Part 3 — PART III

The Political Force and the National Protest

XII

THE AGGRESSIONS OF EUROPEAN POWERS

THE political force was set in motion partly by the ambitions of European powers to extend their influence in Asia, and partly by the necessity for protecting the commercial interests referred to in the preceding chapters. The conservatism and exclusiveness of the Chinese, the disturbance of economic conditions caused by the introduction of foreign goods, and the greed and brutality of foreign traders combined to arouse a fierce opposition to the lodgment of the foreigner. The early trading ships were usually armed, and exasperated by the haughtiness and duplicity of the Chinese officials and their greedy disposition to mulct the white trader, they did not hesitate to use force in effecting their purpose.

But the nations of Europe, becoming more and more convinced of the magnitude of the Chinese market, pressed resolutely on; and with the hope of creating a better understanding and of opening the ports to trade, they sent envoys to China. The arrival of these envoys precipitated a new controversy, for the Chinese Government from time immemorial considered itself the supreme government of the world, and, not being accustomed to receive the agents of other nations except as inferiors, was not disposed to accord the white man any different treatment. The result was a series of collisions followed by territorial aggressions that were numerous enough to infuriate a more peaceably disposed people than the Chinese.

The Portuguese were the first to come, a ship of those ven- turesome traders appearing near Canton in 1516. Its reception was kindly, but when the next year brought eight armed vessels and an envoy, the friendliness of the Chinese changed to suspicion which ripened into hostility when the Portuguese became overbearing and threatening. Violence met with violence. It is said that armed parties of Portuguese went into villages and carried off Chinese women. Feuds multiplied and became more bloody. At Ningpo, the Chinese made awful reprisal by destroying thirty-five Portuguese ships and killing 800 of their crews. The execution of one or more of the members of a delegation to Peking brought matters to a crisis, and in 1534, the Portuguese transferred their factories to Macao, which they have ever since held, though it was not till 1887 that their position there was officially recognized. Portuguese power has waned and Macao to-day is an unimportant place politically, but it is significant that this early foreign settlement in China has been and still is such a moral plague spot that the Chinese may be pardoned if their first impressions of the white man were unfavourable.

The Spaniards were the next Europeans with whom the Chinese came into contact. In this case, however, the contact was due not so much to the coming of the Spaniards to China as to their occupation in 1543 of the Philippine Islands, with which the Chinese had long traded and where they had already settled in considerable numbers. Mutual jealousies resulted and Castilian arrogance and brutality ere long engendered such bitterness that massacre after massacre of the Chinese occurred, that of 1603 almost exterminating the Chinese population of Manila.

The growing demand for coffee, which Europeans had first received in 1580 from Arabia, brought Dutch ships into Asiatic waters in 1598. After hostile experiences with the Portuguese at Macao, they seized the Pescadores Islands in 1622. But the opposition of the Chinese led the Dutch to withdraw to Formosa, where their stormy relations with natives, Chinese from the mainland and Japanese finally resulted in their expulsion in 1662. Since then the Dutch have contented themselves with a few trading factories chiefly at Canton and with their possessions in Malaysia, so that they have been less aggressive in China than several other European nations.

A more formidable power appeared on the scene in 1635, when four ships[36] of the English East India Company sailed up the Pearl River. The temper of the newcomers was quickly shown when the Chinese, incited by the jealous Portuguese, sought to prevent their lodgment, for the English, so the record quaintly runs, ``did on a sudden display their bloody ensigns, and . . . each ship began to play furiously upon the forts with their broadsides . . . put on board all their ordnance, fired the council-house, and demolished all they could.'' Then they sailed on to Canton, and when their peremptory demand for trading privileges was met with evasion and excuses, they ``pillaged and burned many vessels and villages . . . spreading destruction with fire and sword.'' Describing this incident, Sir George Staunton, Secretary of the first British embassy to China, naively remarked—``The unfortunate circumstances under which the English first got footing in China must have operated to their disadvantage and rendered their situation for some time peculiarly unpleasant.''[37] But as early as 1684, they had established themselves in Canton.

[36] Parker, ``China,'' p. 9, places the number of ships at five and the date as 1637.

[37] Foster, ``American Diplomacy in the Orient,'' p. 5.

June 15, 1834, a British Commission headed by Lord Napier arrived at Macao, and the 25th of the same month proceeded to Canton empowered by an act of Parliament to negotiate with the Chinese regarding trade ``to and from the dominions of the Emperor of China, and for the purpose of protecting and promoting such trade.''[38] The government of Canton, however, refused to receive Lord Napier's letter for the character- istic reason that it did not purport to be a petition from an inferior to a superior. In explaining the matter to the Hong merchants with a view to their bringing the explanation to the attention of Lord Napier, the haughty Governor reminded them that foreigners were allowed in China only as trading agents, and that no functionary of any political rank could be allowed to enter the Empire unless special permission were given by the Imperial Government in response to a respectful petition. He added:—

[38] Foster, p. 57.

``To sum up the whole matter, the nation has its laws. Even England has its laws. How much more the Celestial Empire! How flaming bright are its great laws and ordinances. More terrible than the awful thunderbolts! Under this whole bright heaven, none dares to disobey them. Under its shelter are the four seas. Subject to its soothing care are ten thousand kingdoms. The said barbarian eye (Lord Napier), having come over a sea of several myriads of miles in extent to examine and have superintendence of affairs, must be a man thoroughly acquainted with the principles of high dignity.''[39]

[39] Foster, p. 59.

As might be expected, the equally haughty British representative indignantly protested; but without avail. He was asked to return to Macao, and was informed that the Governor could not have any further communication with him except through the Hong merchants, and in the form of a respectful petition. The Governor indignantly declared:—

``There has never been such a thing as outside barbarians sending a letter. . . . It is contrary to everything of dignity and decorum. The thing is most decidedly impossible. . . . The barbarians of this nation (Great Britain) coming to or leaving Canton have beyond their trade not any public business; and the commissioned officers of the Celestial Empire never take cognizance of the trivial affairs of trade. . . . The some hundreds of thousands of commercial duties yearly coming from the said nation concern not the Celestial Empire to the extent of a hair or a feather's down. The possession or absence of them is utterly unworthy of one careful thought.''[40]

[40] Ibid, p. 60.

Whereupon the proud Briton published and distributed a review of the case, as he saw it, which closed as follows:—

``Governor Loo has the assurance to state in the edict of the 2d instant that `the King (my master) has hitherto been reverently obedient.' I must now request you to declare to them (the Hong merchants) that His Majesty, the King of England, is a great and powerful monarch, that he rules over an extent of territory in the four quarters of the world more comprehensive in space and infinitely more so in power than the whole empire of China; that he commands armies of bold and fierce soldiers, who have conquered wherever they went; and that he is possessed of great ships, where no native of China has ever yet dared to show his face. Let the Governor then judge if such a monarch will be `reverently obedient' to any one.''[41]

[41] Foster, pp. 61, 62.

The result of the increasing irritation was a decree by the Governor of Canton peremptorily forbidding all further trade with the English, and in retaliation the landing of a British force, the sailing of British war-ships up the river and a battle at the Bogue Forts which guarded the entrance of Canton. A truce was finally arranged and Lord Napier's commission left for Macao, August 21st, where he died September 11th of an illness which his physician declared was directly due to the nervous strain and the many humiliations which he had suffered in his intercourse with the Chinese authorities. The Governor meantime complacently reported to Peking that he had driven off the barbarians!

The strain was intensified by the determination of the British to bring opium into China. The Chinese authorities protested and in 1839 the Chinese destroyed 22,299 chests of opium valued at $9,000,000, from motives about as laudable as those which led our revolutionary sires to empty English tea into Boston Harbor. England responded by making war, the result of which was to force the drug upon an unwilling people, so that the vice which is to-day doing more to ruin the Chinese than all other vices combined is directly traceable to the conduct of a Christian nation, though the England of to-day is presumably ashamed of this crime of the England of two generations ago.

It would, however, be inaccurate to represent Chinese objection to British opium as the sole cause of the ``Opium War'' of 1840, for the indignities to which foreign traders and foreign diplomats were continually subjected in their efforts to establish commercial and political relations with the Chinese were rapidly drifting the two nations into war. Still, it was peculiarly unfortunate and it put foreigners grievously in the wrong before the Chinese that the overt act which developed the long- gathering bitterness into open rupture was the righteous if irregular seizure by the Chinese of a poison that the English from motives of unscrupulous greed were determined to force upon an unwilling people. The probability that war would have broken out in time even if there had been no dispute about opium does not mitigate the fact that from the beginning, foreign intercourse with China was so identified with an iniquitous traffic that the Chinese had ample cause to distrust and dislike the white man.

This hostility was intensified when the war resulted in the defeat of the Chinese and the treaty of Nanking in 1842 with its repudiation of all their demands, the compulsory cession of the island of Hongkong, the opening of not only Canton but Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai, and Ningpo as treaty ports, the location of a British Consul in each port, and, most necessary but most humiliating of all, the recognition of the extra-territorial rights of all foreigners so that no matter what their crime, they could not be tried by Chinese courts but only by their own consuls. This treaty contributed so much to the opening of China that Dr. S. Wells Williams characterized it as ``one of the turning points in the history of mankind, involving the welfare of all nations in its wide-reaching consequences.'' It was therefore a lasting benefit to China and to the world. But the Chinese did not then and do not yet appreciate the benefit, especially as they saw clearly enough that the motive of the conqueror was his own aggrandizement.

