Part 3

It cannot be said that the policy of foreign governments in China has been calculated to raise the powers in the estimate of those very Chinese whom it ought to be our chief duty to impress. Take the outrages upon missionaries and the constant murders of which we have had to complain—until the German Emperor seized Kwei Chao we have always been content to accept a money indemnity as reparation; so that the local mandarins must have looked upon the death of a few missionaries—the most sweet-smelling offering that could be made to Tsŭ Hsi and her eunuchs—as a mere question of cost, and that moreover not to be defrayed by themselves, but squeezed out of the people. If some poor wretch or wretches were decapitated, the instigator, the real culprit, could enjoy the luxury of sitting in judgment over his own crime, and sentencing to death some victim caught at random out of the prisons, or perhaps even—for Chinese methods are ingenious—paying off an old score.

As regards intercourse with the ruling classes, or obtaining any influence with the court, our presence at Peking has been useless—perhaps worse than useless, actually mischievous. For what can a Chinese gentleman think when he sees the filthiest beggar pass freely without let or hindrance in parts of the city where the presence of the minister of the proudest nation in Europe would be deemed a pollution? We have been tolerated in Peking as a necessary evil—accepted we have never been. The receptions at court have been so rare, and made such a great favour of, that they have been a mere farce, and in some cases, such as the visit of the ladies of the _Corps diplomatique_ to the Empress Tsŭ Hsi, a degradation. Compare with the position of the British Minister at Peking—stoned and insulted in the streets, and unable to obtain protection or redress—the reception of Li Hung Chang by all Europe three years ago. How that astute old intriguer must have laughed in his sleeve when he found himself petted, coaxed, and flattered, treated like a royal personage! and what must have been the inference drawn by every ignorant Chinese, from Tsŭ Hsi and the poor down-trampled Emperor Kwang Hsu down to the meanest beggar on the bridge? Crystal is not so clear as the fact that the Son of Heaven is the ruler of the world, and all other monarchs mere vassals, doing homage to the steps of the Jasper Throne.

Peking has exercised upon foreign representatives a sort of unholy glamour. They have been bewitched. Some have fallen down and worshipped before its scholastic and historical traditions; others have treated the great city and its rulers as a sort of gigantic “curio”; optimism has been the bane of all. If any serious attempt has been made to bring the mandarins into the pale of statesmanship it has been singularly unsuccessful. They remain as retrograde and as hopelessly obstructive as ever. They have occasionally been clever enough, like Li, to throw dust in the eyes of foreigners, and that is all. Unless a radical change is effected European diplomacy will continue to be abortive; to effect that change it is absolutely necessary that the court should be removed from the headquarters of obstruction, and brought into actual contact with our civilisation and with the material evidence of Western power. The old-world prejudices of Moscow were a hindrance to Peter the Great; the Kugés buried for centuries at Kiyôto were a drag upon the reformers of Japan; the capitals were moved. These are the two great precedents for such a policy.

In spite of protesting princes and potentates, it seems as if the

## partition of China, that unwieldy monster, was at hand. When the

phrases “Sphere of Influence” and “Hinterland,” diplomatic expressions recently invented for the benefit of savage Africa, came, three or four years ago, to be applied to China, then nominally a friendly power, it was not difficult to foresee what must follow. The events of the last three months have precipitated matters. Germany is in honour bound to exact exemplary retribution for the murder of her minister, the deadliest insult that could be offered to a great nation. If she were minded to take Shantung, where she might establish a flourishing colony, she would act as a buffer state between Central China and Russia, who has already to all intents possessed herself of Manchuria, and has for many a year cast longing eyes upon Chihli; and after all, if Russia were to annex Chihli with Peking would the world have any great cause for lamentation? Apart from all other considerations, Russia with a nucleus of co-religionists in the Albazines, of whom there is a short account at p. 211 of these letters, would have more in hand towards Christianising the people than any other nation or sect; and it seems to me that Peking Russian, and possibly Christian, would be far better than Peking Chinese, and certainly heathen. If further encroachment were guarded against by Germany in Shantung we should not be losers. Should France want a rectification of frontier for her great Asiatic colony—why should we interfere? The restoration of the old frontier of Burmah and the freedom of the Yangtze region should suffice us.

