The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 2 (of 2) / As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan

by Alexander Michie

II. THE CHRONIC CAUSE.

Hostility of Government and people—Fostered by immunity—Cause of animosity as set forth by Chinese—Incitements to outrage—Chinese press calumnies—Compared with European—Effect on the Chinese of international vituperation.

It must be admitted that the attitude of the Chinese has been quite consistent: from first to last they have resisted the foreign impact per fas et nefas, using such weapons as they could command, while avoiding, according to their lights, the risk of reprisals. Their lights have indeed deceived them, their resistance has failed, and their methods stand condemned. But it is beside the question to inveigh against their barbarity, for "what is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh," and in human relations there are permanent facts which have to be accepted, like the skin of the Ethiopian and the spots of the leopard. Since foreigners have, for their own purposes, broken into a hornet's nest, it is idle for them to prescribe the manner of retaliation unless they are prepared to go through with their aggression and to enforce obedience to their own canon.

The constant feature in all Chinese attacks on foreigners has been the immunity from punishment of the real instigators. Massacres of foreigners have been condoned, for the blood-money exacted for them was no punishment to criminals who did not contribute to the payment. All attempts on the part of foreign agents to make guilty officials responsible for their outrages have been frustrated by the Government, who have invariably held the persons of officials exempt from punishment at the instance of, or for injuries done to, foreigners. In Chinese eyes injury to foreigners is meritorious in the abstract, and to be rewarded rather than punished. Foreign Powers have in practice acquiesced in this fatal principle, for though on rare occasions they have successfully insisted on the removal of some obnoxious official, the Government have taken care to nullify the penalty by promoting him to a better post. The various attempts that have been made by foreign representatives to collect evidence to support a legal charge against the instigators of outrages have been baffled by the inflexible determination of the Government to shield the official as well as the non-official leaders of riots. The foreign method of seeking redress, being thus foredoomed to failure, is obviously not suited to the circumstances.

But while foreigners were pursuing their object by a hopeless path, the Chinese administration itself provided the simpler and more efficacious remedy of holding the chief authority of every province responsible for misgovernment, as well as for crimes and misdemeanours committed within his district. In the words of Sir Rutherford Alcock, "Each province constitutes a separate state in its administration; to compensate for this the emperor can appoint and remove every official, from the Governor-General downwards, at his pleasure. And they are each and all individually and collectively held responsible for all that may happen in the limits of their jurisdiction." By the custom of the country, therefore, the guilt of the highest official is assumed whenever any disturbance of the peace takes place or crime is committed within his government. He may transfer it, if he can, and ferret out evidence in his own exculpation; but errors of judgment, pleas of good intentions, and palliatives of that kind are not admitted, and not offered. Why foreigners have never appealed to this fundamental principle of Chinese administration, and have preferred relying on their own crude procedure and strange methods of collecting evidence while practically acquiescing in the immunity of Chinese officials, has never been satisfactorily explained. For it is only in matters concerning foreigners that the persons of Chinese officials are held sacred. The Government have no scruples with regard even to the highest in rank when they make themselves obnoxious to the powers that be. Degradation, deprivation, chains, imprisonment, and the headsman's broadsword, are ever ready to vindicate the majesty of the law when the Court awards the penalty. But foreigners are treated as outside the law, which is the gravamen of the Chinese offence against them. The constitution of the country afforded them a clear ground for demanding that the traditional principle of responsibility should be put in force for their protection. It was, in fact, applied spontaneously by Li Hung-chang in the province of which he was viceroy, with the result that Chihli was exempt from outrages on foreigners for nearly a quarter of a century. Why was the system not extended to all the provinces of the empire? Had not the foreign representatives the natural right of demanding the benefit of Chinese institutions, or did they consider their exotic substitute as preferable?

A wrong road can never lead to a right destination; sins of omission and commission have alike to be atoned for, and the cost accumulates at compound interest. The result of sparing prefects and governors the consequences of the evil deeds permitted within their jurisdiction is that the Western Powers are now confronted with the more serious dilemma of sparing the throne itself and tolerating the continuance of anti-foreign outrages, or of doing stern justice towards the guilty even though the heavens should fall. A retrospective glance over the history of sixty years might help towards a solution even of this momentous problem. Have the sacrifices of principle that have hitherto been made in order to save the empire, or the dynasty, been efficacious to these ends? The answer of history is No; on the contrary, they have accelerated the ruin of both.

