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 " 
 
 B 
 
 w 
 
 30f 
 
 3 r 
 
 U L 
 
 1 ZQ 1 
 
 a 
 
 19 
 
 -D 
 
 2 2 
 
 rr 
 
 J6 
 
 LfaJ 
 
 10 
 
 26 </ / 
 
 Af 
 
 N 
 
 J27 
 
 23 
 
 29 
 29 
 
 j 
 
 P 
 
 K 
 
 r- 
 
 M
 
 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.