384
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Of the now exploded “co-operative policy" Sir C. Dilke has a good deal to say, and, with the accuracy which distinguishes most of his utterances in the article under notice, assumes its continued existence. If the policy which was exhibited in every disagreement between Great Britain and China being made a pretext for fresh demands for territory on the part of Russia, was "co-operative" if the fact that so inexperienced (though honest and good-hearted) a diplomatist as the late Mr Burlingame followed the lead of so able a man as Sir Frederick Bruce, was an evidence of "co-operation," that policy was certainly tried. No one who knows anything of the inner life of the Legations at Peking prior to Mr Burlingame's departure as Chinese Envoy will be disposed to attribute much value to the compact which was kept only so long as Great Britain (somewhat hampered by France) undertook all the trouble and expense of reducing China to terms. But beyond this Sir Charles Dilke may again be referred to the incontrovertible logic of accomplished facts. The Chefoo Convention is credibly asserted to be regarded with anything but favourable eyes by the Ministers of the other powers represented in Peking. Sir Thomas Wade was loud a few months since in his insistence upon the fact that no trade convention or treaty with the Chinese would be effective unless concluded by all the Western powers in unison.
Yet this very Convention, embodying what are announced to be important concessions to trade, has been concluded without the assistance, and in opposition to the views, of the majority of the foreign Ministers! Sir Charles Dilke's reliance on the arrangement he so much belauds appears to be as misplaced as his other remarks are inaccurate.
Sir C. Dilke's definition of what the "co-operative policy" was to accomplish is at least curious, "It consists," he says, "in strengthening the Central Government at Peking"—and this definition is correct in so far as it formed an article of the original understanding. But the way in which he states this is to be accomplished would cause some surprise to the eminent diplomatists who inaugurated the policy in question. "Our place," he says, "is not to support it (the Central Government) against insurrection, but only against its delegated Provincial Governments, also Tartar, and also unpopular with the people. It is understood that we are not to prop up the Peking Government against any future widespread insurrection, and we are not to defend it in the possible event of a Mohammedan invasion under the Ameer of Kashgar. All that we are to do is to keep China together, no matter who is the Emperor who may sit on the throne at Peking." How the object in view (the strengthening of the Central Government) is to be accomplished by this programme, Sir C. Dilke does not condescend to inform us. But it may perhaps interest him and others to learn that Sir Frederick Bruce, who was the first to carry out the policy initiated by the Earl of Elgin, took a very different view of the responsibilities which that policy involved. One of its most striking fruits was the permission accorded to Major Holland and Colonel Gordon to assume command of the Imperialist troops. And he would have been as much amused as astonished to learn that he was to insure the autonomy of the Chinese Empire—a convertible term for "strengthening the Chinese Central Government"—by ignoring "any wide-spread insurrection" and allowing the Peking officials to be killed off whenever a faction strong enough to kill them could acquire sufficient influence. But so eccentric an explanation of a programme which once claimed some respect for its statesmanship, and has failed, simply because no two countries have identical objects or interests in China, need not be enlarged on. Nor is there need in this place to notice Sir Charles' fling at the "fire-eating merchants at the ports." Epithets do not make facts; and the sneer from a man of such proved loyalty to the crown, and so delicate a perception of the rights of individual opinion as has been exhibited by Sir Charles, may for the present be passed over. With even less words and in more direct language can the two next assertions from his facile, if untruthful, pen be disposed of. The unhappy sisters murdered at Tientsin
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