CHINA REVOLUTIONIZED

I
THE GENESIS OF THE REVOLUTION IN CHINA AND ITS HISTORY From October 10, 1911, to Yuan Shih Kai’s Acceptance of the Provisional Presidency

A republic in place of the oldest monarchy! Preposterous. It would involve making a yellow man think as a white man, and that had never occurred, not even in the case of the prodigy, Japan. It would involve free intercourse with the whole wide world, and China had opposed such an innovation stubbornly for 400 years. It meant that the proudest and most self-contained nation should treat others as equals and interchange with them. It involved throwing 4,000 years of continuous history and agglomerated pride and precedent to the winds, and humbly beginning anew as a tyro for a while. It meant the dealing with 400,000,000 kings, instead of one, and asking: “My lord, what is your will?” An educational system 2,000 years old to be forgotten at once! A religion 5,000 years old at least, whereby every man had his own god (his father), to be made as cheap as the paltry sacrifices of wine, rice and the painted stick of Confucianism were in reality! The taking up of individual and national responsibility for 400,000,000 people, and entrance upon a wide path of world-influence, with its divided shame and fame! The taking and giving of blows for wrong and right! The giving up of the triple eternal Nirvana of father, self and son, in exchange for an exciting rôle limited to fifty-five crowded years in the individual! The scale of action! A land as large as all Europe, and a people as numerous as the Caucasic race! The thunderous knock on the long-locked doors of science and medicine by 400,000,000 people who had bowed to idol and charm alone! It shook the world. It was pregnant with paradisal possibilities for mankind, because of the vastness of the movement and the depth of its well-spring. The launching of this new leviathan ship of state could not but raise a wave that would lift the already floating hulks of Europe and America, and give them added impetus, though temporary alarm. The rearrangement of commerce, manufacture, labor, finance, taxation, learning, agriculture, art and possibly religion for the whole world. The adding of the most difficult language to the tongues and pens of men, and the call on the English speech to rise once more greater than the mighty stranger, or die. The challenge to Palestine’s Bible to conquer by truth, or retreat with half a world lost. The uprising again of the yellow ghosts of Kublai Khan, Batu, Timurlane, and the Khans of the Golden Horde. What would be the Caucasian’s answer to Emperor William’s question: “The Yellow Peril”? It will be remembered that the kaiser once painted a picture showing the nations of Europe gathering to defend the cross and civilization against an incendiary Buddha lowering in the eastern sky. Would the stranger within the gates be protected even while republican and imperialist fought out their argument? Would leadership arise, and would the great Mongolian mass be intellectualized now that it was energized? Since the vast body was suddenly displaced, would it henceforward move by mere gravity, or sympathetic volition? Could it collectivize and not disintegrate? What would be the effect on the scores of trembling thrones, where Rominoff, Hapsburg, Savoy, Hohenzollern, Ottoman, Mikado, Billiken, etc., said they ruled by “divine right”, which is quite a different thing from noble England’s “constitutional right”? Sun Yat Sen and the Chinese republicans sent out this challenge: “Tien ming wu chang” (the divine right lasts not forever).

All these questions presented themselves when the reformers startled the world with the announcement that there was to be a republic in China. It was to be a republic—not a monarchy—said even those Chinese who had been educated in Japan, where lately a Japanese editor educated in America and ten others had been tried and executed in secret, the papers sealed, and the press censored. They wanted pitiless publicity in the new republican China. Had there been no abatement of the opium habit through America’s leadership of sentiment, and Britain’s sacrifice of revenue from 1909 to 1911, there could have been no rebellion in 1911. The reform cleared the befogged heads of the nation, added a million men to agitation, and furnished a hundred million dollars directly and indirectly toward the independence of the agitators. How great a stone America and Britain set rolling in that Opium Conference of 1909 at Shanghai!

