwithstanding the 60,000 to 80,000 men already massed between the Amur, Korea, and Pe-chi-li, does not yet feel sufficiently safe to take a step forward for fear of bringing herself into conflict with England and Japan. The day the Trans-Siberian Railway is finished a step southwards may no doubt be made. The antagonism between Russia and Great Britain, both of whom aspire to be the leading Asiatic Power, will then no doubt become bitterer than ever.

The policy of France has been more often than not ostentatious, timid at heart and often vexatious in form. She has made a great fuss over a few commercial advantages obtained in the sterile provinces which border on Tongking, and she has opposed England without doing her any injury with respect to the opening of the West River. In certain affairs relating to European concessions at Shanghai and Hankow, France has unfortunately succeeded not only in vexing England, but in alarming the Germans, Americans, and Japanese by the excessive regulations which she has introduced in those territories which have fallen into her hands. It does not seem, however, that the French have contrived to obtain sufficient compensation for the enmities which they have provoked in defending, not without peril, interests which after all were not their own.

The part which France has wished to play in China has not been a strictly commercial one. French highly-finished and expensive fabrics are of no good in the Chinese market. If she only had the common-sense and enterprise to send to Tongking first-class weavers, and establish there a manufactory under French direction, with cheap native labour, she should soon be able, if she copied the cotton industries of India, to compete with Japan in the Chinese market. It is therefore the exportation of capital which ought to be her object in the Far East, in China as well as in Indo-China. Notwithstanding their activity, it is not countries like Japan and Russia, which are without capital, that can attempt to exploit the riches of China, but countries that are already advanced in civilization like Germany, the United States, and above all, France and England, who, by the introduction of the vast resources of their capital, are in a position to work the mines, railways, and other resources of the Middle Kingdom. If, instead of trying to obtain exclusive privileges in a poor region, which are of no use and only irritate other nations, France had supported them in their ‘open door’ policy, she would have gained a good deal, without losing anything from the purely commercial point of view, and thus Frenchmen might have placed themselves on a common footing with men of all nations, in the same manner that the English and the Germans contrived to come to an agreement in business transactions, notwithstanding the divergence which tends to separate them more and more, and she would then have been able to place her capital to great advantage, and thereby have added immensely to her prosperity, not only abroad but at home, as was the case under the Second Empire, when she covered Europe with railways.

France might, moreover, from the purely political point of view, have played a conciliatory part, and have thus managed to prevent the dominant influences at Peking from becoming too exclusive, which might ultimately result in a terrible conflict, and she should have worked to maintain the independence of China. Now that the Chinese are permitting Europeans to take their riches in hand by constructing their railways and exploiting their mines, it seems to us that France ought to allow her to retain a sort of communal existence, in which the civilized nations might carry on their economic activity precisely as they do in Turkey, with the difference that the Empire of the Son of Heaven is much vaster, richer, and populated by a far more industrious people than that of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid.

This is, of course, a solution of an apparently temporary character, but which might have a chance here, as elsewhere, of lasting longer than a score of other solutions which are deemed definitive, always provided that the Powers do not exert too much pressure on the feeble Government at Peking, and especially if Russia, once the Trans-Siberian Railway is finished, does not insist upon her demands in so violent a manner as to provoke simultaneous action on the part of the Powers, and thereby bring about a partition. The destinies of the Celestial Empire are, however, in a great measure in the hands of the Tsar, who has, fortunately, already given many proofs of sagacity.

The maintenance of the Chinese Government seems for the moment preferable, even in the interests of the opening up of the country and in the introduction of our civilization in its immense territory, to the partition of China between the various European nations. We do not say this because we believe that the Chinese Government is converted to progress, for we hold that, with very few exceptions, those who direct the fortunes of the Chinese Empire are quite as fossilized in their prejudices, as firmly believe in their decrepit wisdom, as eager to prove their hatred of Western civilization, and, moreover, as corrupt, as ever they were. At the same time, they are convinced of the impossibility of China resisting the encroachments of European civilization, and as resigned as ever to yield to external pressure. Undoubtedly the era of subterfuges on the one side and of menaces on the other is by no means closed, and in spite of reforms which have been, and are still to be, obtained in the future by Europeans, a considerable part of the pecuniary advantages to be obtained from the transformation of China will remain in the hands and up the sleeves of the mandarins. But if progress is somewhat retarded by this resistance, which, after all, will only be temporary, it will be better so than that it should be introduced too suddenly and cause unnecessary trouble. Meanwhile, the Government of Peking plays an extremely useful part. Some people have not hesitated to say that if it ceased to exist progress would be much more rapid, forgetting that anarchy would ensue, the end of which would be as difficult to foresee as it would be to find a means of terminating it, or of discovering a manner in which any European Government could govern 200,000,000 Chinamen. The losses which the re-establishment of a stable regime would entail, and the vast expense of subduing rebellion, would certainly exceed those resulting from the procrastination under the actual form of Government.

At the end of a certain period it is highly probable that the march of events may be accelerated, and when the mass of the Chinese people have been placed in contact with the results of Western progress, it is very probable that its great common-sense will do the rest. It is an appeal to their essentially commercial and money-making instincts that we must make if we wish to convert the Chinese, the most realistic and the least idealistic of nations. Railways will be the best missionaries of civilization in China.