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refuse to recognise the decisions of the Pacific Conference!" &c.; some are even stated to have shouted "Kill the foreigners!" Three days later thousands of country roughs came into the city and threatened to burn the mission station next day. At the last moment energetic action was taken, which, at any rate for the time being, prevented trouble; but it may be noted that this action was not taken by Shensi's Christian Tuchun. The agitation has spread throughout the province, and according to the same informant students together with a number of local rowdics broke into and looted a Swedish up-country mission of which the occupants were fortunately absent, while at another town students and soldiers attempted to set fire to the English Baptist Mission, and were only prevented in the nick of time by the prompt action of the general in command. From the same informant I learn that on the 17th and 18th January messengers went from house to house in Sian-fu and in district cities as distant as 60 miles east and west of that place and called upon the people to rise and exterminate foreigners and their followers. Representations addressed to the military governor appear on this occasion to have resulted in effective action by him. Direct connection between this movement and the student agitation of the 21st December is not alleged, but under conditions existing in the less accessible parts of China the transition from a student movement calling for the expulsion of foreigners to a massacre of foreigners by roughs is an obvious one.
While the tone of student agitation elsewhere called into being in connection with the Washington Conference has not equalled in violence that in Szechuan and Sheusi, minor demonstrations have occurred. and it would only require a word from those who play upon the feelings of the students and make capital out of their agitation to cause a movement which might have serious consequences from end to end of the country.
I have the honour to enclose copies of two reports by Brigadier-General Pereira, retired, who was formerly military attaché to this Legation and is now travelling for purposes of sport in Western China. These reports enlarge upon the dauger to China arising out of the interference of the student classes in politics, a danger which in his opinion is even greater than that caused by the brigand-soldiers with whom the country is overrun, Both dangers spring from the loosening of the bonds which have in the past held together the Chinese body politic. But while the soldier evil is one without a spark of good intention to redeem it, it should not be forgotten that the student movement contains within itself the seeds of hope. Even if it be admitted that its immediate outcome may be only evil, the fact that it is the first outcome of a widespread interest among the Chinese people in their administration is a sign of goodl o come. There are grounds for the hope that, after a period of disturbance caused or strongly assisted by the student movement perhaps lasting for years and incidentally causing great injury to foreign interests, the effect of the movement may ultimately be to render impossible the government of the country by illiterate ex-brigands or an oligarchy of corrupt and incompetent mandarins.
I have, &c.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
B. ALSTON.
Report by Brigadier-General G. Pereira of November 29, 1921.
The Present State of China.
PROBABLY the two provinces that are in the greatest state of chaos at the present time are Shensi and Szechuan. Both provinces are torn by contending factions, especially Szechuan, which is hopelessly broken up into countless parties. Brigands are rife in both, though the European traveller generally should have no difficulty if he takes the trouble to warn officials of his proposed routes and uses an intelligent liscrimination in accepting their statements as to what routes are safe. The fever of gambling is probably more fully developed in Szechuan. The chief difference between the two provinces is that whilst the students were kept in subjection under the late Tuchun of Shensi (Ch'en Shu-fan) the soldiers were more aggressive in that province. Whilst I have had no trouble from the soldiers in Szechuan, I have found from all accounts that the students in it are far more troublesome.
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Formerly I considered the want of discipline and unnecessary number of soldiers was China's chief trouble; I have now come to the conclusion that the students are an even greater evil, certainly from the point of view of the foreigner.
The student, usually a wretched half-baked creature, who argues like a small child without fear of correction, has no solid base of education to help him. He picks up a smattering of foreign learning which enables him to pose without difficulty as a superior being among his own people, who therefore fear him, whilst before the foreigner he realises his inferiority, causing him a loss of face and turning him to auti-foreign feelings at heart.
If the students were under a strong foreigner, not afraid of him, the foreign- trained student in China would, no doubt, benefit, but when he is under weak foreigners, afraid to stand up to him in a fight to a finish, the student gets the upper hand and the prestige of the foreigner sinks. He judges that all foreigners are weak in the same way, and the more this feeling takes root the more anti-foreign and dangerous he becomes.
Unfortunately from my own experience by far the greater number of foreign teachers I have met, in native or foreign-run schools and universities, have proved to be weak. They are handicapped by being generally poor and dependent on their salaries from Chinese officials or foreign societies. If they put up a fight to a finish in a Chinese-run institution they will probably be forced to give up their jobs, whilst in the foreign-run institution there is the danger of the students going out in a body, with the onus to the teachers of being made responsible for the collapse of the school.
The Chinese are past masters in the art of asserting themselves by combination, and, as a result of successful strikes and threats in the past, they have gradually got to realise their own strength and the weakness of Chinese officials and foreign teachers in the face of organised opposition, the only thought of the latter being to check the evil by temporising and concessions.
As regards the all-important question of the state of the students in the model province of Shansi, I formed a poor opinion of the model governor as a man because he truckled to the students and allowed them to invade his yamên and forced him to comply with their demands under fear of threats of a general strike. On the other hand, I realised his sterling merits as a kind, grandmotherly being, for his kindly wishes for the welfare of the people, for the excellence of the platonic vapourings which he caused to be posted on many of the houses throughout the province, for his good intentions and for some minor useful reforms. On the other hand, in the otherwise lawless and divided province of Shensi, Ch'en Shufan (the late Tuchun) took a strong haud in keeping the students in subjection, notwithstanding all the difficulties of his position. Though probably his past life has not merited for him the hope of beatification after death, nevertheless he struck me, from the accounts of qualified foreigners who had met him, as being essentially a strong man with a will and mind of his own. So far he has never had a fair chance, as when in power only a limited part of the province acknowledged his rule, but if he succeeds in reasserting himself, as seems at present possible, I hope he will be given the chance of proving that he is an efficient ruler and capable of re-establishing order in this distracted province.
Szechuan is so broken up by the number of contending factions that a return for it to a state of peace and prosperity seens at the moment remote. Possibly Hsiung K'o-wu may decide to return to political life. He appears to be the most popular figure in the province, is still young (under 40, has a reputation for capacity and might develop into a strong man.
To sum up, poor China, torn by contending parties, in which everybody is fighting for his own hand, overwhelmed by an unexampled series of catastrophes in the shape of famine, earthquakes and floods, has never been in such hopeless straits before. The bonest, law-abiding Chinese, as represented by the bulk of its population and also by the merchant, longs for peace and security, whilst the soldiers (a term at present synonymous with brigands), whose numbers are far in excess of all legitimate requirements, see they have the upper hand, and make use of their power to tyrannise over the wretched people. At the same time the students, seeing the weakness generally of their officials, and particularly of the foreigners with whom they come most in contact, are daily becoming more anti-foreign. History may be repeated, as in the case of the Boxer movement of 1900, and they may succeed one day in diverting the overwrought feelings of the wretched people against the foreigner, as the cause of all their woes.
To make matters worse, some ill-advised foreigners go home and give a roseate and absolutely false impression of an imaginary wonderful improvement in China
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