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Dr. Timothy Richards, one of the oldest missionaries in China, who has excep tional opportunities of judging of the state of feeling of the natives, writes to me that while there is truth in "Mr. Little's facts, some of them are unduly magnified, and that he holds that the anti-foreign attitude has been the result of an ignorant native press, to counteract the influence of which no steps are taken.
Carved Melon" notice, Mr. Little bad subsequently sent Sir John a copy of the "
It contains the usual irresponsible of which I now beg to enclose a translation. statements as to the threatened partition of China, which Mr. Seeds rightly described as "ludicrous were not their effect so serious," but its moral appears to be preparedness for war rather than violent attacks on peaceable foreigners.
At about the same time that Mr. Little was in Szechuan, His Majesty's consul- general at Chengtu had reported to Sir John Jordan that he had heard from a missionary correspondent that armed robbers had been active in the neighbourhood of Fushun, a little north of Sulfu, and that the popular excitement was being further influenced by the distribution of an anti-foreign poster very similar in tenour to the "Carved Melon" document, but he added that the Governor-General on being approached, had at once informed him that he had already issued stringent instructions prohibiting its circulation and ordering it to be torn down wherever it could be found,
The posting of such notices and the distribution of pamphlets misrepresenting the policy and intentions of foreign Powers are bound to have a pernicious effect on the minds of the half-educated students and of others of lower class and have no doubt given rise to a large amount of irresponsible threatening talk. Ignorant natives may be made to believe by demagogues and agitators that foreigners are responsible for innovations such as railways, schools, mints, arsenals, census, reformed police, &c., which are to their minds a mere excuse for further exactions by the officials. In all these cases the only thing to do is for the consular officers to bring the matter to the notice of the local authorities, and it would appear that hitherto a certain measure of success has attended such action.
There is, however, another force with which we have to reckon and that is the native press, which teems with similar harangues as to the aggression of foreign
Powers.
What Mr. Little says as to the anti-foreign tendency of the native press contains little that has not often been said before, though manifestly its evil influence penetrates further and further as the number and circulation of the newspapers increase. This I am afraid will continue to be the case as long as the native press is in the hands of a set of irresponsible half-educated scribblers who possess just enough education to wilfully mislead their still more ignorant compatriots without realising the possible disastrous consequences of their folly.
Towards the end of last, and in the early part of the present year the native press teemed with references to foreign designs on China, to impending troubles in Manchuria, &c., and to the consequent necessity of universal military training to repel the threatened invasion. The wild scheme for paying off the national debt by voluntary subscriptions was universally advocated as the best means of depriving foreign Govern- ments of all right to intervene in the affairs of China. Violent and revolutionary statements appeared attacking the Central Government and all officials for their venality and subservience to foreign influence and for their connivance in a secret invasion of China and encroachment on Chinese rights by loans, railways, mining concessions and trading facilities.
The refusal of the Central Government to consent to the immediate opening of the National Assembly, and their action in limiting the discussions of the provincial assemblies were vehemently criticised, as was the refusal of the local authorities in certain towns to countenance military training and the distribution of arms among the schools, and approving references were printed to the scheme of political assassination in India as proving that even the most down-trodden race could have sufficient courage for such a step.
In connection with this subject I beg to enclose a memorandum on the attitude of the native press written by Dr. Timothy Richards and Mr. Cornabe, well-known members of the editorial staff of the Christian Literature Society for China. I had an opportunity of reading this memorandum when I was in Shanghae, early in January, but I did not receive a copy of it till so much later as to render it rather out of date. I must say that here too the tendency appears to me to be unjustifiably pessimistic and when the two authors compare the signs of the times now and in 1899, as has frequently been done of late, they appear to me to forget that in 1900 the Court went mad and took the lead in the kill the foreigner" movement, and
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no one can honestly say that up to the present there is any sign of Chinese officialdom, either at the capital or in the provinces, contemplating a similar act of suicidal (madness. I have lately discussed his own memorandum with Dr. Richards and he frankly admits that it was too alarmist. He has since then been in contact with some of the editors of the Shanghae native papers, and has pointed out to them the folly and danger as regards their own country of stirring up this anti-foreign feeling till it may pass beyond control, and it would appear that the tone of the Shanghae press, and indeed of the native press generally, has become somewhat modified in this respect of late. I am afraid that it is extremely difficult if not impossible for any foreign agency to counteract the pernicious influence of the Chinese press. This makes it doubly regrettable when one sees the native papers drawing their weapons of attack from foreign sources, as has lately been the case in regard to the anti- British campaign directed by the press bureau of the Wai-wu Pu and largely inspired by Mr. Ohl, the "New York Herald" correspondent. That the Chinese Government, on the other hand, can control the press, if they really wish to, was shown last year by the cessation of criticism of Japanese policy during the Sino-Japanese negotiations in regard to pending questions in Manchuria.
What Mr. Little says as to the demands of the students in various schools to be given arms and to be allowed to drill is, I believe, true, though my information goes to show that this movement met with little encouragement at the hands of the authorities. Curiously enough agitations of this description took place in several missionary schools, and when I was at Shanghae I heard of the case of a catholic school where an anti-foreign agitation was discovered by the fact of all the students concerned arranging to take the communion together. In Hünnan, where the anti-foreign feeling has always been specially strong, it was still further intensified by the partition rumours, and the students requested the governor to issue arms to them and were severely reprimanded for doing so; while it is said that the hero of the cut-off finger episode, reported by Mr. Little, was bastinadoed. At a public meeting of the law students at Changsha, it was decided that the Nationals of the Power which made the first war-like demonstration against Hünnan should be massacred, but that other foreigners should be protected; but on His Majesty's Consul discussing this resolution with the governor, his Excellency asserted that he was complete master of the situation so long as we took no actively aggressive action in regard to certain pending cases. His Excellency explained that the rumours were believed only by students and gentry and not by the officials, merchants, and people, and that as long as this was the case immediate trouble need not be feared. In the case of certain small disturbances last December, which arose out of a strike of masons and carpenters, the governor took prompt and successful measures. I cannot, therefore, agree with Mr. Little when he says that the Government instead of checking this absurd movement are doing nothing of the sort, and that when they are not actively encouraging it by permitting the students to enrol and actually issuing arms, they are standing aloof and permitting without any protest the movement to develop. When I was in Changsha at the end of October my wife and I walked for hours in the narrow streets of the city, and though we were the objects of inconvenient curiosity, I saw no signs of hostility on the part of the crowd. Since then, however, I have heard from Mr. Hewlett that menacing remarks have been addressed to him and his wife in the streets, but he did not regard these a sign of imminent trouble.
In regard to the neighbouring province of Hupei, His Majesty's Consul-General at Hankow wrote at the close of last year that no definite warning of coming trouble had yet reached him, but that the rise in prices due to the depreciation of the copper currency, the great distress due to the floods, and the many deaths due from starvation, cold, and disease among the numerous refugees did not make for an orderly winter in that part of the province.
There has been a singular absence of missionary disturbances of late, and such disturbances as have occurred in various parts of China during the past few months appear to me to have been primarily directed against the authorities, and not against foreigners, and in most cases to have been created by mutinous soldiery. It is inevitable in such a country as China that in any sudden local riot foreigners are likely to become the object of the attack of the rioters; this is a danger which it is impossible to foretell or to guard against; but I cannot justly say that I have noticed any hesitation on the part of the Chinese Government and of the local authorities to take prompt and efficacious measures for the protection of the lives and property of foreigners, whenever they have been threatened.
One of the rumours that I have gathered on my travels was that there was a
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