190
INDIAN CONTROL FOR BRITISH DIPLOMACY IN CHINA.
ever
One of the most curious accompaniments modern politics and diplomacy is the doctrine of finality that a policy once adopted is never to be reversed, that poli- tical movement, which in all nations except Russia in conditioned by opportunism, is to be forward and never backward. Men and societies in private life and in business go in largely for tentative methods; they make experiments and trials; finding the result favourable they advance, un- favourable they retire. Nations in these days seem incapable of such pro- cedure: we find a policy once initiated persistently adhered to by its advocates no matter whether the results be patently good or evil. Italian and American finance, French Colonial expansion, British policy in China, all illustrate the point at issue. This weakness is probably the outcome of a desire for consistency, and an unwillingness to admit fallibility in the conduct of public affairs. Rigid consistency is the bane of weak minds and weak men, and is merely a euphuism for the folly and pride which never allow inferior men to confess that they have done or can do wrong.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[September 12, 1895. effluvia and have a knowledge of the reagents which can both mitigate these evils and abolish their cause. The Consular Service would be the better of a shake up; it abounds in able but fastitidious diletantes who drag their way to a premature pen on through the avenues of personal enjoyment. The paramount need of the British situmđồn in China is strength and force. We think this can best be gained through India, but if this be thought too drastic and far reach- ing a measure, we should like to hint that collusion between the Admiral and Minister would in most cases be effective both to pre- vent catastrophes and to punish crimes.
SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT,
Let us at once say it is the system and not the men whom we blame. Unless the Minister were given power to move the Fleet, we believe that no man however strong could overcome the evils of the situation. A CLIVE or a HASTINGS in Peking would be reduced to the same impotence as a PARKES or an ALCOCK if they had nothing but their personal force of character to oppose to chicane and insincerity. They fould save their self respect by resignation, but this would not remedy matters greatly. We should give up the farce of affecting to believe that Great Britain and China are equally autonomous Governments bound by the ties of sovereign states. If China can neither keep her treaty obligations nor preserve order within her own boundaries, the fact should be looked squarely in the face, and our attitude altered accordingly. Our pri- mary business is to compel her to keep her It is satisfactory to hear that the British obligations to us, and to help her to main- Minister at Peking has latterly been com- tain order if the lives of our people are in ing out in a new role, namely, as a terror The anti-foreign jeopardy through her inability. Magna- to the Tsungli Yamen, nimity towards a neighbour in distress has fossils who compose that body-a Board been carried too far the British Foreign specially invented to interpose as an im- Office has for twenty years had its goodpassable barrier between the Foreign Re- nature imposed on by skilful playing on the presentatives and the sovereign to whom they
are accredited—are believed to have des string of dynastic troubles. The subtile in- fluence of Sir ROBERT HART in the Lega- patched a complaint to London of the manner in which Sir NICHOLAS O'CONOR has tion in Peking, and of Sir HALLIDAY MACARTNEY in London, have sadly inter- recently been treating them. They are inexhaustible fered with the robust common sense of our evidently accustomed to
patience, unfailing courtesy, and unvarying officials.
deference from the Foreign Ministers, and when at length one of the latter, urged per- haps by stress of the situation, by stringent instructions from the Foreign Office, and goaded by reproaches from the Press, ventures to assert his natural superiority and declines to be longer played with and in- sulted, they, forsooth, would have him We know not what measure of recalled ! truth there may be in this report, but it is so much of a piece with Chinese arrogance that there is no difficulty in crediting it. If it be true, it is a healthy sign. It is time the Chinese crest was lowered, though a CROMWELL is wanted for the job. Nothing stands in the way of satisfactory relations with China so much as the overweening vanity and insolence of the mandarins. So long as they are permitted to cozen, dupe, and put off the Representatives of the Treaty Powers with fies, excuses, evasions, and promises, so long will it continue impossible to secure the safety of foreign lives, the fulfilment of treaty stipulations, and the opening up of the Chinese Empire to foreign trade.