The great revolution of October, 1911, did not drop as a bolt from a clear sky. The clouds had been gathering, though many at home and abroad did not, or would not see them. In September, 1911, the imperial viceroy of Canton, Chang Ming Chi, sent spies along the new Canton-Hongkong railway to apprehend smugglers of arms. In the same month troops under the command of Marshal Lung Chai Kwong, suddenly surrounded the office of the Shat Pat Po newspaper, at Canton, and arrested several reformers. General Luk Wing Ting, of Kwangsi province, came down the Si Kiang (West River) in September, 1911, in the gunboat Po Pik to Canton and took back with him from the Canton arsenal, machine guns and ammunition to attack the “anarchists”, as the Manchus persistently called all reformers. In the month previous, the Ministry of Posts and Communications at Peking stopped the use of private codes, so as to censor messages to the reformers. Several viceroys, in secret sympathy with the reformers, had as early as August, 1911, wired for gunboats, so as to disperse the fleet from the Yangtze basin, where the revolution was to strike, and the largest cruiser, the splendid Hai Chi, well-known in New York, these viceroys suggested should be sent to King George’s coronation review at Spithead. Even as far back as July, 1907, the Chinese government approached the powers, requesting that they make espionage on arms consigned to South China. Rather to our amusement, they used to arrive at Hongkong as boxed pipes, condensers, bar iron, crockery, etc.—anything but guns, but that was the humor of the freight classification which the shippers used! In December, 1906, the scholars of the middle class in Wuchow, Kwangsi province, at the head of navigation on the West River, decided to cut off their queues, and adopted khaki uniform, military drill and track races. They were independently preparing for strenuous times five years before the outbreak, and these boys were found in the first line of the attack in October, 1911, up at Hankau, led by the Chinese Colonel Wen, who had graduated from West Point Military Academy, in America, in 1909. In August, 1911, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation reported that a large part of its $9,000,000 gold note issue was being held, instead of circulated by the Chinese of Kwangtung and other southern provinces. This hoarding of safe securities always indicates lack of faith as to the business and political future.

The celebrated Manchu, Tuan Fang, director-general of railways, was ordered by the Ministry of Communications to proceed to Canton and Kung Yik, the new town of the Americanized Chinese, in August, 1911, to “pacify the people”. Tuan replied that he would not go, and gave as his excuse: “Canton is infested with anarchism”. In the same month the regent, Prince Chun, asked Prince Ching to recommend an energetic general to be sent to quell disturbances in Kwangtung province, and the Tartar general, Fung Shan, was sent. Spying was not uncommon, impersonators going to a province ahead of new appointees and reciting a record at the yamen which seemed to identify them. In August, 1911, the cabinet at Peking decided to send photographs of new officials in a sealed envelope, so as to prevent this impersonating.

As an indication of the new spirit which was moving among the Chinese of Canton for better things at this time, take the inception of the model town of Heungchow. Chinese returned from America, Singapore and Hongkong could not bear the municipal restraint of the old city. They chose a site ten miles up the inner harbor of Macao. Dredging and a breakwater were begun for a harbor. Broad streets, drains, fine stores, temples, police and fire stations and equipment, water-works, libraries, parks, reforestation, chamber of commerce, tramways, electricity and gas, hospitals, schools, theaters, detached homes with gardens, launch and steamer lines, and a free port,—all were in the scheme. When a government permits monopoly of food, and riots result because of justice ineffectually exerted, history shows that the government is about to fall. I instance the fierce Hangchow rice riots of July, 1906, under the leadership of the Hung Pang (Red Association), and the Changsha rice riots of 1910, when Yale College, in China, was barely saved from the conflagration in the very district which in 1911 was swept by the high tide of the revolution. In 1906 text-books were issued to the modern schools (Hok Tongs) which contained a caricature of China, not as the “Middle Kingdom” of old, but as a morsel from which all the nations took a bite. The intent, of course, was to arouse resentful patriotism in place of the old inert pride. Many of these schoolboys enlisted in the two bravest corps of the republicans, the “Dare to Die” band, and the “Bomb Throwers” regiment. In April, 1911, the rebels, under two of Sun Yat Sen’s lieutenants, Hu Wai Sang and Wu Sum, operating in Kwangtung province, issued to the world almost the identical manifesto that President Sun and Foreign Secretary Wu Ting Fang issued in January, 1912, covering the following points:

