Where the Happy Valley Road branches off, one part leading to the Royal Golf Club, and the other to the Mohammedan, Parsee and European cemeteries, and Wong Nei Chong valley, Hongkong, on a spot where Secretary William Henry Seward stood in 1869, there is a monument which has particular interest for Americans and Britons, and possibly it is a prophecy of their united work in the future in developing China. The monument tells its own story of brothers in arms in the dangers of the Far Eastern seas in lonely days as follows:

The first American treaty is dated 1844 when Caleb Cushing and Daniel Webster’s son, Fletcher, went to Hongkong, Canton, Macao, etc., but American trade began at a still earlier date, when the Empress of China, Captain Green, Purser Samuel Shaw, sailed from New York on Washington’s birthday, 1784. The ship Alliance sailed from Philadelphia in 1788 without charts. The ship Massachusetts sailed from Boston in 1789, armed with twenty six-pound guns, and half the cargo being useless furs for the southern Chinese! The old Philadelphia merchants interested in the China trade were of the Archer, Girard and Rulon families. The Boston merchants who despatched regular packet ships to Canton were of the Forbes, Perkins, Cabot, Sturgis, Russell, Cushing and Coolidge families. The first American consuls lived at beautiful Macao. Major Shaw, purser of the Empress of China was consul in 1786, Samuel Snow in 1794, and Edward Carrington in 1804. On November 16, 1856, just before the “Arrow” war, Captain Armstrong, U. S.S. Portsmouth, attacked the Canton (Bogue) forts. This was the only time America attacked China, except at Peking in 1900. When all Europe hesitated to befriend the northern states, China issued this edict to viceroys in 1863: “Keep a careful and close oversight, and if the Confederate steamer Alabama, or any other vessel of war, scheming how it can injure American property, shall approach that part of the coast of China under your jurisdiction, you are to prevent all such vessels entering our ports.”

The American representatives in China were first trade commissioners, and afterward diplomats, and the tendency now, at least with the British and Germans, is to have both commissioners and diplomats. The American officials were the following:

Caleb Cushing, commissioner, 1844 (first treaty).

Alex. H. Everett, commissioner, 1846 (died, Canton, 1847). John W. Davis, commissioner, 1847.

Humphrey Marshall, commissioner, 1852.

Robert M. McLane, commissioner, 1853.

Doctor Parker, commissioner, 1856.

William B. Reed, minister, 1857 (first minister).

John E. Ward, minister, 1859.

Anson Burlingame, minister, 1861 (remarkably brilliant).

Mr. Low, minister, 1870.

J.B. Angell, minister, 1882 (later president University of Michigan).

Charles Denby, minister, 1885.

Mr. E.H. Conger, minister, 1900.

W.W. Rockhill, minister, 1905.

Mr. Calhoun, minister, 1909.

The most famous secretary of the American legation was Samuel Wells Williams, the author of the Middle Kingdom, etc., and editor of the Chinese Repository. His son serves at present in the Peking legation. It would take a volume to cover Mr. S.W. Williams’ brilliant work as interpreter of missions and legations, printer at Canton and Macao, translator, author, lecturer, secretary, dictionary compiler, professor at Yale, sinologue, money raiser for the causes of missions and letters, and diplomat.

Daniel Webster had not a little to do with America’s relations with China. He studied the subject deeply. He suggested the first mission that secured a treaty, and wrote the president’s message of December 30, 1842, to Congress suggesting the mission. Cushing’s letter of instructions was signed by Webster, and showed deep knowledge of Chinese affairs. The treaty was signed in a temple at Wanghai, outside the Porta Cerco stone gate at Macao; and I would recommend the pilgrimage to the many tourists who visit the picturesque settlement in South China. In 1861 an American, Frederick G. Ward, formed the nucleus of the Manchu imperialist army which finally overcame the Taiping rebels. Another American took service with Li Hung Chang as secretary. His name was W.N. Pethick. He had served in the Civil War in America. Mr. Pethick had considerable influence with Li, assisting him in treaty making, reading to him reform and economical books, and taking a part in urging the crusade against opium. Mr. Pethick died from the hardships of the siege of Peking in 1900.

When John Hay and Philander Knox secured the assent of the nations to the American and British doctrine of the non-partition of China, they were repeating the “square deal” terms of the famous treaty of 1868, which the brilliant American, Anson Burlingame, on behalf of China, which nation he was then serving as commissioner, secured from America, stipulating the “territorial integrity of China, and disavowing any right to interfere with China’s eminent domain”.