As for a change of dynasty in China, which some writers are crying for, that is an impossibility, because there is no Chinese pretender ready to replace the Manchus. It would mean chaos such as the world has never seen.

Freed from the incubus of the Empress Tsŭ Hsi and her eunuchs, freed from Prince Tuan and the other bloodguilty Manchus, the Emperor, surrounded by a more enlightened court, and acting under capable advisers, would be enabled to rule peacefully and honestly over an immense and prosperous empire; while the removal of the capital would, without any act of vandalism, such as the suggested destruction of the Tombs, read China that lesson which is so sorely needed, and which the absurd reprisals of 1860 utterly failed to convey. After the second occupation of Peking we should not again hear of the Barbarians bringing tribute to the Son of Heaven from his vassals.

The idea of a change of capital is not one that is of itself strange or repugnant to the Chinese mind. It has even, apparently, been contemplated by the Dowager-Empress herself, though her choice would not unnaturally fall upon a spot like Hsi An Fu, near which town, at Hao, at Hsien Yang, and at Chang An, the emperors of the Chou dynasty (B.C. 1122–781), the Tsin (B.C. 249–200), and the Sui (A.D. 582–904) held their courts. But the chief charm of such a capital would be its inaccessibility and remoteness from the haunts of the foreign devil. Hsi An Fu would be Peking over again, and worse. It would give the _coup de grâce_ to all hope of civilising the court.

In a letter published in the _Times_ newspaper of June 22 I advocated once more the choice of Nanking as a new seat of Government, and I said that such a change would be hailed with joy by many millions of Chinese. A few days after that letter appeared my arguments received a very remarkable confirmation. A telegram from Yokohama informed us that the Chinese community in Japan, a highly intelligent, educated, and respectable body of men, of first-rate business capacity, had presented a petition urging the foreign powers to take advantage of the settlement which must follow upon the present troubles, to insist upon the removal of the capital from Peking to Nanking. Now these men know what they are talking about. They know that such a change would work wonders in the direction of good government; that it would take the power out of the fossilised hands of the court; that the light of day would be fatal to the bats and owls of the forbidden city; that the secret societies would be deprived of their chief support; that the viceroys and the whole descending scale of mandarins, brought under control of an intelligible and intelligent Government, would no longer be able to squeeze and persecute the people, paralysing trade by their extortions and blackmailing, and setting up insuperable barriers to the progress of civilisation.

In the Blue Book published recently (July 30) we have the first instalment of the official history of the tragedy of Peking—most melancholy reading, truly! But there is one bright spot in this miserable record. The attitude of our Foreign Office in all the negotiations which have taken place appears to have been altogether admirable. In spite of the cold water thrown by international jealousies upon Lord Salisbury’s efforts to retrieve the situation, he has held his own position, and he has succeeded in using the best means which were available without in any way compromising the future. Japan is to furnish troops, but there are no vague promises, no encouragement of inordinate ambitions, and no raising of hopes, which, if realised, might be fraught with dangers beside which even the horrors of the last few weeks would be as child’s play. Lord Salisbury boldly promises to find the money, and England will honour his bill. That is all. “Her Majesty’s Government wish to draw a sharp distinction between immediate operations which may be still in time to save the Legations, and any ulterior operations which may be undertaken.” No language could be clearer or more satisfactory than this. Is it too much to hope that when the final settlement comes, the counsels of the same master-mind may devise a solution which shall bring about a happier era for China, without endangering the harmony of those nations which are now united in their resentment of outrages, for which the history of the world finds no parallel?

