THESE FROM THE
LAND OF SINIM"
SAYS ON THE
!iSE QUESTION
SIR ROBERT HART, BART. G.C.M.G.
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
"THESE FROM THE LAND
OF SINIM."
" THESE FROM THE LAND
OF SINIM."
ESSAYS ON THE CHINESE QUESTION.
BY
SIR ROBERT HART, BART., G.C.M.G.,
I"
INSPECTOR GENERAL OF CHINESE IMPERIAL CUSTOMS AND POSTS.
WITH APPENDICES.
LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.
1901.
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BBCCLKS.
PREFACE.
"T^HE five papers which make up
this volume deal tentatively and
progressively with a leading question
of the day how to treat China. They
are republished in this form for the
convenience of those who consider them
either useful or interesting. They do not
claim to be either exhaustive or infallible,
and their main object is to promote a
good understanding.
A Tsungli Yamen Circular to Chinese
Ministers abroad and the Inspector
General's Memorandum concerning
Commercial Relations are appended to
illustrate and complement the views
these papers embody.
ROBERT HART.
CONTENTS.
i.
FACE
THE PEKING LEGATIONS : A NATIONAL UPRISING
AND INTERNATIONAL EPISODE i
II.
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE .... 60
III.
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION : NOVEMBER, 1900 84
IV.
CHINA AND NON-CHINA . . . ., . .116
V.
THE BOXERS : 1900 . . .... . . .150
APPENDIX I. A TSUNGLI YAMEN CIRCULAR TO
CHINESE MINISTERS ABROAD 171
APPENDIX II. THE INSPECTOR GENERAL'S
MEMORANDUM CONCERNING
COMMERCIAL RELATIONS 182
"THESE FROM THE LAND
OF SINIM."
THE PEKING LEGATIONS : A NATIONAL
UPRISING AND INTERNATIONAL
EPISODE
WE cannot say we had no warning. Already,
in September, 1898, after the famous coup by
which the reforming Emperor Kwang Hsu was
relegated to the nothingness of harem life, and
the well-known Empress Dowager, who had ruled
the Empire through two minorities (Tung-Chih
in the sixties, and Kwang Hsu in the eighties),
again came to the front, the attitude of Tung
Fuh Hsiang's soldiers had disturbed the Lega-
tions, accentuated the possible insecurity of the
foreign community, and brought guards to
Peking. In the autumn of the following year
the Shanghai press called attention to the
Boxer movement in Shantung its genesis
and aspirations, while the Tientsin Times was
laughed at, in the spring of 1900, for its bold
denunciations of the same movement and for
2 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
its prophecies of the harm therefrom to come
as the society's operations crossed the frontier
and began to spread in Pecheli. In fact, if
there was one cry to which our ears had grown
so accustomed as to mind it less than our own
heart-beats, it was this Chinese cry of " Wolf! "
Rebellion was ever on the point of upsetting
the dynasty the Government was always on
its last legs foreigners were to be exterminated
on a given date the powers were about to
partition China etc., etc., etc. : each year
nay, every month, the press or local rumour,
Cassandra-like, foretold woe, and yet, barring a
few episodes of various degrees of importance,
the Government went on as before. The last
half of the nineteenth century saw the Taeping
rebellion, the "Arrow" war, the Tientsin mas-
sacre, the Franco-Chinese misunderstanding, the
war with Japan, and the surrender of Cochin-
China, Burma, Kiao Chow, Port Arthur, Wei-Hai-
Wei, Kwang Chow Wan, etc., to the foreigner.
It also saw the rejection of Italy's Chekiang
demands and still life went on unchanged and
the cry of Wolf grew more and more mean-
ingless : so it was not surprising that many
supposed the Boxer scare would fizzle out
similarly and with a minimum of danger to
either Chinese Government or foreign interests.
At the same time some of us regarded the
movement as very significant, but we did not
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 3
expect it to become a danger before autumn :
its earlier development was a genuine surprise.
Criticism, to be of value, must be just, and
must recognize whatever of fact or sentiment
has been interwoven with what has occurred
causing its birth, shaping its aims, interlacing
its products, and justifying both inception and
growth. For ages China had discountenanced
the military spirit and was laughed at by us
accordingly, and thus, ever since intercourse
under treaties has gone on, we have been
lecturing the Government from our superior
standpoint, telling it that it must grow strong
must create army and navy must adopt
foreign drill and foreign weapons must prepare
to hold its own against all comers must
remember " Codlin " is its friend, not " Short : "
our words did not fall on closed ears effect
was given to selected bits of advice and
various firms did a very remarkable and very
remunerative trade in arms. But while the
Chinese Government made a note of all the
advice its generous friends placed at its dis-
posal, and adopted some suggestions because
they either suited it or it seemed polite and
harmless to do so, it did not forget its own
thirty centuries of historic teaching, and it
looked at affairs abroad through its own eyes
and the eyes of its representatives at foreign
Courts, studying their reports and the printed
4 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
utterances of books, magazines, and newspapers.
The teaching thus received began gradually to
crystallize in the belief that a huge standing
army on European lines would be wasteful and
dangerous, and that a volunteer association
as suggested by the way all China ranged itself
on the Government side in the Franco-Chinese
affair covering the whole Empire, offering an
outlet for restless spirits and fostering a united
and patriotic feeling, would be more reliable
and effective. The idea seemed to receive
immediate confirmation from without in the
stand a handful of burghers were making in
the Transvaal: hence the Boxer Association,
patriotic in origin, justifiable in its fundamental
idea, and in point of fact the outcome of either
foreign advice or the study of foreign methods.
In the meanwhile the seeds of other growths
were being sown in the soil of the Chinese
mind, private and official, and were producing
fruit each after its kind : various commercial
stipulations sanctioned by treaties had not taken
into full account Chinese conditions, difficulties,
methods, and requirements, and their enforce-
ment did not make foreign commerce more
agreeable to the eye of either provincial or
metropolitan officials. Missionary propagandise!
was at work all over the country, and its fruits,
Chinese Christians, did not win the esteem or
goodwill of their fellows, for, first of all, they
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 5
offended public feeling by deserting Chinese for
foreign cults, next they irritated their fellow-
villagers by refusing, as Christians, to take part
in or share the expenses of village festivals,
and lastly, as Christians again, they shocked
the official mind, and popular opinion also, by
getting their religious teachers, more especially
the Roman Catholics, to interfere on their
behalf in litigation. This state of affairs
became specially talked about in Shantung, the
native province of the Confucius of over two
thousand years ago and now the sphere of
influence of one of the Church's most energetic
bishops. The arrangement by which missionaries
were to ride in green chairs and be recognized
as the equals of Governors and Viceroys had
its special signification and underlined mis-
sionary aspiration, telling people and officials
in eveiy province what they had to expect
from it. On the top of this came the Kiao
Chow affair and the degradation and cashiering
of a really able, popular, and clean-handed
official, the Governor Li Ping Heng, succeeded
by the cessions of territory at Port Arthur,
Wei-Hai-Wei, Kwang Chow Wan, etc., etc.,
etc., and these doings, followed by the successful
stand made against the Italian demand for a
port on the Coast of Chekiang, helped to force
the Chinese Government to see that concession
had gone far enough and that opposition to
6 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
foreign encroachment might now and henceforth
be the key-note of its policy. Li Ping Hng
had taken up his private residence in the
south-eastern corner of Pecheli, close to the
Shantung frontier, and the Boxer movement,
already started in a tentative way in the latter
province, now received an immense impetus
from the occurrences alluded to, and was care-
fully nurtured and fostered by that cashiered
official more respected than ever by his
countrymen. Other high officials were known
to be in sympathy with the new departure
and to give it their strongest approval and
support, such as Hsu Tung, Kang I, and men
of the same stamp and standing, and their
advice to the throne was to try conclusions
with foreigners and yield no more to their
demands. However mistaken may have been
their reading of foreigners, and however wrong
their manner of action, these men eminent
in their own country for their learning and
services were animated by patriotism, were
enraged at foreign dictation, and had the
courage of their convictions : we must do them
the justice of allowing they were actuated by
high motives and love of country but that
does not always or necessarily mean political
ability or highest wisdom.
Thus it came to pass that a novel attempt to
strengthen China took form and shape ; it was
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 7
more or less conceived on foreign lines and the
result of a study of foreign conditions, but, apart
from what it comprised of the patriotic and the
justifiable, it aimed at change as little as possible.
It grafted a carefully assimilated foreign idea
volunteering on as carefully prepared a Chinese
trunk, and its growth convinced the Govern-
ment that it could be relied on to relieve
the country from foreign dictation if not to
drive the foreigner entirely out of it. That
it was patriotic in its origin and justifiable in
much that it aimed at cannot be questioned,
and cannot be too much insisted on, but, like
other popular risings, its popular organization
and formidable development and widespread
growth made it more likely to lead than to
follow, while the claims of the initiated to>
something like supernatural powers in the
matters of movement and invulnerability, ex-
hibited first before Prince Tuan and then before-
the Emperor and Empress Dowager, won for it a
standing and respect which placed it on a plane-
of its own and went far towards giving it a
free hand for its operations. Something akin
to hypnotism or mesmerism seems connected
with Boxer initiation and action : the members
bow to the south-east, recite certain mystical
sentences, and then, with closed eyes, fall on
their backs ; after this they arise, eyes glazed
and staring, possessed of the strength and agility
8 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
of maniacs, mount trees and walls and wield
swords and spears in a way they are unable to
at other times. Semi-initiation is said to render
the body impervious to cut or thrust, while the
fully-initiated fear neither shot nor shell; the
various sub-chiefs are, of course, fully initiated,
but the supreme chief is described as more
gifted still he sits in his hall, orders the doors
to be opened, and while remaining there in
the body, is said to be elsewhere in spirit,
directing, controlling, suggesting, and achieving.
One of the best shots in a Legation guard
relates how he fired seven shots at one of the
chiefs on the Northern Bridge, less than two
hundred yards off: the chief stood there con-
temptuously, pompously waving his swords as
if thereby causing the bullets to pass him to
right or left at will : he then calmly and proudly
stalked away unhit, much to the astonishment
of the sharpshooter ! Though professing to
know nothing beyond the domain of sense,
the Chinaman is really an extravagant be-
liever in the supernatural, and so he readily
credits the Boxer with all the powers he
claims. Times and seasons, too, have their
meanings for him : in 1898 the eclipse of the
sun on the Chinese New Year's Day foreboded
calamity especially to the Emperor and in
September that year the Empress Dowager
usurped the Government ; then, as chance
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 9
would have it, this year, 1900, is one in which
the intercalary month for the Chinese year is
the eighth, and an eighth intercalary month
always means misfortune : when such a month
last occurred, that year the Emperor Tung
Chih died, and accordingly the popular mind
was on the outlook for catastrophe in 1900, and
perhaps the people were morbidly willing to
assist folk-lore to fulfil its own prophecy. Those
of us who regarded the movement as likely to
become serious and mischievous put off the
time of action to September : our calculations
were wrong, for already in May it had spread
from Shantung, was overrunning Pecheli, and
was following the railway line from Pao-ting-
foo, the provincial capital, towards Peking
itself. Chapels were destroyed, converts were
massacred, railway stations were wrecked, rail-
way and telegraph lines were damaged, excite-
ment was spreading, and yet, although the
state of the country all around grew more and
more alarming, it still seemed to be a question
whether the movement would roll back towards
its source from Peking or take new shape there
and gather new and onward impetus. Meantime
the Legations fortunately succeeded in getting
up a few guards from the warships off Taku,
so that there were from three to four hundred
armed men in Peking for their protection
American, Austrian, British, French, Italian,
io "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
Japanese, and Kussian. The force would have
been stronger had it not been for two curiously
illustrative incidents which occurred at Tien-
tsin : when the men marched to the train,
twenty-five of the hundred British Marines on
the platform were ordered back because the
Kussians and French numbered only seventy-five
each, and as for the Russians, they brought a
thousand rounds of shell for their gun and
neglected to bring the jfield-gun itself, which
remained at Tientsin to our great grief after-
wards, when it would have been of untold value
at Peking ! The Japanese contingent numbered
only twenty-five men, but the work they sub-
sequently did and the way they did it won
everybody's admiration, and would have done
honour to five times their number. The British
Marines were nice-looking lads, cheerful and
bright, and always ready and willing. The
Americans were stronger and more mature, each
man a sharpshooter, self-reliant and resourceful.
The Chinese authorities were naturally opposed
to the reappearance of foreign soldiers as Lega-
tion guards in their capital, and in ordinary
times such an anomalous step would not be
resorted to or justifiable ; but, the circumstances
being what they were, the decision to have
them up was a right one, and, as afterwards
happened, their presence preserved the entire
foreign community, Legations, Missionaries,
THE PEKING LEGATIONS n
Customs, and visitors also Chinese converts
old and young, men, women, and children, from
one common massacre.
The Queen's birthday, the 24th May, was
this year observed as a British celebration at
the Legation : some sixty or seventy people sat
down to dinner in the theatre, and, after that,
we had dancing in the ball-room and on the
lawn to the music of a Chinese brass-band
and really well the lads played on that occasion.
Little did we think that before that day month
we should form part of a crowd of ten times
that number flying for our lives, to the pro-
tection of the Legation walls ! Early in June
affairs wore so threatening an aspect that the
Admirals were applied to for reinforcements,
and on the 10th June Admiral Seymour left
Tientsin by rail with some fifteen hundred men
to rescue Legations and community from an
ending that daily seemed more certain, the
Viceroy very unwillingly allowing him to
start : he never reached Peking, however, and
eventually got back to Tientsin on the 24th
June, after losing a large percentage of his
force and going through experiences of a novel
kind for a naval officer. His force was at
Lang Fang, some forty miles from Peking, on
the llth June, and finding the railroad broken
there, stopped to repair it : had it left the
train and marched straight across the country
12 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
to the Capital, it could have been with us
on the 13th or 14th and so changed history,
for opposition was not yet organized, and
some animals could have been seized in
the vicinity for transport; but in our anxiety
we feared that the main object of the ex-
pedition the safety of the Legations was
lost sight of and the minor detail of mending
the railway line exaggerated into something of
paramount importance the wrong end of the
telescope having seemingly been put to the
eye, and so the chance was lost. As for railway
repairs as fast as one bit was mended another
was torn up by the crowds of Boxers that
swarmed around, so that, what with failure of
food and drink and fuel, and an increasing
number of enemies in front and rear and on
both sides, the Admiral and party were soon
in such a plight as no mixed force ever before
had steamed or drifted into. We refugees
clung to the hope that these reinforcements
would one day appear : we could not believe
it possible that they would fail to reach us or
that we should be forgotten, but by the end of
the month we could no longer encourage our-
selves to expect them we could only hope
that they had escaped destruction, and that,
back again at Tientsin, they were reorganizing
some better plan for our relief. It is quite sure
the force did its best under the circumstances,
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 13
but its mixed nature, possible differences of
opinion among the commanding officers of
half-a-dozen or more nationalities, and general
ignorance of the country between the railway
line and Peking must have combined to make
its task an impossible one and excuse the
failure it is equally certain that that failure
must have been even more bitter for the men
who were to rescue us than for ourselves who
were to be rescued.
From the end of May the air was full of
rumours and alarms, and all were on the alert,
ladies and children spending the nights at the
British Legation for safety; but the movement
was still regarded as a Boxer movement, and
we could not allow ourselves to believe that the
Government would permit it to create disorder
in Peking, much less that the troops would
join it and its doings be accepted and approved
of by the Chinese authorities : in fact, the
troops appeared at one time to be operating
against the Boxers and protecting the Ma-
chia-pu railway station from destruction, and
this helped to strengthen our old faith in the
security of the Capital, but to the eye of to-day
that military movement was intended to obstruct
the Admiral's force, and not to oppose the
Boxers. On the 9th June the outlook was
so threatening that the Customs and Col-
lege people were called in from the scattered
i 4 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
quarters, and from that date to the 20th all lived
at the Inspectorate, and combined with their
neighbours, Japanese, Austrians, and French,
to keep watch day and night. The rough plan
on p. 16 will explain the relative position of
houses and streets in the Legation district :
The positions XA. B. c. and D., as first arranged,
were to be held as long as possible by the
Russians, Italians, Austrians, and British; XE.
and F., on and under the City Wall, by the
Americans and Germans ; and the line XH. H. H.
by the Japanese and Customs ; the French at
XG. were to reinforce Italians and Austrians as
might be necessary. Such were the general
arrangements made in advance for mutual
co-operation and defence, and on the llth June
they were put in operation as soon as we heard
of the murder of the Japanese Secretary of
Legation, Mr. Sugiyama, by the soldiers of
Tung Fuh Hsiang at the Yung-Ting Gate.
And not a day too soon, for in the evening of
the 13th the noise of a crowd and a rush of
people were followed by the advent of the
Boxers : they entered the Ha-ta-men Gate with
a shout, brandishing sword and spear, and at
once set fire to the Missionary Chapel (46)
north of it : they then turned down the Chang-
an Street and were about to burn the Chinese
Imperial Bank (26), but they gave up the
attempt and went elsewhere when fired on by
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 15
the Austrians : soon after flames were seen in
many directions and the work of destruction
was well begun before night. Meantime our
isolation a novel experience had begun, and
bit by bit we were cut off from communication
with the rest of the world and even the rest of
the city : the last trains left Ma-chia-pu on the
9th the last telegrams were despatched on the
10th the special postal courier sent overland
on the 15th failed to reach Tientsin and the
last letter that got up from Tientsin was dated
16th and received 18th ; the Boxers appeared
to be everywhere they were destroying railway
and telegraph and stopping and searching all
Chinese passers-by. The Tung Chow mission-
aries succeeded in getting up to Peking, with
their wives and families, on the 8th June,
thanks to the pluck and energy of Mr. Ament,
who went down alone, some fourteen miles, on
the night of the 8th to fetch them, but the
Pao-ting-foo missionaries were in a trap and
unable to get away. The railway engineers
along the line fled, and most of them got to
Tientsin or Peking, although some were lost,
probably killed; the railway settlement at
Chang-Hsing-Tien, besieged by Boxers, was
relieved by an expedition organized and headed
by M. and Madame Chamot, and thus some
three dozen people, men, women, and children,
were conducted safely to Peking. Efforts were
16 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM*
THE PEKING LEGATIONS
PLAN OF LEGATION DISTRICT.
Explanation of Numbers, etc.
1. Dutch Legation. 27.
2. Russo-Chinese Bank 28.
3. Imbeg's Store. 29.
4. American Legation. 30.
5. KiernlfTs Store. 31.
6 and 7. Peking Syndicate. 32.
8. German Legation.
9. Club. 33.
10. Yang Low (Customs). 34.
11. Jean Renaud. 35.
12. Dr. Coltman. 36.
13. Russian Legation. 37.
14. Spanish Legation. 38.
15. Japanese Legation. 39.
16. Peking Hotel. 40.
17. French Legation. 41.
18. Italian Legation. 42.
19. British Legation. 43.
20. Dr. Morrison. 44.
21. Inspectorate of Customs. 45.
22. Post Office. 46.
23. Customs Gas Works. 47.
24. Austrian Legation. 48.
25. Jung Kung Foo. 49.
26. Chinese Imperial Bank 50.
(Mr. Houston).
Carriage Park.
Han Lin.
Mongol Market.
Soo-Wang-Foo.
Tang-tszu.
Legation Street (Chiang-mi-
Hsiang).
Chang-an-Street.
Northern Bridge.
Central Bridge.
Southern Bridge.
Dusty Lane.
Chien-men Gate.
Ha-ta-men Gate.
City Wall (Tartar).
Chinese City.
Palace.
Imperial City.
Electric Light Works.
Methodist Mission.
Missionary Chapel.
Belgian Legation.
Street under WalL
Canal.
Wang-ta Street.
XA. Russian Picquet.
XB. Italian
XC. Austrian
XD. British
XE. American Picquet.
XF. German
XG. French
XH. Japanese
i8 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
made to send special messages to Tientsin and
to communicate with the Admiral and re-
inforcements, but without success, and by the
16th we foreigners in Peking were practically
and completely isolated. On the 10th June a
telegram went to the Canton Viceroy, Li Hung
Chang, explaining the state of affairs, and
requesting him as her oldest and most trusted
adviser to telegraph to the Empress Dowager
and say that the counsels of her Boxer Coun-
cillors would imperil Empire and Dynasty, and
warn her that, whatever else hands might be
laid on in Peking, Legations and Foreign Eepre-
sentatives must be held sacred and left alone.
This was followed up by an explanatory letter
which left on the 12th ; it is believed they both
reached, and that it was in some degree owing
to their effect that the attacks on the Legations
were spun out so curiously, instead of destroying
us during the first weeks of the siege, and Li
himself eventually transferred to the Tientsin
Viceroyalty in July.
Up to the 20th June we had only the Boxers
to deal with, but on the 19th we were surprised
by a Circular Note from the Yam6n (Chinese
Foreign Office) stating that the foreign Naval
authorities at Tientsin were about to seize the
Taku Forts, and ordering Legations to quit
Peking within twenty-four hours. The Lega-
tions replied, and represented to the Yamen that
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 19
they knew nothing of the Taku occurrence
that they regretted any misunderstanding and
that they could not possibly quit, or make
transport arrangements, on such short notice.
A proposal to visit the Yamen in a body was
set aside, but on the morning of the 20th
Baron von Ketteler, the German Minister,
attended by his interpreter, Mr. Cordes, set off
for the Yamen alone : his colleagues advised him
not to go, but he felt that, having announced
Ms visit, he must pay it. Ten minutes after
he left the Legation his Chinese outriders
galloped back, saying that he had been shot
when going up the Ha-ta-men Street. His
interpreter, badly wounded, managed to escape
to the Methodist Mission and was thence taken
back to the German Legation. It had previously
been decided in case of attack to hold all the
Legations as long as possible, but to fall back
on the British Legation when necessary for
united defence and a final stand; the order
to quit Peking and the seemingly official murder
of a Minister rather precipitated matters, and
before the twenty-four hours' limit had expired
(4 p.m. 20th June) all the ladies and children
were in the British Legation and also the
various foreign representatives, etc. A mis-
understanding, however, occurred, and the
Customs were unexpectedly warned that the
Austrians could not hold their position, but
20 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
would abandon it and retire on the French
Legation at 2 p.m. This upset previous plans
and forced the Customs, almost without prepara-
tions, to desert the Inspectorate, which they
had hoped to continue to occupy, and so at
3 p.m. Austrians and Customs were marching
down the street together to the French and
British Legations: thus the xc. D. line of
defence along the Chang-an Street had virtu-
ally been given up without a blow. Precisely
at 4 p.m. firing began, and rifle bullets were
whistling down the Wang-ta Street between
Austrian Legation and Inspectorate and over
the heads of the French Picquet at XG. By
5 o'clock we were all quartered in the British
Legation and the siege began, one of its first
incidents being the disappearance of Professor
Huberty James a gallant and amiable man
who, returning from Dr. Morrison's house, took
the North and not the South lane, and was
either killed or made prisoner by the Chinese
soldiers on the North Bridge before our eyes.
The plan on p. 22 will serve to show how the
accommodation in the Legation was distributed
among so many people, and also the points that
had to be guarded and defended.
Before the Boxers entered the city some
additions were made to the Yamen, or Foreign
Office, and of these new ministers the most
remarkable was Prince Tuan grandson of Tao
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 21
Kwang, son of the Fifth Prince, nephew of
Prince Kung and the Seventh Prince, cousin
of Tung Chih and Kwang Hsii, and father of
the Ta-A-Ko, or heir-apparent. This appoint-
ment was considered by most foreigners in
Peking objectionable on account of the Prince's
known anti-foreign tendencies, but to my mind
it was a good one : the Empress Dowager had
probably said to the Prince, "You and your
party pull one way, Prince Ching and his
another what am I to do between you ? You,
however, are the father of the future Emperor,
and have your son's interests to take care of;
you are also a head of the Boxers and chief of
the Peking Field Force, and ought therefore
to know what can and what cannot be done.
I therefore appoint you to the Yamen : do what
you consider most expedient, and take care that
the throne of your ancestors descends untar-
nished to your son, and their Empire undi-
minished ! Yours is the power yours the
responsibility and yours the chief interests ! "
I can imagine the Empress Dowager taking this
line with the Prince, and, inasmuch as various
ministers who had been very anti-foreign before
entering the Yamen had turned round and
behaved very sensibly afterwards, I felt sure
that responsibility and actual personal dealings
with foreigners would be a good experience and
a useful education for this Prince, and that
22 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM "
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THE PEKING LEGATIONS
2 3
PLAN.
Explanation of Numbers, etc.
1. British Minister.
2. Marine Officers, etc.
3. Legation Chapel (Mis-
sionary Families).
4. Customs' People.
5. Kefugees.
6. Bell Tower.
7. Tennis Lawn.
8. Gate House.
9. Russian Minister, etc.
10. Sec. House (Missionary
Refugees, etc.).
11. Hospital (wounded, etc.).
12. Southern Stables.
13. Stable Yard House (Mis-
sionary Refugees, etc.).
14. French Minister, etc.
15. Mr. Cockburn.
16. Mr. Ker.
17. American Minister, etc.
18. Japanese Minister, etc.
19. Hospital for Infectious
Diseases.
20. Theatre (Marines' Mess).
21. Students' Library.
22. Refugees, various.
23. Refugees, Chinese.
24. Two-story House.
25. Northern Stables.
26. Burial Ground.
27. Battery and Flagstaff.
28. Southern Gate.
29. Passage to Foo.
30. Western Gate.
A. Imperial City Wall.
B. Carriage Park.
C. Han Lin.
D. Mongol Market.
E. Russian Legation.
F. American Legation.
G. Spanish Legation.
H. Northern Bridge.
I. Central Bridge.
J. Chang-an Street.
K. Soo-Wang-Foo.
L. Canal.
M. Legation Street.
N. Dusty Lane.
O. Passage through Foo.
P. Foo Gardens.
Q. Foo Buildings.
R. Northern Front.
S. Western Front.
T. Eastern Front.
U. Southern Front.
84 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF S1NIM"
he would eventually be one of the sturdiest
supporters of progress and good relations I
therefore augured the best from his appointment
to the Yamen. But the demand for the sur-
render of the* Taku forts upset this and all
other calculations, and so far although the
Prince is doubtless increasing his education
and we have been feeling his hostility we
have not seen him, and his future influence
will be a questionable factor.
After setting fire to the missionary chapel
in the Ha-ta-men Street on the 13th June, the
incendiaries continued their work, and destroyed
every foreign house they could touch, and every
Chinese establishment selling foreign goods or
connected with foreigners ; of course adjoining
buildings caught fire too, and in some districts
these conflagrations made a desert of the richest
and most populous quarters. In this way the
Austrian, Italian, Dutch, and French Legations,
the Customs Inspectorate, Postal and College
buildings, the extensive Missionary premises in
the Hsiao-shun, Teng-shih-k'ou-'rh, Yen-'rh,
Erh-tiao, and Jung-Hsien Streets, the Eusso-
Chinese and Chinese Imperial Banks, Imbeg's
Store, and Chinese houses without number were
destroyed. Even we ourselves in the various
Legations were obliged to burn anything near us
in self-defence, and from first to last a fire
inside a Legation was what all dreaded most.
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 25
Every hour was full of incident, but I do not
pretend or purpose to chronicle all that hap-
pened, and am merely giving a bird's-eye view
of the situation to introduce a few remarks
on the possibilities and changes the world will
now have to face.
The Ying-Kuo-Foo, or British Legation, was
styled the Liang-Kung-Foo in 1860, and was
occupied by the Duke Liang, when selected as
a residence for the British Minister. It covers
a large piece of ground, some 2000 feet long
by 600 broad, and is bounded on the north by
the Chinese official departments known as the
Carriage Park and Han Lin, on the east by
the canal, on the south and west by the Mongol
market, Carriage Park, and Chinese dwellings.
On the opposite side of the canal is the Soo-
Wang-Foo, or Prince Soo's Palace; south of
the Mongol market are the Kussian and Ameri-
can Legations ; and north of the Carriage Park
and Han Lin runs the long, straight, and broad
Chang- an Street. In addition to the original
picturesque Chinese halls modified for and
resided in by the British Minister, some dozen
buildings have been constructed in foreign style
for the Legation staff. When we took refuge
in the Legation on the 20th June the Lega-
tion staff most obligingly vacated their rooms
for refugees or shared their houses with
them : separate buildings were assigned to the
26 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
American, French, and Eussian Ministers and
Customs Inspectorate ; rooms were found for
the Belgian, Italian, and Japanese Ministers ;
the Spanish and Dutch Ministers shared other
people's quarters ; the German Charge remained
in his own Legation, and with him was the
Austrian Charge also; the Missionary families
were given the Legation chapel with the hall
opposite, and also two large two-storied build-
ings on the south side of the Legation ; a
miscellaneous crowd Belgians, Germans,
French, Japanese, Norwegian, etc. occupied
the students' quarters, and a number of Chinese
women and children were packed into a row of
buildings along the north wall. Of non- Chinese
there must have been some 600 people, while
the Chinese Christian refugees and protected
domestics must have numbered in Legation and
Soo-Wang-Foo some 1000 and 2000 respectively.
Among the refugees in the Foo were the
mother and family of His Excellency Tching
Tchang, formerly Chinese Minister in Paris.
All these Chinese behaved very well, and when
requisitioned worked admirably. Seeing that
they were even more than ourselves the people
the Boxers wished to massacre, and were so
singled out for their foreign proclivities, it was
at once decided to protect them, and they had
already nocked in from every part of the city
and some even from the country. One lot in
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 27
particular was rescued from the Nan-Tang
(Southern Cathedral) by a party consisting
again of M. and Madame Chamot (nee Macarthy,
San Francisco), Willie Dupre'e, and others the
same who had brought in the Belgians from
Chang-Hsing-Tien. Madame Chamot's gallantry
and her husband's pluck and resourcefulness
were the admiration of everybody, and the
services they rendered us all of every kind
cannot be too highly spoken of. Young Dupree,
a lad of seventeen, was also a volunteer on
several other expeditions, when his courage and
knowledge of Chinese were most useful notably
the one that killed some fifty Boxers found
massacring a couple of dozen Christians in a
temple off the Wang-ta Street about the 15th
June.
The refugees speedily shook themselves into
shape, and arranged how best to rough it as
regards food and sleep. Crowded numbers,
limited accommodation, and the absence of
everything in the shape of privacy, comfort,
and ordinary convenience, were naturally dis-
agreeable factors for a Peking summer, but the
thought that all were in the same boat and
must make the best of it till succour arrived,
and hold out at all costs against a common
massacre, inspired each and all with courage,
resignation, and sympathy. The ladies had to
attend to cooking and domestic work of every
2 8 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
kind in public and in the open, and they did so
with a practical good sense and a Christian
cheerfulness beyond all praise. All had been
instructed to bring their own provisions, and
fortunately considering how unexpectedly long
the siege lasted did so. Besides, close to the
Legation were three large European stores
Tallieu's, Kierulft's, and Imbeg's and also
several Chinese shops of various kinds. From
all of these everything likely to be useful was
brought in as fast as possible : rice, flour,
meal, fuel, tinned stores, preserves, etc., etc.,
etc., were found, and also quantities of piece
goods cottons, silks, and satins. Thus food for
six or eight weeks was secured, and stuff for
the manufacture of sandbags to crest the walls
and barricades required for defence and for
hospital use. Every lady made her share of
sandbags and it was wonderful where needles
and thread came from ! and as for finding
and bringing in food supplies, the activity and
energy of MM. Chamot, Dupre'e, and Fargo
Squiers (the gallant young son of the American
Secretary of Legation, an Eton boy) were
astonishing. Mr. Bering of the British Legation
also toiled incessantly for days with admirable
persistence over the work of providing fodder
for the ponies (all destined to be eaten) and
the sheep that were then obtainable. The stock
of ammunition was a cause of some anxiety,
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 29
but after a couple of days or so every man
settled down to using it only when it could be
relied on to kill, and economy became the rule
all round in fact, it was sometimes curious to
note the silence and stillness of the Legation,
not a shot replying to the furious fusillade kept
up by the Chinese from their secure hiding-
places on the neighbouring roofs and behind
the loopholes in their barricades. But although
as few shots were fired as possible, constant
watch had to be kept, and men had to be sent
to one place or another sometimes in the
British Legation itself and sometimes to other
Legations where and when attack was fiercer
or more threatening. At first a mere affair of
Boxers armed with sword and spear, from the
20th of June on we had also the soldiers to
deal with : they fixed some Krupp guns and
some smooth-bore cannon on the city wall to
the south and at various places near the Lega-
tions, and they had besides the very newest
and best kinds of repeating rifles in their hands :
one day were counted as many as seven hundred
shot and shell fired at the Legations, and the
tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition they
daily expended when rifle-firing kept up a fright-
ful din. While the weather was fine, sentry
work, etc., was no great hardship, but we had
some wet nights, and then to lie crouched on
the top of a wall behind sandbags or stand
30 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
motionless in a trench behind a barricade was
extremely trying. The Marines, seventy-five all
told, were supplemented by a dozen Legation
men and twice as many Customs people for
regular duty, and there were besides, for special
defence in the event of a general attack, some
seventy or eighty armed volunteers (missionaries
included). Our ears became so accustomed to
the constant whistle and crack of rifle bullets,
and to the heavier noise of the cannon, that
when some quiet days intervened we found the
silence even more trying ; amidst all the din
there was an element of the comic too, for, to
increase the noise and so the more effectually
terrify us, our assailants let off strings and
strings of fire-crackers ! For the general safety
it was essential that the southern city wall
should be held between the Chien-men and
Ha-ta-men gates : the Americans faced west to
hold the first behind their Legation, and the
Germans east to hold the second behind theirs.
For the safety of the British Legation in
particular it was equally indispensable that the
Soo-Wang-Foo, across the canal, should not fall
into Chinese hands, and it was held by Colonel
Sheba and the plucky Japanese with a persist-
ence, gallantry, skill, and forethought that were
most admirable. The Germans, however,
eventually abandoned their position on the wall
on noticing the Americans doing the same ; but,
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 31
strongly reinforced by British and Russians, the
latter quickly retook the forsaken post under
the able guidance of Mr. Squiers, and then
strengthened it daily, and held on to it till
the end ; unfortunately the Chinese advanced
along the wall from the Ha-ta-men Gate, and
thus the Germans never reoccupied their portion
of the wall, and various inconveniences resulted
therefrom. The Austrian, Dutch, and Italian
Legations were forsaken early and forthwith
burnt ; the residential part of the French
Legation was taken by the Chinese step by step
after obstinate fighting, but the remainder was
pluckily held to the last by the Commandant
D'Arcy and men with only a wall between
assailant and assailed ; the other Legations,
and also the Peking Hotel (M. Chamot), were
riddled with shot and shell and showers of rifle
bullets, but, skilfully and obstinately defended,
the Chinese never got possession of them. The
American Colt machine-gun did splendid work
on the wall, but the Austrian and British
machine-guns were not thought a success : the
absence of the Russian gun left behind at
Tientsin was terribly felt when the Chinese took
to constructing barricades and mounting cannon
behind them. The Jubilee bell in the British
Legation was occasionally sounded as an alarm,
and then everybody turned out either to fight
fires or assailants : fortunately neither effected
32 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
an entrance, but on two occasions it seemed all
but impossible to prevent fire from crossing
our walls and destroying us. At the French
Legation the Chinese resorted to mines with
success : on one occasion, when the first mine
exploded, the Austrian Charge, Mr. von Ros-
thorn, was buried in the ruins; the second
explosion vomited him forth free and unhurt
a miraculous escape but the assailants then
made good their position inside the Legation
walls.
Up to the 20th June we had as already
stated only Boxers armed with sword and
spear to fear, but on that day rifles began to
be used, and soldiers fired them notably men
belonging to Tung Fuh Hsiang's Kan-suh com-
mand. Our longing for the appearance of
Admiral Seymour grew intense, and night after
night we buoyed ourselves up with calculations
founded on the sound of heavy guns in the
distance, or the appearance of what experts
pronounced to be search-lights in the sky : soon,
however, we gave up all hope of the Admiral's
party, but, supposing that the Taku Forts had
been taken on the 18th, we inferred that a few
days later would see a large force marching
from Tientsin for our relief, and that within a
fortnight it would be with us otherwise why
imperil us at Peking by such premature action
at Taku ? From the 20th to the 25th June a
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 33
brisk rifle fire raged round each Legation, and
our anxiety began to be acute. On the 25th a
white board was put up by the Chinese on the
North Bridge purporting to communicate an
Imperial Edict ordering Legations to be pro-
tected and firing to cease (Query : had Li
received the telegram and wired to the Empress
Dowager from Canton ?), and it added that
despatches would be interchanged at the Bridge.
