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and Franco-Russian alliances. Suggestions were made as to the advisability of allowing America to acquire such vested interests in the three Manchurian provinces as would make it essential for her to keep them in the Chinese dominions at any cost. It seems hardly necessary to comment on the idea that the United States and Germany are going to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for China without ample compensation, but in China's present mood she is inclined to form exaggerated
estimates.
The climax of exaggeration and folly was reached in the recent reception of the business men from the Western States, who were accorded almost Royal honours not only by Chinese commercial classes, but by the Chinese Government, and whose doings and sayings have been recorded with a minuteness of detail and with such appreciative comments as can hardly be rivalled during the approaching visit of the German Crown Prince.
The ostensible object of the tour was the promotion of trade relations between the two countries, and as in the case of the Japanese business men, who made a similar tour last June. it may be welcomed as another step in familiarising China with the outside world. It scenis, however, a pity that these shrewd men of business should be compelled to devote so much of their time to being dined and wined. If they were left more leisure to utilise the opportunities furnished by their tour they would carry home with them a valuable budget of commercial intelligence, instead of an exaggerated impression of Chinese hospitality and good-will towards foreigners in general and Americans in particular. As it is, they gain superficial and false ideas of China's progress in the path of civilisation and reform, and, worse still, they also instil these ideas into the minds of the Chinese themselves, who certainly are already not wanting in self-sufficiency and conceit. I fully agree with Mr. Fox that to pour indiscriminate panegyrics on all the efforts of the Chinese to fall into line with modern civilisation, as, for instance, to say publicly that the Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway is as efficient as any line on the American continent, must, with a nation like the Chinese, be productive of far more barm than good.
I further agrec with Mr. Fox in his remark that this visit is not likely to produce any tangible result in the direction of increased trade between China and the United States, and the speaker who described it as "the beginning of novel business relations between the two countries and a great factor in their political relations" was guilty of postprandial exuberance of speech.
If I have written at such length on the subject of these American visits to China and of the warmth of the reception accorded to the visitors, it is because I feel that this strong pro-American sentiment in China is a factor in Far Eastern politics with which it is necessary to reckon. There has been a great deal of inspired newspaper talk and exaggerated after-dinner speaking, but there is a real feeling at the bottom of it all, and the demonstrations of good-will and friendship in the case of the American business men are not due to Government direction, but to individual good feeling. The mere gratitude of the Chinese nation for past favours received is a broken reed to lean on, and even this year there has been talk in Canton of a boycott of American goods on account of the ill-treatment of some Chinese in California. There is something more than gratitude for returned indemnities and other alleged benefits to account for the undeniable sincerity of these pro-American demonstrations, and that is, as Mr. Fox says, the recognition of the possibilities afforded by the disinterested friendship of one of the great nations of the world. There is at the present moment in China a widespread feeling that all the Powers, excepting the United States and perhaps also Germany, are directly or indirectly bonded together against her, and that the United States are China's only friend and bulwark against foreign aggression. I do not go so far as to say that responsible Chinese statesmen look to America for active support, but they probably feel. rightly or wrongly, that in a few years the opening of the Panamá Canal will place in the hands of the United States the hegemony of the Pacific Ocean, and that, theretore, friendship with the United States should form the basis of China's foreign policy.
In estimating the strength and probable duration of such friendship, at all events from the side of China, we must not leave out of our calculations the strong pro-American influence of the already large and steadily increasing number of Chinese who have received their education in America. So great a patriot as Cecil Rhodes in founding the Rhodes scholarships at Oxford for students from the colonies, the United States of America, and Germany, gave concrete expression to his opinion that "educational relationships form the strongest tie" and a sure basis for a good understanding between nations.
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The dominating feature of the American attitude in the Far East is the instinctive friendliness felt for and shown to China, not always, as we saw last winter, in a manner most judicious or most likely to conduce to the real interests of China herself. There can be no doubt that the support of American diplomacy tends to encourage China to adopt an attitude of stubborn opposition towards the advice and requests of other nations, and it is natural that diplomatists in Peking should regard with some suspicion what we, rightly or wrongly, consider as the too complaisant attitude of the I have before now commented American Legation towards the Chinese Government.
on the lack of success, from the Chinese point of view, that attended the first incursion of the United States financiers supported by their Government into Far Eastern affairs. The results achieved hitherto, leaving out of consideration the loan for 10,000,000l. at present being negotiated, have been the indefinite postponement of the construction of the Hankow-Canton and Szechuan Railways and the agreement between Russia and Japan in Manchuria.
It is difficult at this distance to judge how far the fierce campaign in the American press directed from Peking by the "New York Herald" correspondent, Mr. Ohl, according to which Great Britain was represented as sacrificing America's friendship, China's interests and her own position in the Far East to her infatuation for her Japanese ally, in connection with the Chinchow-Aigun Railway scherue, either represented or affected public opinion in the United States. The financial group concerned, or rather their representative out here, Mr. Straight, made use of Mr. Olil to continually attack our policy, and as Mr. Ohl was in close touch with the "Peking Daily News" and the Press Bureau at the Wai-wu Pu, hardly a day passed without violent diatribes being published in the Peking press in regard to our alleged unfriendly policy towards China and our disloyalty to the United States. Mr. Ohl summoned other yellow journalists to his aid, including a Mr. Millard, who published an article in the July number of the "Forum" on the subject of the Chinchow-Aigun Railway. The article in itself does not merit much attention, but it is noteworthy as containing the text of all the notes addressed by the various foreign legations in Peking to the Wai-wu Pu in regard to the railway scheme in question, these notes, I understand, having been communicated by some high official in the Wai-wo Pu, said to be his Excellency Liang Tun-yen, to Mr. Millard for publication. The style of Mr. Millard's reasoning can be gathered from the following sentence: "I unhesitatingly declare my opinion that the issue raised in the matter of the Chinchow-Aigun Railway, broadly viewed, is one on which any self-respecting nation, if forced by antagonistic diplomacy into a position where it is squarely put, ought to go to war about."
Fortunately, there are other interests of greater importance than the construction of a railway of 800 miles in Manchuria, professedly a purely commercial venture, that determine the relations between Great Britain and the United States of America; and it certainly looks at present as if the furious press campaign got up in the interests of a financial group had missed fire.
It may be hoped that the visit of the delegates of the chambers of commerce may show them that there are other spheres in China besides Manchuria where American financiers can invest their capital with equal advantage to themselves, provided they are really desirous of assisting China in this manner, and do not merely aim at bringing forward political issues which place China in a difficult position vis-à-vis other Powers, where she cannot help herself, and where she cannot, in spite of the fulminations of the yellow press, look for material and effective help from her American friends.
I have, &c.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
W. G. MAX MÜLLER.
Memorandum by Mr. Fox on Delegation of Pacific Coast Business Men to China,
THE delegation of American business men now visiting China, whose departure from San Francisco was reported in Acting Consul-General Moore's despatch to the Foreign Office of the 23rd August last, arrived in Shanghai on the 16th September, and after visiting Soochow, Hangchow, Nanking, and Hankow reached Peking by rail on the 6th instant, From here they go to Tien-tsin; thence to Chefoo, Tsingtau, Amoy. long Kong, and Canton.
The party who style themselves
[2982 --2]
"Honourable Commissioners of American
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