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THE EMPEROR'S RESTORATION: A PRELIMINARY TO PEACE.
(Daily Press, 27th September.) The most discouraging feature about the present unsatisfactory state of affairs in China is the persistency with which the Dowager Empress's name is introduced into Imperial Edicts and official despatches of every description. Neither we nor the Chinese people want or desire to be informed of the many qualities of this woman, odious alike to the Emperor's subjects and the world at large, and its constant occurrence is a sign well to be noted that the old leaven is still at work amongst the ignoble crowd who have possessed themselves of the Emperor. It is not to be believed that the young monarch, who showed his grasp of the needs of his country so well in 1898, should have descended into the feeble idiot who pens the continually recurring eulogies which appear from time to time in professedly Imperial Edicts on the virtues of this woman, who, with the assistance of a band of men as
unscrupulous as herself, has assumed to represent the Throne; and it is certainly indicative of the small progress that has been made, and the ill-effect already of the internal intrigues of the Powers acting in a presumed "concert," that in the face of the clearest demonstration of the inability of Peking to resist any one of the Powers singly, it should, taking advantage of this discreditable separation of interests, be able with perfect impunity to snap its fingers at the whole of them. The very individual who has just proceeded to the North under the assumed title of Imperial Commissioner, bears no higher commission than the appoint- ment of this intruding woman, and it seems strange that, in the absence of any creden- tials which could be accepted in the inter- course of nations, any Power could so far compromise its dignity as to condescend to accept in formal negotiations so irregular a proceeding. It is by no means the first time that Peking has attempted by a trick to foist on foreign powers an unauthorised in- dividual; an attempt at a similar insult was made in the beginning of the negotiations which subsequently resulted in the Treaty of Tientsin, and it is a curious coincidence that two of the Powers, Russia and the United States, on that occasion, as in the present, were found backing up Peking in the insult. No nation in the world is more exacting in its intercourse with its neighbours in re- quiring the utmost punctiliousness in its diplomatic representatives than Russia, and it stands self-condemned by its own regula- tions in thus seeking to induce the other states to adopt an entirely irregular and unprecedented course. The quarrel in the North has, in fact, it is well to remember, not been one with China herself, nor even with the Empire or its nominal ruler. With the solitary exception of the Futai of Shansi, the creature Yu HSIEN, we have nowhere been brought into hostile contact with any of the administrators of actual government. The Viceroys on the Yangtze have done yeoman's service in preserving the Empire from dropping to pieces, and have acted cordially with us. The Viceroy of the Shen- Kan has dared to obey his legitimate master rather than the intrusive clique who hold him in personal restraint. The Viceroy of the Min-Che has been almost equally in- dependent, and yet it is calmly and insultingly proposed that we should accept as the representative of China in the most momentous crisis of her national existence, a pair of envoys whose only credentials are the sign manual of an Emperor given under actual and forcible
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
compulsion. The moment is one when we must needs deal with an Empire, not with a faction which for all purposes of government is actually without power, and which is openly ignored by sixteen out of the eighteen Provinces. With a strange sort of personal loyalty, not easy to reconcile with European ideas, the governors of the provinces in their allegiance to the Throne look to the mere individual. The Emperor, it seems, whether free and administering government with his own ministers about him, or a mere automaton held in durance vile by his captors, is an Emperor still, and his manual, though in the hands of another, and im- pressed without even the formality of con- sultation, is deemed from the fact that it was once held by Imperial and responsible hands, to have acquired a full charge of that divinity which doth hedge a king." This, and not any lingering respect for the woman whose every action is de facto one of High Treason, is the mainspring of the request of the Viceroys that the person of the Dowager in the adjustment of punishments should be held inexpugnable. To accomplish a possible and binding pact under present conditions, we need, not the promises of the Dowager's nominees, who have no power nor authority and no responsibility, but the consent of the Emperor, given of his own freewill and without restraint, and in the presence of and with the assistance of his great Viceroys-a Durbar of the Empire, in fact. The emissaries of the Empress Dowager at the best are but the representa- tives of a faction, momentarily in possession of the person of the Emperor, but holding that person against his own wish, and in contempt of the public opinion of the Empire.
The argument, of course, implies in the first instance the complete restoration of the Emperor; and that, indeed, we take to be the first and most important condition before any negotiations can be entered on.