Firing did cease at once, and we were all de-
lighted to infer therefrom that the Government
had regained its senses, and that the peace
party was in the ascendant : was this due to
the near approach of a victorious relieving force,
some asked, or simply to the action of advisers
who understood something about the sanctity of
Legations and the privileges of national Eepre-
sentatives ? A reply was put up on the Bridge
saying we were ready to receive any despatches ;
but no despatch ever came, and, after three
days' quiet, firing recommenced not rifle bullets
only this time, but shot and shell began to fall
in and screech over the Legations, and our
plight was worse than ever. The respite given
was probably to throw us off our guard and
arrange other plans for our hurt perhaps also
to put some friendliness on record. The cannon
were at the Chien-men and Ha-ta-m^n Gates on
the city wall, and also at various points near
to and commanding the Legations and Soo-
D
34 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
Wang-Foo. The casualties were considerable,
our killed mounting up to about sixty and the
wounded to a hundred at the end of July.
Several attempts had been made to send
messages to meet the expected relieving force
and to let people at Tientsin know our con-
dition, but the cordon round us was so tight
and our isolation so complete that they had
evidently failed to get through. At last, about
the 16th July, one messenger reappeared : he
had been caught going out and taken before the
Chinese Commander-in-Chief, Jung Luh, and
thence sent back to the Legation bearing an
informal note purporting to come from " Prince
Ching and others." This led to an interchange
of letters between Legation Ministers and Ya-
mn, and about the 18th firing was again dis-
continued, to be begun again but this time by
rifles alone about the 21th. On the 18th a
messenger actually got through from Tientsin
with the news that 33,000 men would start
thence in a few days : this news had, of course,
we thought, also reached the Peking authorities,
and had possibly had something to do with their
change of attitude, but, as a week's later news
said nothing about a start, the first news had
probably been discredited, and so the " snipers "
were allowed to begin firing again. Humour,
too, said the Pei Tang, or Northern Cathedral
where Monseigneur Favier with some thirty
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 35
missionaries, two thousand Christian refugees,
and a guard of forty-three French and Italian
sailors, had gallantly made a stand from the
middle of June was being heavily bombarded.
Among the "Prince Ching and others " letters
that came to the Legation, one invited the
Ministers to take refuge at the Yamen, each to
bring a suite of ten persons and all to be un-
armed, but, remembering poor Von Ketteler's
fate, this was not accepted. Another was also
declined desiring the Legations once more to
quit Peking and repair to Tientsin : this last
wish was renewed a couple of times, and it was
evidently either a plot to murder all en route, or
a device to prevent foreign troops from enter-
ing Peking. Another communication, this time
a duly sealed official despatch, informed the
Representatives of Germany, France, Eussia,
England, and United States that the Chinese
Emperor had telegraphed to their respective
sovereigns, etc., begging their good offices, etc.
Meantime one of Tung Fuh Hsiang's men made
friends with Colonel Sheba's people, and for a
daily gratuity provided information : in this way
and according to this worthy, we learnt that our
troops fought victorious battles at Yang-tsun,
Ts'ai-tsung, Hosewoo, An Ping, Matow, and
Chang-kia-Wan, etc., and were within a day
or two's march of Peking on the 30th July.
Chinese firing was somewhat heavier on July
36 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
30th and 31st, and August 1st, and again
slackened on August 2nd. On July 31st a
Japanese messenger brought a real Tientsin
letter of the 26th, stating that the march on
Peking would begin in two or three days, and
on the 2nd August an American messenger
came in also with real letters, giving additional
news and stating the march had begun on the
30th July. The same day we got the Peking
Gazette of the 28th July, containing an Edict
condemning to death the Yamen Ministers Hsii-
Ching-Cheng (formerly Minister to Eussia and
Germany) and Yuan C'hang, the chiefs of the
two educational establishments known as the
Ta-Hsio-Tang (President, Dr. Martin) and
Tung-Wen-Kwan (President, Mr. Oliver), and
their cruel fate shocked and depressed us. Thus
the daily reports that had reached Colonel
Sheba were shown to be clever concoctions,
and we had again to console ourselves with
thinking that, although the march on Peking
had only just begun, yet now we were once
more in communication with the outside world,
knew for a fact that the march was commenced,
and could afford to laughingly treat the con-
cocted reports as so many forecasts of what
would shortly be facts. Naturally we had to
face various possibilities : the rainy season
might begin any day and delay and protract
the march, and the infuriated Government
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 37
might order an attack on us in force, and wipe
us out before relief could arrive ; and again
there were many native Christians " of sorts "
among us, and might there not be an attempt
to buy them back to their duty as subjects of
the Emperor, and induce them to co-operate
inside our walls with fiercer assailants from
without ; while, as to the foreign troops coming
from Tientsin, even if they should reach Peking,
would not they be besieged in turn in the city,
and require assistance themselves to get away
again ? We treated these worrying thoughts
as light-heartedly as we could, and adopted for
guidance the principle that the more we seemed
to be favoured by circumstances, the more pre-
cautions ought we to take and the more on our
guard we ought to be. On the 19th June the
Yamen had notified the Inspector-General of
Customs that Legations had been given twenty-
four hours' notice to leave Peking ; on the 21st
July two Eed-letters came over one of the barri-
cades to him, the first asking his whereabouts,
and the second asking what reply he wished the
Yamen to make to a proposal that had come up
through the Nanking Viceroy concerning the
transaction of Inspectorate-General work during
his isolation; on the 25th July came another
Eed-letter, enclosing a telegram of inquiry from
the Shanghai Commissioner of Customs, and
stating all was quiet there ; and on the 27th
38 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
and 30th July, and 7th and 10th August, he
received four other such letters, one accom-
panied by some vegetables and flour, another
enclosing a London telegram asking our news,
and also suggesting he should prepare tele-
grams to each of the Powers saying the Lega-
tions were well, and a third forwarding a family
telegram. From an inquiry made in both
London telegram and a Tientsin letter for
another refugee, it was evident it had every-
where been given out that the Government was
both protecting and provisioning the Legations !
We had always feared some such assurances
would be our ruin, but fortunately for us the
telegram of Mr. Conger, the United States
Minister, exploded this idea about the 18th
July, and the Governments concerned woke up
to the fact that their representatives were in
danger. As to provisioning we were com-
pletely cut off from the market, and dependent
on what we chanced to have in the Legation,
on and after the 20th June; the cordon of
Chinese troops drawn round us isolated us
completely, and, excepting two or three scanty
presents of vegetables received between the 21st
and 27th July, nothing came from the Chinese
Government. As to protecting it is true we
can only explain our preservation by supposing
that there must have been some protection,
but it was not the Chinese Government that
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 39
gave it. We were under fire from the 20th
to the 25th June, from the 28th June to
the 18th July, from the 28th July to the 2nd
August, and from the 4th to the 14th August :
night and day rifle bullets, cannon balls, and
Krupp shells had been poured into the various
Legations from the gate in front of the Palace
itself, from the very wall of the Imperial City,
as well as from numerous nearer points around
us, and the assailants on all sides were Chinese
soldiers ; whether the quiet of the 26th and
27th June and 19th to 27th July was or was
not ordered by the Government we cannot say,
but the firing during the other periods, close as
we were to the Imperial City and within the
sight and hearing of the Palace, must have
been by the orders of Government, and it cost
our small number over sixty killed and a hun-
dred wounded ! That somebody intervened for
our semi-protection seems, however, probable :
attacks were not made by such numbers as the
Government had at its disposal they were
never pushed home, but always ceased just
when we feared they would succeed and, had
the force round us really attacked with thorough-
ness and determination, we could not have held
out a week, perhaps not even a day. So the
explanation gained credence that there was some
kind of protection that somebody, probably
a wise man who knew what the destruction of
40 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
the Legations would cost Empire and Dynasty,
intervened between the issue of the order for
our destruction and the execution of it, and
so kept the soldiery playing with us as cats do
with mice, the continued and seemingly heavy
firing telling the Palace how fiercely we were
attacked and how stubbornly we defended our-
selves, while its curiously half-hearted character
not only gave us the chance to live through it,
but also gave any relief forces time to come
and extricate us, and thus avert the national
calamity which the Palace in its pride and
conceit ignored, but which some one in autho-
rity in his wisdom foresaw and in his discretion
sought how to push aside.
After quarters had been distributed and food
supply seen to, a General Committee was
appointed, with full powers to enforce its orders,
supported by various sub-committees to attend
to fortifications, sanitation, labour, wells, fires,
commissariat, etc., etc., etc. These committees
proved most useful, and in particular the forti-
fication one under Mr. Gamewell : this gentle-
man, who belongs to the American Methodist
Mission, had similarly protected the Mission's
extensive premises near the Ha-ta-men Gate
during the first three weeks of June, and his
energy, activity, ability, and good-nature were
conspicuous throughout : I one day heard Mr.
Smith (" Chinese Characteristics ") refer to him
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 41
as " a representation of limited omnipresence."
Mr. Gamewell's work was well supported by
MM. Hobart and Tewkesbury, also missionaries,
and by Mr. Stell, another refugee : these had
special charge of the Chinese refugees, kept
count of them, fed them, and arranged them
in working parties for duties of every kind and
everywhere. In fact, without the assistance of
these able, energetic, and devoted men the
Legation defence might have had another story
or none at all to tell! Another name was
also constantly heard, Colonel Sheba's : he
commanded the Japanese and had charge of
the line they were to hold, which included
more especially the Soo-Wang-Foo, and his
successful retention of the western line when
driven back step by step from the eastern one
was as brilliant an achievement as ever a handful
of men accomplished. The safety of some two
thousand Christian refugees depended on this,
as did also the holding of the British Legation.
Men felt it was an honour to serve under his
orders, and his endurance, readiness, coolness,
courage, and courtesy were the admiration of
all who were near or under him. The American
marines had also a very difficult position to
hold on the wall, but thanks to the assistance
of allies and more especially to the fortifica-
tion arrangements prepared by Mr. Gamewell
and the pluck and decision of the American
42 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF S1NIM"
Secretary of Legation, Mr. Squiers, they held it
in spite of the superior numbers and fierce fire
they had to face and the necessity for constant
watchfulness day and night during the eight
weeks the siege lasted, exposed to a burning
sun by day and drenched by occasional tropical
downfalls of rain by night. When the senior of
the marine officers, Captain Strouts, succumbed
to the terrible wound he received in the Soo-
Wang-Foo on the 16th July, the British
Minister requested Mr. Squiers to take charge
of military work in the British Legation as his
Chief of the Staff, and this arrangement gave
great satisfaction to the refugee public. Captain
Strouts' death was a specially sad one : with
the exception of a slight scratch under the ear
which would have killed him had it been a
hair's breadth deeper, he had gone through four
weeks' work safely, always moving around and
always calm, cool, and self-contained; on the
16th, accompanied by Dr. Morrison (Times
correspondent) and Colonel Sheba, some duty
took him to an exposed part of the Soo-Wang-
Foo, and the party had scarcely shown them-
selves when one rifle bullet passed through
Colonel Sheba's coat, another wounded Dr.
Morrison severely in the thigh, and a third
struck down Captain Strouts with a terrible
injury to the lower part of the abdomen, and
an hbur after the gallant fellow had passed
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 43
away. Another correspondent, Dr. Gilbert Reid,
known to the English public, was also among
the wounded about the same time : when cross-
ing the Central Bridge a rifle bullet hit him iu
the calf of the leg, but he made a good and
comparatively quick recovery. Besides the
Legation doctor, Dr. Poole, the wounded were
fortunate in being in the hands of a very superior
and first-class man, Dr. Welde of the German
Legation, whose skill and devotion to his work,
supported by some professional nurses and lady
doctors who chanced to be among the missionary
refugees, were invaluable. Fortunately several
things combined to support the Ministerial
decision to hold out : the Legations were near
enough each other to keep touch sufficient
food supplies had been secured from the very
first in every Legation there was at least one
well, and in the British no less than eight the
weather could not have been more favourable,
not too hot and only a little rain the health
of the crowded refugees was disturbed by no
epidemic the assailants, although constantly
attacking, never seemed able to put forth all
their strength and all the refugees were hopeful
and every one willing to do whatever he or she
could do in the general interest. Of course the
outer defences had to bear the brunt of the
fighting, and, apart from the city wall position
which dominated all, and the Soo-Wang-Foo
44 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
which commanded the British Legation to
both of which I have more pointedly referred
because really part and parcel of the British
defence the French, German, American, and
Russian Legations had their separate, disagree-
able, and even terrible experiences, and came
out of them gallantly and successfully. Further,
not until all these had fallen and the surviving
defenders had retired on the British Legation
where the last stand was to .be made would
its real trial come, although its northern and
western fronts were also of the nature of outer
defences, and it is not to be inferred from so
much being said about the British Legation
that it alone was attacked and defended.
And so the weary, wearing weeks went by, a
massacre the certain ending if our assailants
should get the better of us, and our only hope
that a relief force must arrive some day sooner
or later. After the 18th July we had com-
parative quiet; untimely exposure on the part
of one of us would occasionally tempt some of
the men forming the cordon surrounding us to
shoot, but, except from the 28th July to the
2nd August, and from the 4th to the 14th
August during which days there was con-
siderable rifle-firing we were not much dis-
turbed by alarms or attacks, and indeed some
of us found it more difficult to bear the discom-
forts of isolation and unwelcome surroundings
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 45
during the calm than during the din which
preceded it. Meantime the defences were being
strengthened at every point, and every possible
effort was made to be ready to meet and repel
any attack which irritation or despair might
cause on the nearer approach of a relieving
force; onlookers began to discuss the possible
solution of the present situation would it shake
the dynasty, or would the Powers forget it as
individuals do toothache or sea-sickness ? Some
one hazarded the opinion that, interests being
so -varied, it might even lead to war between
the Western Powers themselves ! Other
refugees began, too, to consider how they should
lodge themselves when the siege ended, while
the various Legation families made their calcu-
lations regarding the possibility of returning
to their own quarters in their respective Lega-
tions. It was not till the 29th July that
communication with the outside world was felt
to be re-established. On that day a smart lad
who had started on July 4th with a note from
the British Minister to the Consul at Tientsin
returned with an answer from the latter dated
22nd: it was neither as full nor as plain as
could be desired, and its news depressed us
somewhat, for it was evident that as yet the
march on Peking had not commenced. This
was followed on the 31st July and 2nd August
by the letters brought by the messengers for
46 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
the Japanese and American Legations already
alluded to : we then felt we had fact to stand
on, and that if we could only hold out, relief,
really coming, was certain. The Yamen mean-
while was persistent in its demand for Legations
to proceed to Tientsin, and an Edict even
appeared ordering the Commander-in-Chief Jung
Luh to depute high officers, civil and military, to
escort them ; this and another Edict of the same
or the day before expressed friendly sentiments
towards Ministers, missionaries, merchants, and
converts, hut the inner meaning was more than
doubtful was it a device to overpower Legations
en route, or to prevent foreign troops from
entering Peking, or to get hold of and execute
all the converts there left behind ? On the
4th August our assailants' rifles again began to
be troublesome, and the list of killed and
wounded was added to. On the 7th some
additional barricades isolated us even more than
ever, and at the same time despatches from
the Yamen announced that Li Hung Chang
was appointed to arrange matters by telegram
with the various Foreign Offices : this appoint-
ment perplexed us would the various govern-
ments at his request recall the relief force and
thus ruin our last chance of safety, or would
they tell the wily old gentleman that their
views would be communicated after the arrival
of their troops in Peking? In fact, Li did wire
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 47
to the Russian Foreign Office to say that all
the Legations had safely arrived at Tientsin
under Jung Luh's escort and all but succeeded
in his first move as negotiator. On the 8th
the firing was lighter, and letters of condolence
came from the Yamn communicating the news
of the deaths of the King of Italy and the Duke
of Edinburgh, but on the 9th heavy firing was
resumed, and grew heavier and heavier until
the 14th, the nights of the 12th and 13th being
specially noisy, and the latter so threatening
one shell bursting in the Minister's bedroom
that the Jubilee bell summoned everybody to
arms twice. Our previous assailants had been
withdrawn, and the newly arrived Shansi con-
tingent had taken their places, armed with the
very best repeating rifles and headed by a
General who undertook to finish with us in
five days, " leaving neither fowl nor dog."
Their five days were ending on the 12th, and
the General was at the barricades in person
encouraging his men ; but happily part of the
barricade gave way and exposed those behind
it, who were at once shot by our people, the
General himself falling to the rifle of a Customs'
volunteer, Mr. Bismarck. Our position had been
strengthened in every way, but the assailants
were growing bolder, and the experiences of the
13th showed tha they would probably rush it
in overwhelming numbers the next attack.
48 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM*
Fortunately for us, the morning of Thursday
the 14th brought us the welcome sounds of the
Maxims and guns of the relieving forces, and
about 3 p.m. General Gazelee, and soon after
General Chaffee, were shaking hands with us.
The first man to enter the Legation grounds
was a British officer, and his welcome was
enthusiastic : it was amusing to see how the
Indian troops took our cheers and responded
to them, and we wondered at the sprightly step
and beaming face with which they finished their
fatiguing march. " Prince Citing and others"
proposed a visit on the 13th, but excused
themselves, and the last hours of the siege were
marked by the deaths of a gallant Frenchman,
Captain le Franc, and a German soldier, who,
just released from hospital with his first wounds
healed, was shot dead an hour after; also by
the execution of two other Ministers of the
Yamen named Hsii Yung I and Lien Yuen,
whose offence was probably disapproval of the
Government's warlike policy. One of the
Ministers, Mr. Knobel, Holland, was also
wounded in the leg after the troops reached
the Legation. The siege began Wednesday the
20th June, and ended Tuesday the 14th August.
The Peitang, or Northern Cathedral, was relieved
on the 16th, and the body of Baron von Ketteler
recovered.
What precedes, as already explained, is not
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 49
a chronicle it is simply a note to give readers
a bird's-eye view of the unprecedented occur-
rences of a Peking summer and prepare the
way for directing attention briefly to the future
thereby foreshadowed : as for daily details, they
will be found in many quarters elsewhere from
the reports and pens of many observers. This
episode of to-day is not meaningless it is the
prelude to a century of change and the keynote
of the future history of the Far East : the
China of the year 2000 will be very different
from the China of 1900 ! National sentiment
is a constant factor which must be recognized,
and not eliminated, when dealing with national
facts, and the one feeling that is universal in
China is pride in Chinese institutions and con-
tempt for foreign : treaty intercourse has not
altered this if anything, it has deepened it,
and the future will not be uninfluenced by it.
The first question now to be settled by the
Treaty Powers is how to make peace, for China
is at war with all ; and what conditions to im-
pose to safeguard the future, for the stipulations
of the past have been set at defiance and
obliterated. There would seem to be a choice
between three courses partition, change of
dynasty, or patching up the Manchoo rule. As
regards partition that plan, like every other,
has its good and its bad sides ; but, with
such an enormous population, it could never be
50 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
expected to be a final settlement, and unrest and
unhappiness and uncertainty would run through
all succeeding generations. The Chinaman is
a very practical person, and accepts the rule
of those who have the power to rule and the
good sense to rule justly with greater equanimity
than others ; but, all the same, there is such a
thing as Chinese feeling and Chinese aspiration,
and these will never be stamped out, but will
live and seethe and work beneath the surface
through all time, even under the most benefi-
cent rule, and in the end it may be sooner, it
may be later assert themselves and win their
object. That the future will have ai" yellow"
question perhaps a yellow "peril" to deal
with, is as certain as that the sun will shine to-
morrow : how can its appearance be delayed, or
combated, or by any action taken now turned
into harmless channels? As to setting up a
new dynasty there is no man of mark all
China would accept ; the plan would plunge the
country into years of anarchy, and for a dynasty
to be established by a concert of foreign Powers
would be an ear-mark of weakness and disgrace
for ever after. Remains, then, the third plan
to accept the existing dynasty as a going
concern, and, in a word, make the best of it.
The present dynasty is far from effete ; its
mandate runs through all China its recogni-
tion would be the easiest solution for all
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 51
powers to acquiesce in and support given to
it would restore general tranquillity more
quickly and more effectually than any other
action; the possible flight of the Court may,
however, introduce a new element and require
yet another arrangement.
But what is this "Yellow Peril"? The
Chinese, an intelligent, cultivated race, sober,
industrious, and on its own lines civilized,
homogeneous in language, thought, and feeling,
which numbers some four hundred millions,
lives in its own ring-fence, and covers a country
made up of fertile land and teeming waters,
with infinite variety of mountain and plain,
hill and dale, and every kind of climate and
condition, producing on its surface all that a
people requires and hiding in its bosom untold
virgin wealth that has never yet been disturbed,
this race, after thousands of years of haughty
seclusion and exclusiveness, has been pushed
by the force of circumstances and by the
superior strength of assailants into treaty rela-
tions with the rest of the world, but regards
that as a humiliation, sees no benefit accruing
from it, and is looking forward to the day
when it in turn will be strong enough to revert
to its old life again and do away with foreign
intercourse, interference, and intrusion. It has
slept long, as we count sleep, but it is awake at
last, and its every member is tingling with
52 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM "
Chinese feeling " China for the Chinese and
out with the foreigners ! " The Boxer move-
ment is doubtless the product of official in-
spiration, but it has taken hold of the popular
imagination, and will spread like wildfire all
over the length and breadth of the country ; it
is, in short, a purely patriotic volunteer move-
ment, and its object is to strengthen China
and for a Chinese programme. Its first ex-
perience has not been altogether a success as
regards the attainment through strength of
proposed ends, the rooting up of foreign cults
and the ejection of foreigners ; but it is not a
failure in respect of the feeler it put out will
volunteering work ? or as an experiment that
would test ways and means and guide future
choice. It has proved how to a man the people
will respond to the call, and it has further
demonstrated that the swords and spears to
which the prudent official mind confined the
initiated will not suffice, but must be supple-
mented or replaced by Mauser rifles and Krupp
guns. The Boxer patriot of the future will
possess the best weapons money can buy, and
then the " Yellow Peril" will be beyond ignor-
ing. Wn Hsiang, the celebrated Prime Minister
of China during the minority of Tung Chih in
the early sixties, often said, "You are all too
anxious to awake us and start us on a new
road, and you will do it ; but you will all regret
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 53
it, for, once awaking and started, we shall go
fast and far farther than you think much
farther than you want ! " His words are very
true.
The first doings of the Boxer patriots show
that their plan of operations was on the one
hand to destroy Christian converts and stamp
out Christianity, and thus free China from the,
in their eyes, corroding influence of a foreign
cult, and, on the other not to hurt or kill, but
to terrify foreigners, frighten them out of the
country, and thus free China from foreign tres-
pass, contamination, and humiliation. These
are the objects which will be kept in view,
worked up to, and in all probability accom-
plished with other weapons in their hands
by the children or grandchildren of to-day's
volunteers : I say "in all probability," for only
either a certain kind of foreign intervention,
begun now and steadily and systematically
pursued, might avert it, or another agency
working a radical change might turn national
energy into another channel. If the powers
could agree among themselves and partition
China at once, and thereafter, with a common
understanding, give fullest effect to the old
Chinese idea and discourage militarism make
it a law that none of their new subjects could
drill, enlist, or carry arms ; prohibit their own
and other nationals from there engaging in any
54 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
kind of trade in arms and employ only their
own race for military and police work there, it
is possible that the peace-loving, law-abiding,
industrious Chinaman might be kept in leading-
strings until the lapse of centuries had given
other civilizing influences time to work through
successive generations, and so change the com-
position and tendency of the national thought
and feeling of the future as to carry it into
that sphere of international life where friendly
relations, common interests, and international
comity take the place of dictation, jealousy, and
race-hatred, and thus blot out the " Yellow
Peril " from the future of humanity. Or if, in
spite of official opposition and popular irritation,
Christianity were to make a mighty advance,
and so spread through the land as to convert
China into the friendliest of friendly powers
and the foremost patron of all that makes for
peace and goodwill : that too would prick the
Boxer balloon, and disperse the noxious gas
which threatens to swell the race-hatred pro-
gramme and poison and imperil the world's
future. The words "imperil the world's
future" will doubtless provoke a laugh well,
let them do so, but let them stand ! Twenty
millions or more of Boxers armed, drilled, dis-
ciplined, and animated by patriotic if mistaken
motives, will make residence in China im-
possible for foreigners, will take back from
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 55
foreigners everything foreigners have taken
from China, will pay off old grudges with
interest, and will carry the Chinese flag and
Chinese arms into many a place that even
fancy will not suggest to-day, thus preparing
for the future upheavals and disasters never
even dreamt of. In fifty years' time there will
be millions of Boxers in serried ranks and war's
panoply at the call of the Chinese Govern-
ment : there is not the slightest doubt of that !
And if the Chinese Government continues to
exist, it will encourage and it will be quite
right to encourage uphold, and develop this
national Chinese movement : it bodes no good
for the rest of the world, but China will be
acting within its right and will carry through
the national programme ! Nothing but partition
a difficult and unlikely international settle-
ment, or a miraculous spread of Christianity in
its best form a not impossible, but scarcely to
be hoped for, religious triumph, will defer, will
avert this result : is either the one or the other
within the limits of practical politics or practical
propagandism ? I fear not ! And if not, what ?
Then the lawlessness of the present uprising
must be condoned and the Manchoo dynasty
supported : to this end it will be made to "lose
face " as little as possible but trade in arms
will not cease, and our sons and grandsons will
reap the whirlwind. What that support is to
5 6 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
be and on what conditions, our generals and
diplomatists will hammer out once they have
freed themselves from their initial rivalries,
jealousies, and misunderstandings following
largely prohably the Chinese lead itself. Then
those concerned will have next to arrange
what must be done to provide for the issue of
compensation for lives lost and property de-
stroyed, secure the repayment of the various
loans, and carry out the concessions various
syndicates have obtained, as also what new
regulations the commerce of the future will
require, what form the Customs Inspectorate
and other semi-foreign institutions will take,
how missionaries are to be treated and native
Christians protected, etc., etc., etc. What may
be called "hand to mouth" policy and "rule
of thumb " treatment have their advocates, and
will allow natural results to be gradually and
regularly evolved; negotiators will, of course,
be guided by general interests though each
will interpret in his own way, and will aim at
settling things for the best; but whatever
emerges as the result of their deliberations
must run the gauntlet of the Boxer movement.
The next few years may be quiet ones, and this
eight weeks' nightmare will fade away in the
past and be forgotten ; but below the surface
is the seed, and sooner or later will follow the
crop. To foster and develop a volunteer system
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 57
for State defence is justifiable and commend-
able, but the State must be responsible for its
doings, and it must be controlled by and not
control the State; to accord religious liberty
or to subordinate such liberty to considerations
of State is not denied to independent Powers ;
to feel the pinch of certain treaty stipulations
and, when strong enough to do so, to throw off
such as were originally imposed by force, is a
practice for which even Christian Powers have
set pagan States more than one example : in
judging on such points China is entitled to the
full benefit of all these considerations. But the
international episode now written about shows
features in all these connections which the
civilized and Christian world must take objec-
tion to whatever be the cause. Foreign mis-
sionaries have been murdered ; Christian
communities have been massacred; natives,
whom long years of treaty intercourse had
connected more or less closely with foreigners
and foreign trade, have had their property
destroyed wholesale ; peaceable foreign resi-
dents have been treated as if they were the
armies of a hostile Power, have been besieged
and bombarded ; foreign legations, sacred and
inviolable in the eyes of international law,
have been humiliated and cut off from all com-
munication with their Governments and the
outside world, have been subjected to weeks of
58 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
attack by volunteer, soldier, and incendiary,
and have lost many of their members from
Minister Plenipotentiary down to Student Inter-
preter; foreign buildings and their contents,
Legations, private establishments, churches,
etc., have been wantonly destroyed by fire, etc.,
etc., etc. For all these reparation must be
made and compensation obtained, and their
recurrence, as far as practical foresight permits,
prevented : but these questions bristle with
difficulties, and it remains to be seen whether
they will be treated in a drastic and thorough-
going fashion or pushed out of sight and
smoothed over. Some think that if the dynasty
is permitted to continue to exist, such of the
leading personages of the Imperial family as
were more closely connected with all that was
most objectionable in these lawless and anti-
foreign doings ought personally to suffer, and
that partly to meet certain native that is
Chinese, not Manchoo wishes, and also save
Legations from ever again being thus isolated
and thus insulted, the capital of the future
ought to be Nanking and not Peking. The
old proverb says "too many cooks spoil the
broth : " let us hope that the settlement of this
momentous international question will not suffer
from the number of Powers that must have a
say in it or from the number of considerations
negotiators must face !
THE PEKING LEGATIONS 59
What has happened has been the logical
effect of previous doings. Europe has not been
ungenerous in her treatment of China, but, even
so, has wounded her : a more tactful, reason-
able, and consistent course might possibly have
produced better results, but in no case could
foreigners expect to maintain for ever their
extra-territorialized status and the various com-
mercial stipulations China had conceded to
force. As to the future, it must be confessed
that Chinese, so far, have not shone as soldiers :
but there are brave men among them and their
number will increase ; if the China of to-day
did not hesitate on the 19th June to throw
down the glove to a dozen Treaty Powers, is
the China of a hundred years hence less likely
to do so ? Of course common sense may keep
China from initiating an aggressive policy and
from going to extremes ; but foreign dictation
must some day cease and foreigners some day
go, and the episode now called attention to is
to-day's hint to the future. Meanwhile the
once crowded Peking is a desert, and the first
few days of foreign occupation have seen much
that need not have occurred and will certainly
be regretted.
PEKING, August, 1900.
II
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE
MANY regard China as a far-distant land, with
an immense population, but so wanting in all
that others possess as to be ready to purchase,
in unlimited quantities, whatever is offered for
sale ; whereas, what is true is this : China needs
neither import nor export, and can do without
foreign intercourse. A fertile soil, producing
every kind of food, a climate which favours
every variety of fruit, and a population which
for tens of centuries has put agriculture, the
productive industry which feeds and clothes,
above all other occupations China has all this
and more; and foreign traders can only hope
to dispose of their merchandise there in pro-
portion to the new tastes they introduce, the
new wants they create, and the care they take
to supply what the demand really means.
The sanguine expectations which were ex-
pressed when treaties first regulated inter-
course, a cycle back, have never been realized.
Trade, it is true, has grown, and the revenue
derived from it has multiplied ; but as yet it
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 61
is far, far from what our predecessors looked
for ; and the reason is not that the Chinese
Government actively opposed foreign commerce,
but that the Chinese people did not require it.
Chinese have the best food in the world, rice ;
the best drink, tea; and the best clothing,
cotton, silk, and fur. Possessing these staples,
and their innumerable native adjuncts, they do
not need to buy a penny's worth elsewhere ;
while their Empire is in itself so great, and they
themselves so numerous, that sales to each other
make up an enormous and sufficient trade, and
export to foreign countries is unnecessary.
This explains why sixty years of treaty trade
have failed to reach the point the first treaty
framers prophesied for it.
Nevertheless, trade has grown, has gone on
growing, and will continue to grow. Production
has mostly a surplus to dispose of exchange of
products does modify tastes and create wants
and the profits of various transactions encourage
traders to try new ventures and extend opera-
tions. Thus, an important and increasing
international commerce has been founded and
fostered, and the business done last year (1899)
showed such a marked increase in quantities,
values, and duties, that every one was looking
forward to future expansion as a certainty, on a
large scale. The first quarter of the present
year (1900) exhibited further growth, and the
62 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
revenue was some twenty-five per cent, better
than that of the corresponding quarter in 1899.
Unfortunately, the Boxer movement stepped in
to upset calculations ; and, although local trade
has continued south of the Yangtsze Eiver, the
northern ports have done little or nothing since
June, and may be long in regaining the promising
condition they had attained previously. Whether
the present disturbances will run through all the
Provinces, and be followed by years of anarchy
and more or less complete cessation of trade, or
the northern half of the Empire alone is to
suffer, cannot to-day be foreseen ; but in the
north great harm has already been done, and
recovery will be slow. Besides, the Manchurian 4
Provinces may cease to be Chinese, and the '
commerce and wonderful growth of New-chwang
during the last two or three years, and its pro-
mise of future expansion, may not only cease
but disappear at all events, as far as China and
old channels are concerned.
Foreign trade is, in fact, at the close of an
old chapter and is commencing a new one, and
a serious question here meets the looker-on.
Will possible changes for the better on the
foreign side make up for probable changes for
the worse on the native ? Will any improve-
ment in treaties, in mercantile methods, and
in commercial regulations make up for loss of
customers and for decrease in the producing
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 63
and consuming power of the Chinese ? That
this year's doings will long affect trade pre-
judicially may be taken for granted ; and that
the evil effects may continue to work harmfully
for years to come is almost as certain. The
whole matter bristles with difficulties when
fairly, fully, and calmly considered, and the Far
Eastern trouble will be felt in many a quarter
that does not yet realize how intimately economic
conditions connect man and man. The siege
of the Peking Legations will long be laid to
China's charge as a monstrous crime, even
although it was preceded by the seizure of the
Taku forts without any declaration of war ;
but, whether the joint action of the treaty
Powers may not do more than vindicate the
majesty of international law may not, in fact,
kill commerce can only be known when nego-
tiations are allowed to be begun, and the
ensuing stipulations have laid down the lines
for future intercourse.
Chinese may be said to be born traders ; but
they did not originally require to go outside
the bounds of their own ring-fence to engage
in business. The outlying parts and depen-
dencies need not be referred to, seeing that
the eighteen Provinces of China proper each
of them as large as and many of them more
populous than most European states afford
room enough for every kind of operation and
64 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
transaction. Government taxation has always
and everywhere been of the lightest possible
kind, and what are called "squeezes" have
been either legitimate collections other than
the dues and duties foreign trade tariffs pub-
lished, or such variable amounts as traders have
compounded for between their own offer and
the sum the collector would consent to accept
below the rate fixed by the tariff concerned.
Very wealthy individuals have, from time to
time, been called on for special and occasionally
large contributions during periods of provincial
or national difficulty. But, on the whole, trade
has not been charged beyond what it could
afford to pay. When a tax looks like becoming
too heavy, traders simply close their establish-
ments as a protest, and the local officials soon
remedy the matter ; and it is curious to see
how, in this weakest and yet toughest of
Empires, age and experience have worked out
what may be styled automatic action to keep
the huge machine in order. It must be re-
membered that each Province is a little king-
dom in itself, and has its own budget, while
Government interferes as little as possible, and
whatever the people can do for themselves the
Government avoids doing for them. Our golden
rule says, " Do unto others," and hence so much
that is intolerant in philanthropy and fussy in
benevolence; while the Chinese corresponding
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 65
diet says, " Do not," and the result is a national
avoidance of interference and widespread toler-
ance, each side, of course, falling more or less
into a pitfall when it does too much or too little.
Trade has thus been free to follow requirement ;
demand and supply have obeyed their natural
laws ; hamlet has traded with hamlet, town
with country, and province with province ; the
coast has been crowded with junks, the rivers
and canals with boats, and the roads with carts,
pack animals, and porters. And this has gone
on in much the same way for thirty centuries.
When the foreigner appeared, changes began ;
and, although change has as yet only touched
the fringe of the Empire, its effect has been
felt in various ways inland. At first, the foreign
merchant was in China on sufferance, and had
to abide by local practice and accept local rule.
Then came the opium and " Arrow " wars, and
the reigns of the Emperors Tao Kwang and -.
v Heen Fang saw added to the original laws and
tariffs of the Empire the tariffs and regulations
of foreign trade, and the stipulations of treaties.
To any foreigner who reads either treaty or
tariff, there is not on the surface anything to
object to, and nobody would pronounce either
one or the other calculated to hurt or irritate ;
and yet the other side the Chinese has always
been of another way of thinking. The most
striking among the treaty clauses are those
66 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
which, under the heading " Extra-territoriality,"
withdraw foreigners from Chinese control and
place them under their own national officials
in China ; and, under the heading of " The Most
Favoured Nation," provide that whatever is
accorded to new-comers will be enjoyed by their
predecessors. The "Extra-territoriality " stipu-
lation may have relieved the native official of
some troublesome duties, but it has always been
felt to be offensive and humiliating, and has
ever a disintegrating effect, leading the people
on one hand to despise their own Government
and officials, and on the other to envy and dis-
like the foreigner withdrawn from native control.
The "Most Favoured Nation" clause has always
stood in the way of change, and prevented the
Chinese Government from securing and conced-
ing various ameliorations in exchange for special
advantages, seeing that, although new negotia-
tors might be willing to give a quid pro qiw,
their predecessors would claim the advantage
but reject and refuse to be bound by the con-)
ditions. There is also a "Missionary" clause
for the protection of missionaries and converts,
but in this paper on Trade it need not be
discussed.
The five per cent, tariff may be pronounced
unobjectionable and suitable; but it is supple-
mented by a special rule which allows goods to
be carried from or to a port to or from any
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 67
inland place, however distant, on payment of
a transit due of two and one-half per cent.
The foreigner wishes to read this rule as ex-
empting his goods, if imports, from all subse-
quent, and if exports, from all anterior taxation ;
while the Chinese official maintains that it
merely protects a transit between port and place.