Unhappily, too, the next war between England and China, though fundamentally due to the same conditions as the ``Opium War,'' was again precipitated by a quarrel over opium, the lorcha Arrow loaded with the obnoxious drug and flying the British flag being seized by the Chinese. Once more they suffered sore defeat and humiliating terms of peace in the treaty of 1858. The effort of the Peking Government to close the Pei-ho River against an armed force caused a third war in 1860 in which the British and French captured Peking, and by their excesses and cruelties still further added to the already long list of reasons why the Chinese should hate their European foes.

Nor did foreign aggression stop with this war. In 1861, England, in order to protect her interests at Hongkong, wrested from China the adjacent peninsula of Kowloon. In 1886, she took Upper Burma, which China regarded as one of her dependencies. In 1898, finding that Hongkong was still within the range of modern cannon in Chinese waters seven miles away, England calmly took 400 square miles of additional territory, including Mirs and Deep Bays.

The visitor does not wonder that the British coveted Hongkong, for it is one of the best harbours in the world. Certainly no other is more impressive. Noble hills, almost mountains, for many are over 1,000 feet and the highest is 3,200, rise on every side. Crafts of all kinds, from sampans and slipper- boats to ocean liners and war-ships, crowd the waters, for this is the third greatest port in the world, being exceeded in the amount of its tonnage only by Liverpool and New York. The city is very attractive from the water as it lies at the foot and on the slopes of the famous Peak. The Chinese are said to number, as in Shanghai, over 300,000, while the foreign population is only 5,000. But to the superficial observer the proportions appear reversed as the foreign buildings are so spa- cious and handsome that they almost fill the foreground. The business section of the city is hot and steaming, but an inclined tramway makes the Peak accessible and many of the British merchants have built handsome villas on that cooler, breezier summit, 1,800 feet above the sea. The view is superb, a majestic panorama of mountains, harbour, shipping, islands, ocean and city. By its possession and fortification of this island of Hongkong, England to-day so completely controls the gateway to South China that the Chinese cannot get access to Canton, the largest city in the Empire, without running the gauntlet of British guns and mines which could easily sink any ships that the Peking Government could send against it, and the whole of the vast and populous basin of the Pearl or West River is at the mercy of the British whenever they care to take it. When we add to these invaluable holdings, the rights that England has acquired in the Yang-tze Valley and at Wei-hai Wei in Shantung, we do not wonder that Mr. E. H. Parker, formerly British Consul at Kiung-Chou, rather naively remarks:—

``In view of all this, no one will say, however much in matters of detail we may have erred in judgment, that Great Britain has failed to secure for herself, on the whole, a considerable number of miscellaneous commercial and political advantages from the facheuse situation arising out of an attitude on the part of the Chinese so hostile to progress.''[42]

[42] ``China,'' pp. 95, 96.

France, as far back as 1787, obtained the Peninsula of Tourane and the Island of Pulu Condore by ``treaty'' with the King of Cochin-China. The French soon began to regard Annam as within their sphere of influence. In 1858, they seized Saigon and from it as a base extended French power throughout Cochin-China and Cambodia, the treaty of 1862 giving an enforced legal sanction to these extensive claims. Not content with this, France steadily pushed her conquests northward, compelling one concession after another until in 1882, she coolly decided to annex Tong-king. The Chinese objected, but the war ended in a treaty, signed June 9, 1885, which gave France the coveted region. These vast regions, which China had for centuries regarded as tributary provinces, are now virtually French territory and are openly governed as such.

The beginnings of Russia's designs upon China are lost in the haze of mediaeval antiquity. Russian imperial guards are frequently mentioned at the Mongol Court of Peking in the thirteenth century.[43] In 1652, the Russians definitely began their struggle with the Manchus for the Valley of the Amur, a struggle which in spite of temporary defeats and innumerable disputes Russia steadily and relentlessly continued until she obtained the Lower Amur in 1855, the Ussuri district in 1860 and finally, by the Cassini Convention of September, 1896, the right to extend the Siberian Railway from Nerchinsk through Manchuria. How Russia pressed her aggressions in this region we shall have occasion to note in a later chapter.

[43] Parker, ``China,'' p. 96.

XIII

THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA

THE relations of the United States with China have, as a rule, been more sympathetic than those of European nations. Americans have not sought territorial advantage in China and on more than one occasion, our Government has exerted its influence in favour of peace and justice for the sorely beset Celestials.

The flag of the United States first appeared in Chinese waters on a trading ship in 1785. From the beginning, Americans had less trouble with the Chinese than Europeans had experienced, partly because they had recently been at war with the English whom the Chinese hated and feared, and partly because they were less violently aggressive in dealing with the Chinese. By the treaties of July and October, 1844, the United States peacefully reaped the advantages which England had obtained at the cost of war. November 17, 1856, two American ships were fired upon by the Bogue Forts, but in spite of the hostilities which resulted, the representatives of the United States appeared to find more favour with the Chinese than those of any other power in the negotiations at Tien-tsin in 1858, and their treaty was signed a week before those of the French and the British. Article X provided that the ``United States shall have the right to appoint consuls and other commercial agents, to reside at such places in the dominions of China as shall be agreed to be opened''; and Article XXX that,

``should at any time the Ta-Tsing Empire grant to any nation or the merchants or citizens of any nation any right, privileges or favour connected with either navigation, commerce, political or other intercourse which is not conferred by this treaty, such right, privilege and favour shall at once freely inure to the benefit of the United States, its public officers, merchants and citizens.''

In the settlement of damages, the Chinese agreed to pay to the United States half a million taels, then worth $735,288. When the adjustments with individual claimants left a balance of $453,400 in the treasury, Congress, to the unbounded and grateful surprise of the Chinese, gave it back to them. Mr. Burlingame, the celebrated United States Minister to China, became the most popular foreign minister in Peking within a short time after his arrival in 1862, and so highly did the Chinese Government appreciate his efforts in its behalf that during the American Civil War it promptly complied with his request to issue an edict forbidding all Confederate ships of war from entering Chinese ports. Mr. Foster declares that ``such an order enforced by the governments of Europe would have saved the American commercial marine from destruction and shortened the Civil War.''[44]

[44] Foster, ``American Diplomacy in the Orient,'' p. 259.

The treaty of Washington in 1868 gave great satisfaction to the Chinese Government as it contained pacific and, appreciative references to China, an express disclaimer of any designs upon the Empire and a willingness to admit Chinese to the United States. The treaty of 1880, however, considerably modified this willingness and the treaty of 1894 rather sharply restricted further immigration. But in the commercial treaty of 1880, the United States, at the request of the Chinese Government, agreed to a clause peremptorily forbidding any citizen of the United States from engaging in the opium traffic with the Chinese or in any Chinese port.

Our national policy was admirably expressed in the note sent by the Hon. Frederick F. Low, United States Minister at Peking, to the Tsung-li Yamen, March 20, 1871:—

``To assure peace in the future, the people must be better informed of the purposes of foreigners. They must be taught that merchants are engaged in trade which cannot but be beneficial to both native and foreigner, and that missionaries seek only the welfare of the people, and are engaged in no political plots or intrigues against the Government. Whenever cases occur in which the missionaries overstep the bounds of decorum, or interfere in matters with which they have no proper concern, let each case be reported promptly to the Minister of the country to which it belongs. Such isolated instances should not produce prejudice or engender hatred against those who observe their obligations, nor should sweeping complaints be made against all on this account. Those from the United States sincerely desire the reformation of those whom they teach, and to do this they urge the examination of the Holy Scriptures, wherein the great doctrines of the present and a future state, and also the resurrection of the soul, are set forth, with the obligation of repentance, belief in the Saviour, and the duties of man to himself and others. It is owing, in a great degree, to the prevalence of a belief in the truth of the Scnptures that Western nations have attained their power and prosperity. To enlighten the people is a duty which the officials owe to the people, to foreigners, and themselves; for if, in consequence of ignorance, the people grow discontented, and insurrection and riots occur, and the lives and property of foreigners are destroyed or imperilled, the Government cannot escape its responsibility for these unlawful acts.''

Referring to this note, the Hon. J. C. B. Davis, acting Secretary of State, wrote to Mr. Low, October 19, 1871:—

``The President regards it (your note to the Tsung-li Yamen) as wise and judicious. . . . Your prompt and able answer to these propositions leaves little to be said by the Department. . . . We stand upon our treaty rights; we ask no more, we expect no less. If other nations demand more, if they advance pretensions inconsistent with the dignity of China as an independent Power, we are no parties to such acts. Our influence, so far as it may be legitimately and peacefully exerted, will be used to prevent such demands or pretensions, should there be serious reason to apprehend that they will be put forth. We feel that the Government of the Emperor is actuated by friendly feelings towards the United States.''

But while the Government of the United States has been thus considerate and just in its dealings with the Chinese in China, it has, singularly enough, been most inconsiderate and unjust in its treatment of Chinese in its own territory, and its policy in this respect has done not a little to exasperate the Chinese. The Chinese began to come to America in 1848, when two men and one woman arrived in San Francisco on the brig Eagle. The discovery of gold soon brought multitudes, the year 1852 alone seeing 2,026 arrivals. There are now about 45,000 Chinese in California and 14,000 in Oregon and Washington. New York has about 6,300 Chinese, Philadelphia 1,150, Boston 1,250, and many other cities have little groups, while individual Chinese are scattered all over the country, though the total for the United States, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, is only 89,863.