In 1900 the American troops found a great store of silver at Tientsin, but gave it up, as America returned the Boxer indemnity of 1908, and the abstention of the American troops from looting in Peking in 1900 set the usual high standard of altruism and soldierly honor which Sun Yat Sen and Wu Ting Fang say China connects with the name America.

In 1901 Mrs. Conger and the other ladies of the American legation began the work which threw down the zenana bars which held Manchu and Chinese women in repressive exclusiveness.

Years ago prominent Chinese made some study of American leaders. Seu Ki Yu, governor of Amoy and member of the Tsung Li Yamen (Foreign Board at Peking) in 1866, to whom Secretary W.H. Seward sent a picture of Washington, composed the following essay:

“Washington was a very remarkable man. In advising plans he was more daring than our heroes, Chin Shing or Han Kwang. In winning a country he was braver than Tsau or Lin Pi. Wielding his four-foot falchion he enlarged the frontier myriads of miles, and yet he refused to usurp regal dignity or even to transmit it to his posterity; but, on the contrary, first proposed the plan of electing men to office. Where in the world can be found a mode more equitable? It is the same idea, in fact, that has been handed down to us from the three reigns of Yau, Shun and Yu (the immortal reigns of China). In ruling the state he honored and fostered good usages, and did not exalt military merit, a principle totally unlike what is found in other kingdoms. I have seen his portrait. His mien and countenance are grand and impressing in the highest degree. Who is there that does not call him a hero?” This essay was reissued by the republicans in 1911 and had a wide influence in their propaganda.

The American exports to China, including Hongkong, consisting chiefly of cotton, machinery, oil, flour and tobacco, were as follows: 1908, $34,000,000; 1909, $28,000,000; 1910, $23,000,000 (exports to China from all countries, $305,580,000); 1911, $25,000,000.

The American imports were, in their order, chiefly silk, tea, hides, wool, straw braid, pig iron, musk, hair, raw cotton, albumen, bristles, and amounted as follows: 1908, $24,000,000; 1909, $31,000,000; 1910, $38,000,000 (exports by China to all countries, $251,460,000); 1911, $32,000,000.

This is but a beginning, as it were, “a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand”. America should keep stocks in Manila to attack the Chinese market, where “time is of the essence of importance”. This applies to iron, hardware, tinware, structural beams, cottons, woolens, yarn, shoes, machinery, educational and military apparatus, foods, utensils, pipes, and everything necessary in municipal, industrial and domestic development. A Cantonese or Shanghai Chinese does not mind the trip to Manila to inspect, though he would prefer seeing what America has to offer in Hongkong, Shanghai, Hankau, Tientsin, Mukden, Chingtu and Yunnan, if America shortly concludes to take advantage of these seven strategic trade centers. In the meantime full stocks at Manila would be a good beginning. Even in disturbed years, such as 1911, America’s imports from China were $32,000,000, and exports $25,000,000. These figures are small compared to those that will soon obtain, and, of course, America desires first to increase her exports of machinery, drugs, novelties, utensils, loom products, tools, etc.

American food and harvester companies will doubtless yet take up land directly or indirectly in fertile Manchuria, where America must look for supplies of vegetable oil, wheat, fertilizer, oil cake for milch cows, lumber and coal, and a market for machinery and manufactures. There is a virgin territory seven hundred miles by seven hundred miles, inviting the agriculturist. The American-Chinese Railway planned in 1910, from Chin Wang Tao, the only ice-free port on the Liaotung Gulf, to Tsitsikar and on to Aigun on the Amur River, was an excellent scheme and one which may eventually be accomplished.

