The Awakening of China Part 23

nothing is to be gained by such violent measures on the part of China.

From the Executive Mansion, I proceeded to the Chinese Legation, where I talked over the matter with the minister, Sir Chentung Liang. He was not surprised at the att.i.tude of the President. He said the state of feeling towards China in Congress and in the entire country is improving, but that, in his opinion, it will require ten years to bring about the repeal of the Exclusion Laws.

The present hitch in negotiations comes in part from Peking, but he hoped a temporary settlement would soon be arrived at.

The papers referred to above are here appended.

LETTERS REQUESTING GOOD OFFICES (_Translation_)

"To the Hon. Dr. Martin.

"Sir:

"During the last three years we have often exchanged views on the subject of education and other topics of the day; and to me it is a joy to reflect that no discordant note has ever marred our intercourse.

"In view of your learning and your long residence of forty years at our capital, besides fifteen years in other parts of China, you are regarded by us with profound respect. When we hear your words we ponder them and treasure them up as things not to be forgotten.

It is by your scholarship and by your personal character that you have been able to a.s.sociate with the officers and scholars of the Central Empire in harmony like this.

"Now, sir, there is a matter which we wish to bring to your attention--a matter that calls for the efforts of wise men like yourself. I refer to the exclusion of Chinese labourers. It affects our mercantile as well as our labouring population very deeply.

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"We beg you to bear in mind your fifty-five years' sojourn in China and to speak a good word on our behalf to the President of the United States so as to secure the welfare of both cla.s.ses.

"If through your persuasion the prohibitory regulations should be withdrawn the grat.i.tude of our Chinese people will know no bounds; your fifty-five years of devotion to the good of China will have a fitting consummation in one day's achievement; and your name will be handed down to coming generations.

"Being old friends, I write as frankly as if we were speaking face to face.

"(Signed) LIANG TING FEN, "Director of the Normal College for the Two Lake "Provinces, Intendant of Circuit (_Taotai_), etc. etc.

"Wuchang, July 8, 1905."

The foregoing translation was made by me, and the original is attached to the copy presented to the President, for the satisfaction of any official interpreter who may desire to see it.

This letter may be regarded as expressing the sentiments of the higher officials of the Chinese Empire. It was written on the eve of my embarkation for home by a man who more than any other has a right to be looked on as spokesman for Viceroy Chang; and the following day the request was repeated by the viceroy himself. These circ.u.mstances make it a doc.u.ment of more than ordinary importance.

The outrageous treatment to which the privileged cla.s.ses (merchants, students, and travellers) have been subjected, under cover of enforcing the Exclusion Laws, has caused a deep-rooted resentment, of which the boycott is only a superficial manifestation. That movement may not be of long duration, but it has already lasted long enough to do us no little damage.

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Besides occasioning embarra.s.sment to our trade, it has excited a feeling of hostility which it will require years of conciliatory policy to eradicate.

The letter makes no direct reference to the boycott, neither does it allude to coming negotiations; yet there can be little doubt that, in making this appeal, the writer had both in view. The viceroy and his officials are right in regarding the present as a grave crisis in the intercourse of the two countries.

Their amicable relations have never been interrupted except during a fanatical outbreak known as the "Boxer Troubles," which aimed at the expulsion of all foreigners. The leading part taken by our country in the subsequent settlement, especially in warding off the threatened dismemberment of China, added immensely to our influence.

Again, on the outbreak of the Russo-j.a.panese conflict, which was waged mainly on Chinese territory, it was American diplomacy that secured for China the advantage of neutrality, and once more warded off a danger that menaced her existence.

Yet every spark of grat.i.tude for these transcendent services is liable to be extinguished by the irritation caused by discrimination against her labourers and the consequent ill-treatment of other cla.s.ses of her people. No argument is required to show how important it is to remove all grounds of complaint in the interest of our growing commerce.