The attitude of the people of the Pacific coast towards the the Chinese is an interesting study. At first, they welcomed their Oriental visitors. In January, 1853, the Hon. H. H. Haight, afterwards Governor of California, offered at a representative meeting of San Francisco citizens this resolution— ``Resolved that we regard with pleasure the presence of greater numbers of these people (Chinese) among us as affording the best opportunity of doing them good and through them of exerting our influence in their native land.'' And this resolution was unanimously adopted. Moreover in a new country, where there was much manual labour to be done in developing resources and constructing railways, and where there were comparatively few white labourers, the Chinese speedily proved to be a valuable factor. They were frugal, patient, willing, industrious and cheap, and so the corporations in particular encouraged them to come.

But as the number of immigrants increased, first dislike, then irritation and finally alarm developed, particularly among the working classes who found their means of livelihood threatened by the competition of cheaper labour. The newspapers began to give sensational accounts of the ``yellow deluge'' that might ``swamp our institutions'' and to enlarge upon the danger that white labourers would not come to California on account of the presence of Chinese. The ``sand lot orator'' appeared with his frenized harangues and the political demagogue sought favour with the multitudes by pandering to their passions. Race prejudice, moreover, must always be taken into account, especially when two races attempt to live together. The terms Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, Roman and enemy are suggestive of the distrust with which one race usually regards another. Christianity has done much to moderate it, but it still exists, and let the resident of the North and East who remembers the recent race riots in Illinois and Ohio and New York think charitably of his brethren who are confronted by the Chinese problem in California. So May 6, 1882, Congress passed the Restriction Act, which, as amended July 5, 1884, and reenacted in 1903, is now in force.

There are thousands of high-minded Christian people who are unselfishly and lovingly toiling for the temporal and spiritual welfare of this Asiatic population in America. They rightly feel that the people of the United States have a special duty towards these Orientals, that the purifying power of Christianity can remove the dangers incident to their presence in our communities, and that if we treat them aright they will, on their return to China, mightily influence their countrymen. But the kindly efforts of these Christian people are unfortunately insufficient to offset the general policy of the American people as a whole, especially as that policy is embodied in a stern law that is most harshly enforced.

Americans are apt to think of themselves as China's best friends and the facts stated show that there is some ground for the claim. But before we exalt ourselves overmuch, we might profitably read the correspondence between the Chinese Ministers at Washington and our Secretaries of State regarding the outrages upon Chinese in the United States. Many Chinese have suffered from mob violence in San Francisco and Tacoma and other Pacific Coast cities almost as sorely as Americans have suffered in China. Some years ago, they were wantonly butchered in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and it was as difficult for the Chinese to get indemnity out of our Government as it was for the Powers to get indemnity out of China for the Boxer outrages.

President Cleveland, in a message to Congress in 1885, felt obliged to make an allusion to this that was doubtless as humiliating to him as it was to decent Americans everywhere. The Chinese Minister to the United States, in his presentation of the case to Secretary of State Bayard, ``massed the evidence going to show that the massacre of the subjects of a friendly Power, residing in this country, was as unprovoked as it was brutal; that the Governor and Prosecuting Attorney of the Territory openly declared that no man could be punished for the crime, though the murderers attempted no concealment; and that all the pretended judicial proceedings were a burlesque.'' All this Mr. Bayard was forced to admit. Indeed he did not hesitate to characterize the proceedings as ``the wretched travesty of the forms of justice,'' nor did he conceal his ``indignation at the bloody outrages and shocking wrongs inflicted upon a body of your countrymen,'' and his mortification that ``such a blot should have been cast upon the record of our Government.'' There was sarcastic significance in the cartoon of the Chicago Inter-Ocean representing a Chinese reading a daily paper one of whose columns was headed ``Massacre of Americans in China,'' while the other column bore the heading, ``Massacre of Chinese in America.'' Uncle Sam stands at his elbow and ejaculates, ``Horrible, isn't it?'' To which the Celestial blandly inquires, ``Which?''

In the North American Review for March, 1904, Mr. Wong Kai Kah, an educated Chinese gentleman, plainly but courteously discusses this subject under the caption of ``A Menace to America's Oriental Trade.'' He justly complains that though the exclusion law expressly exempts Chinese merchants, students and travellers, yet as a matter of fact a Chinese gentleman is treated on his arrival as if he were a criminal and is ``detained in the pen on the steamship wharf or imprisoned like a felon until the customs officials are satisfied.''

The Hon. Chester Holcombe, formerly Secretary of the American Legation at Peking and a member of the Chinese Immigration Commission of 1880, cites some illlustrations of the harshness and unreasonableness of the exclusion law.[45] A Chinese merchant of San Francisco visited his native land and brought back a bride, only to find that she was forbidden to land on American soil. Another Chinese merchant and wife, of unquestioned standing in San Francisco, made a trip to China, and while there a child was born. On returning to their home in America, the sapient officials could interpose no objection to the readmission of the parents, but peremptorily refused to admit the three-months old baby, as, never having been in this country, it had no right to enter it! Neither of these preposterous decisions could be charged to the stupidity or malice of the local officials, for both were appealed to the Secretary of the Treasury in Washington and were officially sustained by him as in accordance with the law, though in the latter case, the Secretary, then the Hon. Daniel Manning, in approving the action, had the courageous good sense to write: ``Burn all this correspondence, let the poor little baby go ashore, and don't make a fool of yourself.''

[45] Article in The Outlook, April 23, 1904.

Still more irritating and insulting, if that were possible, was the treatment of the Chinese exhibitors at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904. Our Government formally invited China to participate, sending a special commission to Peking to urge acceptance. China accepted in good faith, and then the Treasury Department in Washington drew up a series of regulations requiring ``that each exhibitor, upon arrival at any seaport in this country, should be photographed three times for purposes of identification, and should file a bond in the penal sum of $5,000, the conditions of which were that he would proceed directly and by the shortest route to St. Louis, would not leave the Exposition grounds at any time after his arrival there, and would depart for China by the first steamer sailing after the close of the Exposition. Thus a sort of Chinese rogues' gallery was to be established at each port, and the Fair grounds were to be made a prison pen for those who had come here as invited guests of the nation, whose presence and aid were needed to make the display a success. It is only just to add that, upon a most vigorous protest made against these courteous(?) regulations by the Chinese Government and a threat to cancel their acceptance or our invitation, the rules were withdrawn and others more decent substituted. But the fact that they were prepared and seriously presented to China shows to what an extent of injustice and discourtesy our mistaken attitude and action in regard to Chinese immigration has carried us.''

No right-minded American can read without poignant shame, Luella Miner's recent account[46] of the experiences of Fay Chi Ho and Kung Hsiang Hsi, two Chinese students who, after showing magnificent devotion to American missionaries during the horrors of the Boxer massacres, sought to enter the United States. They were young men of education and Christian character who wished to complete their education at Oberlin College, but they were treated by the United States officials at San Francisco and other cities with a suspicion and brutality that were ``more worthy of Turkey than of free Christian America.'' Arriving at the Golden Gate, September 12, 1901, it was not until January 10, 1903, that they succeeded in reaching Oberlin, and those sixteen months were filled with indignities from which all the efforts of influential friends and of the Chinese Minister to the United States were unable to protect them. Whatever reasons there may be for excluding coolie labourers, there can be none for excluding the bright young men who come here to study. ``An open door for our merchants, our railway projectors, our missionaries, we cry, and at the same time we slam the door in the faces of Chinese merchants and travellers and students—the best classes who seek our shores.''

[46] ``Two Heroes of Cathay,'' p. 223 sq.

The fear that the Chinese would inundate the United States if they were permitted to come under the same conditions as Europeans is not justified by the numbers that came before the exclusion laws became so stringent, the total Chinese population of the United States up to 1880, when there was no obstacle to their coming except the general immigration law, being only 105,465—the merest handful among our scores of millions of people. The objections that they are addicted to gambling and immorality, that they come only for temporary mercenary purposes and that they do not become members of the body politic but segregate themselves in special communities, might be urged with equal justice by the Chinese against the foreign communities in the port cities of China. Segregating themselves, indeed! How can the Chinese help themselves, when they are not allowed to become naturalized and are treated with a dislike and contempt which force them back upon one another?

As for the charge that they teach the opium habit to white boys and girls, it may be safely affirmed that all the Americans who have acquired that dread habit from the Chinese are not equal to a tenth of the number of Chinese women and girls who have been given foul diseases by white men in China. Mr. Holcombe declares:—

``Our unfair treatment of China in this business will some day return to plague us. Entirely aside from the cavalier and insulting manner with which we have dealt with China, and the inevitably injurious effect upon our relations and interests there, it must be said that our action has been undignified, unworthy of any great nation, a sad criticism upon our sense of power and ability to rule our affairs with wisdom and moderation, and unbecoming our high position among the leading governments of the world. . . . We have treated Chinese immigrants—never more than a handful when compared with our population—as though we were in a frenzy of fear of them. We have forsaken our wits in this question, abandoned all self-control, and belittled our manhood by treating each incoming Chinaman as though he were the embodiment of some huge and hideous power which, once landed upon our shores, could not be dealt with or kept within bounds. Yet in point of fact he is far more easily kept in bounds and held obedient to law than some immigrants from Europe. . . . It must be admitted as beyond question that the coming of the Chinese to these shores should be held under constant supervision and strict limitations. And so should immigration from all other countries. The time has come when we ought to pick and choose with far greater care than is exercised, and to exclude large numbers who are now admitted…. It is this discrimination alone which is unjust to China, which she naturally resents, and which does us serious harm in our relations with her people.''