Besides the Blue Book, recent events have produced a plentiful crop of letters to the newspapers, many of them written with great ability and knowledge of Chinese affairs. The deposition of the undoubtedly guilty Empress, and the restoration to power of the Emperor, with a Government composed of the progressive party to which he is inclined, are with most of the writers a _sine qua non_. To this I say Amen. “The murderer Tuan must be executed” is a favourite cry. By all means; but we know what is the first postulate in the cooking of a hare. Prince Tuan will hardly be more easy to catch than was Nana Sahib in 1857. If the Emperor, a weakling at best, be left at Peking in a hotbed of harem intrigues and secret societies, how can he be protected? Will his life be worth many days’ purchase? Will a progressive ministry be able to exercise any authority over the great provincial satraps? The foreign representatives will be locked up in the old death-trap, and in ten, twenty, thirty years history will repeat itself. The inviolable sanctity of Legations with such surroundings becomes a most miserable farce.

The return to the _status quo ante_, with all its possibility of tragic repetitions, is just the sort of lame and impotent conclusion to which we have accustomed the Chinese, and in their dealings with us they count upon a moderation which, like all Asiatics, they construe into fear, and despise accordingly. A barren conquest like that of 1860, which left things as they were, is something which they cannot understand. When Li Hung Chang, who knows exactly what string it is best to harp upon, sweetly urges us to arouse “the gratitude of millions” by abstention from revenge, be sure his gentle mind sees its way to turn such magnanimity to good account. The horrors of to-day were begotten of the mistakes of 1860 and 1870. Let us hope that 1900 may be the parent of a less ill-omened brood.

————

Those who desire to study the political problems of the Far East will find admirable instruction in Mr. Chirol’s the _Far Eastern Question_ (Macmillan), in Mr. Colquhoun’s _Overland to China_, and in the same writer’s more recently published _The Problem in China and British Policy_.

My best thanks are due to the proprietors of the _Times_ newspaper for permission to reproduce here their admirable plan of Peking.

LETTER I

HONG-KONG, _23rd April 1865_.

Life at sea may be a very pleasant one for those who like it, but I doubt whether any one ever arrived at the end of a voyage of a month and a half by one of the P. and O. Co.’s steamers without uttering an expression of thanksgiving, hearty and sincere. The monotony of the ever-recurring daily occupations is killing. However,

Be the day weary or be the day long, At length it ringeth to evensong,—

even Hong-kong is reached at last.

We rush up on deck after breakfast to see the first of the brown, sun-scorched island. It is shrouded in mist, however, and there is not much to look at. But every one is excited and flurried, and in the happiness of realising the luxury of being on land, we feel kindly towards all mankind, and bid a cordial farewell to our fellow-passengers. In a short while we are in harbour, and the little colony, planted at the foot of wild and rugged hills matching those of the mainland opposite, lies before us. A crowd of boats plying for hire, and partly manned, to use a bull, by women often pulling away lustily with a baby slung across their backs, hail us with cries of “Wanchee boat?” “Wanchee big boat?” These Chinese boatwomen are real wonders. Hardy, strong, and burnt by the sun, they look and probably are as sturdy as any of the men. At any rate I saw one woman fight and thrash a couple of stalwart young boatmen; and a good stand-up fight it was, give and take. They did not spare her, and she belaboured them most lustily, screaming and chattering all the while in a way that would have frightened Billingsgate itself into silence. The boats seem to hold whole families,—even the nursery,—the small boys wearing corks or bottles to keep them afloat when they tumble overboard. The girls, being reckoned of no value, take their chance, and wear nothing to protect them. As soon as we came to an anchor the boats of the great commercial firms came alongside, each probably steered by a partner eager to hear the latest news or to welcome a friend. One by one the passengers disappear, and he who has letters for one of the merchant princes of China may look forward to luxurious quarters and a warm welcome, for nowhere else is hospitality carried to such an extent as it is here.