That any sweeping alteration will be made in our existing laws, I have given my mandarin friends no reason to expect. Self-preservation stands on a higher plane than the amenities of intercourse. For many years these laws served as a bulwark without which the [Page 255]

spa.r.s.e population of our Western States would have been swamped by the influx of Asiatics. In early days it was easier for the Chinese to cross the ocean than for the people of our Eastern States to cross the Continent. Now, however, the completion of railroads has reduced the continental transit to five or six days, in lieu of many months; and the population of our Pacific Coast is so considerable that there is no longer any danger of its being overrun by immigrants from the Far East. Is it not therefore a fair question whether the maintenance of these old restrictions is desirable or politic?

Swaddling bands, necessary for the protection of an infant, are an impediment to a growing boy. That question can perhaps be best decided by ascertaining the general sentiment of our Pacific States.

My impression is that, with the exception of the fruit-growers of California and some others, they are strongly opposed to what they call "letting down the bars."

The most feasible way of meeting the difficulty would be, as it appears to me, the enactment of regulations to provide against abuses in the enforcement of our Exclusion Laws. The President has already spoken forcibly in condemnation of such abuses. The "privileged cla.s.ses" might be construed in a more liberal sense.

Provision might be made to mitigate the hardships of detention and repatriation; and a better cla.s.s of inspectors might be appointed with a general superintendent, whose duty it should be to see that the laws are enforced humanely as well as faithfully.

On December 18, less than three months after the attack on Americans at Lienchow, an attempt [Page 256]

was made to destroy the British settlement in Shanghai.

A woman arrested on a charge of kidnapping was sent to the foreign jail to await trial. The Chinese a.s.sessor insisted, not without reason, that she ought to be kept in a native jail. No attention being given to his protest, though supported by the _taotai_ or local governor, a mob of riff-raff from beyond the limits burst into the settlement, put the foreign police to flight, and began to burn and pillage. Happily a body of marines with gatling guns and fire-engines succeeded in quelling the flames and suppressing the insurrection. A few hours' delay must have seen that rich emporium converted into a heap of ashes. Forty of the rioters were killed and many wounded. Though on ground granted to Great Britain, the settlement is called international and is governed by a munic.i.p.al council elected by the foreign ratepayers. The Chinese residents, numbering half a million, are allowed no voice in the council; and that also is felt as a grievance. They are, however, protected against the rapacity of their own officials; and it is said they took no part in the riot. In fact had it not been promptly suppressed they must have suffered all the horrors of sack and pillage. After it was over they took occasion to demand recognition in the munic.i.p.al government; promising to be satisfied if allowed to appoint a permanent committee, with whom the council should consult before deciding on any question affecting their interests.

Modest as this request was, it was rejected by an almost unanimous vote of the foreign ratepayers. They knew that such committee, however elected, [Page 257]

was certain to be manipulated by the governor to extend his jurisdiction. Their decision was quietly accepted by the Chinese residents, who appreciate the protection which they enjoy in that strange republic. The question is certain to come up again, and their claim to be heard will be pressed with more insistence as they become more acquainted with the principles of representative government.

The existence of an _imperium in imperio_ which comes between them and their people is of course distasteful to the mandarins; and they are bent on curtailing its privileges. If its franchises were surrendered, "Ichabod" might be inscribed on the gates of the model settlement.

The practice of marking out a special quarter for each nationality is an old one in China, adopted for convenience. When, after the first war, the British exacted the opening of ports, they required the grant of a concession in each, within which their consuls should have chief, if not exclusive authority. Other nations made the same demands; and China made the grants, not as to the British from necessity, but apparently from choice--the foreign consul being bound to keep his people in order. Now, however, the influx of natives into the foreign settlements, and the enormous growth of those mixed communities in wealth and population, have led the Chinese Government to look on the ready compliance of its predecessors as a blunder. Accordingly, in opening new ports in the interior it marks out a foreign quarter, but makes no "concession." It does not as before waive the exercise of jurisdiction within those limits.

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The above question relates solely to the government of Chinese residing in the foreign "concessions." But there is a larger question now looming on the political sky, viz., how to recover the right of control over foreigners, wherever they may be in the Empire.

If it were in their power, the Chinese would cancel not merely the franchises of foreign settlements, but the treaty right of exemption from control by the local government. This is a franchise of vital interest to the foreigner, whose life and property would not be safe were they dependent on the native tribunals as these are at present const.i.tuted.