The Western Electric Company, of America, installed Peking’s telephone system. The American Banknote Company set up China’s central bank engraving department. American companies furnished the stamping machinery for the new mints. American bridges and locomotives are frequently seen throughout China. American sewing machines, oil cans and tobacco papers are on view everywhere throughout the twenty-one provinces, and the American flour bag, when empty, patches the sails of the southern junks. Some American presses have come over, but they do not as yet compete strongly with the British and German presses. American hotel and kitchen utensils would compete were it not that the palatial treaty port hotels are controlled as yet by British and German shareholders. American mining, gas, electric, cranes, sawmill, cement, flourmill and pumping machinery are coming in, excepting where foreign contractors and bankers interpose. British shipyard machinery is still ahead. American protective paints for steel are holding their own in competition with the British and German paints, especially in the Yangtze valley. American turbines are slightly ahead, but American pipes, dynamos, stationary engines, winches, heating plants, dredgers, condensers, cables, electric fans, bleaching and cotton machinery, refrigerating machinery, wood-working machinery, water meters, hauling plants, lamps, etc., are still behind the British and German article, the British trade exceeding the American four to one. American machinery, with its generally nicer finish and greater adaptation and efficiency, has a vast field. In sugar machinery, Japan leads, but America will pass her. In car wheels, rails, and in simple foundry and rolling mill output, China can not be competed with for any length of time. In shovels, ballast unloaders, coal and ore hoists, America will lead, as she leads in locomotives. In the immense telegraph development, Britain leads. In water-tube boilers, America leads. In couplers, roofing, steam hammers and drilling machinery, America has a fair chance. In military supplies, Germany and Japan lead. In motor-boats, America will lead, although if time is not important, the Chinese dockyards can not be competed with in steam launches, which are now used very largely to tow the cargo junks. In automobiles, America leads. In family hardware, America and Britain lead. In lubricating oils, America meets some competition from the Dutch and Russians, but in illuminating oils, America leads. In fuel oils, the Dutch probably lead at present, the Shell Company having tanks of Sumatra oil at the ports. One of them was dramatically punctured with a shell in the recent revolution. In brakes, Britain and America share the field. In elevators, America will win. In reinforcing steel, America will lead. In typewriters, she long ago won the field. In sanitary hardware, scales, safes, rubber goods, America has an excellent chance. In phonographs, she has won, but in amusement films, France is ahead. In milks, Switzerland leads, and France leads in candies. In extensive systems of harbor improvements, sewerage, water supply, municipal improvements, power and light plants, institutions, mill erecting, etc., America will win as soon as the banking department is attached to the erecting and contracting department. At present the British and Germans lead, as they have done in South America, because of the banking department being attached to the constructive and diplomatic. In sporting goods, drugs, book supplies and school furniture, America will soon close up on Britain’s lead. In jewelry and fancy goods, France, Japan, Britain, Germany and America divide the field, in which there is a fighting chance, with the Chinese themselves as apt pupils in the competition. In brewery machinery, Japan and Germany lead. In canning equipment, America could easily seize the kingdom, and give the world added table necessities and delights from a new realm of sunshine and warmth. In leather, felt and underwear, America could lead. In special pianos for the moist climate, Britain leads, but she could be outplayed. In types, America could win. The field is not for war, but tournament, and the most efficient should and will win the joust! There are enough events to provide honors and rewards for each and all. Those nations which have had high tariffs will suffer most at the beginning of the competition, because while a high tariff may be the mother of the trusts, it is seldom the mother of a prodigy in competitive efficiency.

America’s and Britain’s recognition of the Chinese republic might naturally raise a temporary discontent in the Philippines, India and Egypt, but in homogeneity and responsibility these patronized people can not compare with the Chinese. If it should turn out that China, like Russia and Japan, is not yet ready for republican or constitutional self-government, much less is the non-fusible muddle of Viscayan, Tagalog, Ilocano and Moro, in the lovely summer islands; Mohammedan and Bengalese and Copt, Fellahin and Sudanese. Altruism is a sane creature, walking steadily on two legs, and is not going to lose its head and permit anarchy anywhere just to humor sentimentalism. Theodore Roosevelt made this plain in his Guildhall speech at London, which landed Kitchener in Egypt again to finish his work, and it would apply as well to-day when certain overanxious Filipinos compare their organization, temperament and constitution with the superior Chinese. America, like Britain, can strike with the same hand with which she shakes hands. The civil service and a host of foreign school-teachers in the Philippines and India is the shaking of hands. Let the Philippines and India appreciate it in that way. It would be quite different for them if monarchical Germany, Japan or Russia controlled. We shall recognize the republican trial in China because we believe China is homogeneous, educated and patient enough to make that trial safely, but neither America nor Britain will for a long time yet permit the trial in the Philippines, India or Egypt. If those countries ask the Anglo-Saxon why, we have but one answer; “Look at your history until we managed your interests, and look at our history.” In recognition of Japan’s power, America has dropped her first line of defense back to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In a new understanding of Britain’s oneness with us; of the Philippines linking Australia, India and Canada; of China’s welcome of our style of government and altruism, let us, when we have the docks, move our advance line back to the Philippines; for we mean to have as much to say in protecting China as any other power, which policy does not involve annoying illustrious Japan. But we are going to be on the ground, for as far as Russia and Japan and some others are concerned, they have a land-grabbing appetite and tendency which is not calculated to give China fair play in bringing out the great possibilities which are in her, if we respect her most majestic history. If the complaint is listened to, and America and Britain should withdraw, consider the kind of liberty our successors would deal out: the oligarchic rule of Russia, and the Satsuma and Choshiu nepotism of Japan.