This is already a sufficient cause for disputes
and ill-feeling ; but the real hardship caused by
this incomplete stipulation lies deeper. In the
first place, it takes no account of the immense
size of the Empire or the Provinces to be passed
through, or of the fact that each Province is
a little kingdom in itself, manages its own
taxation and finances, and is caused serious
embarrassment by a stipulation which neither
recognizes its circumstances and requirements,
nor was made a subject of provincial discussion
and arrangement in advance. It is not quite
an adequate reply to this complaint to say that
the Central Government, having entered into
an international engagement for the whole,
ought to have thereon proceeded to rearrange
the parts. In the second place, while the
stipulation was only intended for application to
foreign traders and foreign trade proper, it soon
became the practice of unscrupulous persons,
foreign and native, to take advantage of it
the latter to escape provincial taxation, and the
former to create a new source of gain out of fees
68 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
received for passing Chinese property as belong-
ing to foreigners.
It has thus come to pass that Chinese officials
have felt themselves belittled and inconvenienced
by treaty and tariff, and foreign trade and foreign
intercourse have consequently never been re-
garded by them with a sympathetic eye. Some
one once remarked to the great Wen Hsiang,
Chinese Prime Minister, so to speak, during the
minority of the Emperor Tung Chih, that surely
the increasing revenue derived from foreign
trade must make its growth agreeable to the
Chinese Government. "Agreeable!" retorted
Wen Hsiang. " Quite the contrary ! Every
sign of growth means another provincial diffi-
culty ; and, instead of delighting in the increase
of foreign trade revenue, we would willingly tax
ourselves equivalently and pay over the amount
to foreigners to keep them out of the country ! "
Doubtless, there was some exaggeration in this ;
but it fairly expressed the real feeling of the
official mind in this connection, and We~n
Hsiang was one of the ablest, fairest, friendliest,
and most intelligent Mandarins ever met by
foreigners. Prince Kung, as is well known,
said to the British Minister, about the same
time, " Take away your opium and your mis-
sionaries, and you will be welcome ! " During
the negotiation of the never-ratified Alcock
Convention in 1868, the same Wen Hsiang one
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 69
day said, "Do away with your Extra-territori-
ality clause, and merchant and missionary may
settle anywhere and everywhere ; but retain it,
and we must do our best to confine you and
our trouble to the treaty ports ! "
These sayings of two of China's most eminent
men have a weighty meaning. China's treaties
are said, and may seem to the foreigners con-
cerned, to have been negotiated. But, in point
of fact, they were, in the first instance, drafted
by the foreign negotiator, and if not dictated,
were so hurriedly drawn up and concluded that
they ignored, or rather did not take the trouble
to ascertain, the provincial circumstances there-
with connected. So that, fair and suitable as
they may appear to the foreigner, they were and
are, in some of their more important practical
points, condemned by Chinese as both damaging
and unworkable; and thus, although ratified
and sanctioned by Imperial Decree, they have
neither been popular nor an unqualified success.
When later and perhaps less dictatorial nego-
tiators subsequently came to China, begging for
treaties, China acceded. But such new nego-
tiations, on the Chinese side, did not aim at
correcting former mistakes except on one
occasion, when the foreigner allowed a " Most
Favoured Nation" clause to be so worded as
to make enjoyment of an advantage entail
acceptance of the conditions of its original
70 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
grant, and at the same time withdrew one or
two other demands, when the Chinese negotiator
said he would assent to them provided Chinese
in the country concerned were similarly treated.
They simply tried to keep out everything new ;
to give the new-comer only what some pre-
decessors had previously extorted, and so to
keep the evil of foreign intercourse at a point
already understood, instead of injudiciously
expanding it further. Thus initial obstacles
have been perpetuated, and with the exception j
of the Alcock Convention no negotiation, to
the Chinese mind, has held the balance fairly.
The non-ratification of that convention was j
damaging, for it had been negotiated leisurely
and in a sympathetic and friendly spirit, and
Chinese officials regarded its rejection as equiva-
lent to saying that their interests must always
give way before what the foreigner thought to \
be his.
Later treaties, too, have had one other
unwholesome effect. The foreign negotiator
generally presented himself in. a more or less
beseeching attitude, and China assented gene-
rously, as she thought to his prayers for treaty
relations. But ratifications once exchanged,
what China had granted as treaty advantages
forthwith became, in the hands of the other
party, treaty "rights," and woe betide China
if she failed to live up to her new duty ! It
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 71
is, of course, not unnatural for those who have
to administer a treaty already made to interpret
it literally ; but, all the same, Chinese officials
have felt mortified and " sold," and treaty rela-
tions have sunk in their estimation. It is not
altogether inexplicable, then, that foreign inter-
course has been seen on its darker side by the
Chinese, or that foreign trade has continued to
be regarded as at the best only something to*
be tolerated but not encouraged. Both inter-
course and trade would benefit China, but for
the first to be welcome it must be sympathetic,
and for the second to be encouraged it must be-
so shaped as not to pinch.
Apart from its being a thorn in the side of
the provincial administrations, owing to various
difficulties originating in transit abuses, the
advent of the foreigner has also been a death-
blow to old and long recognized vested interests,
and notably to China's own shipping trade and
junk owners. The coasting trade which fleets
of junks carried on fifty years ago has almost
been destroyed between New-chwang and the
southern ports, and much of the southern trade
has likewise passed from native to foreign
bottoms ; while on the Yangtsze, an inland
water, an ever-increasing home trade is attract-
ing more and more foreign-flag steamers. Such
change is not all bad ; freights are lighter,
goods are safer, passages are quicker, insurance
72
is possible, and regularity has developed trade
and increased passenger traffic. But the un-
travelled Chinese, who at first smarted under
loss of business, has now travelled, and he asks,
Does any other country in the world allow
foreign flags to participate in its coasting trade ?
Does any other throw open its inland waters
to outsiders, and those, too, outsiders who are
not merely enjoying special commercial ad-
vantages, but are also by treaty extra-terri-
torialized ? So that such change is not all
good. The native capitalist of former days is
a beggar now, and the crowds of junkmen he
employed are as angry with their Government
for permitting the foreigner to step in and seize
such local trade as with the foreigner himself
for doing so.
In all such cases, the transition period is a
bitter one. Many suffer, and much bad blood
is engendered ; but time, that wonderful restora-
tive, brings its remedy, and much Chinese
capital is now invested in steamers. The China-
man is taking many a leaf from the foreign
interloper, and the day will yet come when
China's coast trade and river traffic will all be
done by vessels under the Chinese flag. Doubt-
less, the same kind of experience, and the
angry feeling with which any man sees an-
other interfere and take the bread out of his
mouth, have also had something to do with the
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 73
readiness with which railway lines have been
destroyed and trains wrecked during the Boxer
troubles, and perhaps, too, even with some of
the difficulties foreign enterprise stumbles
against inland. Whether the superior strength
of even a more civilized nation can be legiti-
mately employed to dictate, or even to obtain
international concessions of a kind which, on
the one hand, create difficulties for an internal
administration, and, on the other, displace
native methods and substitute foreign enter-
prise, need not be discussed. But it is an
unquestionable fact that native populations will
always feel sore when ousted from business by
privileged foreigners, and that in China grants
of advantages which are made at the expense
of and without consideration for or the consent
of the nation's component parts the Pro-
vinces will cause ill-will and end in failure.
A notable instance of this latter kind is the
concession which opened all inland waters
recently to steam navigation. Not only were
the Provinces neither consulted nor taken into
consideration, but the concession became known
to the public, and was even formulated, before
negotiation had had its final say in the matter.
The Chinese ministers were proceeding on the
assumption that the waters would be opened to
steam in accordance with either existing native
craft rules or new regulations yet to be drawn
74 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
up ; and it was so far a conditional concession.
But, unfortunately, the first form it appeared
under in public was absolute, and the inland
waters were spoken of as if opened to steam
without regulations ! The result has been what
might be expected. The experiment is a failure
in the eyes of the world, precisely to the extent
to which it has been attempted to subordinate
it to necessary rule, and bend it to meet exist-
ing local conditions ; and it has irritated every-
body native merchant and foreign merchant,
foreign official and native official. Some will
question the wisdom of accepting such a con-
cession at all a concession proposing to open
inland waters to foreign vessels, considering tha
difficulties and disputes it must inevitably give
rise to in connection with both its trading and
its magisterial sides ; for occurrences will as-
suredly furnish inland cases of many kinds for
foreign courts to deal with, while inland trading
competition, however much it may tend eventu-
ally to improve inland trading methods, must
certainly disturb inland traffic and hurt inland
traders. But, in any case, such a concession
ought to be well threshed out, so as to secure
the maximum of benefit with a minimum of
damage ; and not only ought each Province
to be separately consulted and separately legis-
lated for, but regulations ought to be adopted
of a kind that shall accord with provincial
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 75
circumstances and requirements, and prevent
the concession from being so used as to create
internal difficulties, or be injurious to the
interests of the native inland traders. The
original idea was simply to allow steamers to do
in inland waters what junks do. But, while it
is a question whether steam traffic could thrive
or pay under junk regulations, it is also worth
consideration whether they should be not only
extra-territorialized inland, but also be so
privileged as to hurt native interests and oust
boat-owners and native traders.
What foreign merchants can to-day do in
China may, without going into details, or
loading this paper with statistics, be thus
described : They may import foreign goods
into China, and export native products from
China, through any one of some thirty treaty
ports, on payment of a tariff duty amounting
to what was five per cent, on the values of
1860 ; and they may take foreign goods to, and
bring native products from, any place inland,
on payment of an additional half tariff duty, as
Transit Due. They may also convey Chinese
produce from treaty port to treaty port, paying
a full export duty on shipment and a half duty
on landing. At the treaty ports where they
reside, they are freed from all local taxation,
and they may bring in whatever they require
for their own personal and household use, duty
76 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
free. Everywhere they are withdrawn from
Chinese control, and placed under that of their
own national officials, the consuls ; but mer-
chandise can be moved only in accordance with
Chinese customs regulations, and ships must
anchor in accordance with harbour rules and
the directions of the Chinese harbour-masters.
Merchants may trade with and employ whatever
persons they please, and their movements are
free and unrestricted. Such, in a few words,
is the foreign merchant's position in China.
Treaty-makers secured for him all he asked for,
and the Chinese Government assented to it.
It is not desirable that he should live every-
where, seeing that he is withdrawn from Chinese
jurisdiction ; but in the case of missionaries, this '
prohibition is not enforced, although the right
is open to question, as being found only in the
Chinese text, and not in the corresponding
foreign text of a treaty which says that the
foreign text rules wherever opinion differs as to
interpretation. The merchant's transit rights,
which practically open to him or his agent every
market in the interior, have the drawbacks
already alluded to drawbacks which originated
in either ignorance of or inattention to local
requirements, in defective legislation and in
abuse of the treaty privilege. Otherwise, the
foreign merchant's status and freedom leave
nothing to be desired, except from the Chinese
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 77
point of view, which thinks them too privileged.
As to the merchandise he may deal in, the only
article a foreigner may not touch is salt ; and
he must take out special permits and comply
with special conditions if he trades in munitions
of war ; and he does trade in them, and finds it
profitable ; and he is not allowed to export
native rice from China. He is thus free to
import whatever he thinks he can find a market
for, except salt, and to export whatever he can
find in the country for sale except rice. Weekly
mails carry his correspondence -to all parts of
the globe, telegraph lines connect him with
Chinese places inland, and cables with the rest
of the world ; local banks supply all banking
facilities ; post-offices compete for the honour
and profit of carrying his mails ; newspapers are
at hand to ventilate questions of all kinds and
advertise his wares and ships ; schools are
springing up for the education of the children
that cannot be sent home, and there are
churches and chapels for all denominations of
worshippers, lawyers and courts for all sorts of
litigation, and doctors and hospitals for all who
are ailing. He has his own docks for repairing
and building ships, mills for weaving cloth, and
manufactories of various kinds. He has also
lately been building railroads, and syndicates
have been formed to build more, as well as
to work mines and start other industries in the
78 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SIMM"
interior. The Boxer doings have, however,
interfered with these later developments, and
have led thinking people to wonder whether
the exploitation of China inland is the safest
of paying investments for capital.
Such being the condition and methods of
Chinese commerce at this date, as far as foreign
trade is concerned, all who are interested in it
will naturally ask what can be done to extend
and expand it in the future, and make it at
once more profitable to foreigners and more
acceptable to natives, whether traders or
officials. This task was being taken in hand
when the Boxer movement was growing; but
although not abandoned, it is postponed, one
might almost say, indefinitely. In the autumn
of 1899 a special commission was appointed by
Edict to consider the subject of tariff revision
and questions therewith connected, and its
members hoped to make it the commencement
of a new era of profitable and acceptable com-
mercial relations. These were Sheng Hsuen
Huai (a titular metropolitan official, who is
Director-General of Telegraphs and Bailroads,
and Manager of the China Merchants' Steam
Navigation Company), Nieh Chi Kuei (Provin-
cial Treasurer and Acting Official of the Province
of Kiang-su), and Sir Robert Hart (Inspector-
General of Customs and Posts). After several
meetings they separated in May last, to resume
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 79
their sittings again in October. But the Boxers
reached Peking a few days afterwards, and
governmental chaos has upset all plans. The
commission would probably have elaborated
various proposals for the consideration of the
Chinese Government and the treaty powers in
the interest of trade. Meantime, it may not
be without its advantages to put forward some
of the views then discussed, and some of the
points which the experience of the past shows
to be worth reconsideration.
The Extra-territoriality and Most Favoured
Nation clauses will, of course, be retained,
whether old treaties are revived or new ones
negotiated after the present disorder ends. But
to the latter it would be fair, and in the general
interest, too, to add a rider to the effect that
whatever power claims to participate in any
advantage newly accorded to another power
by China will, on the other hand, accept and
be bound by the conditions on which such
advantages are granted.
The Tariff requires revision, for since 1860
all values have altered, and many new com-
modities have appeared. Whether it is to
remain a five per cent, tariff or be made ten
per cent, is a point for negotiators to deal with.
The commission consulted the provincial officials
in this connection, and purposed to propose a
ten per cent, import duty, plus a five per cent.
So "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINJAf"
transit due, payable simultaneously, coupled
with the total abolition of all other taxes on
such imports for ever after and everywhere, and
the Government was to arrange for the equitable
division of the amount so realized between the
central and the provincial treasuries. As for
exports, it was under consideration to retain the
five per cent, rate, but do away with the right
to bring produce from the interior under transit
passes, coupled with an undertaking to refund
to the exporter, at the time of export to a
foreign country, whatever amounts he had paid
on such produce over and above a half tariff
rate between the place of purchase and the port
of export. Some such arrangement would
satisfy the provincial officials, would efface
hostility to the spread of foreign trade, and
would also at once do away with the mal-
practices and abuses connected with the present
unpopular transit system.
The most important point of all, however,
is that which is connected with negotiation.
Negotiation concerning commercial matters
ought not to be in any degree of the nature of
dictation, and it ought to proceed slowly and
cautiously, and not only with a perfect know-'
ledge of facts and circumstances, but with a
full and friendly consideration for the other
party's views and necessities ; and in no country
is this more necessary than in China, an Empire
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 8r
composed of a score of grand Provinces, each
a kingdom in itself, with its own budget and
its own system of taxation. What is good and
suitable elsewhere is not necessarily so in China,
and a negotiator there, to do any matter justice
and formulate a workable and useful rule, must
put himself in the other's place, and see with
the other's eyes. Such procedure, in addition
to being what justice and common sense demand,
would have the additional recommendation and
advantage of winning the native negotiator's
sympathy, and enlisting the Chinese Govern-
ment's support, and so would secure honest
effect for the rules agreed on.
But let negotiators be as painstaking as you
please, they and their Government only lay the
rails, so to speak, and the merchant himself
must provide the trains and find the passengers.
Individual study, individual exertion, individual
tact and initiative are the necessary conditions
of success in any individual commercial career,
and in the thence growing general expansion
of commerce. Governments do the best they
can, according to their lights and requirements,
to provide openings and afford protection ; but
the real work of founding a house, building up
a business, extending connections and making
it pay, must be done by the merchant himself.
Whoever looks Chinawards must also remember
that the country has its own civilization, and
G
82 " THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
has been perfectly settled for tens of centuries ;
that it has an immense trade of its own, hy the
side of which foreign commerce is so far a mere
bagatelle; that although foreign commerce is
growing and will go on growing, the tendency
is for it to pass more and more into Chinese
hands in China (as I write a case of California
claret has just been brought in, which, the label
tells me, was imported and bottled by a Chinese
storekeeper in Shanghai) ; that competition is
great, and individual profits small; that taste
for novelty is to be cultivated, wants created
and customers' wishes consulted; and that,
although with a population of four hundred
millions there would seem to be no bounds to
the possible demand of consumers, the Chinese
are quite able to dispense with foreign com-
merce and supply all they require for their own
consumption.
As for those who wish to improve communi-
cations, build railroads, open mines, and start
various industries, they too should remember
that their eagerness to supply does not necessarily
mean a corresponding demand, and that whatever
they do take in hand can only be a success
provided native sentiment and prejudices are
studied and shown consideration for. The
syndicates which handle concessions owe it to
their shareholders to see that their title is not
only legally indisputable, but locally acceptable ;
CHINA AND HER FOREIGN TRADE 83
otherwise, failure must be, and dividends need
not be, looked for. The motto of the Chinese
trader is to live and let live, and his trading
strength lies mainly in combination, an in-
herited science of business organization, safe for
its members and not harmful to their clients ;
and he is quite a match for the foreigner whose
aim is to cut the ground from under his neigh-
bour's feet, and whose commercial gospel is that
competition is the life of trade.
PEKING, September, 1900.
Ill
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION
THE Legations have been relieved and the siege
is over; the frightened Court has deserted the
capital and is fleeing farther inland is China
to be partitioned, or is a new dynasty to be
placed on the throne, or are the Manchoos to
continue in power? Has anybody a policy, or
are all still waiting on events ?
So far the Chinese have fought nowhere
successfully ; they did not even take the
Legations, but still they have shown the world
that they appreciate and are acquiring the best
weapons ; they are evidently learning the use
of both rifle and gun ; they are improving their
military method, and the idea of strategy,
though still in embryo, is taking shape and
hardening ; and they are henceforth more likely
to go on developing might, for want is a teacher,
than return to their old and time-lionoured
belief in reasonable action and right. Their
midsummer madness is spending itself, and
they are learning something from the views
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 85
and doings of the nations they defied : can the
new growth be trained on such a trellis-work as
to secure fair play and produce healthy fruit,
or will it only end in the stunted product of
the Chinese gardener?
From Taku to Peking the foreigner has
marched triumphantly; there have only been
a few fights and every foot of ground has not
had to be contested, but yet every hamlet, or
village, or town along the way has the mark
of the avenger on it : populations have dis-
appeared, houses and buildings have been
burned and destroyed, and crops are rotting all
over the country in the absence of reapers.
Bemembering how these places teemed with
happy, contented, industrious people last spring,
it is hard to realize that autumn does not find
them there they have all vanished, and that
along the hundred and twenty miles between
beach and capital scarcely a sign of life is to
be seen, and one cannot help sorrowing over
the necessity or the fatality which brought
about such woe and desolation. Much of the
destruction was doubtless the work of Chinese
soldiers and Boxer volunteers, but, according
to all accounts, what they left we gleaned,
and, if report speaks true, little mercy was felt,
and less displayed, by some at least wherever
living Chinese of any age or either sex happened
to be fallen in with. The days of Taepingdom,
86 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
when native warred with native, showed nothing
worse, and the warriors of this new century can
be as brutal, with all their wonderful discipline
and up-to-date weapons, as were ever the savages
of earlier times with tomahawk, boomerang, or
assegai, and the puzzle is to explain why it
should have been so, or forecast the consequences
in the future will brand and sword have pro-
duced that wholesome fear which must blossom
into peace and goodwill, or only a gruesome
terror to be replaced by nothing but hate and
a lust for vengeance ?
The Peking foreign community were fortu-
nately saved from massacre, and the weird
accounts of their sufferings and the modes of
their individual deaths were happily the offspring
of fancy and not recitals of fact ; but, all the
same, if the gallant D'Arcy and his little band
of French heroes had not inch by inch and hour
after hour during those eight hopeless weeks
contested the ground and held on to the western
third of their Legation to the very last if the
resourceful Sheba and his cheery handful of
Japanese had failed to retain possession of the
Soo Wang's palace and garden if the Germans,
Americans, and Eussians had been driven from
their own into the British Legation if the
allied forces had arrived on the fifteenth and
not on the fourteenth, not one of the refugees
would have escaped to tell the story of the
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 87
catastrophe, and worse endings than imagina-
tion pictured might have been theirs. That the
siege was acquiesced in by the Chinese Govern-
ment can scarcely be questioned ; but they
thought it was fair war they were waging and
not murder they were committing, and from the
fact that firing ceased occasionally perhaps
only to play with the besieged as cats do with
mice it also seems certain that the Government
could have put an end to it completely at any
moment if it so desired ; and, such being the
case, it must be allowed the relief force was
right to strain every nerve right to strike terror
along the route, while pressing forward to the
rescue, nor is it unnatural to expect that fitting
punishment would be meted out, once arrived,
alike to officials who more or less took active
part in the lawless proceeding and to a popu-
lation that moved not a finger to prevent it.
And yet looking back on it all, and granting
tLat fires and plunderings in the capital were
mainly the work of soldiers and Boxers, it does
seem a pity that the splendid warriors of Chris-
tian powers should have made things worse :
could not discipline and fine feeling have put
an earlier check on the men and placed revenge
on a higher plane ? What with commandeering
here, looting there, carrying off of souvenirs
elsewhere, and brutal assaults on the poor
women who had not been able to leave the city
88 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
with the other fugitives, private property in
temporarily deserted houses disappeared, and
the comparatively small number of Chinese wio
remained drank to the dregs the cup of a new
misery. The haste with which expeditionary
forces had heen assembled, the difficulties of
transport and provisioning, and the cessation of
all local trading, must of course be regarded
as excuses for the licence with which men of
all classes were laid hold of to work, and edibles
of all kinds taken possession of wherever found ;
but all this seemed to argue a want or neglect
of organization that surprised, and suggested
how easily a retrogression to barbarism might
spring up like a weed among the flowers of
civilization. Strangely enough, the quarter of
the city governed by the Japanese was speedily
seen to be the best administered: more lucky
than others in knowing beforehand in what
government buildings and public establishments
official moneys were deposited, it may be a fact
that they secured more sycee than all the others
put together, but they kept their hands off the
people, and their discipline, regulations, and
method were such that they new to the
humane civilization of which the others were
the creators and children very soon inspired
confidence, re-established order, re-opened mar-
kets, and made life liveable, while some of their
colleagues allowed a state of affairs to spring
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 89
up and continue which was quite the reverse :
why this superiority on the one side and this
inferiority even if only temporary on the
other? The men of one flag showed their
detestation of the most ancient of civilizations
by the wanton destruction of whatever they
could not carry off ; those of another preached
the gospel of cleanliness by shooting down
anybody who committed a nuisance in public ;
while those of a third spread their ideas on the
sanctity of family life by breaking into private
houses and ravishing the women and girls they
found there : so said gossip. Captured cities
must suffer and the populations of wrong-doing
cities must pay the penalty of wrong-doing, but
there are ways and ways of exacting reparation
and teaching lessons for the future was this the
best ? Perhaps and, it may be, not unnaturally
the conquering army may have regarded a
conquered and almost deserted city as already
formally confiscated and consequently legally
delivered over to pillage, and their fellow-
countrymen, who had been burnt out and lost
all but what they stood in, may have been
thought to have suffered enough to justify any
reprisals ; but, even so, the demoralizing effect
always and everywhere produced on all classes
by wholesale looting and its accompanying
licence might have seemed a sufficient reason
in itself for discountenancing and stopping it
90 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
and its attendant evils at the outset : such,
however, can hardly be said to have been the
case, and even some missionaries took such a
leading part in " spoiling the Egyptians " for
the greater glory of God that a bystander was
heard to say, " For a century to come Chinese
converts will consider looting and vengeance
Christian virtues ! "
Crowded together in a confined and limited
space during the hot summer season, and con-
stantly exposed to the deadly risk of whistling
bullet and screeching shell, the refugees in the
British Legation were sufficiently well fed, and
enjoyed sufficiently good health during the eight
weeks the siege lasted, to astonish their de-
liverers by their still excellent condition when
first seen on the 14th August ; but the uncer-
tainty of what any hour might bring forth and
more especially the certainly horrible fate from
which no efforts of theirs could for ever save
the women and children, and the feeling that
friends at home were in imagination suffering
a thousandfold more than themselves was the
chief and ever-present element in their trial,
so that, when once delivered, the strain most
had thus gone through, and the hard work and
exposure involved in the duties undertaken
alongside the Legation guard by the younger
men, began to show their effects in breakdowns
that told of shattered health and need of change.
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 91
As for the relieving troops, once the excitement
of arrival had passed over, they hegan to wonder
what they had come or what they stayed to do,
and this quietude after the exertions of the
previous weeks in turn became hard to bear.
Meantime commanding officers took up various
positions in the city, and the sentries of the
various flags kept watch in their respective
sections ; on the other hand, Ministers, long
debarred from communication with the outer
world, despatched their detailed reports and
awaited the instructions of their Governments.
Nobody seemed to know what the next move
was to be, or how the weighty questions in-
volved were to be settled. There was no one to
treat with Emperor and Court had fled and
had there been any such, what language ought
negotiation to hold ?
On the Chinese side, however, the situation
and its difficulties gradually induced a few lead-
ing men who had remained behind to venture
forth from their seclusion : these were the Grand
Secretary Kun Chung-Tang, Ching-Hsin the
President of the Board of War, and two Vice-
Presidents of other Boards Yu-Teh and A-Ko-
Tan, and on Sir Eobert Hart's suggestion they
proceeded to search for, find, communicate with,
and bring back Prince Ching, one of the Imperial
family who for fifteen years or so had been the
head of the Chinese Foreign Office, and who
92 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
had been credited with more or less friendly
intentions during the siege and with a sort of
intervention which had possibly delayed and so
prevented massacre. Early in September the
Prince reappeared in Peking, but, as the pre-
viously formally appointed negotiator Li Hung
Chang had to be waited for, nothing could be
done towards opening negotiations beyond
paying a short and friendly visit to each of the
foreign representatives. What must have been
his feelings, poor Prince, as his sedan-bearers
carried him through the well-known but now
deserted and scarcely recognizable streets, while
his Japanese guard marched alongside, and the
sentries of Italy, Russia, France, Germany,
America, England, and Austria stared at him as
he passed ! Some points, however, were sub-
mitted for the consideration of the generals
as really requiring immediate attention, such
as the better policing of the various sections,
the repression of pillage, and the procuring of
provisions, etc., but not with any immediate or
perceptible result. Such high officials belonging
to the Metropolitan Boards as had not fled with
the Court were in constant consultation with
the Prince, endeavouring to find some way of
escape from the chaotic condition into which
the capital had been plunged when the foreign
troops entered and its Emperor abandoned it :
they knew, although it was difficult to realize,
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 93
that Peking was no longer under Chinese control,
and that Chinese officials could not claim autho-
rity or exercise any jurisdiction in it, but they
also knew its condition, and, anxious for the
welfare of such of the population as remained,
and for the future of the Empire, they, with
the Prince and in the interest of the people,
besought immediate consideration for police and
food requirements, and they were unceasing in
their effort to devise some means to effect a
settlement of the unhappy complication as
speedily as possible. None of them, however,
realized how grievously they had offended the
rest of the world by the murders of missionaries
and converts and by the attacks on the Lega-
tions, and just as little did they realize to what
an extent such insane proceedings had imperilled
both Empire and Dynasty. Chinese history does
not date from yesterday, and their thirty or forty
centuries of national and racial continuity have
seen them fall into and have also seen them
emerge from quite as serious predicaments,
but, even so, while they took things philoso-
phically, their tempers unruffled, their politeness
unfailing, and their patience inexhaustible, they
did feel the sting of the situation, and they did
make an earnest and honest attempt to find a
way to alleviate the sufferings of their fellow-
citizens. The result, however, never did amount
to much, and was slow in coming, and in fact
94 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
these representative men were rather misunder-
stood than taken seriously : under the circum-
stances what right had any Chinaman to
complain, and was it not even insolence to take
advantage of former official position to pose now
as the people's mouthpiece ?
The situation from the very first was one
continuous illustration of the initial difficulties
which reconstruction must encounter: neither
side could place itself in the other's position,
and the half truth which is all that being reason-
able from one's own point of view amounts to,
does not necessarily dovetail with what another
puts faith in from another standpoint. How
will China and non-China ever come to a satis-
factory agreement unless they attain first of all
to a mutual understanding of each other ?
China is for the moment in the angry grip
of the foe, and that grip must be exchanged
for the hearty grasp of a friend before external
relations can again run in peaceful channels and
internal affairs resume their ordinary character :
the inter-dependence of the external and the
internal must be recognized and allowed for if
there is to be such a process of reconstruction
as shall safeguard the future, and thus the task
of the foreign negotiator and the native states-
man becomes one of that kind of which it is
hard to say which is the more serious, the
responsibility or the difficulty. But, one way
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 95
or another, a solution will be found and the
question closed.
On the Chinese side there is such uncertainty,
rather than ignorance, concerning the aims and
demands of the foreign powers, collectively and
individually, that even those who are in favour
of intercourse are unable to decide whether
peace might not prove more costly than war ;
and on the foreign side the feeling that while
certain magnates are culprits and ought to be
punished, to demand their punishment may
not only fail to obtain it, but may widen the
area of trouble, and, indefinitely postponing
peace, lead to anarchy and chaos, and the
further idea that a claim for even just but
perhaps too heavy indemnities may necessitate
territorial guarantees likely to conflict with
their declared policy of the "open door" and
" integrity of China," combine to delay negotia-
tions and even threaten to emasculate such
drastic stipulations as the occasion demands.
The preservation of China's integrity has been
the subject of official declarations and, with
certain reservations, official agreements, but the
temptation of owning some of China's provinces
and adding to the number of their subjects such
desirable material as China's population un-
doubtedly comprises, may lead to delays, and
increase the difficulties of final settlement not
only for China, but for the powers concerned.
96 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
Should the foreign decision be for partition, the
Chinese negotiator would find small standing
room he would be expected simply to submit
to dictation ; should that decision fall short of
partition and merely require some additions to
tracts of territory already leased or ceded, it
would still be a bitter pill to swallow for both
the transferring negotiator and the transferred
people ; and even if partition is not thought of
or additions to territory demanded, the diffi-
culty of finding funds to pay off a too heavy
indemnity may place the Chinese negotiator
himself in the unenviable position of having
to offend all China and embarrass every treaty
power by offering territory instead of money,
and thus whatever way one turns it does not
seem easy to prevent a deadlock, and until a
way round is found order cannot be restored.
Many have talked and written glibly about
partition as the most expedient solution, and
have argued that because Chinese are supposed
to be easily ruled and wanting in the military
character, such a policy would not only meet
with no opposition, but would be welcomed by
the Chinese themselves as freeing them from the
misrule of a hated and alien government, and
as opening the way for them to liberty, progress,
and civilization. But it is not so this alien
government, the Manchoo dynasty, has been part
and parcel of the nation for three hundred years,
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 97
and the Emperor is no more hated by Chinese
than the Queen by British, while, as for the
blessings of liberty, progress, and civilization,
the only civilization the Chinese appreciate is
their own: what we call progress the majority
know little about and care less for, and liberty,
real tangible liberty, they all enjoy. Whether
it is the duty of the West to civilize the East,
and how Christian powers ought to deal with
Pagan, are of course questions on which views
differ, but whatever portion of China is ceded
wiD have to be ruled by force, and the larger
the territory so ceded the more soldiers will its
management require and the more certain will
be unrest and. insurrection. The whole of a
partitioned China will make common cause
against its several foreign rulers, and, if anarchy
be not its condition for years and from year to
year, quiet or the appearance of quiet will be
nothing more than a preparation for the in-
evitable spring with which sooner or later sudden
revolt will everywhere show the existence and
strength of national feeling. Is the game worth
the candle ? On the simple ground of expedi-
ency such a solution is to be condemned, while,
viewed as a question of right, fairness, or even
philanthropy, every non-prejudiced mind must
declare against it.
Another set of thinkers are under the delusion
that with the capture of Peking the Chinese
H
98 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
Government ceased to exist, and that it is the
duty of the victors to set up a new dynasty.
All that has happened, however, is this : the
Government has no longer its headquarters in
Peking, but the work of the Empire is going on
as usual where the Emperor is, there is the
seat of Government, and, as for the teaching or
terrorizing effect that the march of the Allies
has had, it has merely affected the borders of a
road through two or three of the two hundred or
more Prefectures which make up the Eighteen
Provinces, and the prevalent belief at a distance
is that the foreigners have been thrashed and
are not victorious. The Manchoos, by complicity
with recent lawlessness in the capital and
murders of missionaries and converts in the
provinces, have outraged the Christian and
civilized world, but, even so, it would be well
to hear and weigh what they have to say for
themselves ; in any case the punishment they
have so far received has probably enlisted
Chinese sympathy on their side rather than
added to their unpopularity, if that really exists,
with any considerable section the King can do
no wrong, and it is the bad advisers who are
blamed. Were the Allies to get over the initial
difficulty of agreeing to a choice and set up a
new Emperor, he would have to be supported
by foreign bayonets his mandate would only
run within very restricted limits his foreign
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 99
origin would make him despised by every
member of the black-haired race and himself
and belongings would disappear for ever the
moment foreign support left him. If anything,
the attempt to impose another dynasty on the
Chinese people would be even a more hopeless
solution than partition ; the advocates of both
plans have probably much to urge which they
consider conclusive in favour of the idea they
put forward, but let them try either, and time
will assuredly show how certainly their hopes
must meet with disappointment in the futility
and failure of the experiment.
The only practical solution, in the interest of
law and order and a speedy restoration of the
tranquillity that makes life and commercial
relations safe and profitable, is first of all to
leave the present dynasty where it is and as
it is, and let the people of China deal with it
themselves when they feel its mandate has ex-
pired, and in the second place to impose on it
as the condition of peace only such stipulations
as are at once practical and practicable as well
as just and justifiable. But even in adopting
this solution a most serious difficulty stares one
in the face the Court has fled inland, and it
is quite possible it may settle at Si-an-foo and
make that the capital. Such a decision would
not be pleasant for the diplomatic corps after
the siege experiences just ended, and, although
ioo "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
commercial dealings need not necessarily be
hampered thereby, a certain uncomfortable
feeling of unrest would probably be set up and,
ever after, external irritation and internal dis-
integration would be seen proceeding on parallel
lines, if not, at equal pace, on lines converging
in eventual catastrophe. What, therefore,
foreign interests most require now is the return
of the Court, and the negotiators would do well
to make that not only possible for the Emperor,
but both agreeable and safe. Pending that
return, a clear idea could be worked out and
agreed to of what foreign powers must demand
and China must consent to both as reparation
for the past and guarantee for the future.
Further, as a first step towards local reconstruc-
tion, by which is meant, not so much a re-
establishment of the old order of things, as such
a happy rearrangement as should dovetail what
is good and allowable in the old system with
whatever else must be accepted as necessary
and not rejected because new, Prince Ching
might be vested with a certain amount of
vice-imperial authority, so to speak, and thus
provide a rally ing-point, not for opposition to
foreigners, but for the common efforts of those
who desire to re-establish order and win back
prosperity in the capital and its vicinity. Pecheli
excepted, the rest of the eighteen provinces of
China proper, although more or less in a state
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 101
of ferment owing to the occurrences in the
metropolitan section, may be said to be in their
normal condition as regards the presence and
functions of the ordinary provincial officials and
their subordination to the Emperor and Central
Government. There is therefore every reason
for holding that continued recognition of the
Manchoo dynasty and support of the Emperor
Kwang Hsu is all that is necessary to provide a
starting-point for the reconstruction demanded
by this last summer's doings : no other pro-
gramme can be carried through so easily, and
no other plan will restore order so surely and
so quickly, and in fact the pronouncements of
the powers already point to that as the solution
they cannot escape from. In this work of re-
construction there are two stages what must
be done to make peace, and what must be done
to give effect to its stipulations : the first means
negotiation and the second action. Negotiation
will secure an admission of wrong-doing and
an assurance that it will not recur, a promise
to make good the losses of individuals and
recoup the expenditure of Governments, an
undertaking to punish various culprits designated
by the powers, and the initiation of measures
to guarantee the future ; action will put these
promises in force and proceed to their full
execution.