1. Ousting the Manchu.

2. Friendly intercourse with foreigners and protection of foreign property and person.

3. All foreign treaties now in force to be allowed to run their course.

4. Foreign loans and indemnities contracted by Manchus to date to be paid.

5. Concessions contracted to date to be binding.

Desperate fighting took place, and had the rebels been sufficiently supplied with money and arms, the republic would have been declared at Canton in April instead of at Wuchang and Nanking in November. The United States gunboat Wilmington and British gunboats were rushed to Shameen Island, Canton, to protect foreigners. Admiral Li, who was killed in the October revolution, was barely able to conquer this April revolution in Kwangtung and Fukien provinces. For centuries the Chinese women would not associate with the Manchus, whom they called “tent women”. All through Turkestan the Chinese walled off their section of the city from the Mongolian settlements, though after the conquest the Manchu troops displaced the Chinese.

Nearly all the missions were informed by students and friends many months previous to the revolution that serious and continued disturbances would occur. The Chinese saw that individualism had arisen in America and England and was battling with the privileged. Individualism arose at last in China and resented in this rebellion the quietism taught by the superstition of Taoism, the resignation of Buddhism and the obedience of Confucianism. “I am not a clan; I am a man,” said the ambitious Chinese as he saw the new ray of hope. American diplomacy was not altogether uninformed or unprepared. The American fleet was made the largest foreign fleet in Chinese waters in the first month of the revolution, Admiral Murdock having the cruisers Saratoga (the converted New York of Spanish War fame), Albany, New Orleans, Wilmington; the gunboats Helena, El Cano, Villalobos, Samar; the monitor Monterey; and the destroyers Barry and Decatur.

As far back as June 3, 1910, a year and four months before the revolution, the Shanghai News printed the following article: “All the legations and consuls have received anonymous letters from friendly revolutionaries in Shanghai containing the warning that an extensive anti-dynastic uprising is imminent. If they do not assist the Manchus, foreigners are not to be harmed.” In August, 1911, a rebellion broke out at Sining, in far western Kansu province. The stores were raided for every bolt of foreign cotton to make uniforms. A boy of fifteen was named leader and he was given the significantly fanciful name of “Savior of his country” (Chiu Shih Wang). Rich men cornered the rice supply in the flooded Yangtze valley, and food riots broke out all along the river in August, 1911. On August 23, 1911, rebels boarded a Chinese gunboat on the romantic Si Kiang (West River) near Canton, shooting the commander and seizing the arms and ammunition. On September first the Navy Department strengthened the patrol of Kwangtung province waters so as to stop the smuggling of arms, and the army board required miners to get permits to import dynamite, as they feared that the “anarchists” were importing the explosive. The awful floods and famines of 1910–11 in the basins of the Yangtze River, the Hwei River and Grand Canal had created much criticism of the government, which failed to alleviate suffering; and the famine-stricken were willing to fight, because an army has a commissariat, at least. “Every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, escaped to the cave of Adullam.” Newspapers, such as the oldest reform journal, the Shen Pao, of Shanghai, related horrible illegal tortures of the “third degree” used by Manchuized officials, which I have quoted in the chapter on “Legal Practise.”

Tin was largely financing the propaganda, the 400,000 Chinese tin merchants and miners of Singapore and Penang in the Straits Settlements being the largest contributors. Following them came the 100,000 American Chinese and the 50,000 Australian Chinese. Even in 1898, Li Hung Chang was known to declare, at Canton, that it was not impossible that the spread of the proposed new education of the foreigners would overturn the Manchu dynasty, of which he, a Chinese from Hofei, in Nganhwei province, had been the strongest prop among the viceroys for forty-five years. Superstition was not inactive. Halley’s comet flared in the sky. It had shone when Cæsar fell; when Jerusalem fell; when Italy fell before Attila; when English Harold fell before William the Conqueror; when Rome fell in England; when Quebec fell before Wolfe; and now its awful flame must surely prophesy the fall of the Manchu dynasty. Omens were recited that red snow (snow and loess) had fallen in Honan province, and that the Hangchow tidal bore had risen twenty feet, broke over the bank and poured water into the first gallery of the Haining pagoda. This always meant the fall of the dynasty, for had it not happened on the night the beloved Mings fell, and when the scholarly Sungs fell?

