This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
302
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
(13503)
No. 1.
16852
April 21
RECR
SECTION
RECE 12 MAY
(No. 105.) Sir,
Sir E. Satow to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received April 21.)
Peking, March 7, 1906.
IN the course of a confidential interview with the Grand Secretary, Na Tung, on the 13th October, 1905, the substance of which was reported to Lord Lansdowne in my despatch No. 343 of the 18th October, his Excellency made no secret of the alterations in the relations of the Court with the provinces which had followed from the events of 1900. He said that since 1900 the provinces had acquired habits of independence in local matters, and that the use of compulsion by the Central Government to obtain the execution of unpalatable duties was not so free from danger as formerly.
In a later despatch (No. 355 of the 30th October) I informed Lord Lansdowne that, while I was in no doubt, from the utterances of Prince Ching, Na Tung, and Chu Hung Chi, that the Central Government felt themselves unable to take a firm line with local agitations unless they had the Viceroys and Provincial Governments with them; the latter, on the other hand, were becoming more and more apprehensive of popular movements, and disinclined to take action calculated to offend local opinion.
A typical instance in point was the boycott of American goods, which has been referred to in previous despatches and telegrams. To make clear the genesis of this movement, it is necessary to mention that since the summer of 1904 negotiations for the conclusion of a new Treaty to regulate Chinese immigration have been in progress in Washington. The Treaty of 1894, which was good for ten years, was denounced, and in August 1904 the Chinese Government sent to the United States' Secretary of State through the Chinese Minister at Washington a first draft of a new Treaty. The American Government forwarded a counter-draft by the same channel to the Wai-wu Pu, and the Chinese Government replied by a new draft in February or March 1905. The nature of these negotiations became known, and the restrictive proposals of the American Government were much resented, especially by Chinese who had personal acquaintance with the United States. This resentment took practical form in a meeting of merchants and Notables, held on the 10th May, 1905, in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce at Shanghae, to devise a mode of protest, when it was decided that the most effective modus operandi was to stop using goods of American origin. The boycott of individual foreign firms or shipping Companies and general trade strikes directed against Mandarins, whose action is regarded as oppressive, have frequently been resorted to before now by the Chinese Guilds, but this is the first time that the method has been systematically applied in China with the avowed object of putting pressure on a foreign Government. There is the precedent of the Portuguese people combining to exclude British goods in consequence of the attitude of His Majesty's Government in 1890 on the Manica land question. Similar action towards French trade by Japanese was advocated in the Japanese press at the time that the Baltic fleet was making a long stay in Tonquin waters, and it is not unlikely that the idea of a boycott as a political weapon was suggested by some of the Chinese youths who were studying at public schools and colleges in Japan.
A circular telegram against certain "harsh and unjust clauses" in the proposed Exclusion Treaty, and threatening a boycott of United States' goods and manufactures two months from date, if the American Government persisted in retaining the obnoxious clauses, was sent by this meeting of the 10th May to native Chambers of Commerce, Merchant Guilds, and Associations at various Treaty ports and inland cities; and replies were soon received from some thirty of the principal places of trade indorsing the protest and supporting the boycott proposal. A Shanghae native paper, discussing these replies, declared that the "unanimity of purpose was most unique and never yet heard of in the history of this ancient Empire." Whatever effect a conciliatory statement published by the newly-arrived American Minister, Mr. W. W. Rockhill, on the 2nd May may have had was more than counterbalanced by a report in the native press of a long despatch sent by the Viceroy of Canton to the Wai-wu Pu, strongly
[1946 x-4]