Such exemption is customary in Turkey and other Moslem countries, not to say among the Negroes of Africa. It was recognised by treaty in j.a.pan; and the j.a.panese, in proportion as they advanced in the path of reform, felt galled by an exception which fixed on them the stigma of barbarism. When they had proved their right to a place in the comity of nations, with good laws administered, foreign powers cheerfully consented to allow them the exercise of all the prerogatives of sovereignty.

How does her period of probation compare with that of her neighbour?

j.a.pan resolved on national renovation on Western lines in 1868.

China came to no such resolution until the collapse of her attempt to exterminate the foreigner in 1900. With her the age of reform dates from the return of the Court in 1902--as compared with j.a.pan four years to thirty! Then what a contrast in the animus of the two countries! The one characterised by law and order, the other [Page 259]

by mob violence, unrestrained, if not instigated, by the authorities!

When the north wind tried to compel a traveller to take off his cloak, the cloak was wrapped the closer and held the tighter. When the sun came out with his warm beams, the traveller stripped it off of his own accord.

The sunrise empire has exemplified the latter method; China prefers the former. Is it not to be feared that the apparent success of the boycott will encourage her to persist in the policy of the traveller in the north wind. She ought to be notified that she is on probation, and that the only way to recover the exercise of her sovereign rights is to show herself worthy of confidence. The Boxer outbreak postponed by many years the withdrawal of the cloak of ex-territoriality, and every fresh exhibition of mob violence defers that event to a more distant date.

To confound "stranger" with "enemy" is the error of Bedouin or Afghan. Does not China do the same when she mistakes hostility to foreigners for patriotism? By this blunder she runs the risk of alienating her best friends, England and America. A farmer attempting to rope up a shaky barrel in which a hen was sitting on a nest full of eggs, the silly fowl mistook him for an enemy and flew in his face. Is not China in danger of being left to the fate which her friends have sought to avert?

In April a magistrate went by invitation to the French Catholic Mission to settle a long-standing dispute, and he settled it by committing suicide--in China the most dreaded form of revenge. Carried [Page 260]

out gasping but speechless, he intimated that he was the victim of a murderous attack by the senior priest. His wounds were photographed; and the pictures were circulated with a view to exciting the mob.

Gentry and populace held meetings for the purpose of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g their courage up to the required pitch--governor and mandarins kept carefully in the background--and on the fifth day the mission buildings were destroyed and the priests killed. An English missionary, his wife and daughter, living not far away, were set upon and slain, not because they were not known to belong to another nation and another creed, but because an infuriated mob does not care to discriminate.

English and French officials proceeded to the scene in gunboats to examine the case and arrange a settlement. The case of the English family was settled without difficulty; but that of the French mission was more complicated. Among the French demands were two items which the Chinese Government found embarra.s.sing. It had accepted the theory of murder and hastily conferred posthumous honours on the deceased magistrate. The French demanded the retraction of those honors, and a public admission of suicide. To pay a money indemnity and cashier a governor was no great hardship, but how could the court submit to the humiliation of dancing to the tune of a French piper? An English surgeon declared, in a sealed report of autopsy, that the wounds must have been self-inflicted, as their position made it impossible for them to have been inflicted by an a.s.sailant.

But

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In 1870 France accepted a money payment for the atrocious ma.s.sacre at Tientsin, because the Second Empire was entering on a life-and-death struggle with Germany. If she makes things easy for China this time, will it not be because the Republic is engaged in mortal combat with the Roman Church?

China's constant friction and frequent collisions with France spring chiefly from two sources; (1) the French protectorate over the Roman missions, and (2) the menacing att.i.tude of France in Indo-China.

It was to avenge the judicial murder of a missionary that Louis Napoleon sent troops to China in 1857-60. From this last date the long-persecuted Church a.s.sumed an imperious tone. The rest.i.tution of confiscated property was a source of endless trouble; and the certainty of being backed up by Church and State emboldened native converts not only to insist on their own rights, but to mix in disputes with which they had no necessary connection--a practice which more than anything else has tended to bring the Holy Faith into disrepute among the Chinese people.