The advocates of the alternatives, partition
102 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
or change of dynasty, argue that they are cal-
culated to confer greater benefits on the
Chinese themselves, as well as be more useful
to foreigners, than past experience authorizes
us to expect from the continuance of Manchoo
rule. Granting that such advantages as they
hope for might possibly follow a successful trial
of either plan, there is no reason why negotiators
should not make the provisions for such reforms
an integral part of any settlement and introduce
special clauses for their adoption ; but, at the
same time, common sense, and not sentiment,
should scan them carefully, and precaution
should be taken to proceed wisely and reason-
ably, lest haste, unfitness, or other imperfection
should mar their effect and lead to disappoint-
ment and irritation. It is a fact and beyond
question that Western methods are not always
suitable for, or successful in, China, and a closer
study of locality and people is everywhere advis-
able before the old is banished and the new
rung in : the same soil will not grow all crops,
and what is possible or beneficial in one locality
need not necessarily be so in another. That the
present situation does afford an opening for in-
troducing new measures cannot be doubted,
and those who decide for the retention of the
Manchoos ought all the more to feel the respon-
sibility of the occasion, and neglect nothing
that experience teaches or foresight suggests ;
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 103
the example of Japan shows what may be done
when a whole people is galvanized into a new
life by the power of a new thought and a new
motive, but where such a force from within is
wanting, it is advisable to wait a natural evolu-
tion rather than by forcing processes bring a
new being to the birth before the period of
gestation has been completed. Is the all but
dormant military spirit of four hundred millions
to be aroused in order that dealers may find
markets for rifles and guns, or ought the idea of
the possibility of those millions misusing such
toys be invoked to stop mischief in the future
at the cost of present gain ? Which is the
safer guide on so serious an occasion, the specu-
lation that risks or the wisdom that restrains,
profit or prudence ? And so in other matters :
it is not enough to be sanguine, and reformers
ought to study the ground well and look at both
sides if they wish to avoid calamity and secure
blessing. Negotiation itself cannot guarantee
everything : it may procure a formal expression
of regret and a promise that the offence shall
not be repeated and both regret and promise
may be both honourable and honest ; but the
future will see new men and new circumstances,
and history may repeat itself. The indemnities
to be paid take us into the region of hard fact,
and yet it is just here that there is room for
a little sentiment : the Japanese indemnities
104 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
already constitute a galling load, and now that
eight or ten powers have claims to put forward,
the straw that kills begins to be a something to
be dreaded. Discussion will probably evolve
some happy idea calculated to give ample
security to those who are to be indemnified and
yet consult the convenience of the dndemnifier ;
but, however that may be, it will be a heavy
burden for China to carry, and it is to be hoped
that the powers will make it as light as possible,
and deal with the unfortunate debtor in a
sympathetic and accommodating spirit, remem-
bering, too, that it is the industry of the people
which will be taxed, and that commercial pros- \
perity in the future might be a better payment j
of such a debt than an intolerable fine and \
ready money at the present moment. If the '
terms exacted are too hard, the payment may
plunge all concerned into the difficulty of a
territorial guarantee, about which the only
good thing one can say is that the region so
pledged might possibly prove a suitable field for
the experiments of reformers, and that, if suc-
cessful, such experiments might go on thence
to leaven the whole lump, although it is more
than likely that with liberty regained all such
novelties, as imposed by the enemy, would be
forthwith discarded.
There is, however, another demand which
must be met and dealt with before foreigners
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 105
can consider the siege episode closed, and that
is the demand for the punishment of the insti-
gators of the summer's doings. From certain
standpoints no demand could be more just in
the eyes of the outside world, and some of the
culprits named for instance, the late Governor
of Shansi, Yu Hsien, who opened his Yamen to
the hunted missionaries at Tai-yuan-foo and
then had them massacred there by the Boxers,
and who gloried in the deed in his memorial
to the Throne could not be punished too
harshly; but the list ought to be carefully
examined and proper allowance ought to be
made for every extenuating consideration, lest
murdered men should stand forth in future
history as martyrs, a stain on the robe of
Justice and the seed of enmity ever after. At
the moment of writing, this demand for punish-
ment before negotiation rather stops the way :
the Court is far off, and the culprits are not
only with, but dominate the Emperor. It may
be said that inability to punish is as strong a
proof of unfitness to reign as unwillingness ; but
here as elsewhere circumstances alter cases, and,
although all are demanding condign punish-
ment sooner or later alike, general opinion
pronounces the present demand unpractical and
impracticable, and believes that negotiation
ought to precede, and would certainly be
followed by, punishment. Were the foreign
io6 " THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
negotiator to say to the Chinese, " We have
settled every point but one, and, now that our
terms are known, you are in a position to decide
whether you will concede this last point or
refuse : concede and we sign, refuse and we
tear up all that we have agreed on ! " were
he to speak thus, the Chinese negotiator would
close with him at once. The wedge of negotia-
tion is like all other wedges, and will only split
the block when driven in right end first.
Reparation for the past, both punitive and
monetary, will of course be supplemented by
stipulations regarding the future. Commercial
interests will probably be provided for by some
changes in the regulations of trade perhaps
involving tariff revision ; the Tientsin treaties,
and all succeeding ones negotiated on the same
lines, may possibly be declared to have been
annulled by this year's doings, and whether
replaced by new agreements or modified by the
addition of various articles, the opportunity will
doubtless be availed of to rectify past mistakes
and provide more surely for future expansion.
In the matter of tariff revision due consideration
ought to be given to China's financial necessities,
but at the same time care should be taken to
avoid crippling trade by too heavy burdens, and,
as for new regulations or additional articles,
the localities concerned, and more especially
in all that affects trade inland, the provincial
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 107
governments ought to be consulted and their
different circumstances and differing require-
ments studied and allowed for; for trade to
both flourish and be healthy, it is not enough
to do all that one side asks for, but both sides
ought to be shown the fullest consideration.
The question of Missions, Missionaries, and
Converts may also have to be re-considered and
such new arrangements made as shall safeguard
the future from the misfortunes and complaints
of the past. Anything prohibitory ought to be
avoided, and full room be given for the play of
both zeal and common sense ; but the status of
both convert and missionary ought to be clearly
stated, and the clause which formulates it ought
to be fully and strictly enforced. The convert
does not cease to be a Chinese subject when
he embraces Christianity; but, like all other
Chinese subjects, must continue to observe his
country's laws and submit to his country's tri-
bunals. The missionary is simply a missionary,
and must confine himself to a missionary's
work, and avoid everything that savours of
interference in litigation and intervention of
any kind where Chinese official action is con-
cerned. It is only by insisting on an unswerving
adherence to this principle that the hostility of
local populations, provincial officials, and central
government can be disarmed and evangelization
freed from the disabilities it now labours under.
io8 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
National representatives are also likely to be
touched on, and as a perpetual warning against
any repetition of this year's occurrences, it
might be advisable for the article which stipu-
lates for the presence of envoys at the capital
to enunciate in the clearest and most forcible
language the fact that the representative
character makes their persons and establish-
ments sacred and inviolable, and clothes them
with majesty and privilege ; but residence in
an inland capital will have its special risks as
long as it is not a matter of honour to respect
the inviolability of an envoy, and till this is
the case the transfer of the capital to a seaport
would not much help matters. There is a halo
of prestige about Peking as the capital which
makes it preferable to any other place in the
whole empire, and if the present dynasty were
now to establish its Court elsewhere, it would
certainly be regarded as a sign of weakness,
and would tempt the restless in many provinces
to try their luck, not so much to expel the
Manchoo but as personal ventures. The settle-
me jt of these questions will seriously affect the
future of China in all its aspects, and the foreign
negotiator will have the larger say in them;
but, once they are done with, it will remain for
China to give effect to the stipulations concern-
ing them.
On the one side, then, China has to recon-
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 109
struct her foreign relations she has to apolo-
gize, make reparation, pay indemnities, and
accept various new arrangements ; and, on the
other, sundry internal reconstruction has hecome
a necessity, seeing that modifications are called
for to guarantee financial engagements and
insure full protection for merchants, missionaries,
and ministers. The elaboration of all these
points will take time, but each step will suggest
the next and new light will shine to guide at
each turning : how much can safely be left to
the Chinese Government to plan, initiate, and
carry out, and how much must be imposed or
stipulated for by the various foreign powers,
must depend upon the question concerned, its
connection with the whole, and the amount of
confidence reposed in promise and ability ; but
good faith must be taken for granted, and
successful fulfilment of obligations can only be
expected so long as native methods are not
hampered by too many foreign restrictions and
too much alien interference. Whether nego-
tiators will have the insight that takes in both
sides of a question, and the patience which is
required for the real arrangement of so impor-
tant a business, remains to be seen; but it is
to be hoped that the opportunity will be made
the most of and not lost.
The situation is the outcome of natural
national evolution effected by the disturbance
no " THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
engendered by the appearance and intrusion of
foreign and antagonistic elements. The Boxer
movement is the approximate cause ; but this
movement is itself one in a chain of causes and
effects, and the future cannot develop unaffected
by it. Although Prince Tuan and colleagues
are said to have usurped authority and unlaw-
fully constituted themselves the government of
the country for the time being, no one is yet
in a position to say with certainty how far the
Empress Dowager went with them willingly or
^^^
under compulsion. The Boxers are now being
styled rebels and hunted down as such at sundry
points, and as a matter of fact their doings
have been characterized by a thoroughness that
has overshot the mark and by a cruelty that has
gone beyond all bounds. They began as volun-
teers, they posed as patriots, and they took the
law into their own hands, and thus legalized
lawlessness, which was to stamp out Christianity
and frighten foreigners away from the country,
murdered missionaries and converts, burnt down
churches and dwellings, and culminated in the
siege of the Legations ; its enthusiasm and
success even captivated princes and ministers
of state, if not the Empress Dowager herself,
and what it effected for the Chinese to chew
the cud on is this, the Court has fled, the
capital is full of foreign soldiers, the burnt-out
missionaries are housed in the princes' palaces,
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION in
and the surviving converts are the masters.
Under the circumstances Chinese opinion is
said to condemn the movement and pronounce
all who took part in it worthy of every punish-
ment ; and yet, although now execrated by
thousands of sufferers and disowned by such
officials as are met with, it must be remem-
bered that their aims and doings were lauded
and upheld by the very highest dignitaries of
the Empire, and that, sufferers apart, the
Chinese world may possibly have only one fault
\ to find with them that they did not succeed,
y no longer flaunt their gaudy sashes in
public, but they are still in Peking, while in
the country round about they still congregate
and drill : negotiation may possibly pledge the
Government to discountenance and even act
energetically against such patriots, but how
long or how far is such a pledge likely to be
kept ? China must grow strong, and it is to
her people she must look for increase of strength.
Will prohibitive stipulations gain their point ?
Is not Germany's " mailed fist " the outcome of
an attempt to restrict her military growth?
Or will punitive measures avail ? Is there not
a Phoenix-like power in the blood of martyr-
dom? We may not consider the dead Boxer
a martyr, but what will his surviving fellows
feel ? Or are military promenades to continue
till all present and possible Boxers are killed
ii2 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
off ? But how exterminate China's four hundred
millions ? Is there not some better way of deal-
ing with the matter, some wiser way of meeting
the " Yellow Peril " ? In a recent speech Lord
Salisbury is reported to have exhorted the
members of the Primrose League, " each in his
own district, to do what they can to foster the
creation of rifle clubs. If once the feeling can
be propagated abroad that it is the duty of
every able Englishman" (Chinaman) "to make
himself competent to meet the invading enemy
* * * you will then have a defensive force which
will not only repel the assailant if he come, but
which will make the chances of that assailant
so bad that no assailant will ever appear ! "
This is just what China has been attempting ;
this is the very idea that is at the bottom of
the Boxer movement, and the national uprising
it means can only be met by the rest of the
world either by reducing the Chinese to serfdom
and keeping them there and is that possible
with a population of four hundred millions, or,
if possible, is it the best way of treating so
intelligent and so industrious a people ? or
by dealing with them, their government, their
property, their institutions, and their trade, as
we ourselves would be dealt with and is not
that a duty even though they did not number
a million? Dictation and coercion to be suc-
cessful must be absolute and thoroughgoing ;
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 113
but in point of fact they have their limits, and,
whatever they may seem to have of local,
partial, or temporary success, their effect can
only be ephemeral, and one day or other the
string will be cut and the cork fly from the
bottle with a velocity and momentum that re-
pression will unconsciously incubate but never
dream of. Unfortunately at this juncture the
situation is the result of many little under-
stood antecedent and still existing causes, and
the doings and attitude of Government and
people are at various points and in many ways
calculated to provoke, if not justify, adherence
to a policy both coercive and dictatorial ; but,
all the same, it is precisely at this juncture that
reasonable action and sympathetic treatment
would win friends in the present and sow the
seeds of good relations in the future. Foreign
troops have now held capital and vicinity for
months, and as yet the negotiators have not
had a single sitting ; this delay is creating
unrest where all was quiet before, and so the
difficulty is increasing far-away regions begin
to be affected, trade is coming to a standstill,
revenue is falling off, failure to meet national
obligations and pay the interest on foreign
loans is hanging over a Government that would
scorn repudiation, native and foreigner at
Peking and Tientsin are alike feeling how
military occupation can pinch, and some escape
i
ii4 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
from a situation that is entailing so much and
such widespread suffering, and inconvenience
is hourly more necessary. The return of the
Court is all-important, but even here are all the
elements of another dilemma if not deadlock,
for how can the Court come back from its
far-off Chinese surroundings and comparative
immunity to a capital filled with foreign troops,
and how can those troops vacate that capital
till order is restored, proper relations re-
established, and the future guaranteed? And
yet till the Emperor is again in Peking every-
thing will be abnormal and unsettled and with-
out a proper foundation. The mot d'ordre,
11 Punishment first, negotiation afterwards ! "
must delay, if not prevent, such hoped-for
return, and, even were it so liberally interpreted
as to neither intimidate nor unnecessarily
humiliate the Emperor, it will be long before
reconstruction can be complete, before new
structures can take the place of those the flames
devoured, before new hands can recommence
the old industries, before new modes of thought
can heal old wounds, and new principles rectify
old mistakes. On the other hand, some of the
powers may realize the difficulties of the larger
question, and take the view <that their forces
were sent simply to relieve the Legations and
not to make war or dictate change, and that
further intervention is inexpedient and the
CHINA AND RECONSTRUCTION 115
future may be left to develop in its own way.
Whatever be the eventual solution, the day of
difficulty will not be ended by either the return
of the Emperor or the withdrawal of foreign
troops, but something will have been gained
if Boxer excesses shall prove to have alienated
the sympathy of the Government, and the con-
siderateness of the foreigner shall have dis-
armed official suspicion and won some liking
from the Chinese public. Time alone will show
whether a wrong touch will have precipitated
an empire boulder into the abyss below, or a
right one restored equilibrium and settled it
firmly on the edge of the cliff.
PEKING, November, 1900.
IV
CHINA AND NON-CHINA
WHETHEB as the last year of the old or the
first of the new century, this year now ending
will for ever be memorable as the year of the
siege of the foreign Legations at Peking. The
Chinese Government had been in treaty rela-
tions with other powers during a cycle had had
Legations established abroad for more than two
decades had long ago created chairs of Inter-
national Law in its colleges and had been
two score years in possession of excellent
translations of Wheaton and other celebrated
authorities, and yet the other day, on the
expiration of the twenty-four hours for their
ordered withdrawal, that Government calmly
opened fire on the Legations and continued
the bombardment, with one or two curious
intermissions, from the 20th June to the 14th
August. That this was not due to failure to
understand the inviolability of the representative
character can hardly be questioned, and it re-
mains to be seen whether it was believed that
with the expiration of the time limit recognition
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 117
of Envoys could end, or whether such high-
handed action had other causes. No one ever
expected such an occurrence, although many
allowed that they knew nothing of Chinese
innerness, and that anything might happen at
any moment : that it did occur is disgraceful
to the Government itself, humiliating to all
connected with it, and a warning for all future
time. The fiendish cruelty with which the
patriotic Boxers and their military colleagues
and mandarin patrons plotted and carried out
the massacres both of their own people men,
women, and children, who had embraced the
Christian faith, or who had had personal inter-
course with foreigners, or who sold or bought
foreign commodities as well as of many mis-
sionaries and their families, is a stain on the
national history that can never be atoned for,
much less effaced. And yet, with all that is
damnable and tragic in it, the episode is not
without its humorous and comic side : the
Court used every effort to expel the Legations
the Legations are still in Peking and the
Court is in full flight hundreds of miles away
in search of shelter ; the Princes petted the
Boxers and encouraged them to burn down the
missionaries' houses those same Princes are
now wandering homeless and the missionaries
dwell in their palaces; the converts formerly
went about with fear and circumspection
n8 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF
to-day the pagans kotow to the Christians and
implore their protection ; the high officials who
sought our lives some few weeks ago are now
reported dying off, one after another, by their
own hands ! But perhaps more extraordinary
than this almost automatic retribution is the
fact that, while Peking and the vicinity still
harbours countless Boxers who are now quietly
working for or selling things to the foreign
garrison of this captured capital, and who,
studying the victorious warriors, their posts,
and their ways, are ready to don their scarlet
sashes and take the field again should chance
give an opening or an order from above sanction
the experiment, the non-Boxer crowd are said
to have not the slightest idea why the powers
sent their troops here and in such numbers, but
regard them as a band of brigands, who kill,
burn, ravish, and loot, and who will one of these
days disappear, as brigands have disappeared
before, and leave the Chinese to themselves
again. In fact, everything connected with China
is anomalous, and statesmen have perhaps never
had a more involved question to deal with as
regards its origins than this Boxer movement
has raised, or more far-reaching consequences to
foresee, take advantage of, and provide against.
Much has already been written on the subject,
and it may at once be allowed that whatever
has appeared by way of condemnation of Chinese
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 119
action or recommendation of what the powers
ought now to do in return, was called for and
not out of place ; but shrieking sentimentality
will not find a seat at the council board, and
responsible negotiators will be true to their
traditions : naturally they will individually seek
to make the most of the occasion, but as
naturally circumstances will limit them to doing
what is at once the most and the least possible,
aiming only at what is in their eyes practicable
and practical.
The position the Chinese take up may be said
to be this : " We did not invite you foreigners
here," they say ; " you crossed the seas of your
own accord and more or less forced yourselves
on us. We generously permitted the trade you
were at first satisfied with, but what return did
you make ? To the trade we sanctioned you
added opium-smuggling, and when we tried to
stop it you made war on us ! We do not deny
that Chinese consumers kept alive a demand
for the drug, but both consumption and impor-
tation were illegal and prohibited; when we
found it was ruining our people and depleting
our treasury we vainly attempted to induce you
to abandon the trade, and we then had to take
action against it ourselves. War ensued; but
we were no warriors, and you won, and then
dictated treaties which gave you Hongkong and
opened several ports, while opium still remained
lao "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINISf"
contraband. Several years of peaceful intercourse
followed, and then Hongkong began to trouble
us; it was originally ceded to be a careening
place for ships simply, bat, situated on the direct
route to the new ports, it grew into an emporium,
and also, close to our coast and rivers, it became
a smuggling centre; in your treaties you had
undertaken a certain control of any junk traffic
that should spring up, but when that traffic
became considerable you dropped the promised
control, and our revenue suffered. Originally
uninhabited, Hongkong now became the home
of numerous Chinese settlers, many of them
outlaws who dare not live on the mainland;
these became British subjects, and you gave
the British flag to their junks, which were one
day British and another Chinese just as it suited
their purpose ; and out of this came the ' Arrow '
war, followed by new treaties, additional ports,
legalized opium, and fresh stipulations, in their
turn the causes of fresh troubles. Whether
it was that we granted you privileges or that
you exacted concessions, you have treated the
slightest mistakes as violations of treaty rights,
and, instead of showing yourselves friendly and
considerate, you insult us by charges of bad faith
and demand reparation and indemnities. Your
legalized opium has been a curse in every
province it penetrated, and your refusal to
limit or decrease the import has forced us to
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 121
attempt a dangerous remedy : we have legalized
native opium, not because we approve of it,
but to compete with and drive out the foreign
drug, and it is expelling it, and when we have
only the native production to deal with, and
thus have the business in our own hands, we
hope to stop the habit in our own way. Your
missionaries have everywhere been teaching
good lessons, and benevolently opening hospitals
and dispensing medicine for the relief of the sick
and the afflicted, but wherever they go trouble
goes with them, and instead of the welcome their
good intentions merit, localities and officials turn
against them : when called on to indemnify them
for losses, we find to our astonishment that it is
the exactions of would-be millionaires we have
to satisfy ! Your people are everywhere extra-
territorialized ; but, instead of a grateful return
for this ill-advised stipulation, they appear to
act as if there were no laws in China, and this
encourages native lawlessness and makes con-
stant difficulties for every native official. You
have demanded and obtained the privilege of
trading from port to port on the coast, and now
you want the inland waters thrown open to your
steamers. Your newspapers vilify our officials
and Government, and, translated into Chinese,
circulate very mischievous reading: but yet
they have their uses, for, by their threats and
suggestions, they warn us what you may some
122 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
day do, and so help us indirectly, although that
does not conduce to mutual respect or liking.
All these things weaken official authority
therefore the official world is against you ; and
they hurt many native traders therefore the
trading classes are indignant. What countries
give aliens the extra-territorial status ? What
countries allow aliens to compete in their coast-
ing trade? What countries throw open their
inland waters to other flags ? And yet all these
things you compel us to grant you ! Why can
you not treat us as you treat others ? Were
you to do so you would find us friendly enough,
and there would be an end of this everlasting
bickering and these continually recurring wars ;
really you are too short-sighted, and you are
forcing us to arm in self-defence, and giving
us grudges to pay off instead of benefits to
requite ! "
What precedes as coming from the lips of
the Chinaman has been heard over and over
again, and this will become public opinion
will spread and grow in intensity, and will work
mischief always and everywhere : no explana-
tions will mollify it. On the other hand, the
foreigner looks out on things from a different
standpoint, and acts on views which he con-
siders not only defensible, but sound and un-
assailable. He is a Christian therefore it is
a sacred duty to attack every other cult and
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 123
preach the Gospel ; he finds consumers keep
alive a demand for opium therefore it is his
right, if not his duty, to supply it ; he learns
that China has an immense population there-
fore he inveighs against every restriction, and
claims liberty to sell to all who will buy, and to
buy from all who will sell ; he is told by some
one that China has no laws, that Chinese
judges are corrupt, that justice is bought and
sold, and that torture takes the place of evidence
on oath therefore he demands and obtains
extra-territoriality ; he finds that China is not a
military nation therefore he pushes aside dis-
cussion, asserts his superiority, sees right in
might, and has his own way; he has brought
with him the idea that commerce knows only
import and export duties therefore he is indig-
nant over the rapacity which levies riverine
dues and inland taxes ; he knows that such
and such is the way of doing things at home
therefore he condemns all Chinese otherness,
and would put four hundred millions of people
in the garments of forty : in short, his doxy is
orthodoxy, and everything else is heterodoxy,
and so intercourse, instead of being mutually
beneficial, is the reverse, and instead of foster-
ing and cementing friendly relations, is pro-
ducing discord, ill feeling, and even enmity.
Time will doubtless correct mistakes that
originate in extreme views, and remove these
i2 4 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
misunderstandings; but so long as China is
treated differently and differentially, so long will
the course be a descent from bad to worse, and
not progress from good to better. " Take away
your missionaries and your opium and you
will be welcome ! " said Prince Kung. " Do
away with your extra-territoriality clause," said
the still greater Wen Hsiang, " and your
missionaries and merchants may go where
they please and settle where they please ; if
your missionaries can make our people better,
that will be our gain ; if your merchants can
make money, ours will share in the advantage ! "
What both objected to was neither Christianity
nor commerce, but the imperium in imperio
which makes such difficulties for a State, and
the class exemption which has in it so much
that humiliates and disintegrates.
One of the latest of those who have been
studying the Chinese question, Mr. Alexis
Krausse, in the second edition of his work on
China's decadence, "China in Decay," published
last June, concludes with certain recommenda-
tions of " measures that are needful," viz. :
"1. The insistence of the carrying out of all treaty
obligations, including the throwing open of the inland
waterways, the opening of the ports named in the
treaties, and the according of the right to travel to
foreigners throughout the country."
The right to travel was long ago conceded
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 125
and is made use of every day, all the ports
opened by treaty have long ago been opened,
treaty obligations are carried out, and the inland
waterways are open to all who comply with the
regulations.
" 2. The safety of foreigners in China to be guaran-
teed by the Government, and the local officials to be
held responsible, under penalty of imprisonment and
fine, for their persons and property."
The safety of foreigners is as much guaran-
teed by the Chinese Government as it is by
any other power, and, the late exceptional
occurrences apart, the wonder is that in such
an immense empire so few outrages or acci-
dents happen; local officials are held respon-
sible for the good government of their respective
districts, but a treaty stipulation for " penalty
of imprisonment and fine " would embitter
relations rather than increase safety. Did
reverence for law and order or respect for the
rights of others protect the Italians from a New
Orleans mob ? or did municipal regulations and
a first-class police force save London from
having to blush for some thousand casualties
last November ? or did good government avail
to preserve the lives of President Lincoln,
President G-arfield, President Carnot, the
Empress of Austria, or King Humbert of Italy ?
" 3. The abolition of Likin dues in exchange for an
increase of five per cent, on the customs."
126 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
Such an increase would not compensate for
the loss of the Likin revenue. Duties on
goods passed by the maritime customs supply
only a fraction of China's fiscal wants, whereas
Likin, collected in every province, not only on
uncertificated foreign merchandise, but on all
kinds of native produce, is a necessity for the
provincial administrations, which could not be
supported without it unless other equally profit-
able sources of revenue are opened up.
" 4. The appointment of an experienced man of the
world possessing tact and diplomatic ability, and having
a thorough knowledge of China and Chinese, as British
Minister at Peking. Such a person would not only be
able to deal with the Chinese with a knowledge of
their idiosyncrasies, but would be able to keep himself
in touch with all that goes on, and forward early infor-
mation to the home Government of all developments."
It is a mistake to expect too much from any
Minister at Peking, and such an " admirable
Crichton" as Mr. Krausse has in his eye is not
always at hand. One may rest assured that, all
things considered, the home Government does
always appoint the man supposed to be the
fittest. Of the ten or twelve British repre-
sentatives appointed under the treaties since
1842, two were recognized sinologues, two were
fair Chinese scholars, two had a good know-
ledge of China, two were trained diplomatists,
the others were experienced men of the world ;
CHINA AND NO N- CHINA 127
but, while they thus differed in personal quali-
fications, all kept in touch with what goes on,
and forwarded early information to the Govern-
ment. Had they been all rolled into one, the
Legation would not have more to show for it
to-day than we now see as the results of their
tenure of office singly. Sir Frederic Bruce was
perhaps the fittest of them all, and the most
acceptable as well as the most successful, and
the keynote of his policy was simply to be a
gentleman always, avoid fussiness, and only
intervene when a touch would settle and not
capsize.
" 5. A formal notice to the Chinese authorities that
we refuse to recognize any concessions according trade
or territorial privileges to any one nation which are not
simultaneously accorded to all other nations."
This is already provided for by treaty in what
is well known as the " most favoured nation "
clause, and it is not only in the British treaty
but in that of every other power could any-
thing be more formal ? At the same time, action
can only be taken under it when allowable ; but
is action always allowable ? Can a land frontier
privilege be properly claimed at a far-off seaport,
for instance ? Or, when Japan obtained the
cession of Formosa, which was not only a terri-
torial privilege, but swept away from our list
of Chinese treaty ports the ports of Taiwan
128 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
(Anping and Takow) and Tamsuy with its out-
port Kelung, what did the rest of the world
do ? It acquiesced ! Could England have done
otherwise, or more ?
AM
" 6. The policjC of the waterways and hunting down
of the pirates who infest the rivers of the South
Coasts."
What policing, it may be asked, will put a stop
to the kind of piracy which is now complained
of piracy committed not by smart craft com-
manded by Captain Kidds and manned by
desperadoes of all colours, but by innocent-
looking men who go on board in harbour as
passengers, and who at some previously agreed
upon point on the voyage overpower the crew,
plunder the vessel, and then make off with their
spoil in a junk that drops alongside ? Many
of these pirated vessels start from our model
little colony Hongkong itself, and embark their
pseudo-passengers there : but this is not to be
wondered at, for, as everybody knows, Hong-
kong has long been the centre of opium smug-
gling and trade in arms and contraband salt,
and round this lawlessness flock all the adven-
turers of the south. Something more than
policing is required ; but, although the problem
is a difficult one, the thing itself is a small
matter, and has only an infinitesimal effect on
trade, whatever may be the effect of Hongkong
as an asylum on relations.
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 129
Mr. Krausse thinks that " if only these points
were insisted on, the existing trouble with China
would come to an end, British interests would
be saved, and England could afford to regard
the future with that indifference which is the
reward of patriotism backed by ability and
supported by a determination to defend the
country's interests under all circumstances and
at all costs." It is to be feared this is too
sanguine. What we want is, in a word, that
our people shall be as safe and their interests
receive as certain protection in China as else-
where ; and, to go to the root of the matter at
once, this will never be the case till we treat
China and the Chinese in just the same way as
we treat any other civilized power or people
say America and the Americans. This mending
of old clothes will not do a new garment is
wanted ! An international Cancer is at work :
as long as it works it will irritate and embroil,
and it must be extirpated if international health
is to be enjoyed and a sure foundation laid for
building up a condition of mutual prosperity
and mutual goodwill.
The uprising of 1900 was not without its
causes, but the doings by which the actors,
whether as patriots or rebels, sought to carry
their point, had so much of lawlessness and
cruelty in them that they can be neither jus-
tified nor excused. The objectionable side of
K
130 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
missionary work the scheming of soi-disant con-
verts and the intervention of priests between
converts and pagans, or between both and
officials had irritated both people and officials
in many localities, and notably in Shantung, the
native province of China's Holy man Confucius ;
the participation of foreigners in the coasting
trade, followed by the Chinese defensive experi-
ment of a Chinese steam navigation company,
had thrown numbers of Chinese out of employ-
ment, also notably in Shantung through which
the Grand Canal runs a waterway along which
thousands of trackers used to haul the junks
laden with rice from south to north, and had
ruined many former capitalists, shipowners, and
employers of labour ; the seizure of territory, also
begun in Shantung, had alarmed the people of
a proud province and enraged the Government.
Many of the officials in contact with foreigners
both at Peking and in the provinces had had
their unpleasant experiences, and had been
treated to language and accompaniments never
employed in dealings with the officials of other
countries, and which, however politely tolerated
and patiently borne, in reality mortified them in-
expressibly besides engaging their sympathies for
the opposition. Thus foreign intercourse and its
effects had made many foes some wise men
tolerated, but none loved, and many determined
to end it, their minds full of the memories of
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 131
the good old times when for thousands of years
China had lived her own life and been un-
troubled by the intrusion and restless compe-
tition of aliens and barbarians, one phase of
this competition, too, being an international
jealousy which constantly caused trouble and
claimed compensations. A rising anywhere
would not have astonished any foreigner in
China, for, although they severally went on
with their usual avocations and enjoyed an
amount of liberty and freedom from care their
countrymen at home do not always know, they
were all conscious that they were not loved, and
they felt that disturbances might occur any day
anywhere ; in fact, when the Boxer movement
began to spread and be threatening, the news-
papers one and all cried out, " Did we not tell
you so ! " All the same, had the Chinese
officials everywhere carried on their duties in-
telligently and energetically, and the Chinese
people been everywhere taught to treat the
foreigner in their midst as one of themselves,
there need have been no such trouble ; but,
things being as they were, molehills became
mountains, gnat-stings festered, bad blood was
engendered, and the advanced section came to
the conclusion that it was time to stand up for
their own and drive out the intruder. The
belief in the invulnerability of the Boxers took
hold of the popular and official mind unhappily
i 3 2 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
the latter more especially ; the movement spread
with wonderful rapidity, and in the northern
provinces gained fresh recruits daily. It does
not appear to have been at first intended to
attack or hurt any foreigner personally, but
simply to frighten them out of the country ; on
the other hand, it was part of their programme
to make away with every convert, and in that
way stamp out the Christianity which seemed
to threaten to turn their world upside down;
but, once begun, circumstances carried the
actors beyond their original plan they mas-
sacred native Christians, and then the natives
who had anything to do with foreigners, and
after destroying such parts of railway and tele-
graph lines as had kept Peking in commu-
nication with the outside world, they next
attacked the foreigners in Peking and besieged
the Legations. Their successes so far dazzled
the eyes of their official supporters : they had
forced a large relieving force to retreat they
had shut up the Peking foreign community and
made it impossible for them to leave the section
so surrounded and, so, those old conservators
and trusted advisers of the throne, Hsii Tung,
Kang I, and others, were confirmed in their
mistaken idea that they had only to destroy the
foreigners in China to prevent any others from
trespassing there for ever after. On and after
the 13th June the capital was in the hands of
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 133
the Boxers, and everywhere incense was burn-
ing to show faith in and sympathy with them.
Then came the capture of the Taku forts : we
were terribly taken aback when we heard the
news at Peking, for we saw it would precipitate
matters and push the military into line with
the Boxers, and it did so thereafter it was not
the Boxer rabble with sword or spear that we
had to deal with, but trained soldiers accus-
tomed to rifle and gun. Our alarm apart, it
was fortunate for us eventually that the forts
were thus taken, for, had that not been done,
not only ourselves at Peking, but our sorely
pressed countrymen at Tientsin would have
fared far worse. To this day our escape at Peking
puzzles us : was it that the Chinese assailants
had not the pluck to press home the attack, or
did wiser men who knew what vengeance the
West would most assuredly take advise them to
play with us as cats with mice, on the one hand
to prolong their amusement as it were and
enhance the glory of final success, and on the
other to give time for relief to come and so save
the situation? Belief did come, and just in
time ; but what a penalty Peking has paid for its
midsummer madness ! What will be the final
outcome of this episode in which anti-foreign
feeling has culminated remains to be seen ; for
the moment it is difficult to say whether it will
let in anarchy or establish order more firmly.
134 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
In the mean time a stretch, of desert must be
crossed before Jordan is reached, and during
that period of transition commerce will suffer
and all engaged in it, while revenue will fall
off, national obligations be difficult if not impos-
sible to fulfil, and bondholders in countries far
away feel the pinch of whatever inconvenience
delay or uncertainty may occasion in the issue
of interest on their investments. As to the
Pao-ting-foo executions and the occupation of
the Imperial Tombs by our troops, the effect
will be of the usual double kind : it will do more
to perpetuate ill-feeling than to teach lessons.
What precedes concerning the Boxer move-
ment and the siege episode is, however, a
digression, the object of the paper being rather
to examine the general question than to narrate
or criticize details : why should the Chinese be
so anti-foreign, and can anything be done to
improve matters and make them friendly in-
stead ? These are the questions for which
answers are sought.
Although or is it because? the teachings
of their Sages inculcate the tender treatment
of strangers, the isolation in which as a people
they have lived, the habit of considering theirs
the chief of kingdoms and all others tributaries,
the fact that all neighbouring states have been
tributary, and the intellectual pride which
superiority of cult has developed in all its
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 135
intensity, fostered and given form by a com-
petitive examination system which for centuries
has made every Chinese worship and bow down
to intellectual prowess, have combined to lead
the Chinese to expect from all who approach
them an acknowledgment of superiority and a
submissive tone and attitude; such being the
case, their frame of mind is shocked by the
men of the West who laugh at their preten-
sions, question their superiority, refuse them
obedience, and make them accept dictation, and
the majority have not yet rid themselves of
the feeling and belief that such outrageous
conduct only argues rebellion and savagery.
Given such a manner of regarding themselves
and others to build intercourse on, it is easy
to understand why there should be stumbling-
blocks at every step, and how the veriest trifles
cause trouble : a trifle is a trifle so long as it
is treated as such, but make a case of it and it
becomes an enormity. Habit of thought had
led the Chinese to expect one kind of action and
one style of language ; but Western indepen-
dence has always given them just the opposite,
and the result has ever been a sense of insult
that must be accepted by reason of an impo-
tence that is maddening. Natures so radically
opposed must constantly be coming in collision,
and the wonder really is that self-control and
wisdom have so long prevented conflict.
