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China question. The danger of Lord Char- les's great influence and magnetic personality drawing the heart of his countrymeu after him to the total exclusion of the dictates of their head-atrite saying is that "men are led by their hearts rather than by their beads"-is so great that I take it as ample excuse for what follows.
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Lord Charles repeatedly calls attention to the fact that he is Irish, and even did he not do so the obvious inconsistency he is guilty of in his speeches would point to that fact. I must, | therefore, point out the unpleasant fact, that the present distressful state of affairs in the Far East is due to Irishmen. Three notable Irishmen Sir Thomas Wade, Sir Robert Hart, and Sir Halliday Macartney-are entirely respon- sible for misleading Great Britain into treating the haughty, pretentions, arrogant, overbear- ing, ignorant Chinese Government as a civilized state, and inducing her, on the one hand, to cease that wholesome coercion which she exer- cised when occasion arose, and China, on the other hand, to advance extravagaut pretensions as to her right to be treated with punctillious consideration whilst she babitually ignored the just rights of British merchants and mission- aries. Since our last China war up to the pre- sent date one or all of these three men have dictated. British weakness in the Far East and China's aggression, with what consequences to trade and to China's present humiliation events have amply shewn. At the present time we have local evidence of this in the impudent attempt to establish a Chinese Custom House, and subsidiary stations, in the heart of this colony, with all sorts of oppressive powers, and the British Government only prevented from weakly conseuting to the obnoxious arrange- ment owing to the outcry ruised by the colonists.
Fortunately Lord Charles admits that he knows very little about China, eveu after his tour. Another speakez, following him, a very old re- sident in the Far East, points out that Sir Thomas Wade after forty years in China ad- mitted knowing nothing of the country. As Sir Thomas Wade's policy is responsible for the precious mess China affairs have got into we can accept the statement as perfectly accurate, notwithstanding the fact that he had an inti mate knowledge of the Chinese language and written character.
Continuing, Lord Charles Beresfordd proceeds to say that baring visited every British' coal- munity in China they all express an opinion that something must be done; then he agrees with them in that opinion and proceeds to in- for that he has a definite policy to propound, but after much garrulous waudering from the point garrulosity, to coin a word, is alike characteristic of the Irish and Chinese races and possibly together with plansibility is one of the many causes for their mutual affinity-he fails to propound his policy further thau to say that he believes that "the door can we kept open (which, by the way. is a variously defined idea) by some sort of arrangement between England, America, Germany, and Japau. I wo of these countries are great on tariffs at home and the third well on the road to a similar
policy, yet Lord Charles with child-like faith supposes that an offensive and defensive alliance can be arranged with them to frauk British goods into China; the innocent Celestial of course will render every facility for effecting that desirable object. No, Lord Charles, we know better thau that; it won't work. You will have to try again.
THE HONGKÒNG WEEKLY PRESS AND
He then pays Sir Claude MacDonald a well deserved compliment and rightly points out that it is not him but the Cabinet at home who must be censured for muddling China affairs.
Proceeding, he now touches on the crux of the whole question, Russia's actions and intentions, and here he sadly bluuders, as those who have coached him in this matter have blundered, Russia, he points out, has occupied Manchuria with intent to establish herself there, and after complimenting Russia for doing so and adding that had he been a Russian he would already have occupied Peking. he proceeds to say that he thinks it a great mistake to irritate her; and then comes his chief inconsistency, for he raises objections to Russia seeing to it that a railway running into what is her undoubted sphere of inflence is not mortgaged to British capitalists and infers that the British Government should
[January 14,-1899.
make a display of force to secure that British | Chinese themselves, for in war, as in peace, the finger pushed into the Russian pie. To place Chinese soldier is a terror to the peaceful matters simply and plainly, Russia means to peasant and a source only of contempt and have a sphere of influence embracing all annoyance to those who have to fight him, for territory to the north of Shanhaikwan-in that he is a great believer in Fabian tactics. she is perfectly right-and she does not care Japan knew the habits of China's generals and what the British or anyone else think of it, for soldiers, hence when she marched on a Chinese she is perfectly capable of maintaining herself | force she divided her army of attack into three in that area. in spite of all the warships which columns, sending oue columa well ahead on each Britain possesses and dozens of Beresfords bad flank of the enemy and then, advancing the we them. Indeed, for what else is she building the three columns simultaneously, closed in on the Siberian railway? Has not the British Gov- | Chinese force and destroyed it or all of it that ernment tacitly approved of it, and very wisely. | did not succeed in bolting out between the Japan- too? Russia can easily see that the attempt ese columns. This accounts for the Chinese to secure the Shanhaiwan Railway to British | General killed with a large number of his men capitalists was an attempt to bar her ont of her aronud him, which Lord Charles quotes else. heritage, and she knows who engineered it; she where as a sample of Chinese valour. I would promptly nipped it is the bud. Would that suggest an alteration in the Chinese soldier's the British had been as wise as regards the uniform, as at present it is conveniently con. Hankow Peking line! It is probably not yet .structed for reversal, so that he appears one moment as a rioter destroying the hated fankwei and all his belongings and the next momeut he is a noble warrior maintaining order and profecting property from mob violence, In this programme the Chinese soldier is typical of China and the Chinese and their ways.
too late.