As with civil servants in some other countries, the Manchuized civil service (mandarins) acted as though they were the governors and not the servants of the people by allotting to themselves high salaries and peculations. The year before the revolution the land tax yielded about $150,000,000. Only $30,000,000 reached the government exchequer. The Chinese held the Manchus responsible for this criminal neglect of audit, for at least $100,000,000 should have reached the imperial and provincial exchequers. That would have allowed $50,000,000 for the expected peculation of that kind of office holders who believe that “public office is a private graft”. In September, 1911, the month preceding the great revolution, the Chi Feng Po, a native paper of Peking, reported that all wages were in arrears and that even the tea coolies had humorously pasted an anonymous sheet on the imperial controller’s door: “Not even a shadow of our wages yet; WHY! WHY!” Taxes were increased on long-suffering Kwangtung province in the south, the brick kilns of Kochau, the silk sheds of Namhoi, the tea houses, and even the temple keepers being assessed “all the taxed would bear”. I shall instance a representative revolt. On September 6, 1911, the bonze at Shek Lung, near Canton, organized a revolt among the worshipers at his temple. The mob demolished the municipal yamen, the police station, the government distilleries, abattoir and fish market. As far back as 1898 the emperor, Kwang Hsu, by edict declared that the lottery at Canton should pay one-third of the upkeep of the far-away Peking University. I have related in the chapter on “Chinese Daily Life” the incident of a unique statue of a kneeling figure erected in the Kwan clan temple at San Wui, near Canton, in August, 1911, which is whipped by the worshipers to commemorate the defection of a member to the government’s railway and tax program. There was always ill feeling between Peking and Kwangtung provinces, the Manchu and Manchuized viceroys joking at Peking when they were ordered to assume charge at the yamen at Canton: “Well, I’m off to boss Miaotszes (barbarians),” which the refined and commercial Cantonese certainly were not. This superciliousness was deeply resented.

Repeated complaint had been made that an unrepresentative Manchu government gave away concessions right and left to foreigners, and that when these concessions were recalled or bought out, owing to outraged patriotic feeling in the southern and central provinces, the foreigner in instances charged immense sums for good will and franchise in addition to his outlay and interest. I shall not recite instances, as it is the system that I am denouncing, not the persons. The Chinese rightly said, if we look at the matter with his eyes, that he was not going to pay vast sums for the retrocession of his own franchise, which was in some instances coerced from, or wheedled out of, an effete, governing, unrepresentative clique, the members of which never consulted the provinces that were concerned. “Taxation without representation” again. It was not like the repudiation of the bonds of the southern states, for no money had been paid. “Compensation” and “indemnity” are two words the Chinese have learned to hate, and some day they mean to build an immense navy and equip a large army to interpret these words in the way the Occident interprets them, when they are synonymous with injustice and “grab”. Bitter complaint has continually been made since 1898 that Germany monopolized the mining and railway franchises of the rich province of Shangtung.

On the subject of railways, concessions, etc., the following remarks will be recalled in the American General J. H. Wilson’s book, China (1887): “The Chinese will build railroads, open mines, etc., whenever they can be shown that this can be done with their own money, obtained at first by private subscription, and by their own labor, under the direction of foreign experts who will treat them fairly and honestly. They will not for the present grant concessions or subsidies to foreigners. They will not even take money from any syndicate by mortgage.” Complaint was also made that the Ming dynasty, 268 years ago, left as a heritage to the Manchu dynasty, a land full of public works, bridges, roads, temples, pagodas, canals, and that while the Manchu collected large taxes, he seldom or never repaired a temple, canal or road, so that China is now desolate. Objection was also made that the government shipyards, like the Kiangnan, at Shanghai, were building luxurious ocean steam yachts for Prince Tsui and others of the imperial clan, an expense which the nation could not afford.