136 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
On the foreign side offence has been un-
wittingly and unintentionally given, and it has
not occurred to most people to suit action to
character. After administering the initial hlow
which claimed equality and dictated terms,
treaty relations began. Extra-territoriality, the
central idea of the treaties, was not a stipulation
tending to natter national pride, gratify officials,
or commend itself to the people at large ; and
some commercial clauses let in a foreign com-
petition which hurt the native traders or en-
abled less scrupulous to take advantage of
honester men, while a tendency to regard any
difference of views as a possible infringement
of treaty and to make international questions of
minor occurrences accentuated each difficulty :
these points apart and for them the treaties
themselves are answerable the foreign mercan-
tile public cannot fairly be accused of having
done aught to outrage Chinese feeling or evoke
Chinese ill-will. As for the missionary class,
their devotion, zeal, and good works are recog-
nized by all : and yet, while this is so, their
presence has been felt to be a standing insult,
for does it not tell the Chinese their conduct
is bad and requires change, their cult inade-
quate and wants addition, their gods despicable
and to be cast into the gutter, their forefathers
lost and themselves only to be saved by accept-
ing the missionary's teaching ? As for the
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 137
accusation that converts trouble the localities
they appear in, it may be asked, Have they
anywhere been numerous enough to do so, and
have they not always had, on the contrary, to go
humbly to avoid trouble ? Doubtless soi-disant
converts have seen a way to make a great gain
of a profession of godliness, but that they are
able to do so, who is to blame but the Chinese
local authorities themselves ? And as for the
charge brought against the missionaries, that
they take up converts' cases and intervene be-
tween litigant and magistrate, may it not be
inferred that if they do so it is only when they
are certain of the justice of their Mend's case,
and only do so to secure justice and prevent
injustice, and not that they interfere to bolster
up a bad case to wrong even a pagan ? Mission-
aries may have been deceived occasionally or
they may have acted injudiciously occasionally,
but has not the decision rested always with the
Chinese magistrate ; and is it likely that the
advocacy or intervention of these isolated and
unprotected strangers could have compelled
officials to decide unjustly, or that their doings
could have so upset whole neighbourhoods as
to call for such a remedy as extirpation or
such vengeance as that with which the Footai
Yii Hsien and his Boxer myrmidons rendered
infamous for ever the Governor's Yamn at
Tai-yuan-foo ? Nevertheless, whatever may be
138 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
written in excuse or justification of missionary
action or to absolve converts from such accusa-
tions, it is and remains a fact that in the eyes
of the community to accept a foreign faith is
to insult a native creed, and to become a Chris-
tian requires a man to withdraw from local
practices and thereby offend neighbours, and it
may also be said to be a fact, so many Chinese
complain of it, that scamps become Christians
to bring a new kind of influence into courts
where litigation goes on, and that missionaries
have themselves injudiciously interfered to shape
magisterial decisions ; it does not require many
such facts to establish dangerous possibilities
in the popular imagination, and so lay founda-
tions for suspicion and hostility, and while
local gossip will not fail to accentuate what is
objectionable in every such occurrence, flying
rumour will as surely both magnify and scatter
it far and wide. Similarly, foreign officials may
have hurt the amour-propre of the mandarin on
various occasions, but the duties imposed on
them by the privilege of extra-territoriality are
so many and so diversified and comprise such
a combination of the legislative, judicial, and
executive, as well as so much that is delicate
in the diplomatic category, that they must con-
tinually be touching matters which the mandarin
in question is powerless to deal with, and if the
result is deadlock or irritation it cannot be
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 139
wondered at. At the capital Ministers have to
worry the very highest officials in the empire
with petty cases sent up from the ports, and
at the ports consuls have to ask the local
authorities for action in matters which, affect-
ing principles, they declare themselves incom-
petent to deal with; both sides desire friendly
settlement, and yet in the very nature of things
it is only too easy to give and to take offence.
In fact, anomaly is at the root of all the
mischief : the foreign merchant is in a privi-
leged position and is withdrawn from Chinese
jurisdiction ; the missionary is similarly beyond
the reach of Chinese law, and his presence
admits of various abuses springing up; the
foreign official has under treaties to take action
of a kind unknown elsewhere ; and the out-
come of all these anomalies is a feeling of
humiliation, a sense of injustice, and a soreness
that nevertheless could still be healed were the
right remedy applied. At the same time$ it
must be allowed that the foreign negotiators
had good reasons for the form in which they
cast the treaties, and did all that was possible
at the time to safeguard the varied interests
of both sides, and their successors, the Min-
isters and Consuls who have had to interpret
and see to the faithful execution of those
treaties, have been just, reasonable, and con-
siderate : such being the case, it is all the
I 4 o "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
more important to find out what is wrong and
devise a remedy.
But what is the remedy, and what rectifica-
tion would mend matters ? Such a thing as a
perfect panacea is nowhere to be found, nor,
were such discovered, would it be certain to be
adopted. It is not China and one power that
is concerned, but China and many powers, and
unanimity could not easily be secured : besides,
outside unanimity could only succeed provided
the prescription were suited to the constitution
and character of the complainant. Friendliness
rather than progress is what is wanted, and the
means adopted should have this end in view :
if friendliness is secured there will assuredly
follow all appropriate material progress, whereas
the attempt to force progress may not only fail
in itself but, what is worse, be at the expense
of friendliness. All that is meant by progress
may be of the utmost use to State, people, and
international relations ; but it involves change,
and every new departure must first of all be felt
to be necessary, and must then be fully con-
sidered and provided for, and cannot be lightly
undertaken. The powers are now supposed to
be unanimous as regards " the integrity of
China " and the " open door " policy, but they
do not all approach the question from the same
point of view, and their interest in China, their
interests as affected by China, and their several
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 141
aspirations in connection with China, will have
much to do with shaping their action, whether
joint or individual, in China. Amidst so much
that tends to produce variety, how is unanimity
to be preserved what is the best course to
adopt in order to remove from future intercourse
whatever has troubled it in the past, and to
make the days yet to come go by in peace and
be profitable to all ? To this most important
question the only satisfactory answer that much
thought suggests is that the Golden Kule might
be worth a trial : do away with the existing
anomaly and let " Do unto others as you would
have others do to you " be given an inter-
national application ! The result of action on
this simple principle would assuredly be more
effectual than the differential rules which now
shape intercourse. The cruelties of the Boxers
and the worse than callousness of too many
of those in power cannot be too harshly de-
scribed or too severely dealt with, and that the
people as a nation have the defects of their
qualities can as little be gainsaid ; on the other
hand, it must as freely be allowed that the
Chinese do possess quite as large a share of
admirable qualities as others, and that these are
not merely to be found in isolated cases here
and there, but are characteristic of the race as
a whole and the civilization it has developed.
They are well-behaved, law-abiding, intelligent,
i 4 2 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM "
economical, and industrious, they can learn
anything and do anything, they are puncti-
liously polite, they worship talent, and they
believe in right so firmly that they scorn to
think it requires to be supported or enforced by
might, they delight in literature, and every-
where they have their literary clubs and coteries
for hearing and discussing each other's essays
and verses, they possess and practise an ad-
mirable system of ethics, and they are generous,
charitable, and fond of good works, they never
forget a favour, they make rich return for any
kindness, and, though they know money will
buy service, a man must be more than wealthy
to win public esteem and respect, they are
practical, teachable, and wonderfully gifted with
common sense, they are excellent artisans,
reliable workmen, and of a good faith that every
one acknowledges and admires in their com-
mercial dealings, in no country that is or was
has the commandment " Honour thy father and
thy mother" been so religiously obeyed or so
fully and without exception given effect to, and
it is in fact the keynote of their family, social,
official, and national life, and because it is so
" their days are long in the land " God has given
them. Eespect, and not contempt, concilia-
tion, and not dictation, appreciation, and not
differential treatment try this prescription and
you will have a healthy body politic, and until
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 143
this is done it will be the reverse. What is
wanted is a settlement or understanding all will
accept and abide by, and not one they will
everlastingly be kicking against and endeavour-
ing to upset. To secure such a settlement only
one change is necessary, but that is a complete
change a radical change a change of prin-
ciple. The principle which underlies every treaty
and runs through every treaty stipulation, and
which unhappily is at the bottom of all the
mischief, is what is justly considered the most
important, the most valuable, and, from the
foreign standpoint, the most essential point in
treaties with China, and that is the principle of
extra-territoriality could we but give up this
and relations would at once right themselves,
rancour disappear, and friendliness rule instead.
Trade would be freely permitted everywhere, and
the investment of capital and development of
internal resources meet with no unnecessary
obstacle : the Government has already admitted
in principle that natives may own steamers on
coast and river, may establish telegraphic com-
munication, may build railways, may open
mines, may start manufacturing industries, and
the foreigner has only to accept the same
position to enjoy to their fullest extent the
same privileges, besides ensuring the removal
of what makes such enterprises unprofitable.
It is not for a moment supposed that any power
i 4 4 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
is yet ready to throw up what all foreigners
consider such an inestimable boon : all will say
China must abolish torture, must make new
laws, must remodel the judicial system, must
conform to the practice of Christian nations,
before their Christian subjects can be submitted
to native jurisdiction and before Chinese courts
can deal with the intricacies of commercial
codes, and they will point to the example of
Japan and bid China do likewise; and China
possibly may proceed to do likewise, but in the
mean time the old sore will still rankle, and
the temptation to misuse growing strength and
throw off the yoke, instead of waiting patiently
for the result of improvement, will be a con-
stant, if not a growing, danger. On the other
hand, it may be said that, while subjection to
Chinese jurisdiction would make every foreigner
take care to avoid offending and there are
prejudices to be respected as well as laws to be
observed and in that way keep them free from
its action, the probability is that, foreigners
being comparatively so few, not only would the
necessity for their appearance in court be of
rare occurrence, but the Chinese officials would
everywhere be specially on their guard, and
possibly receive the most express orders from
their Government, to not only observe the
greatest circumspection in all their dealings
with foreigners, but avoid subjecting them to
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 145
any treatment that could be complained of
anywhere by anybody. Nor should the effect
of such a concession be spoiled by reservations
and restrictions, beyond perhaps a stipulation for
evidence to be taken on oath and some right of
appeal, for the country, so to speak, would be
on its honour, and the whole force of Chinese
thought and teaching would then be enlisted in
the foreigner's favour through its maxim regard-
ing tenderly treating the stranger from afar.
Such a change of principle in the making of
treaties would widen and not restrict the field
for both merchant and missionary, and would
simplify and not complicate the work of both
consul and minister would do away with irri-
tating privileges and place native and foreigner
on the same footing and would remove the
sting of humiliation and put the Government
of China on the same plane as other Govern-
ments. Of course it would be an experiment
but a promising one, whereas adherence to
the treaties as they now stand will only continue
the difficulties as we now know them, and,
although the suggestion cannot be expected to
be either accepted or acted on now, it is here
offered for consideration as a something which
may serve as an explanation as well as prepare
the way for what sooner or later must come to
pass. It may have been it may still be ex-
pedient and even essential from the foreigner's
L
i 4 6 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
point of view and the necessities of commercial
law to stand on Chinese soil with the aegis of
extra-territoriality and the procedure of their
own courts; but to the Chinese eye this is a
spear and not a shield, and until it is with-
drawn there will be no assured dwelling at
ease no real welcome for foreign intercourse.
Restore jurisdiction, and the feeling of the
responsibility to protect as well as the appre-
ciation of intercourse will at once move up to a
higher plane.
Many talks with Chinese acquaintances on
the questions of the day the doings of the
treaty powers and the difficulties of China
have shown how the situation is viewed by
those whose attention it has attracted, and it
has always on such occasions been a source
of astonishment to observe how they retained
their calmness and philosophy while inwardly
boiling with indignation and trembling with
apprehension. Whether it is their rice diet
that is at the bottom of the general calmness
of the national temperament, physiologists and
psychologists can best determine, but a pithy
sentence with which one of the most celebrated
of their historical romances commences, written
ages ago, gives not only their philosophy of
history, but the explanation of the calmness
CHINA AND NON-CHINA 147
with which they view the stirring events which
make history. " Divided long, unites ; united
long, divides," it says, and the feeling that
cause and effect have played, do play, and will
continue to play in the way thus expressed,
seems to be part and parcel of the Chinese
mental equipment one might almost say a
Chinese category. If all they had to say
during those many talks were compressed into
a single paragraph, it might be interpreted
thus: "What you tell us is very true," said
they ; " we have not marched with the times !
You must remember, however, that we are
not a military people : we have cultivated the
arts of peace, and all our teaching leads us to
detest war and to look down on the profession
of arms. Every province, of course, has its
military, but they are police rather than soldiers,
and are just good enough to preserve order and
suppress revolt ; till recently there was no
necessity for fitting them to meet foreign
troops in the field. We are being forced to
change matters, however, and are changing,
although, as a civilized people, we think to do
so is to retrograde, and it is quite possible we
may be going too slow and may be caught un-
prepared. Perhaps it is because we do not like
it we are going so slow : but if right is right,
why should it not be acknowledged why must
it be backed up by might ? Our history, you
148 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
know, does not date from yesterday, and the
* black-haired race ' has had experiences of every
kind during the long cycles our records tell
us of. We are not up to date now that we
have to carry on intercourse with the armed
powers of the world ; we are weak, and possibly
history is about to repeat itself c United long,
divides ! ' Kussia may take the north, Germany
the east, France the south, and England the
centre, and it may even be a good thing for
us that such should happen it may even be
better too for us than for them ! Our new
rulers may in fact rule us for our good quite
as much as for their benefit, and in process of
time, while our northern countrymen are seem-
ingly become Russians, and the others Germans,
French and English, we shall have learnt all
they have to teach we shall see introduced all
that goes to make states rich and powerful
and we shall have improved upon that teaching,
picking their brains and developing our own
to an extent they may be the last to notice.
Then, one fine morning it may be a hundred,
it may be two hundred years hence a wave
of patriotic feeling will thrill through the length
and breadth of the land, and we shall say, ' Now,
gentlemen, you can go home,' and home they'll
go 'Divided long, unites!" In these "days
of " short views" such a philosophy of history
will perhaps be laughed at and its votaries
CHINA AND NON CHINA 149
pronounced unpractical ; but, should this volume
survive, readers some cycles hence will have
had time to realize how true it is that he who
laughs last, laughs best, and that simples are
often the best remedies.
PEKING, November, 1900.
THE BOXERS: 1900
EVERY eye has latterly been turned to China,
and every language has had its vocabulary
enriched by a new term but was this Boxer
movement simply the growth of a starving
mob, or had it a deeper significance? If it
had an official origin, and pursued its course
with official guidance and support, the serious-
ness of the episode cannot be exaggerated,
and, if such was not the case, the fact that
the Government either could not or would not
interfere to oppose it calls for more than
ordinary consideration and examination. Which-
ever explanation we accept, there is still some
anterior cause to be looked for : it is never the
proximate cause that gives a full answer to
real inquiry, and it is to origins we must go if
we would understand the causes of" causes and
thenceforward master them, defy them, or learn
the lesson of submission. Much has been every-
where written about recent occurrences in
China, but the study of disjointed phases and
unconnected details will interest rather than
THE BOXERS: 1900 151
enlighten, and may perhaps hide rather than
show the more important issues. What we
desire to discover is really something that will
make future intercourse safe, peaceful, and
profitable, and the first step to be taken in order
to do that is to ascertain what it is that has
made past intercourse in any form or degree
the reverse. Sixty years of treaty relations
have culminated in this Boxer movement : how
account for such a finale ?
The Chinese are a proud some say, a con-
ceited people, but they have very good reasons
for their pride, and their conceit has its excuses.
Far away from the rest of the world, they
have been living their own life and developing
their own civilization : while others have been
displaying what humanity may attain to with
a revealed religion for its highest law and a
Christ for its pattern, they have been exhibiting
what a life a race may rise to, and live, without
either. The central idea of their cult is filial
piety; reverence for seniority, intensifying
with every generation that transmitted it,
settles all the details of family, social, and
national life instead of " Commit no nuisance,"
the placard on the wall says, "Kespect thy-
self!" They are a pre-eminently reasonable
people, and, when disputes occur, it is the
appeal to right that solves them; for thirty
centuries or more this recognized or inherited
152 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
worship of right has gone on strengthening,
and so strong is the feeling that to hint to
them right must be supported by might excites
something more than amazement. The rela-
tions of sovereign to subject and of man to
man have so long been authoritatively denned
and acknowledged that the life of the people
has been poured into and shaped by a mould of
duty, while the natural division of the empire
into provinces has been so harmoniously sup-
plemented by provincial and inter-provincial
arrangements under the metropolitan adminis-
tration that law reigns everywhere and dis-
order is the exception. The arts of peace
have ever held the first place in the estimation
of all, and just as might should quail before
right, so does intellectual prowess win honour
everywhere, and the leaders of the people are
those whom the grand national competitive
examinations have proved to be more gifted
than their fellows. In no other country is
education so prized, so honoured, so utilized,
and so rewarded: along its lofty ladder, broad
at the base and narrow at the top, the son of
the poorest peasant may win his way to the
highest post among the ministers of state
around the Throne, and such is the veneration
for that simple vehicle of thought, the written
character, that to tread on paper with either
writing or printing on it is all but desecration.
THE BOXERS: 1900 153
Although not a warlike people by either nature
or training, the force of circumstances and the
prestige of a superior civilization reduced sur-
rounding states to the position of tributaries,
and thus the Middle Kingdom, soaring above
all its neighbours, carried adown the ages with
it, for itself as a state and for its people as the
people of that state, a visible, tangible, and actual
supremacy ; near and far, all bowed to the will
of the Emperor, so judiciously manifested as
to flatter rather than irritate, and so judiciously
held back that tributaries could live their own
lives in detail, merely recognizing Chinese
suzerainty on the surface, while all responded
more or less to the influence of its civilization
and deferred to the teachings of its ethics
ethics which had for their central and informing
doctrine, that, while men know nothing about
the Gods, they ought to live as if in their
presence, and among their fellows do nothing
to others they do not want others to do to
themselves. Filial piety developed mutual re-
sponsibility, and that, in its turn, made a rule
of right without might more possible, and the
negative precept of not doing what we do not
wish others to do made it a virtue to avoid
interference and fostered broad views and wide
tolerance. The natural result of all this was
that the Chinese Government grew to consider
itself the one great and civilized Government
154 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
beneath the skies, and expected all others to
recognize it as such and admit their own
inferiority, and the Chinese people whose
sons, deep-read in its many-sided literature and
imbued to the core with all the teaching of its
history and philosophy, were the officials and
representatives of that Government through the
length and breadth of the land were not less
proud : supremacy in every respect had for ages
been taken for granted, and a proud conscious-
ness of it has shaped the will and attitude of
both Government and people.
In due time the men from the West began
to appear, and when the Government that had
so long considered itself supreme, and the
people who had so long regarded all others as
barbarians, at the end of a war commenced
by an attempt to put a stop to trade in a
prohibited and deleterious drug, found them-
selves defeated in arms and forced to accept
treaty relations with powers who not only
challenged that supremacy, but demonstrated
their ability to dictate and enforce their will,
the shock their national pride received at once
took root in their nature as an enduring feeling
of not only amour-propre hurt, but right out-
raged; and, ever since treaty relations began,
this wounded feeling has been kept alive by
the stipulations of the treaties and the recur-
rence of misunderstandings, and has increased,
and not decreased, with the lapse of time.
THE BOXERS: 1900 155
Although treaty relations commenced with
the hurt feeling just explained on the Chinese
side, still intercourse went on peaceably for a
score of years at Canton and the newly opened
ports. During this quiet period, the island
of Hongkong, ceded to England by treaty,
developed considerable commercial importance,
increasing yearly in the number of its inhabi-
tants and the bulk of its trade ; the seizure
of one of its small trading craft by the Canton
authorities, aggravated by the fact that that city
still refused admission to foreigners, brought on
what is known as "the 'Arrow' war," and
ended in further Chinese defeats and the con-
clusion of new treaties at Tientsin, opening
additional ports, adding transit rights to mer-
cantile privileges, and (in the Chinese version,
but not in the authoritative foreign original)
according missionaries the right to acquire
property and live inland. Without naming it,
too, the same treaties accepted the idea of a
uniform system and a foreign inspectorate,
already in operation at Shanghai since 1854,
for the Customs at the treaty ports, and so
prepared the way for the establishment and
extension of this branch of the Chinese service
on a cosmopolitan basis and with an interna-
tional sanction. Finally, that war opened the
capital, Peking, to the Legations, and a new
Board styled the Tsungli Yamn was thereon
156 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
created to transact business with the foreign
representatives and take charge of China's inter-
national relations generally ; two minorities
interfered considerably with Court recognition
of diplomatic status, but, animated by the desire
to improve relations, progress was made in the
direction of regular and recognized receptions
by the Emperor, and even the Empress
Dowager herself followed up the anti-reform
action of 1898 by receiving on two separate
occasions the wives of the foreign ministers,
while the Emperor received Prince Henry of
Prussia on terms of equality.
This progress at Court apart, however, the
forty years that elapsed between the Tientsin
treaties and the Boxer movement did not go
by as quietly as the twenty preceding ones,
when the treaty powers were less numerous
and the Nanking treaties ruled. Thus the
'seventies saw the Margary trouble with Eng-
land, the 'eighties the Tonking affair with
France, the 'nineties the war with Japan, the
annexation of Burma, the release of Corea from
the tributary position, the cession of Formosa,
and the leases of Kiao Chow, Port Arthur and
Talienwan, Wei-Hai-Wei, Kwang Chow Wan,
and Kowloon, and, last of all, the Boxer
movement, with the occupation of Peking by
the forces of eight allied powers and the flight
of the Court to Si-an. With the close of the
THE BOXERS: 1900 157
century the cup of suffering may be said to
have been filled to the brim, but why should
the last twenty years of the cycle of treaty
relations be so stormy as compared with the
quiet times enjoyed during the first twenty?
Had the Tientsin treaties anything to do
with it ?
1 By the Tientsin treaties foreigners obtained
some privileges which were subsequently con-
sidered objectionable by various natives whose
interests they interfered with. The coasting
trade was thrown open to vessels under foreign
flags, and this competition damaged junk- owners
and the branches of native trade therewith
connected. The privilege of conveying goods
to and fro inland under transit passes was
accorded to foreigners, and not only was this
abused for native consignments, but it caused
troubles for the financial arrangements of the
semi - independent provincial administrations.
Missionaries availed themselves of the new
clause above referred to, and established them-
selves at many places inland; and this was
followed not only by quarrels between converts
and pagans, but by complaints that the mis-
sionaries themselves interfered in local official
business, thereby irritating both mandarins and
people. Foreign Legations were established in
the capital, and business did not always proceed
as smoothly as the Chinese officials would have
158 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
liked. The foreign inspectorate of Customs took
many perquisites and some patronage out of
the hands of the Taotai superintendents, and,
although highly valued at headquarters, did
not enjoy much popularity locally. Over and
above all these causes of irritation was the con-
tinued disparagement implied in the extra-
territoriality stipulation, and its humiliating
effect was more and more felt as intercourse
grew and Chinese representatives ahroad became
better acquainted with procedure elsewhere.
To what extent treaties, commercial dealings,
missionary propagandism, improved revenue ad-
ministration, and official intercourse at Peking
and the ports have really benefited China, are
each debatable points. Foreign governments,
merchants, missionaries, and officials would be
loath to acknowledge that no good has been
done much less harm ; and yet on the Chinese
side we have Prince Kung exclaiming: "Take
away your opium and your missionaries, and all
will be well ! " while the still greater Wen
Hsiang, who was, as it were, Prime Minister,
about the same time, said on one occasion :
" Cancel your extra-territoriality clause, and
merchants and missionaries may go anywhere
and everywhere," and on another: "Do not
think the growth of foreign revenue is grati-
fying ; every increase means a new provincial
difficulty, and, instead of considering it a gain,
THE BOXERS: 1900 159
we would willingly tax ourselves and pay out
an equivalent amount to be rid of you ! " There
may have been exaggeration in the language of
each, but that language expressed opinion, and
that opinion grew out of experience. During
the 'forties, 'fifties, and 'sixties foreign inter-
course was simply tolerated, and was never
regarded as a blessing; it was not necessary
for the eighteen provinces to buy from or sell
to foreigners their own immense inter-pro-
vincial trade quite sufficed to dispose of super-
fluous products and supply the demand of
consumers ; their Confucian ethics provided for
the proper regulation of all the relations of men
in this world for barbarians, who so little un-
derstood the import of right here, to send
missionaries to teach about preparation for the
hereafter, was simply ludicrous, and was be-
coming more than a nuisance by the quarrels
that everywhere followed such teaching ; as for
treaties and the pleasures of foreign intercourse
China was happier and better without them.
In a word, China had been living apart to the
end of the eighteenth century, and was supreme
in her own far Eastern world, and now we have
the nineteenth ending with such an attempt to
expel foreigners that the experience of a cen-
tury's intercourse may be pronounced to have
been neither profitable nor pleasing: if profit-
able, was it so displeasing that unpleasantness
160 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
outweighed benefit if pleasing, was it so
little profitable that loss cancelled enjoyment ?
Volumes would be required to detail the occur-
rences of this century of intercourse, to trace
the inter-connection of cause and effect, and to
explain how each has been in turn the falling
drop that wore the hole and left a rift in
friendship : how can the limited space of a
magazine article suffice to exhibit all lights,
answer all objections, or exhaust explanations
of the past and suggestions for the future ? It
is, in fact, surpassing strange that there should
to-day be room for such criticism, seeing that,
at all events on the surface, trade and inter-
course have on the whole had such quiet times
at every port, and it is all but incredible that
we have so long been living on the flanks of
a volcano ; and yet it is apparently beyond
dispute that, however friendly individuals may
have appeared or been, general intercourse has
all along been simply tolerated and never wel-
come, and now an uprising against foreign
teaching and foreign intrusion, always possible,
has to be faced and dealt with. Such being
the case, there must be a cause for it, and
surely there must be a remedy too why is
foreign intercourse seemingly under a ban,
semi-governmental semi-popular, and what can
be done to make it both welcome and profitable
in the future ?
THE BOXERS: 1900 16 1
Foreigners in China, although increasing in
numbers, are not very numerous, and may be
roughly divided into three classes mercantile,
missionary, and ministerial. The mercantile
class carry on their business in an orderly, legal,
and unobjectionable manner, in accordance with
treaty stipulations and rules framed to give
effect to the same : there has been nothing in
their behaviour as a class or as individuals to
warrant the hostility of the Chinese around
them ; but, all the same, Chinese do complain
that foreign competition in China's coasting
trade has ruined junk- owners and thrown out
of employ the large crews they used to support
thus antagonizing the trading classes; and
that the right to convey merchandise to and
fro under the transit clauses has disorganized
provincial finances thus estranging all inland
officials. The missionaries, it is granted, exert
themselves to do good in various ways, and
their medical benevolence is acknowledged with
grateful appreciation ; but the very fact of their
presuming to teach at all is itself irritating,
and for neighbours to accept their teaching is
still worse, while certain abuses that have
crept in such as soi-disant converts joining
their congregations to get protection against
the consequences of misconduct, or to make
use of Church connection to influence local
litigation, as well as missionaries themselves
1 62 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
intervening or interfering in local official busi-
ness, a sort of poaching on official preserves
which mandarins wax wroth over have from
time to time caused local excitement and dis-
pleased both people and officials. As for the
ministerial class the foreign representatives at
the Capital and the Consular authorities at the
ports it is absurd to suppose that their attitude
and conduct have been other than propriety
requires ; and yet, at the same time, as the
official representatives of governments that
not only ignored China's claim to supremacy
but exacted concessions or shared in the con-
cessions exacted by others, they have always
been viewed with suspicion, and, however
popular personally, with dislike as a class, while
the language and action of isolated individuals,
if passing the bounds of comity, are noted
rather as the characteristics of the class than
the idiosyncrasies of the individual. The advent
of the foreigner was unwelcome, the incidents
that mark his presence create dissatisfaction,
and the undercurrent of feeling is in the
direction of a desire to induce him to hasten
his departure rather than to prolong his stay.
These blemishes disfigure the features of foreign
intercourse, and neither " powder" nor "rouge"
will efface them : if they, as effects, must dis-
appear, the causes from which they spring must
either be removed or neutralized.
THE BOXERS: 1900 163
On the Chinese side there is pride, innate
pride pride of race, pride of intellect, pride
of civilization, pride of supremacy; and this
inherited pride, in its massive and magnificent
setting of blissful ignorance, has been so hurt
by the manner of foreign impact that the other
good points of Chinese character have, as it
were, been stunned and cannot respond; it is
not simply the claim for equality, or the demon-
stration of physical superiority, or the expan-
sion of intercourse under compulsion, or the
dictation of treaties, that have hurt that pride
were it only these, time would have healed
the wound long ago, but it is a something in
those treaties which keeps open the raw and
prevents healing. Just as one can paralyze
the body or corrupt the soul of a human being,
so too is it possible to outrage the spirit and
antagonize the nature of a people ; and it is
something like this which the West has done
in the case of China, of course unintentionally
yet not the less effectually. The most impor-
tant, and from the foreign standpoint the most
essential, stipulation in the treaties is that
which extra-territorializes the foreigner in
China ; it is the principle on which the treaties
are built up, and the spirit of it runs through
every article : by it the foreigner is not amen-
able to any Chinese tribunal, and can only be
dealt with by the oflicials of his own country,
164 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
and there is a certain caoutchouc quality in
its nature which extends its area, so that, while
it is claimed not only for the individual but for
his property, it leads to the supposition that he
is not only to be judged by his own laws alone,
but is absolved from any obligation to observe
the laws of China laws which, it must be
remarked, are of two kinds, the one being the
written laws of the empire, and the other the
unwritten laws, the practices, prejudices, and
superstitions, of a locality, in their turn just
as binding on all people there and more likely
to produce local ill-feeling if violated. A foreign
official is invoked, for instance, and his inter-
vention obliges Chinese officials to enforce the
sale of a certain plot of ground to missionaries
against the wishes of the neighbours, and then
the missionary proceeds to put up a lofty build-
ing on it, thereby, in the estimation and to
the consternation of the whole population, irre-
trievably ruining the luck of the neighbourhood
and the fortunes of its inhabitants. To the
foreigner the native objection is not only a
something to be laughed at, but is a superstition
to be fought against and swept away, and this
is just the style of action which carries with
it the sure seed of a future riot and demands
for gunboat protection ; were he not withdrawn
from the jurisdiction of the lords of the soil,
the Chinese Government, the foreigner might
THE BOXERS: 1900 165
possibly acquire that special plot, but he would
be unable to put up that style of building on it
would not another structure or another site do
just as well, and would it not be better to have
the friendship than the hostility of the neigh-
bours ? As to the strength of these super-
stitions, there is nothing stronger; and as to
their warrant, accident will always supply that.
Take, for instance, the belief that a solar eclipse
on New Year's Day means bad luck for the
Emperor, and that an intercalary eighth moon
portends calamity for the country at large : well,
in 1898 the first day of the Chinese year was
marked by an eclipse of the sun, and before
that year ended the Empress Dowager had
brushed aside the Emperor and strangled re-
form ; while in 1900 the intercalary eighth moon
came round, and behold, the Boxer movement
shook the whole world ! What the West has
said, has sounded to Chinese ears like this :
" You are pagans, but we are Christians your
laws are not our laws your judges are corrupt
injustice prevails torture is practised punish-
ments are barbarous jails are hells and we
therefore withdraw our people from your juris-
diction, and send missionaries to make you
think as we do : but there is money to be
made in your trade, and therefore you must
share that trade with us, even though it be
along your coasts and on your inland waters,
166 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
and you must accord us for are we not
strangers and guests? the commercial privi-
leges which go hand in hand with the principle
on which we have made treaties, and you had
better not violate these treaties or you'll have
to pay for it!" China, the proudest of the
proud, is wounded to the core, and taken the
right way the most reasonable of the reasonable,
is made more obstructive than obstructionists.
This is the explanation of the fact that inter-
course under treaties has not been a success,
and, no matter what safeguards be devised, as
long as these treaties regulate intercourse, so
long will the irritation last, and so long will
the foreigner be unwelcome. Merchant, mis-
sionary, and minister may one and all be
animated by the best motives they may be
sympathetic, considerate, patient, tactful, and
just ; and yet, building on this foundation, the
structure they run up will be as much out of
the perpendicular as the leaning tower of Pisa,
and sooner or later it must snap and collapse.
Time will, of course, remedy matters in its
own way : wisdom and forbearance may happily
ward off collision and catastrophe, while various
reforms such as the Footai Tseng Ho advo-
cated in his memorial for a new code of laws
just before the conservative wave swept him
away two years ago may -gradually assimilate
Chinese procedure to that of the other sections
THE BOXERS; 1900 167
of the civilized world, and the West may then
consider itself at liberty to regard China in
another light, cancel the differential treatment
now held necessary for the protection of the
foreigner on Chinese soil, and, by recognizing
and re-establishing essential harmony, eradicate
the roots of discord; but such changes may
require generations to effect, and while the
process is going on the old wound may bleed
afresh, and the more robust the rest of the
body, the harder it may be to stop the flow.
Curtailment of the natural right of jurisdiction,
cancellation of such defensible monopolies as a
country's coasting trade, and alien protection
for natives who forsake the national cult, are
considered to be among the characteristic
features of treaty intercourse, and there is no
escaping the fact that the Chinese regard them
as offensive, and know that they would not be
tolerated elsewhere; but, just as the exquisite
teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is too
Christ-like for the average Christian to adopt
and follow in all the details of his daily life,
so, too, international morality must be accorded
its exceptions when Christian claims eclipse
pagan rights, and its evasions when the things
it considers expedient conflict with uncivilized
preferences. Of all the powers, it is Eussia that
can best afford to be on good terms with China :
Russia is a neighbour and can wait has no
1 68 "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
propaganda her commerce, though consider-
able in volume, has, so to speak, but one body,
and rolls along over a recognized and beaten
track and Eussia may yet be the first to
restore to China her sovereign rights, and so
cement for ever the neighbourly friendship that
has characterized so much of her action in the
past. As for the other powers, their base is
far away : their interests are many, scattered,
and diversified, and their hands are to some
extent forced, as they can only strike out in
defence of the same, with effort, occasionally,
and spasmodically ; and they probably dare not
risk such an experiment as an alteration of the
guiding spirit of the treaties involves, although
it is quite possible the change might prove not
only innocuous but beneficial; their subjects
and citizens, on the one hand, being thereby
forced to actively avoid giving offence, and the
Chinese officials, on the other, gratified by
the proper recognition of China's independent
status, bound over to afford every protection
and shun every appearance of harshness or
injustice, the field of the merchant and mis-
sionary being thereby extended and widened,
and the duties of the ministerial body simplified
and elevated.
Unfortunately, explanations do not always
remove they sometimes only increase difficul-
ties, and to most readers it may seem incredible
THE BOXERS: 1900 169
that popular feeling in China has been in-
fluenced directly or indirectly by either treaties
or treaty stipulations. As a matter of fact, few
know anything about such international instru-
ments, but various sections have felt their
effect, and among certain classes and their
acquaintances rumours constantly spread, re-
flecting what has been heard by the underlings
who hang about in such numbers when man-
darins receive and discuss business with foreign
officials, or themselves talk over foreign ques-
tions with their friends and colleagues : a
mandarin, as is well known, has only to express
annoyance at something foreign to give the cue
and set the fashion for a whole neighbourhood.
Whatever hostility may exist, latent or ex-
pressed, it is nevertheless a fact that every
foreigner has at hand numbers of Chinese
friends, and that many Chinese live by, are
interested in, and do not object to, foreign
intercourse ; China, however, is not an easy
country to understand, and those who are best
acquainted with it are puzzled to trace its
sequence of thought or interpret its public
opinion. The present outbreak may have its
uses and clear the atmosphere, and years of
tranquillity may follow, and if this attempt to
explain matters can in any way help to a better
understanding, or prepare the way for such a
manner of dealing with the Chinese question as
i;o "THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM"
to make relations more friendly and intercourse
more profitable, it will not have been penned
in vain. Although the Peking Government had
seemingly sanctioned the utterly inexcusable
doings of the Boxers and others last summer,
and officials in two or three provinces counte-
nanced and took part in the infliction of the
most cruel sufferings on missionaries and their
families, it should not be forgotten that in the
other fifteen or sixteen provinces the Viceroys
and Governors maintained order, and no anti-
foreign risings occurred : this fact ought not to
be lost sight of when discussing the extent
to which circumstances practically justify the
powers in treating China as beyond the pale of
civilization and Chinese claims as no longer
entitled to a hearing. While conceding with
Chinese thinkers that great is the might of
right, one must qualify that with the thought
that great also is the right of might. Where
the most powerful states are also the most
civilized, they not only have the right, but it is
their duty sometimes to impose their will on
others only, in proportion as they are mighty
and civilized, so should their action be con-
siderate, discriminating, and just.
PEKING, December, 1900.
APPENDIX I
Circular No. 512.
Inspectorate General of Customs,
Peking, 2nd September, 1890.
SIR,
In March, 1878, the Yamen addressed a very
important Circular Letter to the Chinese Ministers
abroad, in which the views of the Chinese Govern-
ment respecting Transit, Likin, Exterritoriality, " Most
favoured Nation " clause, and Missionary Question, etc.,
etc., etc., were very clearly set forth, and that letter was
communicated to and, I assume, its views accepted by
the Treaty Powers. As it is desirable to have the
letter on record for easy reference, I now enclose a
copy.
I am,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
ROBERT HART,
Inspector General.
To the Commissioners of Customs.
{English Version^
THE TSUNGLI YAMEN TO THE CHINESE MINISTERS
ABROAD.