Following his first fling at Russia be has another try at- irritating her by raising objec. tions to her wisely ignoring the Chinese Customs in the matter of landing her railway material. Newchwang only temporarily remains a Chinese port on the sufferance of Russia. Why object to the inevitable ?
Then follows another inconsistency. He says there is no trade in the country occupied by Russia-in this he is mistaken for thero is considerable trade-hence he adduces this as evidence of Russia's political aims in occupying Manchuria. Of course Russia has political reasons for her action; she intends to seize the country and occnpy it permanently. Why, however, does Lord Charles, whose mission is commercial, bother his head about a country where there is no trade and again irritate Russia.
After a prolonged and veiled attack on Rus. sia and her aims he arrives at the point where be lays down a definite line of policy for Great Britain, but that, as before mentioned, in a weak, vacillating manner.
Не кнув,
"I be- lieve the door can be kept open by having a commercial alliance between America, Germany. Japan, and ourselves." A little further on he says. "Therefore let us keep together. The Bri- tish nation cannot fight for the open door by it- self, but it could very well ally itself with these three countries." What a confession of weak. uess! Does he suppose that any one of these three countries is going to send troops ont to the Far East to fight for the advancement of British trade? Nothing but troops will check the Russian advance; she does not care a straw for protestations, or threats of naval displays. Why should she? Such displays can only amuse her. As well might a whale try to frighten an elephant.
In glancing dowu the report of his speech we now come to an important point, viz., that it is no use keeping the door open unless the house inside is in order. This hiut he received on the day of his speech from some one in Hongkong. He had toured through China seeking for sug- gestions and trying to discover remedies for the impediments to trade in the East and only at the last moment before starting off, brimming over with knowledge, does he get the whole thing, and that in a nutshell. It is not the door that everybody is frantically anxious to keep open that is the trouble, but the interior of the shunty that wants attention. Well well! The man who gave Lim that hint is an undoubted Solomon, for in that short sentence we find the whole matter laid bare.
Dealing with the last point calls forth from him his chief panacea, viz., China must be provided with an army. He says, " You know very well what the state of the Chinese army and police is at this moment. I knew it was bad, some of you know it is bad, but I never had the shadow of a suspicion that it was us bad as I found it, They absolutely have nothing at this moment iu the whole of this empire. They have no pary, their ships are not worth the name; they bare only one army of 7,000 men in the whole of this gigantic population of four hundred million people."
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Well, what he says is correct and it applies not only to China's army and navy but to the administration generally. It is bad, worse than bad-rotten. An army, however, is not China's chief need. Those who have coue in contact with the Chinese soldier would vote for no army at all, and none more heartily than the
Leaving the matter of the reorganization of the Chinese army Lord Charles touches on the question of spheres of influence, and condemns it on the ground that if Britian went in for a sphere of influence France, Russia, Germany, America, and Japan would want spheres too. Of course they would, at least all the Powers be names, except America. And why, pray, should they not have spheres ? Russia already has her sphere, in practice if not in theory, but she wants and will get an extension of that sphere when ready for it, whether Lord Charles approves of it or not. Germany has got her sphere and likewise will have an extension of it in due course. France claims the three southern provinces as her sphere and has successfully defeated a concession for a British railway from this colong to Canton, on the ground that it infringes her rights. Fur- ther, she intends to dispute the Yangtsze Valley with us and is at present actively pushing her claims. This, surely, is an all-important matter for Lord Charles to attend to instead of worry. ing about a Chinese army. We all know what China did with her navy, organized by that able wan Admiral Lung. Her new army would fare no better. America does not want a sphere in China; she would be contsut with other splieres freely open to hor trad...
Japan may want a s.
bere; well, let her have it if she can get it and maintain order.
There is nothing more in Lord Charles's speech that I propose to deal with in this letter, though there is ample field for discussion on minor points of it.
Having opposed the remedies he proposes to apply to the disorder so rife out here and the pending final settlement of the China question it is fit and proper to advance counter proposals.
In lieu of bolstering up the present decaying Mancha Dynasty, one as much, or more, distaste- ful to the Chinese as it is to foreigners, I would suggest the calling together of a conference of the great Powers interested and the marking off of the spheres which each is to enter upon on the collapse of China, so nearly in view. If- China has any real vitality left this preparation for her division will arouse her to life and reform. Possibly there will be a flicker of revival, but that is all that need be expected.
The spheres being agreed on there need be no conflict for the spoil when the day of division arrives. As to armies required to control each sphere, a few thousand men in each will suffice to maintain order and they can be native troops officered by Europeans and stiffened with about one regiment of Europeaus. The revenues of the country occupied will more than cover ex- pouses..
Russia would get Mongolia and Manchuria, an immense area'; Germany would receive all of China Proper north of the Yangtsze Valley and extending due west to the present Russian frontiers; England would get the Vulleys of the Yangtazo and the West River and Thibet; France would get Hainan and all those portions of the threeSouthern Provinces outside of the Valleys of the Yaugtsze and the West River, possibly also a portion of Fakien; Japan would get the rest of Fukien and part of Chekiang, also a free hand in Korea.
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