Commenting on the regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Commerce and Labour, July 27, 1903, regarding the admission of Chinese, the Hon. David J. Brewer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, declared:—

``Can anything be more harsh and arbitrary? Coming into a port of the United States, as these petitioners did into the port of Malone, placed as they were in a house of detention, shut off from communication with friends and counsel, examined before an inspector with no one to advise or counsel, only such witnesses present as the inspector may designate, and upon an adverse decision compelled to give notice of appeal within two days, within three days the transcript forwarded to the Commissioner- General, and nothing to be considered by him except the testimony obtained in this star chamber proceeding. This is called due process of law to protect the rights of an American citizen, and sufficient to prevent inquiry in the courts….

``Must an American citizen, seeking to return to this his native land, be compelled to bring with him two witnesses to prove the place of his birth or else be denied his right to return, and all opportunity of establishing his citizenship in the courts of his country? No such rule is enforced against an American citizen of Anglo-Saxon descent, and if this be, as claimed, a government of laws and not of men, I do not think it should be enforced against American citizens of Chinese descent….

``Finally, let me say that the time has been when many young men from China came to our educational institutions to pursue their studies when her commerce sought our shores and her people came to build our railroads, and when China looked upon this country as her best friend. If all this be reversed and the most populous nation on earth becomes the great antagonist of this Republic, the careful student of history will recall the words of Scripture, `they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind,' and for cause of such antagonism need look no further than the treatment accorded during the last twenty years by this country to the people of that nation.''[47]

[47] Dissenting opinion in the case of the United States, Petitioner vs. Sing Tuck or King Do and thirty-one others, April 25, 1904.

It is not surprising that while Chinese students are turning in large numbers to other lands, there are only 146 in the United States. It is a serious matter and it may have a far reaching effect upon the future of China and of mankind when the coming men of the Far East, desiring to place themselves in touch with modern conditions, are compelled to avoid the one Christian nation in all the world which boasts the most enlightened institutions and the highest development of liberty.

Meanwhile, Mr. E. H. Parker rather sarcastically remarks:—

``The United States have always been somewhat prone to pose as the good and disinterested friend of China, who does not sell opium or exercise any undue political influence. These claims to the exceptional status of all honest broker have been a little shaken by the sharp treatment of Chinese in the United States, Honolulu and Manila.''[48]

[48] ``China,'' p. 105.

The Chinese Government long expostulated against the barbarity and injustice of the exclusion laws and finally, finding expostulations of no avail, the scholars and merchants of China organized in 1905 a boycott against American trade. This quickly brought public feeling in the United States to its senses. President Roosevelt sternly ordered all local officials to be humane and sensible in their enforcement of the law under pain of instant dismissal, and the press began to demand a new treaty. It is gratifying to know that in the future Chinese immigrants are likely to be more justly treated, but it is not pleasant to reflect that the American people apparently cared little about the iniquity of their anti-Chinese laws until Chinese resentment touched their pockets.

XIV

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS—TREATIES

IN view of some of the facts presented in the two preceding chapters, it is not surprising that the efforts of foreign powers to establish diplomatic relations with the Chinese Government were rather tempestuous. A full account of the negotiations would require a separate volume. For two generations, nation after nation sought to protect its growing interests in China and to secure recognition from the Chinese Government, only to be met by opposition that was sometimes courteous and sometimes sullen, but always inflexible until it was broken down by force. Each envoy on presenting his letters was politely told in substance that the Chinese official concerned was extremely busy, that to his deep regret it would not be possible to grant an immediate conference, but that as soon as possible he would have pleasure in selecting a ``felicitous day'' on which they could hold a ``pleasant interview'';[49] and when the envoys, worn out by the never-ending procrastination, finally gave up in disgust and announced their intention of returning home, the typical Chinese official blandly replied, as the notorious Yeh did to United States Minister Marshall in January, 1854,—``I avail myself of the occasion to present my compliments, and trust that, of late, your blessings have been increasingly tranquil.''[50]

[49] Foster, ``American Diplomacy in the Orient,'' p. 205,

[50] Foster, p. 213.

Scores of European and American diplomatic agents had substantially the same experience. United States Minister Reed, in 1858, truly said that the replies of the Chinese to the memorials and letters of the foreign envoys were characterized by ``the same unmeaning profession, the same dexterous sophistry; and, what is more material, the same passive resistance; the same stolid refusal to yield any point of substance.''[51]

[51] Foster, p. 236.

Nor can it be denied that the Chinese had some ground for holding foreign nations at arms' length as long as they could, for with a few exceptions, prominent among whom were some American ministers, notably Mr. Burlingame, the foreign envoys were far from being tactful and conciliatory in their methods of approach to a proud and ancient people. Mr. Foster reminds us that in the negotiations which terminated in the treaty of 1858,

``The British were pushing demands not insisted upon by the other Powers, and they could only be obtained by coercive measures. The reports in the Blue Books and the London newspapers show that Mr. Lay, who personally conducted the negotiations for Lord Elgin, when he found the Chinese commissioners obdurate, was accustomed to raise his voice, charge them with having `violated their pledged word,' and threaten them with Lord Elgin's displeasure and the march of the British troops to Peking. And when this failed to bring them to terms, a strong detachment of the British army was marched through Tien-tsin to strike terror into its officials and inhabitants. Lord Elgin in his diary records the climax of these demonstrations: `I have not written for some days, but they have been busy ones. We went on fighting and bullying, and getting the poor commissioners to concede one point after another, till Friday the 25th.' The next day the treaty was signed, and he closes the record as follows: `Though I have been forced to act almost brutally, I am China's friend in all this.' There can be no doubt that notwithstanding the seeming paradox, Lord Elgin was thoroughly sincere in this declaration, and that his entire conduct was influenced by a high sense of duty and by what he regarded as the best interests of China.''[52]

[52] ``American Diplomacy in the Orient,'' pp. 241, 242.

But can we wonder that the Chinese were irritated and humiliated by the method adopted?

That treaty of 1858 gave some notable advantages to foreigners, for it conceded the rights of foreign nations to send diplomatic representatives to Peking, the rights of foreigners to travel, trade, buy, sell and reside in an increasing number of places, and on the persistent initiative of the French envoy, powerfully supported by the famous Dr. S. Wells Williams, Christianity was especially recognized, and the protection, not only of missionaries but all Chinese converts to Christianity, was specifically guaranteed. Of course, by the convenient ``most favoured nation clause'' any concession obtained by one country, was immediately claimed by all other countries.

It was this treaty which included the famous Toleration Clause regarding Christian missions as follows:

``The principles of the Christian religion, as professed by the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, are recognized as teaching men to do good, and to do to others as they would have others do to them. Hereafter those who quietly profess and teach these doctrines shall not be harassed or persecuted on account of their faith. Any person, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who, according to these tenets, shall peaceably teach and practice the principles of Christianity shall in no case be interfered with or molested.''

The charge has been made that the toleration clauses were smuggled into the treaties without the knowledge of the Chinese, so that the claims to recognition and protection which were subsequently based upon it rest upon an unfair foundation. It is indeed possible, as Dr. S. Wells Williams, the author, frankly admits[53] ``that if the Chinese had at all comprehended what was involved in these four toleration articles, they would never have signed one of them.'' But perhaps the same thing might be said of most treaties that have been signed in Asia. The fact remains, however, that the articles referred to were not placed in them without the knowledge of the Chinese. Dr. Williams explicitly states that he and the Rev. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, called upon the Chinese Commissioners and that

``some of the articles of our draft were passed without objection, those relating to toleration (of Christianity in China) and the payment of claims were copied off to show the Commissioner, those permitting and regulating visits to Peking were rejected, and others were amended, the colloquy being conducted with considerable animation and constant good humour on his part.''[54]

[53] ``The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL. D.,'' p. 271.

[54] ``The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL. D.,'' p. 261.

In a letter written many years afterwards and dated New Haven, September 12, 1878, Dr. Williams states that the first draft of the Toleration Clauses was rejected by the Chinese Commissioners, as he believes at the instigation of the French Legation, because the clause recognized Protestant missions. Dr. Williams then states that as soon as he could, he drew up another form of the same article and laid it before the Chinese Imperial Commissioners. He writes:—

``It was quite the same article as before, but they accepted it without any further discussion or alteration; however, the word `whoever' in my English version was altered by Mr. Reed to `any person, whether citizen of the United States, or Chinese convert, who'—because he wished every part of the treaty to refer to United States citizens, and cared not very much whether it had a toleration article or not. I did care, and was thankful to God that it was inserted. It is the only treaty in existence which contains the royal law.''

In Dr. Williams' Journal for June 18, 1858, the following record appears:

``I went to sleep last night with the impression that after such a reply from the Minister it would be vain to urge a new draft, but after a restless sleep I awoke to the idea of trying once more, this time saying nothing about foreign missionaries. The article was sketched as soon as I could write it and sent off by a messenger before breakfast; it was a last chance, and every hope went with it for success. At half-past nine an answer came. Permission for Christians meeting for worship and the distribution of books was erased, while the words open ports were inserted in such a connection that it was rendered illegal for any one, native or otherwise, to profess Christianity anywhere else. The design was merely to restrict missionaries to the ports, but the effect would be detrimental in the highest degree to natives. I decided at once to go to see the Viscount and try to settle the question with him personally. Chairs were called, whose bearers seemed to Martin and me an eternity in coming, but at last we reached the house where Captain Du Pont and his marines so unexpectedly turned up last Saturday. Our amendment was handed to Chang, who began to cavil at it, but he was promptly told that he must take it to the Commissioners for approval as it stood, since this was the form we were decided on. Our labour and anxiety were all repaid, and ended by his return in a few minutes announcing Kweilang's assent to the article as it now stands in the treaty.''