Japan, in traditional Oriental style, has been on occasions alert to play one nation against another, with the view of gaining an advantage of slow prodigious China. When the treaty with America was to expire one year ahead of the termination of treaties with other nations, Japan extended the latter treaties one year, so that her treaties with all the powers might expire together. The obnoxious emigration clause in all these treaties would mainly be taken advantage of, however, in America’s case, and we should have, if the treaty was insisted on by a sudden opposition which gained power, the constant strife of the Japanese labor question in Hawaii, the Philippines and the Pacific coast states, which strife served the deep purpose that America, being technically in the wrong, might neglect to press Japan on greater matters where Japan was taking advantage of treaties, as in Manchuria and Korea. Some of the adroit Japanese statesmen, instead of being wounded at our attitude, really enjoy it in secret. Certain Jingo Japanese, however, would have liked, with this excuse, to have tried America’s naval strength on the Pacific in 1908, and attempted the capture of Manchuria, Fukien province, the Philippines and Hawaii, which test was probably avoided by the dramatic master stroke in sending America’s great fleet of battleships across the Pacific as an object lesson to the Nipponite chauvinist. Japan should for the future be reasonable enough to assent sincerely to an interpretative emendation of the “most favored nation clause”, so that it will really mean the “most favored Oriental nation”, as far as the emigration of laborers is concerned. This will put Japan on a par with China. America sends no laborers to Japan; Japan has discharged American professors in Japan and Korea the very moment the Oriental understudy reported that he was ready to assume charge; America has bought from Japan vastly more than she has sold to her; the timely loans of America to Japan, as Mr. Jacob H. Schiff has said in his notable speech of 1910, enabled Japan to continue the war with Russia until victory was won; American friendship for Japan enabled that nation to secure larger treaty stipulations from Russia at Portsmouth than any other host of the negotiators would have encouraged, and above all, the tactful American, Perry, opened up Japan to modernity in 1854. Japan’s vaunted Confucian and Shinto manners should teach her to protect the blood of her historic friend in his own house, and to respect the greater expense the American laborer nobly goes to in providing, under greater difficulties, for the living and education of his family. There should be no more emigration to the American mainland or Hawaii of Japanese labor than there is of Chinese. Let the Japanese laborers go to Formosa and Korea, where there are wide enough opportunities and where their own government, customs and language rule.

Particularly as America has loaned Japan money, there should be an unequivocal “open door” policy in Manchuria, where Japan is operating already one double-track and one single-track trunk railway, with branches, and has intruded many bands of colonizers on old China, which bands live in settlements where Japan collects taxes against agreement and in practical contravention of China’s sovereignty. This “open door” policy should end the brigandage against foreign traders of directly or indirectly rebating to Japanese shippers on the monopolistic railway privilege to which America never agreed. Cotton and other goods for the Japanese trade colonies should not be entered free at Dalny as “railway supplies”! The Japanese government through the Yokohama Specie Bank should not lend at the ridiculous rate of two per cent. to Japanese importers and common carriers the money that came largely from America, if it affects American trade. This is interpreting an “open door” policy as it is understood at Tokio and Dalny, not as it is written at Tokio and Washington. Since generous America buys vastly more from Japan than she sells to her, Japan should lower her tariff instead of raising it. Japan wants to raise her tariff to sixty per cent. in some cases while we of the august righteous Occident only permit vast good-natured China a tariff of five per cent. ad valorem.

The railroads of our Pacific coast, controlling the eastern shipments, should not invite over Japanese steamship lines, and lay off American lines as was done with the Boston Steamship Company at Seattle in 1909. As it is now, our railroads have made contracts with five Japanese steamship lines, so as to force our government, many critics say, to grant a ship subsidy, which is unnecessary, as the traffic is great enough to pay, with a mail payment, the lines on the Pacific running cheaper than those on the Atlantic on account of the crews being all Chinese. Japanese merchants in Manchuria have petitioned the Japanese government for state assistance to be given Japanese manufacturers in Manchuria.