The provoking cause of recent outbreaks against foreigners in all parts of the Chinese empire may be gathered from the proceedings of the conspirators, from their placards and lampoons, and from their secret correspondence. The keynote of all these is general detestation of foreigners, special enmity to Christianity and its accessories, and aversion to the symbols of material progress. Hatred of foreigners now shows itself as a passion which binds the provinces together as nothing else has ever been known to do. Their expulsion is a cause which is held to justify the vilest deeds done in its name. Nor is the present state of things a growth of yesterday. The ferment has been working for forty years—to go no further back—with many sporadic outbreaks to mark its progress. It was not nipped in the bud, as it might perhaps have been. Exhibitions of ill-feeling had been habitually disregarded by foreigners, who in their readiness to blame each other for provoking them, were accustomed to repel obvious explanations, and to go far afield for theories which would exonerate themselves at the expense of their neighbours. If stones were thrown or abusive epithets shouted, "It was only the children." Only the children! As if more conclusive testimony to any prevailing sentiment were possible.[34] In Peking itself the foreign Ministers set the example of palliating these abuses, and the only wonder is that the fire has smouldered so long without bursting into flame. During thirty years—to speak only of the recent period—missionaries in the interior have encountered the growing hostility of the people, which they have ascribed, perhaps too exclusively, to the machinations of "literati and gentry," forgetting that the torch would be applied in vain to a substance that was not inflammable.

Not that the machinations of the official and literary classes of the country are by any means to be held of little account, for they have been the most potent factor in fomenting and directing the passions of the people. What corresponds in China to a newspaper press has been constantly employed in vilifying the character and execrating the designs of foreigners, and holding them up continually to the contempt and hatred of the Chinese people. There was no effective means of contradicting the calumnies which were daily poured forth from every centre of population. Attempts have, indeed, been made by special counterblasts in the form of missionary publications in the chief citadel of hostility, and in a less polemic form in the periodicals in the Chinese language conducted by foreigners, yet these have had little more effect on the popular beliefs than a leading article in the 'Times' has upon the flood of anti-English literature that is poured out every day from Continental journals. From an observation of the calumnies which are so unquestioningly accepted by European populations we may partly judge of the effect of a constant stream of the same class of vituperative literature among the still more ignorant people of China. The features of both are the same. In Europe, as in China, there is no crime that the lowest savages have ever committed which is not attributed, with impassioned eloquence and with the finest literary skill, to those who are held up to the popular animosity. In Europe, as in China, the ruling powers encourage the virulence of the press. In countries where the Government exercises direct control, and in others where the connection is less official, extravagances are permitted which can serve no other purpose than that of making the objects of the invective so odious that a quarrel with them is rendered popular in advance. European Governments thus play with fire, as the Chinese have done, but in the case of the latter the incendiary policy has worked out its logical result.

Nor should it be forgotten that since, in these days, the Chinese have the fullest access to European literature, the calumnies of one nation by another are calculated to confirm their conviction of the turpitude of all. Neither is their armoury confined to the international amenities of the Western press. The charges habitually, and as a matter of course, made against their own countrymen by British writers and speakers would justify a stranger people, already predisposed thereto, in forming the worst opinion of English character. During the saturnalia of a general election, when the fountains of the great deep are broken up, no baseness, no falsity, no treachery, is too gross to be attributed, not to the rabble, but to the chosen leaders of the people. Such things being circulated throughout the world, preserved in indelible ink, can the enemies of the British nation, or at least the prejudiced Chinese, be greatly blamed for accepting the character of our people on such unimpeachable evidence? Should we not judge them on analogous testimony? From whatever sources they gather their ideas, however,—whether from the study of foreign newspapers, from their own observation of the ways of foreign men and women, or from the gross libels published by their literati,—there is no reason to doubt that the unfavourable opinion which the Chinese entertain of foreigners is held by them in good faith.