Two years before the famous revolution of October 10, 1911, the author, in his book, The Chinese, picked out five men as the leaders of changing China: Sun Yat Sen, as the anti-Manchu rebel, who would take up arms in the endeavor to establish a republic; Kang Yu Wei, who would go almost as far in reform, but would retain the Manchu dynasty under a strict constitutional monarchy; Liang Chi Chao, as the translator of reform books and a probable secretary of a reformed state; Wu Ting Fang, as a secret reformer at heart, “who would bear sympathetic watching”, and Yuan Shih Kai, to a degree an Occidentalized opportunist of great ability, who was most favored by the Peking and Tientsin foreigners, though distrusted by the Chinese and foreigners in the south and Yangtze valley of China. The revolution was in full sway by November, 1911, with Sun Yat Sen named as probable president of a Chinese republic (Republic of Han); Kang in the exact place prophesied; Liang as secretary of justice of Yuan’s first trial cabinet of a constitutional monarchy; Wu Ting Fang as foreign minister of a provisional republic at Shanghai; and Yuan called from his two years’ exile at Chang Te in Honan province to be the first minister of the reformed constitutional monarchy.

This most wonderful of revolutions seemed to break as a bolt from a clear sky on October 10, 1911, at Wuchang on the Yangtze River, in the center of the land, under the very guns of the United States gunboats Helena and Villalobos which were steaming by. It was, as I have attempted to show, rather a carefully planned matter, the propaganda going on abroad and at home under bands and leaders, all of whose views did not stop at the same place, but whose opinions had one source in patriotic reform. Kang, the oldest and first of the reformers, commenced in 1897 by winning with his book, Japan’s Reform, the emotional Manchu emperor, Kwang Hsu. But when the emperor fell in 1898 before the reactionary dowager, Tse Hsi, Kang, the Cantonese with a Hongkong education, was driven to British Singapore and Penang, from which places he has planned his travels and propaganda of the “Pao Huang Hwei” (Empire Reform Association), which contemplated a revolution of reform, but the retention of the Manchu dynasty as constitutional monarchs for the time being. This association was quite different from the Kao-lao-hwei, “Ko Ming” and “Sia Hwei” (reform associations) of Sun Yat Sen, which aimed at a republic. In other words Kang was a Taft “standpatter” medium reformer, and Sun a thorough-going advanced reformer of the Roosevelt type. Kang’s associations grew up in China, America and England, and Kang visited them, recommending the drilling of companies to attack the troops of the reactionary literati of the Hanlin academy.

Liang Chi Chao, the writer and translator, went first to the Straits Settlements and then to Kobe and Yokohama, Japan, where he edited the reform Chinese papers, the Hsi Pao (Western paper), and the Ming Pao, and flooded his country with translations of parts of the great books of British and American liberty. Liang, too, tolerated the retention of the Manchu monarchs for the time being. Doctor Macklin, an American missionary of Nanking had translated Henry George’s Progress and Poverty into Chinese, and this book was in the hands of the reformers, and particularly appreciated by Sun Yat Sen. Chang Yuan Chi’s Commercial Press of Honan Road, Shanghai, had, since 1898, been translating a million dollars a year of Western text-books for Chinese schools. The American Presbyterian Press at Suchow, and at 18 Peking Road, Shanghai, the American Episcopal Press, the presses of the other American and British missions and Bible societies, had for years been issuing telling books of truth in Chinese. Rich compradores of foreign houses at Hongkong, like Ma Ying Pui, presented $1,000 to patriotic lecturing societies like the “Wan Yung.” Hæmon’s argument with his father, King Creon, in Sophocles’ Antigone, brilliantly denouncing absolute rule as only fitted for the monarch of a desert, was recited by the foreign-trained students.