Despite Japan’s and Russia’s rejection of America’s suggestion in 1910, there will remain only one course eventually to be taken as the result of Secretary Hay’s announcement in 1899 of the “open door” policy for all time in China and Manchuria, and that is for a revivified China to secure an international five-nation loan, or preferably a four-nation loan, to take over from Russia and Japan all the railways held by those two nations in Manchuria, and clean those three provinces of Japanese and Russian troops and Achranie Straja (railway guards), Manchuria thereafter acting as a buffer Chinese state between those really irreconcilable contestants, who under present conditions promise to throw the whole world into warlike turmoil every decade. The Japanese and Russians, by blocking, in 1910, the American railway concession from Chin Wang Tao to Aigun (which America did not intend to occupy with troops) really confessed that they considered, since it so suited them, that the secret agreement which Russia forced from China in 1899 was of superior power to the Japan-Russia Treaty made at Portsmouth, which avowed the “open door” policy. Britain, under pressure from Russia, agreed in 1899 that the former was not to interfere north of Peking, and the latter agreed not to interfere in the Yangtze valley (as though she ever could!). In that same year John Hay secured the assent of the nations, including Russia and Britain, to the policies for all time of the “non-partition of China” and the “open door”, which policies were confirmed by the Portsmouth Treaty, and therefore Japan and Russia, in blocking the Chin Wang to Aigun railway, Chin Wang to Kailar, or any other northern or Manchurian railway, were acting ultra vires, and negotiations in the interest of China, and the development of America’s trade, might well come up again. Certainly the South Manchurian railway has all the traffic it can handle, and it can no more serve great Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia than could a railway confined to Florida serve the eastern and central states as far north as Philadelphia.

Had this Chin Wang to Aigun railway been laid, besides the vast grazing, agricultural, mineral, lumber and mining territory which would have been developed, several important centers would have been made known to the world. Hulutao and Chin Wang are new ports which are ice free longer than Newchang, which should be made the advance post, instead of Shanghai, seven hundred miles away, for America’s attack on the rich Manchurian trade. Some day we shall run steamers across the Pacific to Hulutao and Chin Wang, and thus be independent of Japan’s port of Dalny. Tsitsikar on the Nonni River is a great stock, lumber, mining and railroad center. Aigun, on the great Amur River, is the proposed northern terminus of this seven hundred and fifty miles of railway. Up to 1900 Aigun was the largest city in Manchuria, but during the Boxer troubles Russian troops in revenge razed it to the ground. Here, in May, 1858, was signed the famous Chinese treaty with Russia, delimiting the present bounds of Manchuria. Aigun is a most important fur, lumber, agricultural, flour, gold and general mining center, and has all the great Amur, Sungari and Shilka Rivers to draw cargoes to its docks.

Across the Amur River on Siberian soil (I can hear George Kennan revive his reminiscences) lies Blagovestchensk. This city was the scene, in 1900, of one of the most cruel massacres of the ages, which should reveal fully to the world the real heart of the oligarchal Russian army and government with which we have had to deal, afar off as yet. Thousands of unarmed Chinese shopkeepers and gold miners (who had absolutely nothing to do with Boxerism one thousand miles away) were led to the riverside, and at the word of command from General Chitchegoff the Russian troops at the point of the bayonet drove the innocent victims into the swift Amur, where many were drowned. Blagovestchensk is a thriving modern city. It is the center of the opulent Siberian gold industry, and has many live American advance agents who would welcome the American railway by a bridge over from Aigun! It is lighted by electric light, has clubs, hotels, libraries, docks, river steamers when the river is open (!), theaters, colleges, factories, flour and sawmills, splendid churches, fine brick residences, roads and horses.

Besides its exceedingly rich mines, Manchuria produces in the south, oak-leaf silk which we in America call Shangtung because it is like the silk of Shangtung, which was the first known of the wild silks; cotton, jade, maize, barley, pulse, the very valuable soy-bean, wheat, oats, the very valuable kaoliang (tall millet), the grain of which produces spirits and the stalk of which produces paper; hsiao mi (short millet), poppy, polygonum, used for blue dye; castor oil bean, sesamum, ginseng, paper spruce, fine fruit and flowers, salt, bean oil, famous vermicelli from loutou beans, the best tobacco produced in China, hemp (abutilon avicennÆ), true hemp, charcoal, peas, fine reed matting, indigo, etc. Northern Manchuria, besides much of the foregoing, produces the famous black pigs of Kirin; soda bricks, cattle, leather, bear and deer skins; a vast amount of the world’s finest furs, including squirrels, tiger and dog skins, which last are produced on dog farms largely for the American market; gray bricks, tamara salmon, sturgeon, etc. The land is a future granary to feed the manufacturing hundreds of millions in America, who, despite intensive farming, will have exhausted the natural productiveness of their country.