I. Since the Treaties of Tientsin were ratified, China's
relations with foreign Powers have invariably been con-
ducted in accordance with their stipulations. Whatever
complaints there may have been on the part of foreign
17* APPENDIX I
Governments on this head have in the main been
occasioned by accidents to individuals and the incidence
of taxation. As regards the first class of complaints, it
must be remembered that such things may occur in any
country, and that no amount of foresight can effectually
guard against them ; while as to taxation, it is where
there are no Treaty provisions, or where Treaty pro-
visions are read two ways, that differences occur.
2. Treaties may be revised once in every ten years,
and such additions, abrogations, or modifications as are
introduced depend of course on the voluntary assent
of the contracting Powers. The first revision of the
British Treaty was concluded by the Yamen and
British Minister in 1869; but notwithstanding that
friendly negotiations had extended over as much as
two years, the British Government refused to ratify
the arrangements of its representative, and the Revised
Treaty has never been in force. For a year past the
revision of the German Treaty has been going on ; and
among the proposals of the German Minister there are
some to which it is impossible for China to assent ; so,
although there has been much discussion, no settlement
has been yet arrived at. In this matter of Treaty
revision, a mutual interchange of views is a preliminary
of much importance, and it appears to us that there are
four cardinal points regarding which it would seem that
we have up to the present failed to make the Chinese
view understood. They are : (i) Transit ; (2) Likin
Taxation ; (3) Exterritoriality ; (4) The " Most Favoured
Nation " clause. We propose to state our views in
connection with them for Your Excellency's information.
3. As regards dues and duties paid by foreigners
generally, we hold that by the Treaties of Tientsin
foreigners
APPENDIX I 173
(1) Can import foreign goods into China on payment
of the tariff duty ;
(2) Can re-export duty-paid foreign goods to a
foreign country and obtain drawback of the import
duty originally paid ;
(3) Can convey duty-paid foreign goods into the
interior, and either, as Chinese merchants do, pay
duties at each Custom-house and taxes at each barrier
passed, or, by payment of the tariff transit due, can free
their goods from such duties and taxes en route to any
place, however distant, named by them and entered in
their transit certificate ;
(4) Can purchase native produce in the interior, and,
if intended for foreign export and supplied with transit
certificates, can bring it to a Treaty port exempt along
the route from all duties and taxes, by simply exhibiting
the Certificates at each Custom-house and barrier passed,
it being merely charged the tariff transit due at the
" last barrier " (i.e. the barrier nearest the port) ; or if
not provided with transit certificates, then such produce
has to pay the duties and taxes to which Chinese
merchants are liable ;
(5) Can export native produce on payment of an
export tariff duty.
(6) Can convey native produce from Treaty port to
Treaty port on payment of an export duty at the port
of shipment and a coast trade half duty at the port of
discharge ;
(7) Can, after payment of the coast trade half duty as
above, convey such native produce into the interior on
payment of the duties and taxes at the Custom-houses
and barriers passed en -route, in the same manner as
Chinese merchants.
The above is in a general way what foreigners trading
174 APPENDIX I
in native and foreign goods are entitled to as regards
payment of duties in accordance with Treaties and
Regulations.
4. As regards Transit Inwards, however, foreigners
have maintained that to say goods are exempted en
route from a port to the place mentioned in the transit
certificate is not enough : they have held that foreign
goods which have once paid transit dues cannot sub-
sequently be called upon to pay any local charge
whatever. To this interpretation we cannot agree. By
the Treaties foreigners have the option of taking out or
not taking out transit certificates. If transit certificates
are applied for, the treaty stipulations require that the
place to which the goods are going must be named
and entered in the certificate. Why is this so ? It is
because the certificate is only to free the goods from
the Treaty port to the place named in the certificate ;
arrived there, the certificate becomes waste paper, and
the goods thereafter differ in no respect from ordinary
uncertificated goods. Again, the foreign merchant
having the option of taking out or not taking out
transit documents, it thence results that foreign goods
of two kinds are found at the same place in the
interior at the same time, namely, certificated and
uncertificated : the certificated goods, travelling in a
given direction under certificate from the Treaty port
to a place named, are by Treaty exempt from taxation
everywhere en route ; while the uncertificated goods,
transported in any direction at pleasure, are everywhere
liable to the incidence of local taxation. When the
certificated goods have arrived at their place of destina-
tion and by the cancelling of the certificate have become
uncertificated, they like all other uncertificated goods,
are thenceforth liable to taxation. The certificate once
APPENDIX I 175
cancelled on arrival at the place of destination, how can
it be possible to distinguish among equally uncertificated
goods which had paid and which had not paid transit
dues ? It is evident, therefore, that complete exemption
from taxation, everywhere and for all future time, is not
the meaning of the Treaties, but simply that goods are
to be freed from all taxes en route. In a word, as we
understand the inward transit privilege, a certificate
only protects goods from charges en route from port
to place ; but this is already a great privilege, for on
paying one transit due the foreigner can at pleasure
send his goods to any market, however distant, without
further liability to taxation.
5. As regards Transit Outwards ; foreigners have held
that goods may be brought down under transit certificate
even when not intended for foreign export, but meant
for re-sale in China, and have gone so far as to say
that, even without certificates, no tax ought to be
charged in the interior on goods ordinarily exported
to foreign countries. Now, as Chinese merchants have
to pay all taxes en route, it is obvious that the only way
foreigners could bring down goods free would be under
certificates, and therefore, without certificates, goods
must pay, no matter what may be their subsequent
destination. And again, since native trade would be
subjected to unfair competition if foreigners were per-
mitted to bring down produce under transit certificate
and then send it to another part of China for sale, it
follows that the produce that is entitled to transit
privileges can only be such produce as is intended for
foreign export. In a word, as regards native produce
outwards the case is just the same as with foreign
merchandise inwards : the transactions differ, but the
amount of duty charged is the same ; for just as a
1 76 APPENDIX I
foreigner can take foreign goods to any part of China
on payment of a full and half duty, so he can go to any
part of China and thence take Chinese produce to a
foreign country on payment of a similar full and half
duty.
6. Likin is continually objected to by foreigners.
But is it not just as well known that Chinese merchants
are opposed to it too, and that the Government regards
it only as a temporary expedient ? Independent Powers
must be guided by national necessities in fixing their
taxation. In these troublous times the demands on the
Government are very heavy, and it is impossible to
avoid having recourse to special measures. We main-
tain that all such matters should be left to be deter-
mined by China herself, and that the foreigner has no
more right to interfere with or object to them than
China would have to interfere with or criticize the action
of a foreign government in raising loans or increasing
taxes. If foreign merchants desire to escape the Likin,
they can escape it : all they have to do is to supply
themselves with transit certificates when taking foreign
goods into the interior or bringing native produce out of
the interior ; if they do not carry transit certificates
they must pay the Likin, for, in the absence of transit
certificates, all goods are alike and indistinguishable,
and must in the interior pay Likin according to the rule
of the locality.
7. As regards Jurisdiction, i.e. Exterritoriality. By
the Treaties foreigners in China are not amenable to
the jurisdiction of the Chinese authorities, i.e. they are
exterritorialized. If they have disputes among them-
selves, their own authorities are to settle them ; if they
commit an offence, their own authorities are to punish
them according to their own national laws. But
APPENDIX I 177
foreigners claim much more than this : they interpret
the exterritorial privilege as meaning, not only that
Chinese officials are not to control them, but that they
may disregard and violate Chinese regulations with
impunity. To this we cannot assent China has not
by any Treaty given foreigners permission to disregard
or violate the laws of China : while residing in China
they are as much bound to observe them as Chinese
are; what has been conceded in the Treaties in this
connection is merely that offenders shall be punished
by their own national officials in accordance with their
own national laws. For example, if Chinese law pro-
hibits Chinese subjects from going through a certain
passage, foreigners cannot claim to go through that
forbidden passage in virtue of exterritoriality. If they
go through it and thereby break a Chinese law, their
own national officials are to punish them in accordance
with such laws as provide for analogous cases in their
own country. In a word, the true meaning of the
exterritoriality clause is, not that a foreigner is at liberty
to break Chinese laws, but that if he offends he shall be
punished by his own national officials. Again, seeing
that China has agreed that these judicial powers shall
be exercised by foreign consuls within Chinese territory,
foreign governments should on their side take care
that none but good and reliable men are appointed to
these posts. Several states, however, appoint merchant
consuls. Now, in so far as concerns that part of a
consul's duty which comprises the reporting and clearing
of ships and the shipping and discharging of sailors,
China does not object to its being discharged by mer-
chant consuls. But in China a consul's duties comprise
judicial functions as well, and the importance of such
functions is such as to seem to demand the appointment
N
1 78 APPENDIX 1
of bond fide officials to consular posts ; moreover, where
cases requiring joint investigation occur, it is neither
convenient nor dignified for a Chinese official to sit on
the bench with a merchant consul, who may have been
fined for smuggling the day before, or who, in his mer-
cantile capacity, may perhaps be personally interested
in the case at issue.
8. The " Most favoured Nation " clause is found in all
the Treaties, and it is well that it should be so, for it is
difficult for China to distinguish between foreigners or
say which belongs to which nationality ; and so much
is this so, that even non-Treaty Power foreigners are
treated like the others. The object of the foreign
negotiator in introducing this clause was to prevent his
own nationals from being placed at a disadvantage as
compared with others, and to secure that all should be
equally favoured. Now this is precisely what China
desires. But foreign governments, although their
objects in negotiating for the " most favoured nation "
clause were similar to those of China, are not always
fair in their interpretation of it For example, if China
for a consideration grants a certain country a new
privilege on such and such conditions, this would be of
the nature of a special concession for a special con-
sideration. Should other countries come forward and
in virtue of the " most favoured nation " clause claim to
participate in the new privilege, although China need
not necessarily exact a similar consideration in return,
yet it would be only just to expect that in enjoying the
privileges they would consent to observe the conditions
accepted by the power to which it was originally
granted. But, far from this being the case, there are
some who, while demanding the privilege, refuse to be
bound by the conditions attached to it. This is the
APPENDIX I 179
unfair interpretation to which China objects. In a
word, as regards this " most favoured nation " clause, we
hold that if one country desires to participate in the
privileges conceded to another country, it must consent
to be bound by the conditions attached to them and
accepted by that other.
9. Over and above the four points commented on
there is the Missionary question. China, recognizing
that the object of all religious systems is to teach men
to do good, has by treaty assented to missionaries
coming to teach their doctrines in China, and has also
guaranteed protection to them and to their converts.
But among the missionaries are some who, exalting the
importance of their office, arrogate to themselves an
official status, and interfere so far as to transact business
that ought properly to be dealt with by the Chinese
local authorities ; while among their converts are some
who look upon their being Christians as protecting them
from the consequences of breaking the laws of their
own country, and refuse to observe the rules which are
binding on their neighbours. This state of things China
cannot tolerate or submit to. Under the exterritoriality
clause foreigners are to be dealt with by their own
national authorities, but as regards Chinese subjects
on Chinese soil, it is only the Chinese authorities
who can deal with them, and Chinese subjects, whether
Christians or not, to be accounted good subjects, must
render an exact obedience to the laws of China ; if
any offend against those laws, they must one and all,
Christians or not Christians alike, submit to be dealt
with by their own native authorities, and the foreign
missionary cannot be permitted to usurp the right of
shielding them from the consequences of their acts.
10. In order that negotiations for Treaty revision may
i8o APPENDIX 1
be facilitated, what is required is reciprocal consideration
and mutual forbearance. We accordingly address to
Your Excellency this communication.
To recapitulate :
a. In the matter of Inward Transit, we hold that
certificates only cover goods from a Treaty port to the
place named in the certificate, exempting them from all
taxes en route, and that, once arrived at that place, they
thereafter differ in no respect from uncertificated goods,
and must, like all uncertificated goods, pay whatever
charge the barriers passed thereafter may collect.
b. In the matter of Outward Transit, we hold that
produce not yet bought by foreigners, or bought but
not covered by Transit documents, is liable to all local
charges, and that goods brought down under Transit
Passes for foreigners must be sent to foreign countries,
and cannot be allowed to go to other Chinese ports for
sale, to the disadvantage of native-owned goods which
have not had the benefit of the Transit Pass.
c. In the matter of Likin and Taxation generally, we
hold that China, as an independent State, has the right
to levy whatever taxes she pleases in whatever manner
she may think best ; and we consider it unfair on the
part of other Governments to question our proceedings
or put difficulties in our way, seeing that we only collect
special taxes because special circumstances call for
them.
d. In the matter of Jurisdiction, we hold that the
exterritoriality conceded in the Treaties does not free
the foreigner from observing the rules which Chinese
have to observe ; and seeing that Consuls have judicial
powers, we think the importance of the trust requires
that they should be bond fide officials, and not traders.
e. In the matter of the " Most favoured Nation " clause,
APPENDIX I 18 1
we hold that when any country claims to share the
privileges conceded to another, it is bound to observe
the conditions accepted by that other likewise.
/. In the matter of the Missionary question, we hold
that within Chinese territory it is only the Chinese
officials who can be allowed to exercise authority over
the Chinese people, and that, Christians or not Christians,
Chinese subjects must one and all pay due respect and
obedience to the laws of China.
What China wishes to do is to carry out the treaties
in such a way as to give full effect to all their stipula-
tions, and place all foreigners in China on the same
footing ; but she cannot allow those Treaties to be
wrested to mean something which is essentially unfair
to the Chinese people, nor, in attempting to adjust
national resources to national wants, can she assent to
any interference with her sovereignty as an independent
state. What the treaties aim at is the maintenance of
peaceful relations, and it will be found that nothing
contributes to this end more powerfully than a due
recognition by either State of the independence and
sovereignty of the other.
Your Excellency will go in person to the Foreign
Office and read this despatch to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and, if requested, leave a copy.
March, 1878.
fe
APPENDIX II
Proposals for the better Regulation of Commercial
Relations; being a Memorandum called for
by the Tsungli Yam$n {Board of Foreign
Affairs, China), and drawn up by the In-
spector General of Customs, Peking, Jamiary
23, 1876.
I. INSPECTOR GENERAL'S DESPATCH.
The Inspector General of Customs to tkeir Excellencies
His Imperial Highness the Prince of Kung and the
Ministers of the Tsungli Yamen (Board of Foreign
Affairs), Peking.
Inspectorate General of Imperial Maritime Customs, Peking,
January 23, 1876.
1. The Undersigned has the honour to acknowledge
the receipt of the Yamen's despatch of October 6,
18/5 :-
[Despatch quoted in full.]
2. The Undersigned would observe that to attempt
the better regulation of all matters connected with the
taxation of the commodities which pass through the
APPENDIX II 183
ports open to trade is in point of fact to essay the better
regulation of commercial relations, that commercial
relations of necessity bring in their train questions con-
cerning person and property requiring judicial decisions
for their settlement, and that the various arrangements
which thus come to be called for commercially and
judicially necessitate governmental or administrative
action in various directions. In giving effect to the
Yamen's instructions the Undersigned has accordingly
arranged his proposals under three general headings,
viz. Commercial, Judicial, and Administrative, prefaced
and supplemented by introductory and concluding
remarks ; and the plan adopted in the treatment of the
subject has been to state the more salient features of
existing arrangements with the complaints they have
called forth from both native and foreigner, and
then, guided by those complaints and their causes,
submit such suggestions as are thought likely on
the one hand to put a stop to the complaints that
have hitherto existed, and seem calculated on the
other to secure for both native and foreigner the rights,
privileges, and advantages to which they are entitled
respectively.
3. As for commercial requirements the principle
running through past and present arrangements is one
which distinguishes between persons and not between
things, and the natural result is a jealous and angry
feeling on all sides ; the commercial proposals now
submitted make no distinction of persons, but are based
on distinctions in things ; they place both foreigner and
native on the same footing and make it impossible for
either to say that the other possesses an unfair ad-
vantage. As for judicial requirements the principle
running through the arrangements that have come down
184 APPENDIX II
to us from the past is again found to be one which gives
prominence to distinctions in persons and not in things,
and no procedure is established for the joint action
which ought to have place where both foreigners and
natives are concerned ; the judicial proposals now
submitted not only provide for procedure but recom-
mend a common code for mixed cases. As for the
governmental or administrative action that the manage-
ment of commercial relations and settlement of judicial
business call for the most striking feature of past and
present arrangements has been that they appear to have
provided for only one, instead of for both parties, and
that they have been devised with so little reference to
reciprocity, that to regard them with entire approval is
an impossibility ; the administrative suggestions now
submitted give prominence to reciprocity and advocate
the introduction of such arrangements as shall be fair
to both parties, and satisfy all alike.
4. The "Memorandum of Proposals" is now sub-
mitted, inclosed. If allowed to be given a trial to,
its recommendations will be found to be of a nature
that can be safely undertaken by the locality and
be given full effect to by the Customs, and, at once
securing what is useful and guarding against what is
harmful, will be attended with no small benefit to
general interests.
(Signed) ROBERT HART,
Inspector General of
Imperial Maritime Customs.
APPENDIX II 185
Inclosure.
Inspector Generats Proposals.
INDEX.
Introductory I.
Commercial II.
Judicial III.
Administrative IV.
Concluding V.
I. Introductory : Sections i to 7.
1. The Yamen's instructions ; what they call for, and
aim at.
2. Whatever is recommended must bear two sets of
tests.
3. Past arrangements and present situation : their more
striking features.
4. Foreigners desire growth, and are progressive ; Chinese
aim at self-preservation, and are conservative.
5. Ex-territorial stipulations as seen from two opposite
standpoints.
6. What proposals must do to be acceptable.
7. Past arrangements elicited three kinds of complaints
Commercial, Judicial, and Administrative ; the pro-
posals now submitted similarly classified.
II. Commercial : Sections 8 to 22.
8. Commercial complaints : Port and Inland.
9. Commercial complaints : Port complaints.
10. Commercial complaints Port complaints : Import
Trade.
11. Commercial complaints Port complaints : Export
Trade.
12. Commercial complaints : Inland complaints.
1 86 APPENDIX II
13. Commercial complaints : Chinese counter-charges.
14. Commercial complaints Chinese counter-charges
Port.
J 5. Commercial complaints Chinese counter-charges :
Inland.
1 6. Commercial complaints : the necessary, not accidental,
result of the Treaties.
17. Commercial complaints : how their causes can alone be
removed.
1 8. Commercial Proposals First set : To change present,
and substitute presumably better arrangements.
19. Commercial Proposals Second set (alternative) : To
interpret existing stipulations liberally.
20. Commercial Proposals Third set (alternative) : To
interpret existing stipulations strictly.
21. Commercial Proposals Fourth set (alternative) : To
invite mercantile suggestions.
22. Proposals to be weighed from standpoint furnished by
preceding remarks.
III. Judicial: Sections 23 to 32.
23. Judicial stipulations of the Treaties.
24. Complaints originating in treatment of cases affecting
Person.
25. Complaints originating in treatment of cases affecting
Properly.
26. Complaints originating in treatment of cases affecting
Revenue Laws.
27. Complaints point to differences in principle, law, pro-
cedure, and penalty.
28. Judicial Proposals First set : To establish a common
code, etc., for mixed cases.
29. Judicial Proposals Second set (alternative) : To estab-
lish procedure for joint action in mixed cases.
30. Judicial Proposals Third set (alternative) : To establish
procedure for settlement of cases growing out of loss
of life.
31. Judicial Proposals Fourth set (alternative): To enable
each to know how the other proceeds.
32. What is chiefly wanted to silence judicial complaints.
APPENDIX II 187
IV. Administrative : Sections 33 to 44.
33. Connection in which administrative questions come up
for consideration.
34. Explanatory of the complaints styled " Administrative."
35. China : why unwilling to welcome innovation.
36. why unwilling to follow foreign advice.
37. Ex-territoriality : what it effects, and what it obstructs.
38. if renounced, what would result ?
39. what the foreigner values and China
fears in the word, not identical, i
40. Administrative Suggestions First set : To establish
uniformity of treatment.
41. Administrative Suggestions Second set (alternative) :
To establish reciprocity in treatment.
42. Administrative Suggestions Third set (alternative) :
To establish sameness in Treaties.
43. Administrative Suggestions Fourth set (alternative) :
To establish speedier revision of Treaties.
44. What is chiefly wanted to silence administrative com-
plaints.
V. Concluding: Sections 45 to 50.
45. Changes in, not confirmations of, existing arrangements
wanted.
46. Advantages likely to follow adoption of first sets of
proposals.
47. Some foreign objections indicated.
48. Some native objections indicated.
49. Commercial, Judicial, Administrative, why this
sequence was adopted.
50. Conclusion.
1 88 APPENDIX II
I. INTRODUCTORY.
i. A necessity having arisen for the introduction of
arrangements for the better regulation of commercial
relations, the Chinese Foreign Office issued the following
instructions to the address of the Inspector General of
Customs :
(Translation.)
The Tsungli Yamen (Board of Foreign Affairs)
issues instructions to Mr. Hart, Inspector General of
Customs.
With reference to the proposed adjustment of the
Maritime Revenue and Likin Taxation at the Treaty
ports, the Yamen conferred verbally with the Inspector
General on the 23rd day of the 8th month (22nd Sep-
tember) as to the principles on which such adjustment
should proceed ; and on the 5th day of the present
month (3rd October), a Memorandum on the points to
be considered was handed to the Inspector General
(copy inclosed). He is now again directed to consider
the subject carefully in all its bearings, guided by the
Conference and the Memorandum aforesaid : he must
bear in mind how all-important it is that his proposals
should be advantageous and not harmful to China,
that they should be capable of being easily worked
and effectively carried out at the Custom-houses and
barriers and by the local authorities, and that they
should also be such as would not be likely to cause
complications or present difficulties hereafter.
The Inspector General is in the first instance to
embody his proposals in a Memorandum to be sub-
APPENDIX II 189
mitted to the Yamn, on which action will be taken
without delay. ^
Kuang Hsu, ist year, gth moon, 8th day (6th October,
1875).
In closure.
I. It is suggested that China may continue to levy
Likin taxes provided she consents to open more ports
to foreign trade. Should this be formally assented to,
could all the Treaty Powers be induced to acquiesce in
such an arrangement and accept its conditions ?
II. For example, with regard to foreign goods it s
proposed that both import and transit duties shall be
paid together on importation. In the various Treaties,
however, the stipulations on this point are not identical ;
while in some it is provided that there shall be only
one payment, in others it is left optional either to make
one payment, or to pay by instalments when passing
the barriers. Would it be possible to obtain the consent
of all the Treaty Powers to the adoption of one rule
which would ensure an uniform procedure at every
Custom-house ? Besides, in some of the Treaties it is
directly laid down that regulations agreed to by one
Power are not binding on other Powers. How is this
to be got over ? Should there be diversity on either of
these points, it will be impossible for the Chinese Custom-
houses and barriers to make the necessary distinctions.
III. Again, as for the proposition to open additional
ports to foreign trade in consideration of the Likin taxes
being retained once it is decided that a certain port shall
be opened, other Powers, who will not agree to the Likin
taxation, will nevertheless claim access to the port under
the " favoured-nation " clause. Moreover, if the opening
of new ports be conceded now, how could China assent
1 90 APPENDIX II
to the demands other Powers (at a future time, or at
the time of Treaty revision) might make for the opening
of more ports? Before, when the question of adding
to the Treaty ports was discussed at the revision of the
(British) Treaty, the plan adopted was that one port
should be given in exchange for another. But if, in
future, it is proposed to go on opening ports indefinitely,
not only is China without an unlimited number of ports
to open, but there would be no ports to exchange.
The Yamen, in intrusting the consideration of this
subject to the Inspector General, has only, in conclusion,
to impress on him that his proposals must involve no
injury to China, and that they must be such as can be
easily worked and effectively carried out at the Custom-
houses and barriers, and also be susceptible of a satis-
factory explanation to any one who may discuss them.
If this is not done, not only will no advantage be derived,
but those who are willing to carry them out will not
be able to do so ; and, rather than break faith through
failure in performance, it would be better to arrange to
deal with foreign goods and opium in accordance with
existing Treaty regulations, and carry out the former
proposals of adjusting the Likin taxes in such a way as
to secure their exemption.
Moreover, if the Chinese public again discuss the
question of transit duty and the general levies on
ships, pulse, etc., the withdrawal of prohibitions must
be capable of satisfactory explanation, and the Yamen
must not find itself without effective arguments against
objections.
However, of all the above considerations, what must
be sought for as of the most importance is a scheme
capable of being effectively worked. Accordingly, the
Inspector General is asked to draw up a Memorandum
APPENDIX II 191
on these points for the Yamen's consideration a
Memorandum whose proposals shall be advantageous
and not harmful ; otherwise time will be wasted in
idle discussions, without ever obtaining practical results.
October 6, 1875.
The discussions which preceded and accompanied
the issue of these instructions need not be specially or
separately dwelt on : in one connection or another all
the points raised will be adverted to in the following
paragraphs, but they will be treated of as part of the
general question, and not as having formerly come up
on such and such occasions. Besides, the dates fixed
for Treaty revision have already arrived for some, and
will soon be arriving for the other Treaty Powers, and
it is accordingly thought better to deal with the subject
as affecting, and affected by, all.
The instructions call for such proposals for the better
regulation of commercial relations as shall be
(i.) Suited to the locality ;
(2.) Feasible for the Customs ; and
(3.) Acceptable to all the Treaty Powers.
The difficulty of drawing up proposals that shall at
once meet all these conditions is apparent, but the
wisdom of imposing such conditions cannot be ques-
tioned. If not suited to the locality in which they are
to be operative, new rules will but cause fresh troubles ;
if not feasible for the Customs, new rules will but elicit
new complaints ; if not acceptable to all the Treaty
Powers, new rules will not only result in a greater diver-
gence from uniformity, but, applied where inoperative
and withheld where operative, will prove self-destructive,
1 92 APPENDIX II
engendering endless confusion, and causing reclamations
on all sides, as well from those who were, as from those
who were not, parties to them.
The Yamn's instructions make special reference to
revenue and taxation, but what is really wanted is a set
of proposals for the better regulation of commercial
relations generally ; and what is to be effected by this
better regulation of commercial relations is, on the one
hand, the removal of whatever is injurious to the rightful
interests of foreign trade ; and, on the other, the sup-
pression of such abuses as affect native trade and native
revenue unfairly. It is, in short, desired to eradicate
every cause of complaint, and place commercial rela-
tions generally on such a footing that they, at least,
and the kind of intercourse they necessitate, shall occa-
sion no unpleasantness between the Treaty Powers and
China.
2. In order to prepare the way for the proposals to
be now submitted, it is necessary to indicate some of
the more striking features of existing arrangements,
describe the complaints they have called forth, and
state the requirements of both foreigner and native.
This is all the more necessary, inasmuch as, in order
that proposals shall meet the conditions formulated in
the Yamen's instructions, the matter of any proposal
must first bear to be tested from the standpoints
furnished by two sets of circumstances, viz. :
(i.) Circumstances that are likely to induce China
or Treaty Powers to accept or reject any proposal when
suggested ; and
(2.) Circumstances that are likely to further or
impede the working of any proposal when adopted.
3. It is trade that brings foreigners to China, and
it is for the protection and extension of trade that
APPENDIX II
193
Treaties have been made. The trade of the day may
be described thus : it gives freight to about 10,000,000
tons of foreign shipping annually ; imports may be
valued at 28,000,000, and exports at 27,000,000 ; the
revenue accruing to China is 4,000,000 ; 340 foreign
firms are engaged in business, and about 3,500 foreigners
are resident at the open ports. Of the trade, 70 per cent,
is English, 10 per cent. American, and the remaining
20 per cent, is made up by France, Germany, and the
ten other Treaty Powers.
The more striking features of the Treaties may be
said to be as follows : At this date there are fourteen
ports open to foreign trade ; but as yet there is no
authoritative definition of the word "port," and port
limits are nowhere marked out. Foreigners are allowed
to settle at the ports and travel in the interior, but are
not to reside or rent hongs inland. Merchandise on
arrival at a port pays import duty, and on departure
export duty, according to a tariff intended to lay a
charge of 5 per cent, ad valorem on all commodities ;
but after payment of import duty and before payment
of export duty, imports and exports are subjected to
other taxation ; further, merchandise of foreign origin
may be taken inland, and native produce for foreign
export brought from the interior, free from other charges
on payment of a transit due equal to half the Tariff
duty (2^ per cent), or, if it be not elected to pay the
transit due, on payment of ordinary local charges ; but
the transit rule is held by China to cover imports only
from port to place, and produce only when intended for
foreign export. Unsaleable goods re-exported are en-
titled to drawbacks ; but China limits the time within
which drawbacks may be claimed. Where foreigners
alone are concerned, all questions of life and property
o
194 APPENDIX II
are arranged by their own officials, the Consuls, and
where both natives and foreigners are concerned, native
and foreign officials may act in communication ; but
such conjoint action is left to chance, and no fixed
procedure has been laid down for the guidance of either
side. Consular officers are stationed at the ports and
Ministers are resident at Peking ; but the ministerial
position at Peking is not accorded those privileges
which are its rights in other capitals. Finally, one of
the results is, that, as the Treaties provide one kind of
treatment for the foreigner, and the laws another for the
native, occasions are constantly presenting themselves,
on which it is to the foreigner's advantage to be treated
like a native, and to the native's advantage to be treated
like a foreigner.
Such are some of the salient features of existing
arrangements, and among them the most remarkable
are the exterritorial articles. The foreigner's fore-
knowledge of his own requirements dictated the stipu-
lations the Treaties contain, and the native's awakening
consciousness of his international status, and of the
effect of Treaties upon his domestic condition, has ever
since made him anxious to shape their working. It is
not to be wondered at that the foreigner should have
sought for and secured exterritorial privileges, and just
as little is it to be wondered at that the creation of such
privileges should have led China to view foreign inter-
course from a standpoint which very few foreigners as
yet realize.
4. If it is asked what more the foreigner wants in
China, seeing that he has all that the preceding para-
graph enumerates, the reply is, that on the foreign side
the end now sought for is freedom for every kind of
trading or industrial operation, and with that freedom
APPENDIX II 195
is claimed ample protection for all concomitant rights.
Resolve this generalization into its components, and it
means that the foreigner wants unrestricted access to
whatever place interest suggests ; taxation according
to a fair, fixed, and uniform Tariff; improved means of
locomotion and transit ; right to use all appliances
suited for the development of local resources and new
industries ; and foreign, as distinguished from Chinese,
treatment for person and property.
On the Chinese side, the object hitherto and still kept
in view has been, and is, self-preservation ; change is
not welcome change is always suspected and subjected
to counteracting influences on every side change is
only recognized as a native growth when it takes root
and spreads imperceptibly and healthily among the
people of a locality change is rarely accepted on
foreign suggestion except when imposed by foreign
force.
Thus, foreign and native aims the one progressive
and the other conservative are at once seen to be of
such a kind that the foreigner must be content to wait
with patience for native developments if he is to gain
his end peaceably, and the native must acquire an
enlightenment of a kind yet little known in China, if
he is to move forwards of himself towards, and finally
acquiesce in, the same result. As for this Chinese
desire to keep change at a distance, the impossibilities
of such a programme are gradually becoming more
generally known and acknowledged.
5. While following up his own aims in China, the
foreigner carries with him one striking peculiarity
exterritoriality. He comes to China for gain, but he
first of all wants what he considers security ; he has
thus got almost complete exterritoriality, and to it he
196 APPENDIX II
seeks to add almost as complete liberty of action. But,
whatever the demands of commerce may be, home
Governments cannot but admit that there are here
and there restrictions in themselves proper to be
enforced.
When China acquiesced in various Treaty stipula-
tions, it never occurred to her that what she was con-
ceding was what goes to constitute what is now termed
exterritoriality. The stipulations gradually showed their
shape, and what they concede, and how such concessions
operate on the country that grants them, are now
increasingly understood in China. Such an arrange-
ment may, of course, save China the trouble of settling
inter-foreign disputes ; but its advantages in this
direction have not been found to compensate for
what is felt to have been thereby lost in governmental
tone.
Accordingly, when the foreigner seeks for extension
of intercourse and greater freedom generally, and
couples with the request for this the demand that
he shall remain on the same footing, i.e., exterritorial-
ized, friendly negotiation has difficulties to encounter
that were unknown to first-comers who dictated
Treaties.
In view of the fact that exterritorial stipulations do
exist and are really operative, it is evident that any
proposals which do not make adequate provision for the
security of life and property will not be acceptable to
the Treaty Powers, and in view of the fact that, what-
ever they may contain of what is expedient and useful,
exterritorial stipulations do contain a something that
the Government concerned must sooner or later take
exception to, it is equally evident that any proposals
which ignore what China feels and says on the subject
APPENDIX II 197
of existing arrangements will similarly be unacceptable
to China.
Accordingly, in reviewing the commercial side of
intercourse, it becomes necessary to consider also what
Commercial Treaties have done by way of giving a
peculiar status to the foreigner, and for the settlement
of questions to which he is a party.
6. China recognizes the fact that the foreigner
differs from the native in countless ways, and that
special arrangements are necessary for his affairs ; China
is as ready to acknowledge this as the foreigner, seeing
how different are natives from foreigners, is to demand
special treatment ; and, taking it for granted that on
both sides there is a sincere desire for friendly relations,
it ought not to be impossible to find a common mean.
But to really find this, it is the facts of the day, and not
the legislation of a former period, that must be given
prominence.
Foreigners not being at all likely to surrender what
may be called defensive exterritoriality, and China not
being at all likely to invite foreign suggestions, or
willingly assent to foreign demands, while what may be
called aggressive exterritoriality is maintained, the
proposals the Yamen's instructions call for if they
are to have any practical value must put forward
considerations that are calculated
(i.) To convince the Treaty Powers that the limita-
tions of any stipulation afford sufficient margin for the
exercise of the rights it guarantees ;
(2.) To induce China to see that the concession is not
unlimited ; and,
(3.) To promise an improvement on the regulations
and procedure now existing.
7. What, then, is the foreign complaint that has
198 APPENDIX II
resulted in the issue of the instructions now re-
ceived ?
Taken at its widest, the foreign complaint is that
China does not let foreigners do in China, plus ex-
territoriality, what they suppose they would be allowed
to do at home. Foreigners cannot establish themselves
at pleasure in the interior ; cannot open mines ; cannot
make railways ; Chinese themselves are not allowed to
introduce foreign appliances ; foreign goods are taxed
at the Treaty ports where, having paid import duty,
they ought to be free, and, after next paying transit
dues and thus purchasing (it is said) the right to
future exemption, are again taxed in the interior times
without end. Foreign claims, whether against default-
ing traders or Treaty-violating mandarins, are always
trifled with and never satisfied ; foreigners are insulted,
assaulted, killed, and redress is either not obtainable,
or is of such a kind and so tardily granted as to only
aggravate the original offence, etc., etc., etc.
Viewed as to their origin and nature such complaints
or causes of complaint may be arranged under three
general heads :
(i.) Commercial, or Treaty rights withheld and inter-
fered with ;
(2.) Judicial, or litigation unsatisfactory and rarely
successful ; and,
(3.) Administrative, or suggestions for progress not
adopted.
Under these heads, and in the same order, will now
be found some remarks on each class of complaints,
followed by the proposals the Yamen's instructions
call for.
APPENDIX II 199
II. COMMERCIAL.
8. When we examine what the foreigner says about
intercourse from the commercial point of view, it is
found that Treaty provisions are spoken of as not
having full effect given to them ; and the complaint
is that Treaty rights are here withheld and there inter-
fered with. It will be convenient to look into these
complaints under two headings :
(i.) Port complaints ; and,
(2.) Inland complaints.
But it is throughout to be remembered that foreign
complaints of rights withheld are accompanied on the
other side by Chinese counter-charges of privileges
abused.
9. Under the first heading, port complaints,
foreigners allege
(i.) That their import business is checked by the
heavy taxes levied on foreign goods at the ports in the
form of Likin and other charges, after and in addition
to the payment of import duty ; and,
(2.) That their export business is in turn hampered
because they are called on to prove payment of inland
taxes, or pay transit dues in default of proof, on native
produce purchased at the ports.
10. As regards import business, it is beyond dispute
that Likin and other taxes are levied on imports at the
ports ; at Shanghai, Amoy, Foochow, and latterly at
Tientsin, such charges have been notoriously heavy.
On the one hand China maintains that no special
areas are included in what are called Treaty ports, that
no stipulations have been made as to what is not to be
done at Treaty ports ; that the Government has as
much right to levy such additional taxes at the ports
200 APPENDIX II
themselves as it has to levy them on duty-paid imports
at any place in the interior ; and that there is no reason
why people should be exempted from such charges at
the ports any more than inland.
There are various considerations to be urged in
support of the position thus taken up.
On the other hand the foreigner holds that his pay-
ment of import duty ought to admit his goods into
circulation at the " port " without further charge ; that
the wording of the Tariff rules, which interpret the
transit privilege and fix the transit procedure by making
transit dues leviable only when a commodity is passing
the first barrier on its way inland, not only constitutes
that barrier the dividing line between port and interior,
but implies that, till that line is crossed, goods are of
course not to be called on to pay additional charges,
and thus postulates his right to port exemption ; and
that, as for charges paid by people at the ports com-
pared with those paid by people in the interior, in the
natural order of circumstances, increased distance from
the place of production entails additional charges and
enhanced value. Here, again, there are many considera-
tions to be urged in favour of the foreigner's views.