Yuan Shih Kai was deposed by the regent, Prince Chun, in 1909, but from his exile at Chang Te in Honan province, he kept in dignified touch with the formation of the new forces of opinion and arms, and with his backers, the northern foreigners. Yuan is a mighty man, quite on the style of Li Hung Chang, his preceptor, whom we of the West knew so well. At Tientsin, the foreigners assisted Yuan, previous to 1909, with instruction in Occidental organization, and the best troops of the empire, as well as the best schools, and almost the best mills, were organized by Yuan. The reformers who dare the most, however, look upon Yuan by his past, as a temporizer, opportunist and dictator largely under foreign influence; too much Occidentalized, and out of touch with the spirit of “China for the Chinese”, and the “Sia Hwei” (reform associations). They look upon him as, in the past, a Manchuized Chinese who fears to work for himself as a republican, but must have an employer like a Manchu emperor or some other head; great as a Richelieu is great, but not as a Washington is great. They say that while he is thorough of mind, he is not yet vehemently sincere in heart. They fear that Yuan, if left to himself, would concede too much to foreign concession seekers. They bitterly recall that but for Yuan, the reformers of 1897–8 would have swept the kingdom peacefully. Yuan is the most popular Chinese with foreigners at Peking, Tientsin, Chifu, Newchwang, Tsingtau and other ports of the north. He is not so much in touch with the heart of the reform spirit in Western, Central or Southern China, nor with the foreigners of the great educational treaty ports of those sections, and of the brilliant British colony of Hongkong in South China, which, with British and American Shanghai, has done most for a reformed China. Yuan’s only experience outside of China proper was when as a youth he served twelve years with the army in Korea. Yuan’s temperament is cold. A noted southern statesman, referring to him, said: “What can you expect of a man who is so cold that he has to carry three braziers up his sleeve?” In the Korean campaign of 1884 against Japan, Yuan is said to have objected to Red Cross operations, jesting that the surgeons didn’t need to take the trouble, for “while they had remade the man, they hadn’t remade the soldier”. Yuan was a ruthless decapitator in that and other campaigns. However, “to err is human, and to forgive, divine”, and if Yuan serves a united republican China with full heart in the future, the mistakes of the past will be forgotten in the joys of the glorious deeds that are possible.

Doctor Sun Yat Sen (let us Latinize him as Sunyacius) is a Hongkong product, and has been a revolutionist and a republican from the beginning. As a boy he was fed on thrilling stories of the Taiping rebellion by his uncle, who had served as an officer in that rebellion. He was born at Fatshan, seven miles west of Canton, in 1866. From 1884–87 he was assisted by Doctor Kerr, of the Anglo-American Mission, Canton, in whose office he studied medicine and English. He studied medicine and surgery under Doctor Cantlie at Hongkong, of which colony he became a citizen (that is, a British citizen), though of course, he has now returned to his Chinese citizenship. Doctor Cantlie was then teaching in the Hongkong School of Medicine, which is now a part of the Hongkong University. In 1892 Sun became the first Chinese practising physician at Macao, and met with great opposition from the Portuguese doctors, who, in 1894, drove him to Canton. His father was a Chinese Christian evangelist, a Congregationalist (London Mission) by denomination, and Sunyacius looks upon the study of the Christian Bible as the greatest necessity in China’s education. Even two years before Kang’s work at Peking, Doctor Sunyacius, in 1895, smuggled arms into Canton, got his revolutionary forces at work, and received his first baptism of fire, in which he showed, as on subsequent occasions, absolute fearlessness regarding his life. Sunyacius also lived for a while with his brother and sympathizers in Honolulu, and his studies in Hawaii and in America committed him to the republican form of government. Owing to the Swatow men not meeting the Hongkong men at Canton, Sunyacius’ plans collapsed in 1895. By the advice of Mr. Dennis, a prominent solicitor of Hongkong, Sunyacius fled to Kobe, Japan; to Honolulu and to San Francisco. This incisive, good-looking little man of about five feet five inches in height, who dresses and looks like an American or a Briton, has for years been traveling incognito in America, England and Japan, organizing drill, educational and contributing corps of the “Kao Lao Hwei” (reform associations), the money and men going to Canton, Shanghai and Wuchang, where the main revolution broke out on that memorable day, October 10, 1911. General Hwang Hing was Sunyacius’ representative in China in receiving this aid. All of Sunyacius’ helpers proved loyal to their trust in handling this money, except one, and of him Sunyacius himself writes: “He will meet with his due reward.”