In order to settle this point beyond all possible doubt, I recently wrote to the Rev. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, now in China, asking him to give me his recollection of the incident. He replied as follows:—

``The charge that the toleration article was `smuggled into the treaty of 1858' is so far from the truth that those who make it can be shown to be either superficial or uncandid. If it means that `the Chinese did not know what they were agreeing to, I answer that they could have no excuse for ignorance. An edict granting toleration had been issued as early as 1845. This had been followed by more than ten years of missionary work at the newly opened ports—quite sufficient to make them acquainted with the character of Protestant missions. Of Roman Catholic missions prior to the edict, they had centuries of experience. Moreover, during our negotiations at Tien-tsin, they had ample time for a fresh study of the subject, the draft of our treaty being under daily discussion for more than a week before it was signed. Nor was our draft the first to bring up the question of toleration. The Russian Treaty signed on June 13th (five days in advance of ours) contained one explicit provision for the toleration of Christianity under the form of the Greek Church; but it made no reference to Protestant or Roman Catholic. Not only was the American Treaty the first to give these a legal status, it gives the Chinese a sample of Christian teaching in the Golden Rule, which Dr. Williams inserted in the article expressly to show them what they were agreeing to. Never were negotiations more open and above board. In their earlier stages I gave a copy of my book on the Evidences of Christianity to Jushon, one of the deputies, who was so much pleased with it, that he became my friend and greeted me warmly on my removal to Peking. That the Chinese Ministers had any conception of the new force they were admitting into their country, I do not assert; but I hold strongly that this spiritual force is the only thing that can raise the Chinese people out of their present state of semi-barbarism. ``W. A. P. MARTIN.

``Wuchang, China, February 18, 1904.''

It was not until 1861, that legations were established in Peking. But while this gave foreign nations a solid foothold at the capital, it did not by any means give them the recognition that they demanded, for their intercourse with the court was still hedged about with innumerable exactions and indignities. The Hon. Thomas Francis Wade, British Minister at Peking, in a long note to the Chinese Minister Wen Hsiang, dated June 18, 1871, discussing the troubles that had arisen between the Chinese and foreigners, justly said:

``It is quite impossible that China should ever attain to a just appreciation of what foreign Powers expect of her, or that she should insure from foreign Powers what she conceives due to her, until she have honestly accepted the conditions of official intercourse which are the sole guarantees against international differences. The chief of these is an interchange of representatives. I do not say that it is a panacea for all evil; but it is incontestable that without it wars would be of far more frequent recurrence, and till China is represented in the West, I see no hope of our ever having done with the incessant recriminations and bickerings between the Yamen and foreign legations, by which the lives of diplomatic agents in Peking are made weary. If China is wronged, she must make herself heard; and, on the other hand, if she would abstain from giving offense, she must learn what is passing in the world beyond her.''

The Chinese Government was slow in coming to this view, but western nations steadily persisted. One by one new concessions were wrung from the reluctant Chinese. Mr. E. H. Parker[55] has tabulated as follows the treaties of foreign powers with China from 1689 to 1898:—

[55] ``China,'' pp. 113-115.

{Pages 171 to 173 are these tables… They are formatted landscape-wise on the pages and should be typed in a viewable format or added as an image file.}

XV

RENEWED AGGRESSIONS

NOT content with innumerable aggressions and extorted treaty concessions, Western nations boldly discussed the dismemberment of China as certain to come, and authors and journalists disputed as to which country should possess the richest parts of the Empire whose impotence to defend itself was taken for granted. Chinese ministers in Europe and America reported these discussions to their superiors in Peking. The English papers in China republished some of the articles and added many effective ones of their own, so that speedily all the better-informed Chinese came to know that foreigners regarded China as ``the carcass of the East.''

Nor was all this talk empty boasting. China saw that France was absorbing Siam and had designs on Syria; that Britain was already lord of India and Egypt and the Straits Settlements; that Germany was pressing her claims in Asiatic Turkey; that Russia had absorbed Siberia and was striving to obtain control of Palestine, Persia and Korea; and that Italy was trying to take Abyssinia. Moreover the Chinese perceived that of the numerous islands of the world, France had the Loyalty, Society, Marquesas, New Hebrides and New Caledonia groups, and claimed the Taumotu or Low Archipelago; that Great Britain had the Fiji, Cook, Gilbert, Ellice, Phoenix, Tokelan and New Zealand groups, with northern Borneo, Tasmania, and the whole of continental Australia, besides a large assortment of miscellaneous islands scattered over the world wherever they would do the most good; that Germany possessed the Marshall group and Northeast New Guinea, and divided with England the Solomons; that Spain had the Ladrones, the 652 islands of the Carolines, the 1,725 more or less of the Philippines, beside some enormously valuable holdings in the West Indies; that the Dutch absolutely ruled Java, Sumatra, the greater part of Borneo, all of Celebes and the hundreds of islands eastward to New Guinea, half of which was under the Dutch flag; that the new world power on the American continent took the Hawaiian Islands and in two swift campaigns drove Spain out of the West Indies and the Philippines, not to return them to their inhabitants but to keep them herself; and that in the Samoan and Friendly Islands, resident foreigners owned about everything worth having and left to the native chiefs only what the foreigners did not want or could not agree upon. As for mighty Africa, the Berlin Conference of 1884 was the signal for a game of grab on so colossal a scale that to-day out of Africa's 11,980,000 square miles, France owns 3,074,000, Great Britain 2,818,000, Turkey 1,672,000, Belgium 900,000, Portugal 834,000, Germany 864,000, Italy 596,000, and Spain 263,000,—a total of 10,980,000, or ten-elevenths of the whole continent, and doubtless the Powers will take the remaining eleventh whenever they feel like it. Well does the Rev. Dr. James Stewart call this ``the most stupendous and unparalleled partition of the earth's surface ever known in the world's history. . . . The vast area was partitioned, annexed, appropriated, or converted into `spheres of influence,' or `spheres of interest'; whatever may be the exact words we may use, the result is the same. Coast lands and hinterlands all went in this great appropriation, and mild is the term for the deed.''[56]

[56] ``Dawn in the Dark Continent,'' pp. 17, 18.

``Gobbling the globe,'' this process has been forcefully if inelegantly termed. No wonder that the white race has been bitterly described as ``the most arrogant and rapacious, the most exclusive and intolerant race in history.''

We can understand, therefore, the alarm of the Chinese as they saw the greedy foreigners descend upon their own shores in such ways as to justify the fear that what remained of the Celestial Empire, too, would be speedily reduced to vassalage. Germany, which was among the last of the European powers to obtain a foothold in China, but which had been growing more and more uneasy as she saw the acquisitions of her rivals, suddenly found her opportunity in the murder of two German Roman Catholic priests in the province of Shantung, December 1897, and on the 14th of that month Admiral Diedrich landed marines at Kiao-chou Bay. At that time nothing but a few straggling, poverty-stricken Chinese villages were to be seen at the foot of the barren hills bordering the bay. But the keen eye of Germany had detected the possibilities of the place and early in the following year, under the forms of an enforced ninety-nine year lease, Germany took this splendid harbour and the territory bordering it, and at Tsing-tau began to push her interests so aggressively that the whole province of Shantung was thrown into the most intense excitement and alarm.

Knowing how recently the city had been founded, I looked upon it with wonder. It was only three years and a half since the Germans had taken possession, but no boom city in the United States ever made more rapid progress in so short a period. Not a Chinese house could be seen, except a village in the distance. But along the shores rose a city of modern buildings with banks, department stores, public buildings, comfortable residences, a large church and imposing marine barracks. Landing, I found broad streets, some of them already well paved and others being paved by removing the dirt to a depth of twelve inches and then filling the excavation solid with broken rock. The gutters were wide and of stone, the sewers deep and, in some cases, cut through the solid rock.

The city was under naval control, the German Governor being a naval officer. Several war-ships were lying in the harbour. A large force of marines was on shore, and the hills commanding the city and harbour were bristling with cannon. The Germans were spending money without stint. No less than 11,000,000 marks were being expended that year for streets, sewers, water and electric light works, barracks, fortifications, wharves, a handsome hotel and public buildings, while the Government had appropriated 50,000,000 Mex. (5,000,000 a year for ten years) for deepening and enlarging the inner harbour. But in addition to these Government expenditures, many enterprising business men were undertaking large enterprises on their own account. It was apparent to the most casual observer that Germany had entered Shantung to stay and that she considered the whole vast province of Shantung as her sphere of influence. The railway, already referred to in a former chapter, was being constructed into the interior with solid road-bed, steel ties and substantial stone stations. German mining engineers were prospecting for minerals and everything indicated large plans for a permanent occupation.

The site of Tsing-tau is beautiful and exceptionally healthful. While the ports of Teng-chou and Chefoo are also in Shantung, the first is now of little importance, for it is on the northeastern part of the promontory with a mountain range behind it so that it is difficult of access from the interior. Chefoo, which was not opened as a port until later, rapidly superseded Teng-chou in importance and continues to grow with great rapidity. But it is plain that the Germans intend to make Tsing-tau, only twenty hours distant by steamer, the chief port of Shantung, and as they have the railroad, they will doubtless succeed.

