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EXTENSIONS AT SHANGHAI
(Daily Press, 25th August.)
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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regarded as possible that as soon 83 a residential suburb Fad sprung into being, it would be handed over to Chinese municipal mismanagement," The assumption behind the two words italicised can only be described as a cool one. It is admitted, we suppose, that Paoshan is not a part of the Model Settlement, yet, except so far as a foregone conclusion made it; and thereford · the TAOTAI had ample reason for his bitter sarcasm, when he said, "As they say that I, the TAOTAI, do not understand the treaties, there is no doubt that they know ; them themselves. I desire to inquire what treaty is there for a foreign quest to object ! to the self-government of this country and the construction of roads and establishment. of a police force for the protection of merchants?" The only possible arguments in favour of the foreign case in this matter are Machiavellian; and it will be noted that we do not accept the conventional meaning of the adjective, when we proceed to add that they are very good arguments indeed. It is certainly most expedient that the suburb of Paoshan should enjoy the advantages of incorporation with the Model Settlement, and we do not believe that either Chinese or foreign residents there can be found who object on moral grounds. There may be some who fear the exaction of rates, but in their case al argument is pure waste of time. We support the Shanghai Municipal Council, raison d'état, for the greatest gond of the greatest number.
- " MACHIAVELLIAN " is an adjective which is commonly need to-day even by people who never heard of the Italian writer, to signify political duplicity, cunning, and unscrupulousness; and yet it would not be unfair to suggest that lately there have been a great many good people ready to argue on the same lines aa MACHIAVELLI would argue, in connection with public affairs.
My country, right or wrong", is pure; Machiavellianism, and it really would not offend so many of us were it phrased less awkwardly. In the re-action against the sentimentalism that characterises the new breed of British publicists, and that is responsible for so many mistakes, we dumbly dream of MACHIAVELLI's ideal ruler, who, had to be entirely free from “emotional disturbance". A Times reviewer has remarked that “ · Machiavellism is only the most extreme form of that which all States and nearly all statesmen have recognised as a right or at least a justifiable rule of conduct under the name and form of the 'raison d'état '". The late Lord Acton, an authority on the subject, said the historian and politician whom our dictionaries now unanimously slander, was not a vanishing type but a
coustant and contemporary influence". We consider the last remark | 10 have been a most happy one, for it seems to stand good for all time. We have discovered at Shanghai the gospel of MACHIAVELLI, or, to put it in a way less hurtfe to tender consciences, the gospel of pediency in matters affecting the well-being of the state. It seeing there is considerable argument over the business of extending the Settlement boundaries in aaortherly direction, so as to embrace the district of Puoshan within the jurisdiction of the Municipal Council of Shanghai. This argument is not confined to Chinese versus Foreigners. It appears that there are some foreigners who consider that it is an unfair attempt to over-reach the Chinese. These are probably people who are unable to admit that ethics for the individual can- not always at the community, who are unable to recognise that the moral environ-thought. ment of the private citizen is simpler and more determinate than it can be in the case
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DIFFICULTIES AGAINST CHINESE REFORM.
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(Daily Press, 27th August.) That the expressed wish of the Chinese Government to place the government on a constitutional basis is not a mere fad, but a desire shared by the nation at large, is becoming daily more evident. Little things like feathers indicate the current of the national thought. A few years ago the nation as a whole thought little of all these things. The government of the land for centuries had gone on in the same groove without the people bestowing on it one
Emperors died succeeded – -one was just the counterpart of the other—and except that each in turn of an administrative corporation. From bestowed upon the years of his reign some their point of view, the Chinese undoubtedly definite title by which the people at large are in the right, and the foreigners in the dated their accounts, their subjects knew wrong; und we suspect that it is the mis- nothing, and troubled themselves as little take of arguing with them on the wroug as to who occupied the throne, were he Turkį ground that has made their opponents Mongol or Kitan, Han, T'ang or Ts'ing angry enough to hurl words like "cant With the exception of the New Year, and at them. We have so often emphasised the the spring and autumn festivals dedicated anomalous position of the Shanghai Muni- to the worship of the Manes, every species cipal Council, so often pointed out that its of celebration had practically died out, and special circumstances alter cases, and so from year's end to year's end the whole often warned our friends to be wary in nation had dedicated itself to one continuous admitting even the most seeming obvious and unvarying round of toil. In this of premisses, but the same thing happens, respect a noticeable aud remarkable change over and over again. As between the has passed over the minds of the people, statement of Tuotai JUI-CHENG to the Wai-wu-pu, and the arguments of the champions of the Municipal Council, it is not difficult to decide in which side stric justice lies-from the point of view in- licated. The foreigu arguments, on that basis, are weak. That foreign residents have always regarded the ultimate extension of the Settlement on the North as a fore. gone conclusion settles nothing. That the swag will ultimately be safely secured is the burglar's foregone conclusion. An- other argument that invites a crushing retort reads, It must be putent to the TAOTAI as well as to the Central Govern ment that this area would not have been taken up so largely, if it had been
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[September 3, 1998.