British statesmen led by PALMERSTON for years devoted their energies to fixing re- sponsibility on the Central Government of China for the vagaries of provincial officials. After two campaigns and the expenditure
But how are we to meet all this? of no little blood and treasure we gained Lord SALISBURY is now in power with an our point, and from the days of Sir absolute majority of his own party to say FREDERICK BRUCE to those of Sir nothing of seventy Liberal Unionists. He NICHOLAS O'CONOR we have had fully has now a chance of doing many things that accredited representatives near the centre of he never had before and which will probably Celestial power and government. It was not soon recur. We should suggest that he confidently pleaded that a system which had boldly face the China situation and place been found to answer with all other govern- the Peking Legation and Consular Service ments would answer with China, but a long on the Indian establishment. This would experience of thirty-four years has not yet within twelve months abolish the shally- enforced on our publicists that the Chinese shally element which now corrodes the whole are the exception to all political maxims, and service. The best administrative genius that the very means so painfully enforced of the British people is in India; there we to secure certain ends have by oriental craft have men trained to self-reliance in an Asiatic been contorted to ensure the failure of those environment, men who can follow oriental ends. Forced to admit the hated for foxiness like a sleuth hound and can prod eigner to her capital, China defeated him oriental sloth into prompt action. The and his measu res by instituting the gathering of a dozen regiments on the Bur- Tsung-li Yame n. This unique institu- man frontier would in all cases cut the tion has been altogether equal to the Gordian knots of which the Yamenites in purpose for which it was created: its mem- Peking are so fond. They would, moreover, bers quickly acquired an exact knowledge find a trained Indian diplomat a man of of the outward forms of diplomatic inter-different kidney to the kidgloved meu of course. Masters of etiquette and politeness, they adhere to every jót and tittle of the law of embassy. Fat and fatuous they sit in a solid row and deliver their non possumus with the smiling urbanity of a lot of joss house idols. They use the one weapon with which Western deplomats cannot fight, the vis inertice of profound and self-satisfied ignorance. Sir HARRY PARKES, the strongest and most energetic Minister England has ever had in Peking, said that to fight. the Yamen was a question of physical endurance: "to get a decision from them," he said, was like trying to draw water from a well "with a bottomless bucket." In his case they did not hesitate to have recourse to personal insult. Every Minister has told the same tale, and the history of outrages directed against foreigners in China enforces the lesson that the rules of ordinary diplomatic intercourse are useless in Peking. Why does not Downing Street recognize this obvious fact? We are disposed to think that it would almost be better to have no Minister at Peking at all than to continue to lose prestige by the present con- ditions.
the Foreign Office.
Sir HENRY MAINE long ago pointed
Sir NICHOLAS O'CONOR has a grand op- out that India is now the central pivot of all England's foreign policy. Every suc-portunity, and we hope he will make the ceeding year points to the truth of this state- fullest use of it. Not only has the Govern- the largest ment. The focus of the Eastern question ment of Lord SALISBURY is moving steadily East and now tends majority in Parliament at its back of any Unless a moral revolu- Government since 1832, but British indigna- to the Far East. tion comes to China its partition will tion has been deeply stirred by the infamous be the next phase of the great struggle. and cold blooded massacre of unoffending She is now so rotten that the next rough women and children at Kucheng, and will handling will shake her to pieces. When heartily endorse the most vigorous measures this inevitable consummation of present for securing ample satisfaction for this the tendencies is reached Indian statesmanship crowning outrage in a long record of riotous and Indian generalship will be necessarily savagery and brutality in China, provoked in it. So that both on the ground of future and suggested by the official class. The contingency and present need we should like great excuse formulated by the Tsung-li to see Calcutta supersede Downing Street in Yamen both for the Yangtze Valley China. The Celestial Empire is ruled by atrocities and for the Kucheng massacre is old women of both sexes (but especially of that they were the work of secret societies, the male), who are amenable neither to rea- committed with the design of embroiling the son nor fairness. Lord SALISBURY will get Imperial Government with foreign Powers. In the former case they paraded the Kolao- no permanent satisfaction out of them as long as he adheres to old methods. Chinese hui, and made much capital out of the foolish diplomacy is like bad plumbing: it lets out conduct of an Englishman in the Customs sewer gas which poisons our men. The staff, who in a fit of something like menta Indian officials are, however, used to Asiatie| aberration was induced to join a conspiracy