LOOTING AND ITS CON- COMITANTS.
(Daily Press, 24th September.) In another column to-day we publish an in- teresting account from the pen of Mrs. JOHN INGLIS, of the American Presbyterian Mis- sion, of the looting which went on in Peking during and after the siege of the Legations. With regard to the former "looting," it may be said that it was mainly proper and necessary confiscation of requisites for the lives of the besieged, and the manner in which silks and other generally unwarlike commodities were converted into aids for the defence calls for our highest admiration. Even our sympathy for the lady who feared that her discarded clothing might be seized by others for making into sandbags is tem- pered by our respect for the resourcefulness of the latter ladies. When, however, we come to the question of looting after the rescue of the, beleaguered foreigners, we reach a very difficult question, which, as in the case of the sack of Tientsin native city, has aroused a certain amount of bitter feel- ing. In Tientsin and Shanghai, as know from the local papers, quite a con- troversy has raged over the matter. The looting of a hostile town after its capture is in itself too frequent, in fact too regular, an occurrence to provoke much discussion, but there are some limits which are generally observed. At Tientsin a great complaint was that while some of the rescuing contin- gents were forbidden by their officers to plunder, a number of civilian non-comba- tants distinguished them by their avaricious rush to the spoil, most of which they were afterwards compelled to disgorge. Moreover,
We
[September 29, 1900.
as it was only a minority of the Allies who checked their men, the latter had a tangible grievance when they saw their fellows of other nations enriching themselves amply. The worst charge of the lot, however, was made against some of the savage soldiery who fought under the flag of one of the leading Powers: stories too unpleasant to repeat were current and no contradiction has been made. Exactly the same set of circum- stances has arisen at Peking. Every allow- ance must be made for those who endured for long the horrors of the siege, and for the troops flushed with a great victory on be half of their imprisoned compatriots; and if they seized freely on the abandoned pro- perty of the people who had at least sym- pathised with, if not assisted, the Boxers and anti-foreign troops, we cannot say much. But the robberies committed by the army's following is on a different footing. We much regret to read what our informant bas to say of certain newspaper correspondents, who, if the charges made against them can be fully substantiated, disgrace their pro- fession. It is not creditable to the military authorities that they were unable to cope with such cases. With regard to the tales of Cossack brutality we fear that the scenes at Tientsin were once more repeated by these instruments of "civilisation." It will be remembered by our readers how great was the outcry throughout Europe and America against the Japanese forthe massacre at Port Arthur and how the current reports were used as arguments to show that no white race could ever tolerate such allies as the Japanese. What will Japan's then industrious detractors say about the Cossacks now?
If we can show the Chinese no better examples of our pro- gress than such conduct as has accompanied the capture of these two Chinese cities, we are making an ill display indeed. This extermination of women and children ap- pears to be still as much part of some nations' warfare as ever it was. We make much of the horrible barbarity of the Chinese to defenceless European women and children, but we look with apparent indiffer- ence on our troops fighting side by side with no less brutal savages, for whom no one can claim that they are only stirred to retaliation by the tales they have heard. In the final settlement, when the question of revenge Jon the murderers of European comes up, these considerations must not be forgotten. We cannot claim a higher standard from those on whom we look down as uncivilised than we expect our own friends to live up to. By all means let the prime instigators of the murders of the whites in China be awarded their due punishment, but let us hear no more of any sweeping revenge on the ignorant masses.
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A Mincing Lane report on the outlook of the tea trade observes that it is not at all brilliant, and if the usual supply of China tes fails to reach the London market, Great Britain, Aus- traliasis and Canada will have to fly to the Ceylon and Indian markets to make the
up deficiency and meet the yearly demand. There is only a short crop in Japan, and there is only about two months' consumption in Great Britain. The prices are already advancing, continues the report, and must still go higher when it is known there will be a shortage of China supplies." One of the unlooked-for re- sults of the Boxer uprising and the misrule of the Chinese Government may be the loss to China of the balance of the tea trade, of which at one time it had the monopoly. Ceylon and India have already pushed China tem out of the in Russia, Canada, the United States and other British market, and have made themselves felt countries. Should it be forced into general use in the United States this season the Chius grower my finally lose his last stronghold,
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