From hundreds of outlying villages, the Chinese are flocking into Tsing-tau, attracted by the remunerative employment which the Germans offer, for of course, tens of thousands of labourers are necessary to carry out the extensive improvements that are planned. The thrifty Chinese are quite willing to take the foreigner's money, however much they may dislike him. Since the white man is here, we might as well get what we can out of him, the Celestials philosophically argue. And so the Germans, who had ruthlessly destroyed the old, unsani- tary Chinese villages which they had found on their arrival, laid out model Chinese villages on the outskirts of the city. The new Chinese city is about two and a half miles from the foreign city and is connected with it by a splendid macadamized road for which the Germans filled ravines, cut through the solid rock of the hillsides and made retaining walls and culverts of solid masonry. Some of the old stone houses were allowed to remain, but many of the poorer houses were demolished, streets were straightened and the whole city placed under strict sanitary supervision. The Chinese as they came in were told where and how their houses must be erected on the regularly laid out streets. The houses are numbered and many of the stores have signs in both German and Chinese. At the time of my visit, the Chinese city had a population of 8,000, the streets were crowded, and marketing, picture and theatrical exhibitions and all the forms of life, so common in Chinese cities, were to be seen on every side. Since then, the population has greatly increased, while another Chinese city has been laid out on the open ground on the other side of the foreign city. There is every indication that Tsing-tau is to become one of the great port cities of China, and the opportunities for trade, the coming of steamships and the construction of the railway are making it an attractive place to multitudes of ambitious Chinese.

The German Government owns all the land in and about Tsing-tau, and will not sell save on condition that approved buildings are erected within three years. The single tax plan has been adopted, that is, there is no tax on buildings but there is a six per cent. tax on all land that is sold. This shuts out the land speculator who has injured so many American cities. No man can buy cheap land and let it lie idle while it rises in value as the result of his neighbour's improvements and the growth of the community. The German Government will do its own speculating and reap for itself the increment of its costly and elaborate improvements. It is making a noble city. Streets, sewers, buildings, docks, sea walls, harbour-dredging, tree planting—all point to great and far-reaching plans, while under pretext of guarding the railroad, troops are being gradually pushed into the interior. The Kaomi garrison, in the hinterland eighteen miles beyond the Kiao-chou city line and sixty- four from Tsing-tau, consisted of 100 men when I was there in the spring of 1901. A few months later it was 1,000. Plainly the Germans are moving in.

The ease and dispatch with which Germany succeeded in obtaining an enormously valuable strategic point in the rich province of Shangtung aroused the cupidity of rival nations, and they threw off all pretense to decency in their scramble for further territories. Russian statesmen had long ago seen that the Pacific Ocean was to be the arena of world events of colossal significance to the race. We have noted in a former chapter how she had already extended her territory till she touched the Pacific Ocean on the far north and how, partly that she might develop it, but primarily that she might have a highway through it to the great ocean which lies beyond, she had begun the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the late Czar, Alexander III, guaranteeing out of his own private funds 350,000,000 rubles towards the necessary expense. The most southern port of Russia on the Pacific Ocean was Vladivostok, which was therefore made the terminus of the line and rapidly and strongly fortified. But Russia was not content with a harbour which is closed by ice six months in the year. She therefore began to press her way southward through Manchuria. In November, 1894, Japan had wrested from China the peninsula terminating in Port Arthur, and the treaty of Shimonoseki, at the close of the war, had given Japan the Liao-tung peninsula, opened four Manchurian ports to foreign trade, and conceded to Japan valuable commercial rights in Manchuria, rights which gave the Japanese virtual ascendancy. Ostensibly in the interests of China, but really of her own ambition, Russia gravely said that it would never do to permit Japan to remain in Manchuria, virtuously declaring that ``the integrity of China must be preserved at all costs.'' She persuaded France and Germany to join her in notifying the Japanese Government that ``it would not be permitted to retain permanent possession of any portion of the mainland of Asia.'' Japan, feeling at that time unprepared to fight three European powers, was forced to relinquish the prize of victory. The solicitude of Russia for the integrity of helpless China was quite touching, but it did not prevent her from making one encroachment after another upon the coveted territory until March 8, 1898, to the rage and chagrin of Japan, she peremptorily demanded for herself and March 27th of the same year obtained Port Arthur including Ta-lien-wan and 800 square miles of adjoining territory. She speciously declared that ``her occupation of Port Arthur was merely temporary and only to secure a harbour for wintering the Russian fleet.'' But grim significance was given to her action by the prompt appearance at Port Arthur of 20,000 Russian soldiers and 90,000 coolies who were set to work developing a great modern fortification almost under the eyes of the Chinese capital.

As it was expedient, however, to have a commercial city on the peninsula as well as a fortification, as the harbour of Port Arthur was not large enough for both naval and commercial purposes, and as the Russians did not wish anyway to make their fortified base accessible to the rest of the world, they decided to build a city forty-five miles north of Port Arthur and call it Dalny, which quite appropriately means ``far away.'' Most cities grow, but this was too slow a method for the purpose of the Slav, and therefore, a metropolis was forthwith made to order as a result of an edict issued by the Czar, July 30, 1899.

The harbour of Dalny is an exceptionally fine one with over thirty feet of water at low tide so that the largest vessels can lie alongside the docks and transfer their cargoes directly to trains for Europe. Great piers were constructed; enormous warehouses and elevators erected; gas, electric light, water and street-car plants installed; wide and well-sewered streets laid out; and a thoroughly modern and handsome city planned in four sections, the first of which was administrative, the second mercantile, the third residence, and the fourth Chinese. The Russians were sparing neither labour nor expense in the construction of this ambitious city which, by January, 1904, already had a population of over 50,000, and represented a reported expenditure of about $150,000,000. April 9, 1902, Russia solemnly promised to evacuate Manchuria October 8, 1903. But when that day came, she remained, as every one knew that she would, under the unblushing pretext that Manchuria was not yet sufficiently pacified to justify her withdrawal from a region where her interests were so great. As Manchuria was at the time as quiet as some of Russia's European provinces, the reason alleged reminds one of the Arab's reply to a man who wished to borrow his rope—``I need it myself to tie up some sand with.'' ``But,'' expostulated the would-be borrower, ``that is a poor excuse for you cannot tie up sand with a rope.'' ``I know that,'' was the calm rejoinder, ``but any excuse will serve when I don't want to do a thing.'' So to the concern of China, the envy of Europe and the wrath of Japan, Manchuria practically became a Russian province until Japan, unable to restrain her exasperation longer and feeling that Russia's plans were a menace to her own safety, had developed her army and navy and begun the war which not only arrested the advance of the Slav but expelled him from most of the territory he had seized.

Not to be outdone by Germany and Russia, other nations made haste to seize what they could find. April 2, 1898, England secured the lease of Lin-kung, with all the islands and a strip ten miles wide on the mainland, thus giving the British a strong post at Wei-hai Wei. April 22d, France peremptorily demanded, and May 2d obtained, the bay of Kwangchou-wan, while Japan found her share in a concession for Foochow, Woosung, Fan-ning, Yo-chou and Chung-wan-tao. By 1899, in all China's 3,000 miles of coast line, there was not a harbour in which she could mobilize her own ships without the consent of the hated foreigner.

A clever Chinese artist in Hongkong grimly drew a cartoon of the situation of his country as he and his countrymen saw it. The Russian Bear, coming down from the north, his feet planted in Manchuria and northern Korea, sees the British Bulldog seated in southern China, while ``The Sun Elf'' ( Japan), sitting upon its Island Kingdom, proclaims that ``John Bull and I will watch the Bear.'' The German Sausage around Kiau-chou makes no sign of life, but the French Frog, jumping about in Tonquin and Annam and branded ``Fashoda and Colonial Expansion,'' tries to stretch a friendly hand to the Bear over the Bulldog's head. Then, to offset this proffered assistance to the Bear, the Chinese artist, with characteristic cunning, brings in the New World power. He places the American Eagle over the Philippines, its beak extended towards the Bulldog, and writes upon it the phrase, ``Blood is thicker than water.''[57]

[57] Reproduced in the Newark, N. J., Evening News, January 9, 1904

As far as Americans have any sympathy at all with European schemes for conquest in China, they naturally look with more favour on England and Germany than on France and Russia. The reason is apparent. England establishes honest and beneficent government wherever she goes and makes its advantages freely accessible to the citizens of other nations, so that an American is not only as safe but as unrestricted in all his legitimate activities as he would be in his own land. Germany, too, while not so hospitable as England, is nevertheless a Teutonic, Protestant power under whose ascendancy in Shantung our missionaries find ample freedom. But France and Russia are more narrowly and jealously national in their aims. Their possessions are openly regarded as assets to be managed for their own interests rather than for those of the na- tives or of the world. The colonial attitude of the former towards all Protestant missionary work is dictated by the Roman Catholic Church and is therefore hostile to Protestants, while the Russian Greek Church tolerates no other form of religion that it can repress. A recent traveller reports that Russia has put every possible obstruction in the way of reopening the mission stations that were abandoned during the Boxer outbreak. She has already put Manchuria under the Greek archimandrite of Peking, and has sought to limit all Christian teaching to the members of the Orthodox Greek Church. It is significant that Russia is strenuously opposing, under a variety of pretexts, the ``open door'' which Secretary Hay obtained from China in Manchuria, while there is ground for suspecting that Russian influence in Constantinople is preventing, or at least delaying as long as possible, that legal recognition of American rights in Turkey which the Sultan has already granted to several other nations. As for Russian ascendancy in Manchuria, everybody knows that it is inimical to the interests of other countries and that there will be little freedom of trade if Russia can prevent it.

