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AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[10927]
No. 1.
[Apt 60 AEP 07
SECTION 5.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received April 6.)
(No. 98. Confidential.) Sir,
Peking, February 21, 1907. THE extracts which I have the honour to inclose from the quarterly Intelligence Reports of His Majesty's Consuls at Changsha and Chinan-fu describe the serious internal troubles which prevail in Hunan and Shantung. The former Report is especially interesting as it traces the genesis and development of the movement which culminated in the recent rising on the borderland between Hunan and Kiangsi.
Read in connection with the account of the anti-dynastic feeling in Shansi, which formed an inclosure in my despatch No. 94 of the 19th instant, these Reports indicate a state of unrest in widely distant parts of the Empire which is causing grave concern to the Central Government.
The disaffection is most marked in the Yang-tsze region, where famine is adding to the discontent of the people, and the most stringent precautions are being taken to prevent the importation of arms and ammunition. At my last interview at the Wai-wu Pu the Ministers spoke of a large consignment of smuggled dynamite which had been discovered on board a Chinese steamer at Shanghae, and the Inspector- General of Customs tells me that he is receiving telegrams from the local authorities ! on the Yang-tsze urging redoubled care in the searching of vessels. Some of the suggestions that are made cannot be enforced consistently with the observance of Treaties.
Altogether, the state of China at the present moment, although, perhaps, not much worse than it has often been in the past, is certainly not showing the improvement which might have been expected from genuine efforts to reform on Western lines.
The relations between the provincial authorities and the people are more strained than they have ever been before, and the old patriarchal system of government no longer serves its purpose. As a Minister of long experience in the provinces recently put it in describing the change to me, "the growth of popular opinion has made the lot of the ordinary provincial official so difficult that men are no longer eager for posts in the public service.” And yet all the information which reaches me--and I have made inquiries in many quarters-points to the conclusion that corruption is much the same as it ever was in the provincial yamêns, from those of the Viceroys downwards.
I have, &c. (Signed) J. N. JORDAN,
Inclosure I in No. 1.
Extract from Changsha Intelligence Report for Quarter ended December 31, 1906.
POLITICAL.
The Rising in Liu-yang and Li-ling.
THIS rebellion, which at one time threatened to assume very serious proportions, and even caused much alarm in Changsha itself, was speedily crushed, as soon as its full extent was realized, by the foreign-drilled troops dispatched from Hupei and from Kiangsu. Against these troops, which were well equipped and well armed, and accompanied by several batteries of mountain guns, it was out of the question that the rebels should hold out.f
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