(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[24532]
No. 1.
[July 7.]
SECTION 2.
(No. 200.) Sir,
Mr. Max Müller to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received July 7.)
Peking, June 17, 1910. IN my despatch No. 108 of the 14th April I reported that I had forwarded a copy of Mr. E. S. Little's memorandum on the political situation in China to His Majesty's consular officers at Shanghai, Canton, Hankow, Chengtu, and Nanking, and had requested them to furnish me with information on the general situation in their respective districts, especially in regard to any anti-foreign agitation such as Mr. Little had depicted. In view of the long delay which would have been entailed if I had awaited the receipt of the replies, I thought it better to embody in a despatch my own views on the subject, based on the information already in my possession and the impressions I had gathered during my recent journey. The last reply, viz., that from Chengtu, has to-day reached me, and it appears to me better to forward the five reports to you as they stand than to attempt to combine them in one memorandum. "The circumstances in the various consular districts with which they deal are so different, and the opinions and conclusions of the writers are so divergent, that it would be a difficult and very unsatisfactory task to try and weld them together, while a short précis of their contents might easily, from absence of context and continuity, represent the arguments and views of the writers in an unfair and misleading light.
It is
Mr. Fraser's despatch was written previous to the Changsha riots. pessimistic in tone, and emphasises the dangers arising from the failure of the crops, the licence of the native press, the partition and other anti-foreign rumours, the financial chaos, the attitude of the provincial assemblies, the lawlessness of the students, and the failure of the authorities to take any serious measures to check anti-foreign agitation.
Sir P. Warren generally endorses Mr. Little's observations, but the conclusion in his last paragraph, when he talks of 6,000 of the regular army joining the rioters at Changsha, is based on false information.
His Majesty's consul at Nanking also agrees generally with Mr. Little's conclusions, though he disputes the accuracy of his two statements referring directly to Nanking, and dissents from his judgment of the provincial assemblies so far as it refers to Kiangsu. I would draw your attention to the last paragraph of Mr. Goffe's despatch, which appears, so far as I can judge, to contain a very just exposition of the real nature of the so-called anti-foreign feeling existing in China.
Mr. Jamieson is far more optimistic, and writes that "Mr. Little's appreciation of the general political situation, however accurate it may be in respect of Central or Northern China, tends to give a somewhat distorted view of the state of affairs actually obtaining in Southern Ching." I would also draw your attention to the following sentence :----
"In so far as this process (ie., of political development) affects the foreigner, however, there are up to the present few, if any, indications of a disposition to cut his throat. What would appear to be chiefly aimed at is a complete encompassment of his supposed rights."
This sentence appears to me to convey very much the same meaning as I wished to express when I wrote that the anti-foreign feeling now existing was a more civilised feeling than the blind hatred of the foreigner previous to 1900; that it was directed not so much against the foreigner as such as against his privileged position and boasted superiority; and that it was more likely to find expression in determined attacks on his privileges than in violent and bloody outbreaks.
Mr. Wilkinson appears to think that Mr. Little's statements in regard to Szechuan were exaggerated, and that there is no immediate cause for anxiety. He attaches especial importance to the anti-dynastic movement and the disaffection of the troops,
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