XVI

GROWING IRRITATION OF THE CHINESE—THE REFORM PARTY

THE effect of the operation of these commercial and political forces upon a conservative and exclusive people was of course to exasperate to a high degree. A proud people were wounded in their most sensitive place by the ruthless and arrogant way in which foreigners broke down their cherished wall of separation from the rest of the world and trampled upon their highly-prized customs and institutions.

It must be admitted that the history of the dealings of the Christian powers with China is not altogether pleasant reading. The provocation was indeed great, but the retaliation was heavy. And all the time foreign nations refused to grant to the Chinese the privileges which they forced them to grant to others. We sometimes imagine that the Golden Rule is peculiar to Christianity. It is indeed in its highest form, but its spirit was recognized by Confucius five centuries before Christ. His expression of it was negative, but it gave the Chinese some idea of the principle. They were not, therefore, pleasantly impressed when they found the alleged Christian nations violating that principle. Even Christian America has not been an exception. We have Chinese exclusion laws, but we will not allow China to exclude Americans. We sail our gunboats up her rivers, but we would not allow China to sail gunboats into ours. If a Chinese commits a crime in America, he is amenable to American law as interpreted by an American court. But if an American commits a crime in China, he can be tried only by his consul; not a Chinese court in the Empire has jurisdiction over him, and the people naturally infer from this that we have no confidence in their sense of justice or in their administration of it.

This law of extra-territoriality is one of the chief sources of irritation against foreigners, for it not only implies contempt, but it makes foreigners a privileged class. Said Minister Wen Hsiang in 1868:—``Take away your extra-territorial 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.'' But unfortunately this is a cause of resentment that Western nations cannot prudently remove in the near future. While we can understand the resentment of the Chinese magistrates as they see their methods discredited by the foreigner, it would not do to subject Europeans and Americans to Chinese legal procedure. The language of Mr. Wade, the British Minister, to Minister Wen Hsiang in June, 1, is still applicable:—

``Experience has shown that, in many cases, the latter (law of China) will condemn a prisoner to death, where the law of England would be satisfied by a penalty far less severe, if indeed, it were possible to punish the man at all. It is to be deplored that misunderstandings should arise from a difference in our codes; but I see no remedy for this until China shall see fit to revise the process of investigation now common in her courts. So long as evidence is wrung from witnesses by torture, it is scarcely possible for the authorities of a foreign power to associate themselves with those of China in the trial of a criminal case; and unless the authorities of both nationalities are present, there will always be a suspicion of unfairness on one side or the other. This difficulty surmounted, there would be none in the way of providing a code of laws to affect mixed cases; none, certainly, on the part of England; none, in my belief, either, on the part of any other Power.''[58]

[58] Correspondence Respecting the Circular of the Chinese Government of February 9, 1871, Relating to Missionaries. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 1872.

Meantime, as the Hon. Frederick F. Low, United States Minister at Peking, wrote to the State Department at Wash- ington, March 20, 1871:—``The dictates of humanity will not permit the renunciation of the right for all foreigners that they shall be governed and punished by their own laws.''

But the Chinese do not see the question in that light. Their methods of legal procedure are sanctioned in their eyes by immemorial custom and they fail to understand why forms that, in their judgment, are good enough for Chinese are not also good enough for despised foreigners. When we take into consideration the further fact that the typical white man, the world over, acts as if he were a lord of creation, and treats Asiatics with more or less condescension as if they were his inferiors, we can understand the very natural resentment of the Chinese, who have just as much pride of race as we have, and who indeed consider themselves the most highly civilized people in the world. The fact that foreign nations are able to thrash them does not convince them that those nations are superior, any more than a gentleman's physical defeat by a pugilist would satisfy him that the pugilist is a better man. It is not without significance that the white man is generally designated in China as ``the foreign devil.''

The natural resentment of the Chinese in such circumstances was intensified by the conduct of the foreign soldiery. Army life is not a school of virtue anywhere, particularly in Asia where a comparatively defenseless people open wide opportunities for evil practices and where Asiatic methods of opposition infuriate men. In almost every place where the soldiers of Europe landed, they pillaged and burned and raped and slaughtered like incarnate fiends. Chefoo to-day is an illustration of the effect. It is a city where foreigners have resided for forty years, where there are consuls of all nations and extensive business relations with other ports, where foreign steamers regularly touch and where war-ships frequently lie. There were five formidable cruisers there during my visit. Surely the Chinese of Chefoo should understand the situation. But during the troubles of 1860, French troops were quartered there and their conduct was so atrociously brutal and lustful that Chefoo has ever since been bitterly anti-foreign. The Presbyterian missionaries have repeatedly tried to do Christian work in the old walled city, but have never succeeded in gaining a foothold, and all their local missionary work is confined to the numerous population which has come from other parts of the province and settled around Chefoo proper. Nothing but battleships in the harbour kept that old city from attacking foreigners during the Boxer outbreak. Even to-day the cry ``kill, kill'' is sometimes raised as a foreigner walks through the streets, and inflammatory placards are often posted on the walls.

With the record of foreign aggressions in China before us, can we wonder that the Chinese became restive? The New York Sun truly says: ``It was while Chinese territory was thus virtually being given away that the people became uneasy and riots were started; the people felt that their land had been despoiled.'' The Hon. Chester Holcombe truly remarks:—

``Those who desire to know more particularly what the Chinese think about it, how they regard the proposed dismemberment of the Empire and the extinction of their national life, are referred to the Boxer movement as furnishing a practical exposition of their views. It contained the concentrated wrath and hate of sixty years' slow growth. And it had the hearty sympathy of many, many millions of Chinese, who took no active part in it. For, beyond a doubt, it represented to them a patriotic effort to save their country from foreign aggression and ultimate destruction…. The European Powers have only themselves to thank for the bitter hatred of the Chinese and the crash in which it culminated. Governmental policies outrageous and beyond excuse, scandalous diplomacy, and unprovoked attacks upon the rights and possessions of China, have been at the root of all the trouble.''[59]

[59] Article in The Outlook, February 13, 1904,

And shall we pretend innocent surprise that the irritation of the Chinese rapidly grew? Suppose that after the murder of the Chinese in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a Chinese fleet had been able to seize New York and Boston Harbours, and suppose our Government had been weak enough to acquiesce. Would the American people have made any protest? Would the lives of Chinese have been safe on our streets? And was it an entirely base impulse that led the men of China violently to oppose the forcible seizure of their country by aliens? The Empress Dowager declared in her now famous edict:—

``The various Powers cast upon us looks of tiger-like voracity, hustling each other in their endeavours to be first to seize upon our innermost territories. They think that China, having neither money nor troops, would never venture to go to war with them. They fail to understand, however, that there are certain things which this Empire can never consent to, and that, if hard pressed, we have no alternative but to rely upon the justice of our cause, the knowledge of which in our breasts strengthens our resolves and steels us to present a united front against our aggressors.''

That would probably be called patriotic if it had emanated from the ruler of any other people.

When with Russia in Manchuria, Germany in Shantung, England in the valleys of the Yang-tze and the Pearl, France in Tonquin and Japan in Formosa, the whole Empire appeared to be in imminent danger of absorption, the United States again showed itself the friend of China by trying to stem the tide. Our great Secretary of State, John Hay, sent to the European capitals that famous note of September, 1899, which none of them wanted to answer but which none of them dared to refuse, inviting them to join the United States in assuring the apprehensive Chinese that the Governments of Europe and America had no designs upon China's territorial integrity, but simply desired an ``open door'' for commerce, and that any claims by one nation of ``sphere of influence'' would ``in no way interfere with any treaty port or any vested interest'' within that sphere, but that all nations should continue to enjoy equality of treatment. In response, the Russian Government, December 30, 1899, through Count Mouravieff, suavely declared:—

``The Imperial Government has already demonstrated its firm intention to follow the policy of the `open door.' . . . As to the ports now opened or hereafter to be opened to foreign commerce by the Chinese Government, . . . the Imperial Government has no intention whatever of claiming any privileges for its own subjects to the exclusion of other foreigners.''

The other Powers also assented. But it was all in vain. Matters had already gone too far, and, beside, the Chinese knew well enough that the Powers were not to be trusted beyond the limits of self-interest.

Some of the Chinese, it is true, had the intelligence to see that changes were inevitable, and the result was the development of a Reform Party among the Chinese themselves. It was not large, but it included some influential men, though, unfortunately, their zeal was not always tempered by discretion. The war with Japan powerfully aided them. True, many of the Chinese do not yet know that there was such a war, for news travels slowly in a land whose railway and telegraph lines, newspapers and post-offices are yet few, and whose average inhabitant has never been twenty miles from the village in which he was born. But some who did know realized that Japan had won by the aid of Western methods. An eagerness to acquire those methods resulted. Missionaries were besieged by Chinese who wished to learn English. Modern books were given a wide circulation. Several of the influential advisers of the Emperor became students of Occidental science and political economy. In five years, 1893-1898, the book sales of one society—that for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge Among the Chinese—leaped from $817 to $18,457, while every mission press was run to its utmost capacity to supply the new demands.