The houses in Hong-kong are large and airy. Lofty and spacious rooms not overloaded with furniture (for everything is dispensed with an eye to the getting the most air and coolness) look out on to a broad verandah, which is shaded with green rush blinds to keep out the glare. Here bamboo lounging chairs, of indescribable comfort, hold out arms that invite one to doze away the sultry afternoon, or sit smoking a cheroot and sipping cool drinks in the most luxurious laziness. The clean and neat matting on the floors, the rare curiosities and jars which decorate the principal rooms, the quiet, mouse-like steps of the China boys in their blue dresses, who act as servants, coming in to take an order or deliver a message in their quaint pidgin English, give a peculiar and original stamp to the whole, which is of itself immensely refreshing. Everything speaks of rest and quiet, and yet it is in these quiet, idle-seeming houses—very castles of Indolence they appear—that busy brains are at work, toiling all day, calculating rises and falls, watching chances by which thousands are won or lost in a day. In the old days when the opium trade was unlawful, and therefore at its height, when the rival houses had each their fast sailing clippers racing against one another from Bombay and Calcutta, and the first to arrive would lie hidden round the corner of the bay, and send a man on shore across the hills with the all-important intelligence, only showing itself when a price had been made, the life of a man of business at Hong-kong must have been one of untold excitement. Nowadays every man gets his letters by the mail, the opium trade is legitimatised, and there is no longer the same amount of “go” and dash about the thing. Still, a venture of tea to the tune of a million of dollars, upon which 40 or 50 per cent may be made or lost, must be exciting enough for most men. Just at present the China trade is in a singularly bad way; vast sums have been lost in tea speculations; some of the larger houses have been very hard hit, but with plenty of capital at their backs have stood the shock well. Smaller firms, however, not having the same elasticity, have sunk under it; smashes and rumours of smashes are rife; and the only men who have not suffered are those who, with wise prescience, have folded their hands and done nothing, waiting for better times.

Hong-kong presents perhaps one of the oddest jumbles in the whole world. It is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring. The Government and principal people are English—the population are Chinese—the police are Indians—the language is bastard English mixed with Cantonese—the currency is the Mexican dollar, and the elements no more amalgamate than the oil and vinegar in a salad. The Europeans hate the Chinese, and the latter return the compliment with interest. In the streets Chinamen, Indian policemen, Malays, Parsees, and half-castes jostle up against Europeans, naval and military officers, Jack-tars, soldiers, and loafers of all denominations. Constantinople, Smyrna, and Cairo show more picturesque and varied crowds, but nothing can be more grotesque than the street life of Hong-kong. The local cab is a green chair[3] open in front and covered in at the top, in which you may sit Yankeewise, with your feet sprawling above your head, and be carried along at a good pace by a couple of strong-shouldered coolies with shaven polls, long tails, and huge umbrella hats. Plenty of these are waiting for hire at every corner. They have a fixed tariff of ten cents the trip. The weights that these coolies carry slung on their bamboo-poles are something surprising. I have seen Turkish hamals bent nearly double under the most impossible loads, such as no London railway porter would look at; but it makes one’s shoulders ache to see the Chinamen fetch and carry, for they do not hold the poles in their hands with the support of a shoulder-strap, like the chairmen who used to take old ladies out to tea and scandal in English country towns, but the bamboo poles are fastened at the ends, and the men simply hoist them on to their shoulders and stagger off under them. Both men and women of the lower orders are certainly to our eyes mightily ill-favoured, and have villainous countenances which, if all tales be true, do not belie their characters; but now and then one comes across a pretty creature enough, some Cantonese, probably, as frail as fair—for St. Antony is not generally worshipped in seaside garrison towns. The long plaited tails worn by the men, and eked out with silk until they reach nearly to the heels, are a never-ending source of wonder to the new-comer. But there is one fashion of shaving the poll, leaving here and there a hair like the bristles on a gooseberry, which is peculiarly droll in its effect—a “coiffure à la groseille.” The Chinaman is very careful of his tail, and no cat has a greater horror of wetting her coat than he has of a drop of rain falling on his back hair. To cut it off is the height of indignity; and when the Chinese sailors on board the P. and O. ships have been stealing opium from the cargo, which they find it very hard to keep their hands off, they are tied up by their tails to the capstan and summarily flogged; in which case they become useful as well as ornamental. The barber drives a brisk trade; nor does he confine himself to shaving, clipping, and plaiting; he has also cunning instruments with which he cleans the eyes and ears of his clients, the result of which is that the drums of their ears are often injured, and the poor patients afflicted with chronic deafness.