The one thing that there is no doubt about is that
heavy Likin charges do exist and do obstruct the growth
of import business. At the same time, when the
foreigner goes on to say that, if these heavy port
charges are abandoned, import trade will increase and
import duties make up for lost Likin, China replies that,
be that as it may in the abstract, if Likin is not collected
now, inland tranquillity, so essential to the continuance
of even the trade of to-day, cannot with certainty be
maintained.
Again, when the foreigner complains that his opium
APPENDIX II 201
business is harassed and interfered with by the sur-
veillance exercised and arrests made at his very door
by the Likin officers and spies, the Chinese retort that
it is necessary to act thus, seeing that the native smuggler
has always the sympathy and aid of the foreign trader.
It is thus at once evident that each party owes full
consideration to the statements of the other, and that
the conflict of rights and interests on both sides can
only be arranged by mutual concessions.
II. As regards export business, the Chinese demand
for transit dues where proof of payment of inland taxes
on native produce purchased at a port is not forthcoming,
has its pros and cons also.
On the Chinese side, it is urged that the Tariff rule
supports the demand : " Permission to export produce
which cannot be proved to have paid its transit dues
will be refused by the Customs until the transit dues
shall have been paid," and it is argued that, even
without this express rule, the demand is in itself
reasonable.
On the foreign side, it is replied that the words quoted
have special reference to produce brought from the in-
terior under transit passes, and do not apply to produce
generally, and that it is not fair to demand such proof
from an exporter of produce ; for how can he adduce
it, seeing that his total shipment has been bought piece-
meal on twenty or thirty different occasions from forty
or fifty different middlemen, who in turn had purchased
in small lots from producers, which producers had
brought their produce to the market at different times,
by different routes, and had paid transit dues or inland
taxes at various barriers and offices ?
Thus each has a something with which to support his
claim, and here again it is consideration for each other's
202 APPENDIX II
views and mutual concession that will affect most The
Chinese Government has a fair right to protect itself
against loss of inland revenue as the result of the transit
privilege it has conceded, and the foreigner has as fair a
claim to be freed from a burthen which ought not to be
put on him.
12. Under the second heading, " Inland Complaints,"
the foreigner alleges :
(i.) That transit certificates are not respected en
route ;
(2.) That after arrival at their destination, transit-
paid imports are again subjected to local taxation ;
(3.) That foreign goods in the interior are either
differentially or prohibitorily taxed ; and
(4.) That, by means of various charges collected from
producers, the transit privilege for native produce brought
from the interior for foreign export is completely
neutralized.
In reply, China urges the necessity for raising funds,
a necessity which exists and operates in China just as in
other States, and the difficulty of preventing mistakes
along routes that are only recovering tranquillity after
a long period of rebellion. Further, pointing to the
abuse of transit privileges by foreigners, China main-
tains that transit certificates merely protect from taxa-
tion en rozite, i.e., from port to place inwards and from
place to port outwards, and contends that, away from
the transit certificate, all goods on Chinese ground are
simply Chinese goods, whatever their first origin ; the
payment of transit dues does not entitle native produce
to receive back what it had previously paid by way of
local taxes, nor does a similar payment in the case of
foreign merchandise free it for ever after from all further
taxation.
APPENDIX II 203
That the case is as the foreigner complains cannot
be wholly denied ; as little, or less, can it be said that
there is no force in what China puts forward in reply.
But even admitting that the occurrences foreigners
object to have been sufficiently numerous to warrant
remonstrance, it must be pointed out that while, on the
whole, very few instances of refusal to respect transit
documents have been actually adduced, the majority of
the few known cases have really been cases in which
either transit documents were being used for goods they
ought not to cover, or non-transit-paid goods were
travelling in company and mixed up with transit-paid
goods in a word, in the majority of known cases there
has been quite sufficient reason for supposing that the
transit privilege was being abused. The transit system
has existed some fifteen years ; tens of thousands of
certificates have been issued, and not twenty cases in all
have been instanced in which the certificates are known
to have actually failed to do what they were intended to
accomplish, a fact which, notwithstanding what the one
party says about interference with, and the other about
abuse of, the transit privilege, on the whole, speaks well
both for the system and themselves.
At the same time, seeing that complaints do exist
complaints, on the one side, of a transit right not re-
spected, and on the other, of a transit privilege abused
not only would it be well to have an authoritative
declaration of the intention and scope of the transit
stipulation, but advantage ought to be taken of the
opportunity to reconsider the general question, and
introduce any improvements likely to help the satis-
factory working of the very important rules which
provide for access to both inland marts and producing
districts.
204 APPENDIX II
13. But while thus much is said about foreign com-
plaints concerning Treaty rights withheld or interfered
with at the ports and in the interior, it must not be
forgotten that China has also put forward counter-
charges, and that this review of the conditions subject
to which the proposals called for must be made, would
be incomplete were Chinese complaints neither indicated
nor examined.
14. Thus, at the ports, China complains
(i.) That foreigners act as consignees for Chinese-
owned, foreign-bottom-brought goods, to enable those
goods to evade the local charges payable on native-
bottom-brought goods of the same description, and that
they thereby defraud the revenue and place Chinese
trading in their own names at a disadvantage.
The foreigner replies that, (i), the flag covers the
goods, and that what is entered under one Tariff the
foreign is not liable under the other the native ; and
besides argues, (2), that having already paid import
duty according to the foreign Tariff, it is unfair to the
goods, and harmful to the interests of foreign shipping,
to let them be taxed further. Both clauses of the reply
have something in them ; but so has the complaint ;
moreover, it must be allowed, that, whatever else Treaties
and intercourse aim at doing, it is not intended or
desirable that their provisions and conditions should be
wrested to injure Chinese revenue. The matter is
clearly one that ought to be attended to, and arranged
for.
(2.) That foreigners convoy opium for Chinese, to
prevent the collection of Likin.
The preceding remarks apply to this also, but it
may be added that this practice of convoying opium is
not only less justifiable than the act of appearing as
APPENDIX II 205
consignee of Chinese-owned Chinese goods, but, if carried
to a certain point, becomes criminal, and exposes the
person concerned to the greatest personal risk.
(3.) That foreigners make it part of their port business
to sell their names and transit documents to Chinese to
cover produce brought from the interior, but neither
intended for foreign export nor in any way the property
of foreigners.
This complaint is connected with those that follow
under the heading of Chinese Inland complaints.
15. While it is thus at the ports, it is complained
inland
(4.) That foreigners bring down produce from the
interior for Chinese, and that, as such produce is not
intended for foreign export, and does not concern foreign
trade, goods are thus brought under the transit rule
which ought not and were not intended, to have the
benefit of it, not only causing loss to local and special
revenue, but creating for one man's goods unfair advan-
tages over those of other men.
This complaint is believed to be founded on fact,
and the proceeding is, beyond question, an abuse. Its
rectification would form part of any authoritative
declaration of the scope of the transit rules.
(5.) That foreigners purchase produce inland, and,
after passing it " in transit " at various barriers without
payment of taxes, sell it in the interior, thus escaping
both local tax and port transit due, causing loss to
revenue, and competing unfairly with native traders.
It is doubtful whether there have been many instances
of such inland trading, but it is not an impossibility,
and, in any re-arrangement of the general question, the
rectification of this possible abuse ought not to be over-
looked.
206 APPENDIX II
(6.) That foreigners engaged in a lawful transit busi-
ness engage at the same time in an illegal inland trade,
alongside of, and covered by the lawful trade, e.g., by
both buying and selling produce in the interior, and by
carrying goods not entered for transit in company with
goods covered by transit documents.
This charge may or may not be well founded ; in any
case, the complaint needs to be kept in mind.
(7.) That foreigners defy the officials at the inland
barriers and refuse to submit to examination.
If this occurs the foreigner is clearly doing wrong,
but to permit it to occur is the fault of the barrier
officials. Such complaints were often heard some years
ago, but latterly no instance has come under notice.
1 6. It will be seen that both foreign and native
complaints at the ports and in the interior are not
chance growths, but the necessary products of a system
and its rules. Commercial intercourse may be said to
mean, first of all, exchange of products ; thus com-
mercial intercourse between China and not-China would
mean exchange of China's for not-China's products.
But commercial intercourse between China and not-
China under the Treaties covers something more ; it
means not merely exchange of China's for not-China's
products, but goes further and authorizes not-China to
engage in China's internal trade in the exchange of
the products of any one part for those of any other part
of China. It does not even stop here it goes still
further ; it means that not-China shall engage in
China's internal trade, not in accordance with China's
regulations and tariffs for native traders and inland
budgets, but in accordance with a novel system devised
for not-China's advantage as a foreign trader, and a
tariff and regulations originally intended for foreign
APPENDIX II 207
and not native trade. The foreign tariff and its atten-
dant rules may be unobjectionable as long as their
operation is restricted to commercial intercourse in its
first signification ; but, set up in competition with a
native system and applied to internal or domestic
trade, they have created a serious derangement in
China's affairs. At every point they favour the enter-
prise of the native who breaks native laws, and while
they thus act injuriously on honest Chinese traders,
they also create difficulties for and make enemies of
the officials who administer native laws ; at some points
they even restrict the foreigners' own operations. The
result has been harmful to native merchants and native
revenue, and the sense of this has again resulted in
opposition to the extension of foreign intercourse and
interference with the rights of foreign commercial inter-
course properly so called. Most if not all of the com-
plaints are to be traced directly or indirectly to the
contemporaneous existence of two systems a foreign
tariff and a native tariff side by side, and until this is
changed complaints must continue to be uttered.
17. What precedes in a word amounts to this : the
foreigner complains that China violates his Treaty
rights. China complains that the foreigner abuses his
Treaty privileges. New rules ought, therefore, to aim
at doing two things : they ought to reduce China's
temptation to violate the foreigner's Treaty right to a
minimum and make the abuse of Treaty privileges an
impossibility for the foreigner, and they must neither
create new burthens nor rescind existing privileges.
These ends can only be secured when each party is
really desirous of a fair and satisfactory settlement, and
ready to concede to what the other urges all the con-
sideration the circumstances merit.
208 APPENDIX II
The commercial proposals will now be submitted in
four alternative sets.
1 8. Commercial Proposals: First Set. Seeing that
foreign commerce is really interested in but a few of
the hundreds of classes of articles that reach and leave
Chinese ports, and in order, on the one hand, to secure
for these few classes the fullest possible benefit of the
widest interpretation of the Treaty rights held by some
to already exist, i.e., freedom from all taxation on pay-
ment of a fixed tariff duty, and, on the other, to secure
for China the greatest possible exemption from any
abuse of Treaty privileges in respect of all other goods,
i.e., no right to exemption from necessary local taxation,
it is proposed :
Imports.
(i.) That, on the one hand, the Treaty Powers shall
consent that the following imports, say, cottons, woollens,
metals, and sugar, shall pay import duty and transit
due simultaneously to the Maritime Customs on arrival
at a Treaty port ; and that, on the other, China shall
consent that the said goods shall be for ever after in all
parts of China, whenever, wherever, and with whomsoever
found, free from every kind of local, territorial, or
special tax.
(2.) That, on the one hand, the Treaty Powers shall
consent that opium shall pay an import duty of 120
taels per picul to the Maritime Customs on arrival at a
Treaty port, and that away from the port, i.e., at a
distance of thirty li from the Custom-house, it shall be
regarded as a Chinese commodity, and be subject to
local, territorial, and special taxation, whenever, wherever,
and with whomsoever found ; and that, on the other,
APPENDIX II 209
China shall consent that no other charge shall be levied
at the port.
(3.) That, on the one hand, China shall consent that
all other imports shall be freed from payment of import
duty and transit due to the Maritime Customs on
arrival at Treaty ports ; and that, on the other, the
Treaty Powers shall consent that all such goods shall
be dealt with after landing but not in connection with
landing by the local territorial authorities in accord-
ance with local regulations.
(4.) That, on the one hand, China shall consent that
at distributing ports having a direct foreign import
trade, such as Shanghai, the duty-paying imports above
named may be entered as " in transit for other ports,'*
and, a bond being given by the original importer, be
freed from payment of import duty and transit due for
a period of * * * months or till arrival at another
port ; and that, on the other, the Treaty Powers shall
consent that three years after arrival re-exports shall
not be entitled to " drawbacks."
Exports.
(5.) That, on the one hand, China shall consent that
the following exports the staples of foreign trade out-
wards say, tea, silk, sugar, and cotton, shall be exempt,
whenever, wherever, and with whomsoever found, from
every kind of local, territorial, or special tax in every
part of China ; and that, on the other, the Treaty Powers
shall consent that the said goods shall pay export duty
and transit due simultaneously to the Maritime Customs
on shipment at a Treaty port.
(6.) That, on the one hand, China shall consent that
all other exports on shipment at Treaty ports shall be
freed from the payment of export duty and transit due
P
2io APPENDIX II
to the Maritime Customs ; and that, on the other, the
Treaty Powers shall consent that all such goods shall
be dealt with in every part of China but not in con-
nection with shipment by the local territorial officials
in accordance with local regulations.
Transit.
(7.) That, on the one hand, China shall consent that
foreigners and natives may alike take, send, buy and
sell cottons, woollens, metals and sugar inland, without
being anywhere or at any time subject to any tax or
charge whatever; and that, on the other, the Treaty
Powers shall consent that foreigners or natives who
may take, send, buy or sell other goods inland may
alike do so, but without exemption from any local,
territorial, or special tax or impost.
(8.) That, on the one hand, China shall consent that
foreigners and natives may alike bring, send, buy or
sell tea, silk, sugar, or cotton from, to, or at inland
places, without being anywhere or at any time subject
to any charge whatever; and that, on the other, the
Treaty Powers shall consent that foreigners or natives
who bring or send, buy or sell, other Chinese produce
from or to or in the interior may alike do so, but
without exemption from any local, territorial, or special
tax or impost.
(9.) That all transit documents being thus done away
with, aliens must carry with them the prescribed pass-
port when travelling in the interior.
Treaty Ports.
(10.) That in return for this general re-arrangement of
the commercial question, China shall consent to open
new ports to foreign trade say, Chungking, Ichang,
Nganking, Wuhu, Wenchow, etc.
APPENDIX II 2ii
Revision.
(11.) That in return for this general re-arrangement of
the commercial question, the Treaty Powers shall con-
sent that every fifth year there shall be revision of the
Commercial Regulations and Tariff, when the list of
duty-paying goods, rates of duty, differences of rate
resulting from differences in measurement and quality,
etc, shall be reconsidered ; the revised rules, etc., to
come into operation the following year.
19. Commercial Proposals : Second Set. Supposing
that the first set is negatived, and seeing that complaints
have their origin, on the one hand, in want of clearness
in the Treaties, and, on the other, in difference of rules
for natives and foreigners, seeing, besides, that, in point
of want of clearness, the chief defect in the Treaties is
in the provisions respecting merchandise that has paid
duties or transit dues, and that the chief evil resulting
from difference of rules is the impossibility of uniformity,
it is proposed :
(l.) That imports of foreign origin, after payment of
import duty, shall be free from every kind of tax at the
port, and shall not be again taxable till, when crossing
the line that divides port from interior, transit dues are
leviable : a Mixed Commission to sit at each port to
determine the port area and fix the boundary line.
(2.) That imports entering the interior may do so with
or without transit papers : if without transit papers, they
are to be liable for all local taxes, no matter in whose
hands, and if carrying transit papers, which natives and
foreigners may alike procure on payment of the Treaty
transit due, they shall be free, no matter in whose hands,
from all taxation both en route from the port and on
arrival at the place. On sale at the place of destination,
212 APPENDIX II
or on departure from it, the transit papers are to be
given up, and the goods, no longer protected by the
certificate, are to be held liable for all future local taxes,
no matter in whose hands, like all other non-transit-
paid goods ; but such goods are not to be differentially
taxed or in any way called on to make up for charges
escaped while travelling under the protection of transit
papers.
(3.) That native produce from the interior may be
brought down by natives and foreigners alike under
transit papers or, if those concerned so desire, without
transit papers and like all other Chinese goods, i.e. with-
out exemption from any local tax. If brought down
under transit papers and exempted from local taxation,
such produce, on arrival, must be entered at the Maritime
Customs as " in transit." When subsequently shipped
to a foreign country, it shall pay export duty and transit
due ; if shipped to another Treaty port, it shall pay
export duty and an inland due equal to the export duty ;
if not shipped to foreign or Treaty port within * * *
months from arrival, the person who registered the pro-
duce as " in transit " shall pay an inland due equal to
twice the export duty.
(4.) That foreign imports, whether with or without
transit papers, may be disposed of en route, but native
produce once entered for transit, and travelling under
transit papers, may not be disposed of inland, but must
be brought to the Treaty port, failing which the
merchant concerned will be required to pay a fine of
* * * taels. Where transit-paid and non-transit-paid
goods travel in company, the merchants concerned
must hand lists of their goods to the barriers met with ;
if any non-transit-paid goods are found travelling with
transit-paid goods and are not reported by the merchant,
APPENDIX II 21 3
all the goods, whether transit-paid or not, will be
confiscated.
(5.) That re-exports shall not be entitled to draw-
backs unless re-exported within three years from first
arrival.
(6.) That there shall be a revision of the Tariff and
Tariff Rules every fifth year, and that the revised Tariff
and Rules shall come into operation the following
year.
20. Commercial Proposals : Third Set. Supposing
neither first nor second set to be accepted, and sup-
posing that the meaning of the Treaty really is, that,
after payment of import duties, foreign goods, alike at
the port and in the interior, are taxable like all Chinese
goods, and are only to be exempted from taxes while
travelling from a port to a place accompanied by transit
papers, it is proposed :
(i.) That it shall be authoritatively stated that,
whether owned by natives or foreigners, imports of
foreign origin may be taken inland under transit papers
from port to place by Chinese as well as foreigners, and
that the transit papers are to be surrendered on arrival
at the place, and the goods thereafter regarded as
Chinese goods, liable for all charges, no matter in whose
hands.
(2.) That when produce is brought from the interior
under transit papers, the bringer shall deposit a promis-
sory note for the value of the produce with the Customs,
and that, in the event of the produce being exported to
a foreign port within * * * months from arrival, the
promissory note shall be cancelled ; failing this, the
promissory note shall be presented and enforced.
(3.) That foreign imports, whether with or without
transit papers, may be disposed of en route, but native
214 APPENDIX II
produce once entered for transit and travelling under
transit papers, may not be disposed of inland, but must
be brought to the Treaty port, failing which the
merchant concerned will be required to pay a fine of
* * * taels. Where transit-paid and non-transit-paid
goods travel in company, the merchants concerned must
hand lists of their goods to the barriers met with ; if any
non-transit-paid goods are found travelling with transit-
paid goods and are not reported by the merchant,
all the goods, whether transit-paid or not, will be con-
fiscated.
(4.) That re-exports shall not be entitled to draw-
backs unless re-exported within three years from first
arrival.
(5.) That there shall be a revision of the Tariff and
Tariff Rules every fifth year, and that the revised
Tariff and Rules shall come into operation the following
year.
21. Commercial Proposals; Fourth Set. The first
set comprises the proposals thought most likely to be
really useful to both foreigner and native ; the second
set follows the more liberal interpretation of the Treaty ;
the third follows the less liberal interpretation. Sup-
posing all three sets to be thrown out, a starting-point
must be elsewhere sought. It is therefore proposed :
(i.) That, if officials have no satisfactory propositions
to make, the merchants themselves, with whom the
demand for a rearrangement originated, be called upon
to propose the rules they wish to be bound by within
the limits of existing Treaties.
22. The remarks that precede the proposals, 8 to
17, will have prepared the reader to understand the
object aimed at by each suggestion, and to see why and
where the alternative sets differ from each other. In the
APPENDIX II 215
concluding remarks at the end of this Memorandum,
45 to 50, will be found some observatious on the
advantages the various proposals, but more especially
those of the first set, are thought to offer.
III. JUDICIAL.
23. The commercial provisions of the Treaties had
naturally to be supplemented by judicial arrangements.
The judicial stipulations are as follows :
a. Questions between foreigners shall be subject to
the jurisdiction of the foreign authorities.
b. Chinese guilty of criminal acts towards foreigners
shall be punished by the Chinese authorities.
c. Foreigners committing a crime in China shall be
punished by the foreign authorities.
d. Foreigners having a grievance against Chinese
shall state it at the Consulate ; the Consul shall try to
arrange it amicably, and, if he fails to do so, shall
request the Chinese authorities to assist, that they may
examine together and decide equitably.
e. Chinese having a grievance against foreigners may
state it at the Consulate, and the Consul shall act as
before.
f. In cases of incendiarism or robbery, the local
authorities are to recover stolen property, suppress
disorder, and punish the guilty.
g. If a foreign vessel is plundered the Chinese
authorities are to arrest and punish the pirates, and
recover the stolen property.
h. Chinese taking refuge at Hongkong are to be
surrendered to Chinese authorities on official requisi-
tion and proof of guilt, and, at the ports, on requisition.
*'. If Chinese debtors abscond, Chinese authorities
216 APPENDIX II
are to do their utmost to arrest and enforce payment.
Foreign authorities to act similarly if foreign debtors
abscond.
k. Chinese incurring debts at Hongkong, i.e., out of
China, the foreign Courts on the spot are to arrange.
If Chinese debtors abscond and reach Chinese territory,
the Chinese authorities, on Consular application, are to
do their utmost to see justice done.
These stipulations are sufficiently numerous and
sufficiently general in spirit and letter to provide for
the majority of possible cases ; but, nevertheless, even
in judicial matters, the complaints on both sides are
many and frequent. Premising that such complaints
originate rather in difference of law, procedure, and
penalty, than in any premeditated intention to neglect
business or act unjustly, some of them will now be
noticed under the headings of Person, Property, and
Revenue.
24. Where questions affecting Person have arisen,
foreigners have complained that their Chinese assailants
have not been arrested, or, if arrested, have either not
been punished or have been insufficiently punished, or
that the real criminals have been allowed to escape and
other friendless wretches substituted, or that, where
several ought to have been alike punished, only one
has been dealt with, etc.
On the other hand, Chinese in turn complain that
foreigners assault Chinese with impunity ; that what
China calls murder is invariably excused or made man-
slaughter by foreign Courts ; that where Chinese law
prescribes death the offending foreigner is sentenced to
only a short imprisonment ; and that, while the foreigner
insists that Chinese shall be punished with death where
foreign life has been lost, he, on his side, expects China
APPENDIX II 217
to accept a small sum of money in lieu of a death
punishment where Chinese life is lost, etc.
The foreigner charges the Chinese official with
accepting bribes, and urges that Chinese torture will
make any innocent person admit that he is the guilty
criminal ; similarly, the Chinese are not convinced that
Consuls do not take bribes, and point out that the foreign
mode of examining witnesses does not invariably elicit
the whole truth, and that trial by jury does not always
do justice. Moreover, while the foreigner protects the
accused by throwing the onus of proof on the accusers,
Chinese will not condemn or punish till the offender has
himself confessed his guilt.
When these complaints are carefully looked into, it
becomes evident that what gives common offence to
both sides is not that crime is not considered crime, or
that the laws do not provide punishments for crime, but
that there is no common and uniform procedure.
25. In the matter of questions affecting Property,
complaints of much the same kind are to be heard.
The foreigner complains that the Chinese authorities
are dilatory, shield their own people, refuse justice, etc. ;
and the Chinese complains that the foreign officials fear
to offend their own nationals, believe the foreign and
reject the Chinese evidence, decide unfairly, etc.
More especially the Chinese feels aggrieved when he
sees that a foreigner who has a claim against a China-
man is never content till he has done his utmost to
wring the whole amount from the family, friends, or
securities of the debtor, while the Chinese who has a
claim against a foreigner is required to accept a decision
which makes the debtor a bankrupt, and gives the
creditor either nothing at all or only so much per cent.
Moreover, Chinese complain that foreign plaints are
2i8 APPENDIX II
often Chinese plaints in disguise, and assert that the
foreigner merely fathers them for a commission, the
result being that, when the machinery of a Consular
Court is set in operation, one Chinese is enabled to do
injustice to another, and effectually screen himself
behind the foreigner.
As with Personal cases, so too in cases affecting
Property, the procedure of the one side does not satisfy
the requirements of the other.
26. When cases arising out of Revenue matters
come up, the punishment provided for by the Treaties
is confiscation or fine. The penalty of confiscation is
prescribed when goods are discharged before permit
to open hatches is issued, when goods are landed or
shipped, after hatches are open, without permit, when
goods are transhipped without permit, when fraud on
the revenue is detected in goods for which drawbacks
or exemption certificates are applied for, when vessels
trade at non-Treaty-port places, etc. ; and the penalty
of a fine is prescribed when masters fail to report their
ships within forty-eight hours, or open hatches without
permission, etc. There is besides a special article of
a general kind which says that when a vessel is con-
cerned in smuggling, the goods, whatever their value
or nature, shall be subject to confiscation by the
Chinese authorities, and the ship may be prohibited
from trading further and sent away as soon as her
accounts are paid ; and another article adds that all
penalties enforced or confiscations made are to belong
and be appropriated to the public service of the
Government of China.
While the Treaties have thus enacted rules and pre-
scribed penalties in connection with their commercial
stipulations and in addition to their judicial provisions,
APPENDIX II 2ig
they have not established Courts to record or procedure
to try this class of cases. To remedy this defect Joint
Inquiry Rules were subsequently drawn up. These
Rules make this distinction : that, whereas the Chinese
Customs have presumably already seized and hold
possession of the goods concerned in cases for which
the penalty is confiscation, while in those cases in which
the penalty is a fine, the individual concerned is a
foreigner, and, as such, can only be got at through
his Consul, it is a mutually fair arrangement, in cases
of fine, to require China to prove in the foreign Court
that the individual has done what deserves a fine, and
in cases of confiscation, to require the parties interested
to prove in the Chinese Court that their goods do not
deserve to be confiscated. In the one case the Customs
authority sits with the Consul in the Consular Court,
and may appeal against the Consular decision, and in
the other the Consul sits with the Customs authority
in the Customs Court, and may appeal against the
Customs decision. This procedure is fair to all parties ;
the open inquiry elicits all facts and gives full publicity,
and the right to appeal is adequate protection against
either injustice or harshness. The Joint Inquiry Rules
may therefore be held to supply a want, and so far
they seem to have worked fairly well.
But, nevertheless, complaints are still to be heard:
the foreigner, for instance, complains that in cases of
confiscation the Chinese Government is pecuniarily in-
terested, and urges that it ought not to have the power
of judging where it is itself so directly concerned, and,
on the other hand, China complains that where the
letter of the Treaty rule is clear and unmistakable, the
foreign authority is continually urging that the spirit of
it means something else, and invariably construes it
220 APPENDIX II
in a way adverse to the punishment stipulated to be
inflicted.
These complaints exist, and the inference is that the
matter requires consideration and authoritative adjust-
ment. The Joint Inquiry Rules have established a
fixed and intelligible procedure, but they have failed to
silence complaints, and the procedure cannot yet be
pronounced to be the best possible under the circum-
stances.
27. The complaints to be heard on each hand con-
cerning the way in which questions concerning person,
property, and fines and confiscations for breaches
of revenue laws, are judicially dealt with, all point
in the same direction : a common procedure of a
kind to silence the objections of both sides is still
wanting. Considering that principle, procedure, and
penalty all differ, it is no wonder that complaints are
made ; but seeing that there is no desire to be unjust, it
is to be presumed that it will be possible to elaborate
arrangements that will be accepted by, and be satis-
factory to, both foreigner and native alike.
The Judicial Proposals will now be submitted : like
the Commercial, they are drawn up in four alternative
sets.
28. Judicial Proposals : First Set. Seeing that on
both sides there were laws and punishments long before
Treaties were thought of ; seeing that the judicial stipu-
lations of the Treaties fully prove that each wishes to
act justly and give the other no cause of complaint ;
and seeing that the complaints that have originated
may be traced to the want of a common procedure,
and that therefore the establishment of a common pro-
cedure in cases affecting both foreigners and natives is
the chief end to be aimed at, it is proposed :
APPENDIX II 221
(i.) That disputes between foreigners, and in which
Chinese are not concerned, shall continue to be heard
and arranged by the foreign authorities.
(2.) That for the arrangement of all questions affect-
ing person or property, etc., and which concern
both foreigners and natives, a Common Code shall be
drawn up.
(3.) That a Court shall be established at each Treaty
port to administer the Common Code : that this Court
shall be presided over by one of the expectant Taotais,
to be appointed to that duty by the Governor of the
province, and that there shall be associated with him
a foreign co-Judge in Chinese pay : that in cases of
importance there shall be two assessors, one to be
named by the plaintiff and the other by the defendant :
and that this Court shall be empowered to summon
foreigners and natives alike to appear as witnesses.
(4.) That in addition to ordinary cases affecting person
and property, all Customs cases involving confiscation
of goods or fine for breach of regulations, shall be
heard and settled by this Court
(5.) That in cases involving not more than * * *
dollars, or punishment not exceeding * * * imprison-
ment, the decision of this Court shall be final.
(6.) That in cases involving more than * * * dollars,
or punishment of a more serious nature than * * * im-
prisonment, there may be appeal within * * * days to
the Chief Superintendent of Trade.
(7.) That where the sentence of this Court is death,
it must be approved of by the Yamen and Minister
concerned before being given effect to.
(8.) That there shall be no torture made use of in
the examination of witnesses ; that confession of guilt
be not required from the accused ; and that perjury
222 APPENDIX II
and contempt of Court be punishable by fine and
imprisonment.
(9.) That lawyers may be employed to prepare plaints,
examine and cross-examine witnesses, and draw up
arguments in writing for both parties.
(10.) That a full report of each case shall be trans-
mitted through the Yamen to the Legation concerned,
for its information.
(n.) That the co-Judges shall be five in number:
one to reside at Tien-tsin, for duty at Tien-tsin, New-
chwang, and Chefoo ; one to reside at Hankow, for duty
at Hankow, Kiukiang, Wuhu, Ichang, and Chungking ;
one to reside at Shanghai, for duty at Shanghai,
Ningpo, Chinkiang, and Nganking ; one to reside at
Foochow, for duty at Foochow, Wenchow, Tamsui,
Takow, and Amoy ; and one to reside at Canton, for
duty at Canton, Swatow, and Hainan.
(12.) That the Judicial Rules shall be revised every
fifth year, and the revised Rules take effect the following
year.
29. Jiidicial Proposals : Second Set. Supposing the
first set of Judicial Proposals, which aim at providing
a common procedure, to be rejected, and seeing that,
where both foreigners and natives are parties to a
cause, if a common procedure is impossible, the next
most necessary thing to be done to convince both sides
that justice is fairly administered, is joint action, it is
proposed :
(i.) That in all cases in which both foreigners and
natives are concerned, Consul and native magistrate
shall sit together as President and Assessor, the former
presiding when the defendant is a foreigner, and the
latter when he is a native that is to say, each in his
own Court.
APPENDIX II 223
(2.) That when the property involved is of value
above * * * dollars, or the prosecution arises out of loss
of life, the Assessor shall have the power of appealing
against the decision of the President to the high
authorities at Peking.
(3.) That a rtsumt of cases shall be drawn up and
circulated every fifth year, and rules of practice be
drafted, precedents set forth and arranged, etc., for
further guidance.
3O- Judicial Proposals : Third Set. Supposing
neither first nor second set of Judicial Proposals to be
accepted, and that neither a common procedure nor
joint action is to be looked for, the next best thing to
do is to provide for the most important class of cases,
and seeing that it is to the procedure in cases arising
out of occurrences in which life has been lost, that
exception has most usually been taken, it is proposed:
(i.) That in all cases arising out of occurrences in
which life has been lost, the local court shall make full
inquiry, and send the proceedings to Peking for decision.
(2.) That the punishment the crime merits shall be
inflicted, and that pecuniary compensations shall not
be permitted to be offered or received.
(3.) That a list of cases shall be drawn up every five
years and circulated for the ventilation of the general
question.
31. Judicial Proposals: Fourth Set. Supposing
that all the preceding three sets of proposals are thrown
out, and seeing that some closer acquaintance with each
other's procedure is called for, it is proposed :
(i.) That each shall communicate to the other an
explanation of what it is the duty of his national Court-
to do, when a plaint is presented affecting person or
property.
22 4 APPENDIX II
32. From the preceding proposals it will be seen
that, where questions arise affecting both natives and
foreigners, it is a common code, a common procedure,
a common penalty, and a common court that are chiefly
recommended. As in the case of the Commercial Pro-
posals, what remains to be said as to the advantages
the acceptance of these Judicial Proposals is likely to
yield will be found in the concluding section.
IV. ADMINISTRATIVE.
33. In the introductory remarks, complaints were
arranged under three headings, Commercial, Judicial,
and Administrative, and in view of the circumstances
which condition action it was said in 6, to be practical,
proposals ought to be of a kind to convince the Treaty
Powers that the limitations of any stipulation afford
sufficient margin for the exercise of the rights it
guarantees, induce China to see that the concession is
not unlimited, and promise an improvement on the
regulations and procedure now existing. In 8 to
19 and 20 to 29, the commercial and judicial com-
plaints have been examined and proposals have been
put forward supposed to be an improvement on exist-
ing regulations and procedure. The class of complaints
described as Administrative remains to be noticed ; and
it is in connection with them mainly, and the suggestions
about to be made to meet them, that an effort seems
to be called for to induce foreigners to accept limita-
tions and China to yield a sufficient margin. Any-
thing effected in this direction will not be without its
advantages.
34. What are these administrative complaints ?
On the foreign side they are chiefly of this kind, that
APPENDIX II 225
foreigners are not allowed to circulate freely, or settle
inland, or work mines, or introduce railways, tele-
graphs, and mints, or procure the adoption of appli-
ances which they have convinced themselves are certain
to be attended with beneficial results, etc. These com-
plaints amount to this : that the Chinese Government
refuses to accept foreign advice, or give foreigners
carte blanche in China and these again, say the com-
plainants, to this, that China, in a word, is hostile.
On the Chinese side corresponding complaints are
also growing. Just as the commercial arrangements
of the Treaties have caused commercial and financial
derangement throughout China, so, too, their adminis-
trative arrangements have created administrative diffi-
culties for Government and officials, and local grievances
for gentry and people. The country begins to feel that
Government consented to arrangements by which China
has lost face ; the officials have long been conscious
that they are becoming ridiculous in the eyes of the
people, seeing that where a foreigner is concerned
they can neither enforce a Chinese right nor redress
a Chinese grievance, even on Chinese soil ; and the
Government has to admit that for what it has given
up, it has got nothing to show in return ; and all this
is in turn attributed to the exterritorial clauses of the
Treaties,
It is quite possible that the Treaties are not to
blame, politically, judicially, or commercially, for all
that is laid to their charge ; but whatever handles they
offer are on all sides eagerly laid hold of, and the
grievances they are held to constitute are certain to
be felt and complained of more and more, the longer
they are allowed to continue to exist.
35. Granted that China has shown unwillingness
Q
226 APPENDIX II
to accept foreign advice and act on foreign suggestions ;
to what is such unwillingness to be attributed ? There
are several causes in operation. First of all the Chinese
are a very conceited people they will hardly allow
that their condition is to be improved upon ; secondly,
the Chinese are a very contented people they dislike
and fear change, and believe that the way of living
that satisfied their forefathers for two or three thousand
years will do well enough for themselves ; thirdly,
officials and people were alike ignorant on all foreign
subjects, and did not for a moment imagine that
there was anything better out of China than they
already had in it ; fourthly, people and officials, but
more especially officials, have been suspicious of the
foreigners' intentions, and still think every word must
have some ulterior object, and every suggestion some
sinister motive ; these, and kindred reasons, have
operated and are operating on all sides against foreign
ideas and foreign ways, but, obstacles though they long
have been and now are, they are nevertheless forces
which must decrease in power in proportion as Chinese
become better acquainted with foreigners and enlighten-
ment becomes more general. At the same time their
temporary potency will be rather increased than re-
moved by any foreign pressure intended for their
removal. But alongside of these there exists another
set of opposing forces, forces which must increase in
power in proportion as China increases in enlighten-
ment, and whose removal China cannot effect till the
foreigner himself wills it.
36. Granted that China is unwilling to increase
the foreigner's liberty of action throughout the length
and breadth of the land : this, too, is not without an
explanation.