A powerful exponent of the new ideas appeared in the great Viceroy, Chang Chih-tung. He wrote a book, entitled ``China's Only Hope,'' exposing the causes of China's weakness and advocating radical reforms. The book was printed by the Tsung-li Yamen, and by royal command copies were sent to the high officials of the Empire. Big yellow posters advertised it from the walls of leading cities, and in a short time a million copies were sold. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that ``this book made more history in a shorter time than any other modern piece of literature, that it astonished a kingdom, convulsed an Empire and brought on a war.''

The Reform Party urged the young Emperor to use the imperial power for the advancement of his people. He yielded to the pressure and became an eager and diligent student of the Western learning and methods. In the opening months of the year 1898, he bought no less than 129 foreign books, including a Bible and several scientific works, besides maps, globes, and wind and current charts. Nor did he stop with this, but with the ardour of a new convert issued the now famous reform edicts, which, if they could have been carried into effect, would have revolutionized China and started her on the high road to national greatness. These memorable decrees have been summarized as follows:

1. Establishing a university at Peking.

2. Sending imperial clansmen to study European and American Governments.

3. Encouraging art, science and modern agriculture

4. Expressing the willingness of the Emperor to hear the objections of the conservatives to progress and reform.

5. Abolishing the literary essay as a prominent part of the Government examinations

6. Censuring those who attempted to delay the establishment of the Peking Imperial University.

7. Directing that the construction of the Lu Han railway be carried on with more vigour.

8. Advising the adoption of Western arms and drill for all the Tartar troops.

9. Ordering the establishment of agricultural schools in the provinces to teach improved methods of agriculture.

10. Ordering the introduction of patent and copyright laws.

11. Ordering the Board of War and the Foreign Office to report on the reform of the military examinations.

12. Offering special rewards to inventors and authors.

13. Ordering officials to encourage trade and assist merchants.

14. Ordering the foundation of school boards in every city in the Empire.

15. Establishing a Bureau of Mines and Railroads.

16. Encouraging journalists to write on all political subjects.

17. Establishing naval academies and training ships.

18. Summoning the ministers and provincial authorities to assist the Emperor in his work of reform.

19. Directing that schools be founded in connection with all the Chinese legations in foreign countries for the benefit of the children of Chinese in those countries.

20. Establishing commercial bureaus in Shanghai for the encouragement of trade.

21. Abolishing six useless Boards in Peking.

22. Granting the right to memorialize the Throne by sealed memorials.

23. Dismissing two presidents and four vice-presidents of the Board of Rites for disobeying the Emperor's orders that memorials should be presented to him unopened.

24. Abolishing the governorships of Hupeh, Kwang-tung and Yun-nan as a useless expense to the country.

25. Establishing schools for instruction in the preparation of tea and silk.

20, Abolishing the slow courier posts in favour of the Imperial Customs' Post.

27 Approving a system of budgets as in Western countries.

But, alas, it is disastrous to try to ``hustle the East.'' The Chinese are phlegmatic and will endure much, but this was a little too much. Myriads of scholars and officials, who saw their hopes and positions jeopardized by the new tests, protested with all the virulence of the silversmiths of Ephesus, and all the conservatism of China rallied to their support.

Meantime, the Yellow River, aptly named ``China's Sorrow,'' again overflowed its banks, devastating a region 100 miles long and varying from twenty-five to fifty miles wide. Three hundred villages were swept away and 1,000,000 people made homeless. Famine and pestilence speedily followed, so that the whole catastrophe assumed appalling proportions. Even American communities are apt to become reckless and riotous in time of calamity, and in China this tendency of human nature was intensified by a superstition which led the people to believe that the disaster was due to the baleful influence of the foreigners, or that it was a punishment for their failure to resist them, while in the farther north a drought led to equally superstitious fury against ``the foreign devils.''

The virile and resolute Empress-Dowager headed the reaction against the headlong progressiveness of the young Emperor. September 22, 1898, the world was startled by an Imperial Decree which read in part as follows:—

``Her Imperial Majesty the Empress-Dowager, Tze Hsi, since the first years of the reign of the late Emperor Tung Chih down to our present reign, has twice ably filled the regency of the Empire, and never did her Majesty fail in happily bringing to a successful issue even the most difficult problems of government. In all things we have ever placed the interests of our Empire before those of others, and, looking back at her Majesty's successful handiwork, we are now led to beseech, for a third time, for this assistance from her Imperial majesty, so that we may benefit from her wise and kindly advice in all matters of State. Having now obtained her Majesty's gracious consent, we truly consider this to be a great boon both to ourselves as well as to the people of our Empire. Hence we now command that from henceforth, commencing with this morning, the affairs of state shall be transacted in the ordinary Throne Hall, and that to-morrow (23rd) we shall, at the head of the Princes and Nobles and Ministers of our Court, attend in full dress in the Ching-cheng Throne Hall, to pay ceremonial obeisance to her Imperial Majesty the Empress- Dowager. Let the Board of Rites draw up for our perusal the ceremonies to be observed on the above occasion.''[60]

[60] Pott, ``The Outbreak in China,'' pp. 56, 57.

The youthful son of Toanwong was appointed heir to the throne and the ambitious father immediately proceeded to use his enhanced prestige to set the Empire in a blaze.

XVII

THE BOXER UPRISING

THE now famous Boxers were members of two of the secret societies which have long flourished in China. To the Chinese they are known as League of United Patriots, Great Sword Society, Righteous Harmony Fists' Association and kindred names. Originally, they were hostile to the foreign Manchu dynasty. When Germany made the murder of two Roman Catholic missionaries a pretext for pushing her political ambitions, the Boxers naturally arrayed themselves against them. As the champions of the national spirit against the foreigners, the membership rapidly increased. Supernatural power was claimed. Temples were converted into meeting-places, and soon excited men were drilling in every village.

The real ruler of China at this time, as all the world knows, was the Empress Dowager, who has been characterized as ``the only man in China.'' At any rate, she is a woman of extraordinary force of character. She was astute enough to encourage the Boxers, and thus turn one of the most troublesome foes of the Manchu throne against the common enemy, the foreigner. Under her influence, the depredations of the Boxers, which were at first confined to the Shantung Province, spread with the swiftness of a prairie fire, until in the spring of 1900 the most important provinces of the Empire were ablaze and the legations in Peking were closely besieged. In the heat of the conflict and under the agonizing strain of anxiety for imperilled loved ones, many hard things were said and written about the officials who allied themselves with the Boxers. But Sir Robert Hart, who personally knew them and who suffered as much as any one from their fury, candidly wrote after the siege: ``These men were eminent in their own country for their learning and services, were animated by patriotism, were enraged by foreign dictation, and had the courage of their convictions. We must do them the justice of allowing that they were actuated by high motives and love of country,'' though he adds, ``that does not always or necessarily mean political ability or highest wisdom.''

And so the irrepressible conflict broke out. It had to come, a conflict between conservatism and progress, between race prejudice and brotherhood, between superstition and Christianity, the tremendous conflict of ages which every nation has had to fight, and which in China was not different in kind, but only on a more colossal scale because there it involved half the human race at once. Of course it was impossible for so vast a nation permanently to segregate itself. The river of progress cannot be permanently stayed. It will gather force behind an obstacle until it is able to sweep it away. The Boxer uprising was the breaking up of this fossilized conservatism. It was such a tumultuous upheaval as the crusades caused in breaking up the stagnation of mediaeval Europe. As France opposed the new ideas, which in England were quietly accepted, only to have them surge over her in the frightful flood of the revolution, so China entered with the violence always inseparable from resistance the transition which Japan welcomed with a more open mind.

Though missionaries were not the real cause of the Boxer uprising, its horrors fell most heavily upon them. This was partly because many of them were living at exposed points in the interior while most other foreigners were assembled in the treaty ports where they were better protected; partly because the movement developed such hysterical frenzy that it attacked with blind, unreasoning fury every available foreigner, and partly because in most places the actual killing and pillaging were not done by the people who best knew the missionaries but by mobs from the slums, ruffians from other villages, or, as in Paoting-fu and Shan-si, in obedience to the direct orders of bigoted officials.

And so it came to pass that the innocent suffered more than the guilty. Dr. A. H. Smith[61] concluded after careful inquiry that ``the devastating Boxer cyclone cost the lives of 135 adult Protestant missionaries and fifty-three children and of thirty- five Roman Catholic Fathers and nine Sisters. The Protestants were in connection with ten different missions, one being unconnected. They were murdered in four provinces and in Mongolia, and belonged to Great Britain, the United States and Sweden. No such outbreak against Christianity has been seen in modern times. The destruction of property was on the same continental scale. Generally speaking, all mission stations north of the Yellow River, with all their dwelling-houses, chapels, hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and buildings of every description were totally destroyed, though there were occasional exceptions, of which the village where these pages are written was one. The central and southern portions of the Empire were only partially affected by the anti-foreign madness, not because they were under different conditions, but mainly through the strong repressive measures of four men, Liu Kun Yi and Chang Chih-tung, Governors-General of the four great provinces in the Yang-tse Valley; Yuan Shih Kai in Shantung, and a Manchu, Tuan Fang, in Shen-si. The jurisdiction of this quartette made an impassable barrier across which the movement was unable to project itself in force, but much mischief in an isolated way was wrought in nearly every part of China not rigorously controlled.''