years ago, again, such public celebrations as the Imperial birthdays were entirely confined to the official classes, and not the slightest notice of them was taken by the people at large. Now every well-to-do Chinaman makes on those days as con- spicuous a display of bunting as if he wera a citizen of the Great Republic itself. Chinese national flag is itself of probably more ancient due than that of any other people, yet till within the last twenty years it was seldom or never to be seen in China, even
official occasions; and
on
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it did appear it was governed by no rulo x8 to design or proportions, but each maker followed in these respects his own devices, Now in the larger cities on the occasion of the Emperor's birthday, the principal thoroughfares are brilliant with yellow flags, each displaying the Imperial Dragon, while more or less the entire mercantile class make a holiday out of the occasion. Now in all this we must recognise an unconscious return in China of that feeling of nationality without which no nation has ever risen to greatness, nor made itself respected in the councils of the world: and as such we must look upon the movement as full of promise for the future of China. Unfortunately, as frequently happens under similar conditions elsewhere a class of merely self-seeking reactionaries have been endeavouring to turn the new movement into an instrument of private pelf, and under the pretence of turning foreign intercourse to the sole benefit of the Chinese themselves, have been actually scheming a retrograde movement to the warst times of the feeble and debauched successors of KIENLUNG on the Imperial Throne.
Now although the Court at Peking, with the willing assent of the nation at large, is indubitably acting in good faith in its design of introducing a constitutional régime, it is quits otherwise with these the pretended progressives amongst bureaucracy. With the solitary exception of Russia, no nation on earth possesses 80 corrupt a bureaucratic system as China; and the cause is in both instances very similar, and proceeds from financial errors In both empires committed centuries ago. were
the land has ben assumed to belong to the ruler appointe by God to govern the nation and only subject to this theocratic suze. rainty had the people as such any personal rights. The powers thus inherent in the sovereign in both cases have been recognised as delegated to those officials appointed by him as his representatives. The man-larin- ate is thus in the position of parent to the Not only people in more senses than one. is it held to uphold their interests as a parent protects the material interests of his child, but it is also as regards him possessed of the patria potestas, not only moral but physical; and not only over his person but over his property. It is easy to see that such a principle contains within itself the aud is perhaps most noticeable where they elements of dissolution. Logically the have been most thrown into immediate appointment of the Emperor confers per contact with foreign influences. Perhaps the sonal rights on the magistrate, who enjoys first sign of this reviving feeling occurred the usufruct of the estate as would a in the celebration of the Dragon Boat private proprietor during his term of office. Festival on the fifth day of the fifth moon. Logically too the Emperor has the right of Traditionally the festival was in celebration overlord of sharing in the profits, and ¡ of the self-immolation of a patriotic minister dictating his own terms in the appointment. who drowned bimself rather than witness: The consequence of this recognised position bis country's degradation. Except in a i is that practically every appointment in the comparatively few localities it had practically died out, and even in those few it had lust much of its fortier êclat. In many if not most localities public interest in the festival has recently been revived, and it is now kept as a gala day wherever a sufficient water space permits of aquatic sports. Till a few
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Empire has its assessed price, which has to be accounted for in the case of the lower offices, to the high provincial officers, and in the case of the latter, to the Court. Coincident with the rule of the eunuch, which in China, as in all other Asiatic nations in their periods of decadence, comes
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