APPENDIX II 32 7
When the first Treaties were made China had had no
experience of international dealings and no acquaint-
ance with international relations, but the foreigner's
knowledge of the many differences between Chinese
and foreign official action in matters affecting property
or person was already of a kind to make him unwill-
ing to accept Chinese procedure : it was, therefore,
wise and, at the time, right for the foreign negotiator
to stipulate that questions affecting the persons or
property of foreigners should be arranged by the
foreign authority, and, on the other hand, the Chinese
officials who consented to that arrangement without
stipulating for the various limitations by which it
ought to have been accompanied, can hardly be
blamed for their want of political foresight, even had
they been free to refuse acquiescence. But during the
thirty years that have elapsed since then, Chinese
officials have learned many things ; they know that
the Treaty Powers do not respectively accord to each
other's subjects the position that the Treaties bind
China to give, they have seen that in questions
between natives and foreigners, when the decision has
rested with foreigners, natives, if it in any degree goes
against them, are never satisfied, and while they assert
that the existence of this stipulation is already exer-
cising an influence injurious to the prestige of the
Government and the dignity of Chinese officials, they
ask if it is to be wondered at that China refuses to
assent to such an extension of it as might scatter it
wholesale through China and multiply the troubles
that foreign intercourse has so constantly caused them
beyond all calculation.
Accordingly, when the foreigner moots anything new,
the suggestion viewed with dislike as recommending
228 APPENDIX II
change, and with suspicion as coming from the foreigner
is only too likely to be replied to thus : It may be
good, but having done without it so long, we can do
without it longer ; it may be good, but, however good
it may be, we cannot afford to accept it coupled with
exterritoriality we have granted exemption from
Chinese control at the ports, but we cannot go on to
make the exempt a power in the interior.
37. The foreigner's administrative complaint is that
China does not accept foreign suggestions ; China's
reply is that she cannot do so, so long as their con-
comitant is unlimited exterritoriality.
Like all other general terms the word exterritoriality
looms larger in its vagueness than it really is, and, such
being the case, it may be unnecessarily standing in the
way of both parties ; that part of the thing exterritori-
ality which the foreigner really wishes for in China may
be something which, once explained, China can con-
tinue to grant him without fear ; that part of the thing
exterritoriality which China dreads to see coming in as
the concomitant of foreign suggestions, may be just the
something that the foreigner does not really require or
expect to be given. It would be hopeless to expect
foreign Powers to consent to give up exterritoriality
categorically and without explanation ; but the word
may be given up, and, of the things it covers, such may
be retained under their own respective denominations
as are really useful to the one side, and really harmless
to the other.
What does the foreigner ask for ? Is it to maintain
his present hazy and indefinite exterritorial status ? He
can do this : but not only will he then continue with no
promise of other improvement, but will remain weighted
with the opposition, suspicion and dislike that that
APPENDIX II 229
status must ever keep alive for him in China. Is it
extension of intercourse growth of trade develop-
ment in China improvement of international relations,
that he seeks for ? He can have these : but only on
one condition a rearrangement and change of status.
What does China seek for? Does she wish to keep out
everything smacking of exterritoriality? She can do
so : but only at the loss of all the valuable lessons that
foreign intercourse can teach. Does she want to learn
those lessons to become rich and strong ? She can
do so : but only on condition that she will allow of
some kind or portion of exterritoriality within her
boundaries.
On the one hand, given the certainty that there will
be no great amelioration of the present state of things ;
on the other, given the certainty that there will be
improvement ; there can be no question as to which is
the more pleasing prospect. But accompanying the
future that promises no improvement, the foreigner
retains his undefined exterritoriality ; while accompany-
ing the future that promises improvement, he has only
a limited kind of exterritoriality has only so much of
exterritoriality as he can really find use for. Where
then is the value of the other element as accompanying
the one or as absent from the other an unregulated
exterritorial status whose presence necessitates the first
stagnation ; and whose absence ensures the second
progress ? Surely the time has arrived when such an
understanding might be arrived at as should reuiove
this obstacle from the common pathway of both foreigner
and native : it is preventing the one from doing what
will be for his own good it is keeping the other from
reaping the fair rewards of much study, labour, and
expenditure.
230 APPENDIX U
On both sides there is something valueless in exterri-
toriality which either side can afford to give up to
secure the something valuable in the improved inter-
course that will accompany the residuum. Mutual
concession is what is first of all necessary : but mutual
concession is an impossibility, so long as there is not a
common understanding, and as for a common under-
standing, it cannot be arrived at unless both sides speak
out.
If China says to the foreigner : you make too much
of your exterritoriality you set too much value by it ;
the foreigner naturally asks what he is to receive in
exchange. If the foreigner says to China : you fear
our exterritoriality too much, you see more in it than it
contains ; China as naturally asks in reply : What
limits can be put on it ?
38. On more than one occasion a high official has
said : " give up exterritoriality and you may go where
you like ; " and the last time the subject came up he
asked : " will you even let our people in your ports have [
the standing we give yours in ours ? "
If freedom of movement were all that is wanted,
much might be urged in favour of closing with the
first proposition ; on the one hand, China would be
certain to take the greatest possible care not to inter-
fere with the foreigner needlessly, so long as he did
nothing that Chinese may not do, and, if interfering,
would be as careful not to treat him in a way likely to
provoke foreign intervention ; while, on the other hand,
foreign countries would watch over the safety of their
nationals just as jealously as they do now that they pro-
tect them by exterritoriality. The travelling foreigner
would then meet with less hindrances and be better
treated everywhere than at present.
APPENDIX II rjr
But the foreigner will reply liberty to circulate
freely and settle anywhere is not all that is wanted ;
foreigners want to circulate and to settle, in order to
be able, in addition, to buy and sell, and to introduce
improvements and changes, and these, he fears, are the
very things that any renunciation of exterritoriality
would make it impossible for him to do. Better retain
the exterritoriality now enjoyed at the ports and under
passport and the foreigner can already, within a limited
area, act very freely ; he can also continue to ventilate
the improvements it is in his power to suggest, and can
declaim against the blindness of the Government that
refuses to let its people appropriate all these benefits-
But were the exterritoriality he already enjoys given
up, he fears that the power which now keeps him from
working freely in the interior would virtually eject him
from the ports, and that, if haply allowed to remain
or go inland, he would still have to become more
Chinese than Chinamen, while the Government would
grow more exclusive than ever.
Such fears cannot be set aside as groundless ; at the
same time, just as it is certain that, at this date, the
objection of the Government is not so much an objec-
tion to improvements as an objection to improvements
plus extension of unregulated and unlimited exterri-
toriality ; so, too, it is more than probable that, were
exterritoriality no longer the bugbear it is, China's cry
would be for, and not against, what the foreigner styles
progress. As once before remarked, the difficulties of
a merely conservative or anti-progress programme
become daily more apparent, and its enforcement less
likely to be persevered in.
39. It may safely be asserted that the exterritorial
stipulations of the Treaties have done more than
232 APPENDIX II
anything else to set the Government against any exten-
sion of intercourse, and that these stipulations, whether
it be by the interpretation given to them or the action
taken under them, are increasingly producing an effect
and exercising an influence unfavourable to the develop-
ment of resources and introduction of improvements.
Would it not, then, be well to take up the subject and
hear what is to be said on both sides ; how much of
exterritoriality the foreigner wants, why, and for how
long ; how much of exterritoriality China feels at liberty
to allow of, what it is she dislikes, and why ; and put
the whole question of the relation of each to other on
a fair, friendly, and intelligible footing ?
On the one hand, the foreigner must let China see
that she is protected from what she has taken to be the
chief dangers of intercourse ; on the other, China must
clear the course for foreign legitimate enterprise.
Nothing will help to do both things so surely as a
rearrangement of the exterritorial stipulations, and it is
to do this, to still China's fears and open up a more
promising future for foreign ideas, arts, and inventions
in China, that the following suggestions, like the com-
plaints, styled administrative, are submitted. The
Treaties, it is true, do not contain the word exterri-
toriality, but the stipulations referred to in section 20
constitute the foreigner's exterritoriality in China. The
suggestions that follow will deal with stipulations in the
concrete, and not with the generalization.
40. Administrative Suggestions : First Set. Where
there is intercourse between two countries there are two
points of primary importance : i, that there shall be
rules, and 2, that the rules shall be plain, intelligible,
and unmistakable ; and among the ends to be thereby
aimed at are these : that the foreigner shall not only
APPENDIX II 233
know that he is not above the laws, but shall also know
what laws he has to obey, and how he is to be dealt with ;
that the native shall know that the foreigner, though a
foreigner, has his rights, and that both foreigner and
native shall know that each has made the proper con-
cessions to the other. The first set of suggestions now
to be submitted are drawn up from this point of
view :
(i.) Seeing that doubt, discussion, and inconvenience
are the result of diversity of form and language in the
Treaties, and seeing that, in point of fact, and by reason
of the most-favoured-nation clause, all the Treaties,
however dissimilar in form and language, are identical
in spirit and matter, it is suggested :
To consider whether it would not be possible to draw
up one common version in Chinese for all Treaties, and
to supplement it by equivalent versions in English,
French, German, Russian, Spanish, etc.
(2.) Seeing that to some extent what is objectionable
in existing Treaties may take its objectionable colour-
ing from apparent want of reciprocity, and seeing
that an appearance of reciprocity in Treaty concessions
not only causes concessions to be less objected to, but
makes Treaties generally easier to be worked, it is
suggested :
To consider whether it would not be possible to
arrange that foreigners arriving in China and Chinese
arriving in foreign countries, shall reciprocally on first
arrival report themselves to their own Consul, and shall
after that enrol themselves either with their Consul as
non-residents or with the local magistrate as residents,
as they may themselves elect ; the thus enrolled non-
residents to be thereafter acknowledged and treated
as aliens, and the thus enrolled residents as natives.
234 APPENDIX II
Where there is no Consul the newly arrived to be for
the time being held to be resident.
(3.) Seeing that where disputes arise between non-
residents (i.e., foreigners) which do not affect natives,
the settlement of them need not necessarily be the work
of the native officials of the locality, and seeing that in
mixed questions where natives are affected, it is the
more especial duty of native officials, who have con-
sented to the coming of foreigners and made regulations
therefor, and who are accordingly at the same time
responsible for the well-being of both native and
stranger, to see that disputes are fully inquired into
and fairly settled, it is suggested :
To consider whether it may not be possible to extend
the judicial provisions, proposed to be introduced and
acted on in China, and arrange that while disputes
between Chinese aliens in foreign countries are to be
settled by their own Consuls, disputes between Chinese
aliens and natives of the countries resided in or affecting
both shall be heard and settled by a special Court
instructed to give effect to the common code proposed
to be drawn up for the settlement of disputes between
natives and aliens in China.
(4.) Seeing that the Treaty stipulations already pro-
vide that disputes between foreigners shall be dealt
with by the foreign officials in accordance with the
foreign laws, and that in cases where disputes affect
both foreigner and native, the foreign and native
authority shall conjointly settle matters equitably,
seeing that these stipulations do not place the foreigner
above the native law or entitle him to disregard it,
and seeing, further, that it is a common complaint
that foreigners do neglect to observe native laws held
to be essential to the welfare, tranquillity, and well-being
APPENDIX II 235
of the localities concerned, thereby creating nuisances,
causing discontent, and evoking ill-will, it is suggested :
To consider whether it may not be possible to declare
that foreigners Chinese in foreign countries, and
foreigners in China shall be reciprocally obliged to
observe all such laws of the locality as are prohibitory
of doings calculated to offend and disturb the locality :
what a native is not allowed to do, a foreigner shall not
do what a native may do, a foreigner may equally do :
offenders to be proceeded against in the Special Court.
(5.) Seeing that foreigners may desire to possess
lands and houses, and take shares in trades, industries,
and companies, and seeing that such kinds of property
and all such enterprises are governed by the law of the
land, and do not admit of a mixed treatment one kind
for the foreigner and one for the native and seeing
that it will be alike advantageous for such enterprises,
and for all who wish to share in them, that the standing
of all interested in them should be clearly proclaimed
and defined, it is suggested :
To consider whether it may not be possible to declare
that where aliens own lands or houses, or hold shares in
public companies and native industries, they must
Chinese in foreign countries and foreigners in China
equally with natives reciprocally obey the native laws
drawn up for the regulation of such kinds of property.
Questions arising in this connection to be dealt with by
the Special Court
(6.) Seeing that in the interests of the dignity and
authority of local officials everywhere it is advisable
that there should be no unnecessary exceptions to the
exercise of their functions, seeing that the tendency of
any exception, necessary or not necessary, is to set the
official in question against the parties for whom the
236 APPENDIX II
exception is made in the other matters that it comes
within the power of that official to permit or prohibit,
further, or impede ; and seeing that in Customs as in
other governmental matters the same care to refrain from
creating exceptions is also advisable to be exercised, it
is suggested :
To consider whether it may not be possible to enact
that foreign ships arriving in China, and Chinese vessels
arriving in foreign countries, shall reciprocally report
arrival, deposit papers, and clear at the Customs, and
that harbour-masters shall be empowered to note and
extend protests, ship and discharge seamen, and do the
other work of shipping-master and marine notary. The
vessels and crews to otherwise retain their non-resident
character, and be dealt with by their respective Consuls.
(7.) Seeing that it is mutually advantageous for
officials to be easy of access to people, and seeing that
the tendency of the necessary and official intervention
of a third party is to give a hard and formal appearance
to affairs, and to render official solutions necessary
rather than expedite amicable and informal settlements,
it is suggested :
To consider whether it may not be possible to de-
clare that foreigners Chinese in foreign countries and
foreigners in China shall reciprocally be at liberty to
address the native officials direct, and without Consular
intervention, whenever they may choose to do so.
(8.) Seeing that dues, duties, and taxes are all levied
by the authority of the Government, and that there are
tariffs according to which all such levies are raised
seeing that foreign Governments publish such tariffs,
and that China has also published the tariff of duties
payable at Treaty ports by foreigners, and seeing that
governmental requirements from time to time necessitate
APPENDIX II 337
changes in special taxes raised in the provinces of China,
it is suggested :
To consider whether it would not be possible for
the Yamen to notify taxes, as established or abolished,
to foreign representatives for communication to, and
observance by their nationals.
(9.) Seeing that growth and change are constantly
calling for modifications, it is suggested :
That each fifth year these so-called administrative
regulations be revised : the revised regulations to come
into operation the year following.
41. Administrative Suggestions : Second Set. Sup-
posing the first to be thrown out, and seeing that some
kind and degree of reciprocity may help to counteract
some part of the ill effects of whatever is bad in exist-
ing arrangements, and gradually prepare the way for
an extension of reciprocity, and other improvements, it
is suggested :
(i.) That a common Chinese text be adopted for all
Treaties.
(2.) That in foreign countries where China has estab-
lished Legations and Consulates, disputes between
Chinese, and not affecting natives, shall be arranged by
the Chinese officials, and that in cases in which both
Chinese and natives are concerned, the course followed
in China for their settlement shall there also be adopted.
(3.) That vessels shall deposit their papers, etc., with
the Customs and enter and clear direct, without Consular
intervention.
(4.) That there shall be a revision of these arrange-
ments every fifth year, and that the revised arrangements
shall take effect the following year.
42. Administrative Suggestions : Third Set. Sup-
posing neither first nor second set of these administrative
2j8 APPENDIX II
suggestions to be accepted, and seeing that the exist-
ence of the " most-favoured-nation " clause in each
Treaty in point of fact puts all parties on the same
footing, it is suggested :
(i.) That one common Chinese text be adopted for
all Treaties, and one Tariff for all merchants.
(2.) That revision of Treaty and Tariff shall take place
every fifth year, and come into operation the year
following.
43. Administrative Suggestions : Fourth Set. Sup-
posing that none of the preceding sets of suggestions
prove acceptable, it is suggested :
(l.) That every fifth year there shall be a general
revision of Treaties, Tariffs, Rules, and Regula-
tions.
44. From the preceding suggestions it will at once
be seen that the chief objects in view are to arrange for
general revision at regularly recurring and not too
distant periods and thereby keep with the times, pro-
vide a common Chinese text for all Treaties and thereby
make stipulations and rules easily intelligible intro-
duce as much reciprocity in arrangements as circum-
stances will admit of and thereby win popular assent,
and improve existing stipulations wherever experience
shows them to be defective and thereby obviate mis-
chievous results. Should it be found possible to take
action in the direction suggested, China would recog-
nize the fact that foreigners in China are subjected to
proper limitations and foreigners would equally recog-
nize the fact that, although subjected to limitations,
they are nevertheless able to obtain everything they
have a right to look for. Such an end once secured
would have a most beneficial effect on general interests.
What yet remains to be said as to the advantages to be
APPENDIX 21 339
gained from the adoption of these administrative sug-
gestions will be found in the section that now follows,
headed Concluding.
V. CONCLUDING.
45. For the present the four sets of proposals that
precede may suffice ; but it still remains to supplement
what has been said in explanation of the causes that
warrant such proposals by some remarks respecting the
advantage they appear to offer.
If it be merely desired to retain and give full effect to
existing Treaties, what is mainly wanted is an authorita-
tive declaration of the interpretation of a few debated
clauses ; on the commercial side, the chief desideratum
is a definitive statement of the meaning of drawback
and transit stipulations, and, on the judicial, a clear
understanding as to the occasions on which the native
and foreign authority shall act conjointly, and the
nature and limits of that conjoint action. What have
been adverted to as administrative requirements would
thus remain unprovided for.
But, when the question of a better regulation of the
commercial side of foreign intercourse is fairly met, and
means and ends carefully looked at from the standpoints
of both parties, it is evident that, in point of fact, what
both want is, after all, changes in, rather than confirma-
tions of, present arrangements. The Treaties have
forced foreigners into certain grooves, and have done
even this in a way that has provoked native opposition ;
and, while the matter of each stipulation has opened
the door to abuse of Treaty privileges by one party and
to interference with Treaty rights by the other, the
principle that runs through the stipulations has itself
240 APPENDIX II
been the strongest possible incentive to abuse by these
and interference by those. Everywhere there is an
escape from restrictions, and a means of shutting the
door in the face of liberty of action. If it be desired
that intercourse should become friendlier, development
quicker, and commerce greater, it is change and not
confirmation that is called for.
46. The acceptance of any of the foregoing sets of
proposals would remedy some existing evils ; but it is
for the first set that attention is especially invited.
If the first set of proposals should chance to be given
a trial, their accruing advantages would speedily be
recognized in the directions below indicated :
Commercially.
(i.) One and the same treatment is provided for
foreigner and native : so that there need neither be
abuse of privileges nor interference with rights.
(2.) The eight or ten commodities, imports and
exports, in which foreign trade is really if not alone
interested, are not only relieved from uncertain and
variable taxation, but are freed from all taxation, on
payment of the one fixed charge at a Treaty port.
(3.) The merchandise in which foreign trade is not
interested and which circulates in China for Chinese
domestic use is freed from the application of the foreign
Tariff at Treaty ports and is left to be dealt with
by the territorial authorities according to local rules
and requirements.
(4.) As regards a third class of goods, viz., the articles
of foreign origin which, though recognizable as foreign,
are not staples and are for the most part only disposed
of at the ports and not sent into the interior articles
APPENDIX II 241
which, though foreign, are not easily distinguishable
from Chinese articles and yet are also not staples and
the articles which, being of native origin and bought for
foreign export, are, like the scattered imports, neither
certain nor abundant in the export trade all these
articles and commodities, of little importance to foreign
trade, are left where they are now : that is, they remain
exposed to the uncertain incidence of local taxation, but
are, on the other hand, freed from the certain incidence
of import or export duty at the Treaty ports.
(5.) The local taxation, of Chinese goods for Chinese
domestic use and of the insignificant imports and ex-
ports referred to in the last paragraph, is not to be in
any way connected with shipment or discharge at
Treaty ports, so that vessels which take mixed freights
will neither have to deal with two sets of Custom-
houses nor be subjected to any special detention.
(6.) Where the foreigner competes with the Chinese
merchant in Chinese trade on Chinese ground, he will
do so on the same footing and conditions as the native ;
where the native competes with the foreigner in foreign
trade, he will do so on the same footing and conditions
as the foreigner.
(7.) Vexatious espionage at the ports and transit
troubles in the interior disappear.
(8.) No interest is sacrificed to another : neither
foreign staples to Chinese desire for revenue nor
Chinese taxation to isolated commercial ventures
nor the goods in which one power is interested to
those which concern some other ; what is fair to each
and good for all is secured and promoted.
(9.) Foreigners will no longer be reproached for
selling their names to Chinese native hostility to
foreign trade will disappear officials will no longer
R
242 APPENDIX II
be able to say that local revenue is destroyed by foreign
trade foreign trade itself will in every way be freed
from burdens it has now to bear.
(10.) Quinquennial revision will periodically effect
timely changes, removing what is bad and adding what
is good.
Judicially.
(n.) With one code and one procedure for all cases
in which both foreigners and natives are concerned, and
with concomitant arrangements adequate to the protec-
tion of person and property, complaints will be stopped
and much that is now offensive will disappear.
(12.) Room is left for growth and expansion, and for
improvement of both code and procedure. Quinquen-
nial revision provides for proper adaptation to the
requirements of the times.
A dministr atmely.
(13.) The very fact of consenting to consider the
points set forth in the administrative suggestions will
bring both native and foreigner into more friendly
relations, and any action taken in the directions pro-
posed will not only lessen the chances of further mis-
understandings, but will set free agencies that are now
under a ban and convert hostility and opposition into
friendliness and co-operation.
(14.) The steps suggested on the administrative side
will do much to ensure the satisfactory working of both
judicial and commercial proposals : on the one hand
there will be less likelihood of interference with com-
mercial interests, and on the other, greater certainty of
compliance with all that is required judicially.
APPENDIX II 243
For these and other reasons, a common trial of the
first set of proposals is to be strongly recommended.
47. On the foreign side the political world may
object to surrender anything already obtained from
China the Christian public may hesitate to trust their
Christian nationals in pagan China unless surrounded
by the full blaze of exterritoriality and the mercantile
classes will ask what security is there that China will
keep her engagements.
Here we are met by objections not without force or
meaning : each one of them merits its due share of con-
sideration. Let them be fully thought out and let
allowance be made for the utmost value of all they
suggest ; but, that done, let what now exists and what
is proposed for adoption be put side by side and judged
of by the light of the following considerations :
(i.) That the present situation is approved of by
neither party.
(2.) That mutually advantageous alterations can only
be obtained by mutual concessions.
(3.) That what is proposed is not necessarily more
than a five years' experiment, subject to revision
and approval, and if needs be, to withdrawal.
(4.) That such proposals, if presumably likely to yield
results that will be so many gains, commercially,
judicially and administratively, ought to be allowed a
fair trial.
(5.) That the proposals, instead of stunting, nourish
growth instead of forcing into grooves, clear the
ground for enterprise instead of perpetuating distinc-
tions that alike tempt native and foreigner, class all
individuals together and make interests identical and
not antagonistic.
(6.) Politically, is it not an error to keep alive the
244 APPENDIX II
cause of administrative difficulty ? Judicially, is it not
a fact that although the Court may be pagan, it will
have to proceed publicly and according to new laws,
while individuals concerned are so few that such special
arrangements can never be the cause of national incon-
venience, and does not every-day experience show that
China treats the subjects of other States, not removed
from Chinese jurisdiction, with extraordinary gentle-
ness? And as for distrust of China's willingness to
act up to her engagements, if good faith be not taken
for granted, meaning thereby the desire and the ability
to keep one's engagements, what is the use of any such
thing as negotiation ?
Comparing the existing and the proposed arrange-
ments, with all these considerations before the mind,
it is evident that there is much more to be said in
favour of a departure from, than in favour of a confirma-
tion of existing arrangements.
48. On the Chinese side, whatever other difficulties
may crop up for those who have to take action, it is
not unlikely that one difficulty in the way of the
acceptance of these proposals will be the desire of
critics to take and not give. When Treaties were first
entered into it was all giving and no getting on the
part of China, and now the rebound may be felt, and
there may be a desire to get and not give. Perhaps
the advantages of what is conceded to China will be
so undervalued, or the advantages of what is proposed
to be conceded to the foreigner will be so magnified,
or the desire to give as little as possible will be to
such an extent uppermost, that thereby the proposals
may come to naught. To this all that one can say in
advance is, that, while the order to make proposals
means that it is intended to take action, critics must
APPENDIX II 245
remember that those who would take must also be will-
ing to give ; mutual concession for mutual advantage is
not only essential, but fair and reasonable, and, moreover,
even one's own property if it is once pawned can
only be redeemed by a payment. Objectors should
consider these things, and those who have to take
action may rest assured that, should the proposals
be adopted, China's gain will not be less than the
foreigner's.
49. As will have been seen, there are three sets
of proposals, and in each set there are four alternative
sets. The natural order and logical sequence would,
perhaps, be administrative, judicial, commercial, but
it has been thought better to adopt the reverse order
commercial, judicial, administrative ; and the object
with which this has been done is that what there may
be of great obstacles to the acceptance of the judicial
proposals, or of greater obstacles to the acceptance
of the administrative, should not stand in the way of
a full consideration of the commercial as preceding
the judicial, or in the way of the judicial as preceding
the administrative. The judicial proposals are of easier
acceptance than the administrative ; the commercial,
again, are probably of easier acceptance than the
judicial. Under each of the three headings any alter-
native set of proposals is complete in itself, and may
be accepted while all the rest are rejected ; or, any one
of the alternative sets under one heading may be adopted
and combined with any one of the alternative sets
under either of the two headings. Again, each pro-
posal, although sufficiently detailed to be intelligible,
is possibly susceptible of improvement, and would in
any case necessarily require further consideration and
elaboration before being made law, to say nothing of
246 APPENDIX II
the supplementary regulations it would require to have
drawn up for its proper working.
50. In conclusion, the hope may be expressed that
the commercial proposals will help to place commercial
dealings on a better footing, and remove much ground
for complaint, that the judicial proposals will introduce
improvements in judicial business, and do away with
the cry that justice is withheld ; and that the adminis-
trative suggestions, first of all assisting to secure and
consolidate commercial and judicial advantages, will in
the end improve the tone of general intercourse, and
remove the chief obstacle, political opposition, from the
pathway of future relations. But it must not be sup-
posed that these proposals will be a panacea for all ills,
or a philosopher's stone, to turn all they touch into
gold. Even supposing that they are put in operation,
and that they induce forgetfulness of past grievances
and certain anticipation of future benefits, even then
they will not make foolish officials act wisely ; nor will
they make underpaid officials respect regulations when
gain is to be got ; nor will they make turbulent people
quiet ; nor will they enable fortunes to be made other
than in accordance with the circumstances that con-
dition trade. If fairly acted upon, it is confidently
believed that they will be followed by results more or
less beneficial to both China and not-China ; but time
alone will show in how far and in what directions this
t
belief is well or ill-founded. If failing to effect what is
looked for and, indeed, even if failing to be adopted
they will, at all events, serve to introduce questions that
demand settlement, and explain some of the conditions
and difficulties that must be grappled with if a solution
is to be arrived at. That it is not an easy task to draw
up such proposals must be apparent to any one
APPENDIX II 247
who re-reads the conditions imposed by the Yamn's
instructions, as quoted in the first paragraph.
(Signed) ROBERT HART,
Inspector General of Maritime Customs.
PEKING, January 23, 1876.
II SUPPLEMENTARY DESPATCH.
The Inspector General of Customs to His Imperial High-
ness tfte Prince of Kung and their Excellencies the
Ministers of tJie Tsungli Yamen.
Peking, February 8, 1876.
I. The Undersigned having received the YamSn's
instructions of the 6th October, calling for proposals for
the better regulation of commercial intercourse, had the
honour to submit his detailed reply on the 23rd January.
It will have been seen that the Commercial Proposals,
first set, suggest ist, that the staples of foreign trade,
viz., cottons, woollens, metals, and sugar inwards, and
tea, silk, sugar, and cotton outwards, shall pay Customs
duty and inland due simultaneously at the time of
shipment or discharge to the Treaty Port Customs, and
be everywhere else and at all times free from every
other charge in China ; and 2nd, that all other kinds
of merchandise (excepting opium, which is specially
provided for) shall be exempted from payment of duty
by the Treaty Port Customs and be liable for every
local charge wherever else met with in China, no matter
in whose hands.
It is reasonable to take it for granted that proposals
are only made after due consideration, and are sus-
ceptible of explanation and support. If it be asked
248 APPENDIX II
then, what the proposals just recapitulated are based
on, the reply is the Treaty Port Customs Statistics of
1874, from which the following figures are now sub-
mitted. In 1874 it may be said in round numbers
that
PAID IMPORT DUTY.
Taels.
Cottons 720,000
Woollens 160,000
Metals 100,000
Sugar 60,000
All other Imports 650,000
PAID EXPORT DUTY.
Tea 5,000,000
Silk 870,000
Sugar 90,000
Cotton ... ... ... ... ... ... 40,000
All other Exports 680,000
So that, during the year 1874, the eight import and
export staples above-named may be regarded as having
paid duty amounting to 7,080,000 taels, while all other
goods (opium not included) paid 1,330,000 taels.
During the same year, of other dues and duties the
Treaty Port Customs collected :
Taels.
Opium, Import Duty, say 2,100,000
Native Produce, Coast Trade Duty, say ... 570,000
Transit Dues, Inwards and Outwards, say ... 230,300
Tonnage Dues, say ... 200,000
Thus the total collection of the Treaty Port Customs
for the year 1874 amounted in round numbers to
11,500,000 taels. And this collection, it is to be
remembered, is a collection made in accordance with
rules already in force, and not according to the pro-
posals now under consideration.
APPENDIX 12 249
3. If the proposal that has been made to tax staples
at the Treaty Ports, freeing them elsewhere, and to free
other goods at the Treaty Ports, taxing them elsewhere,
were acted upon, then, taking the same year's statistics
as the basis of a calculation, the results to be looked for
would be much as follows :
IMPORT DUTY plus INLAND DUE.
Taels.
Cottons 1,080,000
Woollens 240,000
Metals 210,000
Sugar 90,000
EXPORT DUTY//WJ INLAND DUE.
Tea 7,500,000
Silk 1,305,000
Sugar 135,000
Cotton 60,000
thus yielding in all, a revenue amounting to 10,600,000
taels.
If to this be added, as was also proposed, an import
duty on opium of 120 taels per pecul, amounting, on
the supposition of an importation of 70,000 peculs, to
8400,000 taels, the sum total would be an immediate
collection of over 19,000,000 taels, and a certainty of
20,000,000 a-year in a year or two.
When it is said that such a collection might con-
fidently be relied upon, it is not a mere guess that is
made, or an unfounded assertion that is hazarded ; on
the contrary, not only is the calculation supported by
the statistics of 1874, but is shown by those of 1875, to
give results that are even below the mark. And as for
the question as to what is, or is not possible for the
customs, there is nothing to show that the plan pro-
posed for adoption is in any respect other than feasible.
250 APPENDIX II
4. If it be asked whether this increase in the Treaty
Port Customs collection would make up for the decrease
in collection at other points likely to result from the
adoption of the scheme, a reply may be gathered from
what follows. A short time ago the undersigned re-
quested the Board of Revenue to state the annual
amount of Likin derived from tea, silk, and opium.
The Board replied that its accounts did not admit of
furnishing separate totals. But although these par-
ticulars could not be ascertained from the Board, it has
been elsewhere gathered that the Likin of the eighteen
provinces may be computed at about 10,000,000 of taels
annually. Accordingly, taking the year 1874 for
example, that part of the general revenue which is made
up of (i) Treaty Port Customs duties, and (2) Likin
throughout China, may be said to have been 22,000,000
for the year. Now this is just about the sum to which
it is calculated the Treaty Port Customs duties would
alone amount in a few years more, were the proposals
just made adopted. As for the effect of these proposals
on the national revenue then, their profitable character
is so evident that it is needless to demonstrate their
harmlessness.
Again, it is continually said that the Likin is but a
temporary measure and will sooner or later be dis-
continued. Supposing Likin to be discontinued, the
Treaty Port Customs duties would then alone remain
available ; but, when that day comes, if the Customs
duties should be found to have already increased to
such an extent as to make up for the discontinued
Likin, then the proposals which should achieve such a
result can hardly be regarded as other than good.
5. Here, however, the undersigned has another pro-
posal to submit. The " Peking Gazette " has of late
APPENDIX II 251
frequently published memorials from high officials
recommending the discontinuance of Likin, but such
memorials merely contain the request that the Likin
may be stopped and do not show how governmental
business can be carried on in such a way as to really
enable Likin to be dispensed with. This being the
case, it is no wonder that other officials memorialize in
reply; and, urging that such recommendations cannot
be attended to, procure their rejection. Under these
circumstances, the undersigned begs to point out that
the proposals he has already submitted appear to be
calculated to meet this difficulty ; they show how the
revenue given up in one direction might be more than
made up for in another. If, therefore, the Yame'n
would make those proposals the subject of a special
memorial and procure the discontinuance of Likin, not
only would many a foreign difficulty be avoided, but
while only a Yamen for the transaction of foreign
business, yet so transacting it as to promote China's
internal interests a tax that has harassed the people,
been denounced by officials, given rise to innumerable
malpractices, and is only, after all, of a temporary and
ephemeral character, would be removed, while a source
of revenue would be substituted of an enduring and
flourishing kind, a revenue which, on the one hand,
would increasingly enrich the Imperial Exchequer, and
on the other in no way harass or be a burden to the
community.
The undersigned would therefore beg that this supple-
mentary despatch may be read and considered in
connection with the proposals already submitted.
(Signed) ROBERT HART,
Inspector General.
INDEX
Alcock Convention, 68, 70
Ament, Mr., 15
Ammunition, 28
Arrow war, 2, 65, 120, 155
B
Boxers, character of, 7, 8, 85, no,
ill; future of, 53, 55, in;
methods of, 12, 14, 15, 29, 32, 53,
85, 117, 133, 156; origin of, 2, 4,
6,52, 112, 150, 165
Bruce, Sir Frederic, 127
Canton, 18, 33, 155
Chaffee, General, 48
Chamot, M., 15, 27, 28, 31
Chekiang, 2, 5
Ching, Prince, 21, 34, 48, 91, IOO
Confucius, 5, 130
Conger, Mr., 38
Cordes, Mr., 19
D
D'Arcy, Commandant, 31, 86
Dering, Mr., 28
Dupree, W-, 27, 28
Emperor. See under Kwang Hsu.
Empress Dowager, 1, 7, 8, 18, 21, 1 IO,
IS6
Favier, Monseigneur, 34
Gazelee, General, 48
H
Hart, Sir Robert, 78, 91, 171
Hongkong, 120, 128, 155, 215
Inspectorate, 14, 20, 24
James, Professor Huberty, 20
Jung Luh, Commander-in-Chief, 34,
46,47
Ketteler, Baron von, 19, 48
Kiao Chow, 2, 5, 156
Knobel, Mr., 48
Kung, Prince, 68, 124, 158
Kwang Hsu, Emperor, I, 7, 35, 92,
97, loi, 156
Lang Fang, n
Legations, I, 9, 14, 18, 26, 29, 38,
57, 116
American, 25, 28, 44, 46
Austrian, 20, 24, 31
British, II, 13, 19, 25, 29, 31,
43.90
Dutch, 24, 31
French, 20, 24, 31, 44, 86
German, 19, 43
Italian, 24, 31
Japanese, 46
Russian, 25, 44
254
INDEX
Li Hung Chang, 1 8, 46, 92
Likin tax, 125, 1 80, 2OO, 204, 250
Li Ping Heng, 5, 6
Looting, 87, 90, 118
M
Manchoo dynasty, 49, 55, 58, 84, 96,
108
Missionaries, 15, 26, 41, 90, 105 ;
hatred of, 5, 68, 124, 137, 158, 161,
179; protection of, 66, 179
Mission buildings, 14, 24, 40
Morrison, Dr., 20, 42
N
Nanking, 58, 156
Pao-ting-foo, 9, 15, 134
Pecheli, 2, 6, 9
Peking, 9, 18, 27, 49, 59, 86, 92, 108,
133
Poole, Dr., 43
Port Arthur, 5, I $6
Provisions, 28, 38, 40, 43
R
Railways, 9, II, 1$, 73
Refugees, 12, 25, 35, 41, 90
Reid, Dr., 43
Reinforcements, II, 12, 32
Relief force, 32, 34, 46, 48, 9 1 . T 33
Rosthorn, Mr. von, 32
Seymour, Admiral, II, 18, 32
Shanghai, I, 155, 209, 222
Shantung, I, 9, 130
Sheba, Colonel, 30, 36, 41, 86
Si-an-foo, 99, 156
Squiers, Mr., 28, 31, 42
Strouts, Captain, 42
Sugiyama, Mr., 14
Taeping rebellion, 2, 85
Taku forts, 9, 1 8, 24, 32, 85
Tientsin, 10, II, 15, 155
Transport, 12, 19, 88
Transvaal, 4
Tuan, Prince, 7, 20, lio
Tung-Chih, Emperor, I, 9, 68
W
Wei-Hai-Wei, 2, 5, 156
Welde, Dr., 43
Hsiang, 52, 68, 124, 158
Yamen, 18, 20, 34, 37, 46, 155, ^^l
Yangtsze River, 62, 71
THE END
FEINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AKD SONS, LIKIIBD, LONDON iJTD BECCL&3.