Sunyacius’ head carried a price (the modern blacklist) and only his insistence on British citizenship saved him from being kidnapped as a lunatic (no less) by the yellow and white detectives of the Manchus, to have his ankles crushed under the hammer and his body cut into a thousand pieces (lin chee) slowly at Peking. He was seized on Portland Street in London, in 1896, and hurried to the Chinese Legation. Sunyacius’ rescue came about in this dramatic way: His Hongkong teacher, Doctor Cantlie, was then practising in London. Sunyacius gave to a British secretary in the Chinese Legation a note addressed to Doctor Cantlie, to whom it was fortunately delivered in the British spirit of fair play and through the pleas of a woman, the Briton’s wife counseling her husband to deliver the letter in “noble scorn of consequence”. The heroic Doctor Cantlie at once took it to Lord Salisbury and the British Foreign Office, which intervened, surrounding the Chinese Legation with officers (a new siege of Peking). Sunyacius was reluctantly given his freedom by the Manchuized Chinese. Only for Britain, therefore, Sunyacius would never have lived to strike the tocsin of a republican revolution. But then, Britain has been the mother and teacher of reformers since Cromwell’s day.

Sunyacius’ headquarters have been at British Singapore and at Hongkong, but he is as well known at San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London, Vancouver and Yokohama. He has walked into dormitories of Columbia College, New York, and talked revolution and reform with some of the students under the unconscious eye of so prominent a conservative as President Butler. One of his student protégés was Wellington Koo, now the Chinese secretary to Yuan Shih Kai. Sunyacius is a thorough-going scholar, propagandist, organizer and republican, like the book he carried, a man of “Progress and Poverty”. The world’s great bankers, especially two London firms long connected with Chinese progress, knew him, his disguises as a salesman, etc., and his careful plans of government and finance, and he has not been timid in America, or in London, Hongkong and the Straits Settlements in asking for loans for his propaganda and revolution. He has handled a million dollars honestly, and lived most frugally. The greatest luxury he ever allowed himself was a “Prince Albert” coat and a rose-bouttonière, but that was so that he might appear acceptably before an audience of Occidentals! When in Singapore, Doctor Sun had his picture taken in white ducks and a topey hat, so that he is a modern in tonsorial as well as other matters! “This conference must be secret and our correspondence must be anonymous, and upon receipt, burned,” said Sun to the bankers. “Why?” they asked. “Because I am shadowed night and day. Look across the way when I suddenly lift the curtain.” He raised the curtain, and the bankers saw two “sleuths” in the cowardly shadow, one of them a Chinese, lurking in a recess of a money capital of the Occident, many thousand miles from the Manchu cabal in Peking, who had Oriental and Occidental detective agencies in their blacklisting pay.

Dr. Sun is a brilliant and enthusiastic speaker in Chinese and in English. His speeches to the Chinese often extend into hours. His small copper-plate handwriting in English is better than his Chinese chirography. He is a polished writer, having published in 1904 in London a book on “The Chinese Question”. The Manchus have kept Doctor Sun out of China, and he is therefore not yet thoroughly known to the Hupeh and Hunan province guilds, who fired the first successful shot, but he is the pick of the southern and the alien Chinese, who are the best educated of their race, and have largely financed reform: the Chinese of Canton, Singapore, Penang, noble Hongkong, Macao, America, England, Japan, Australia, and brilliant Shanghai. He has never held office under the Manchus at home or abroad, and is therefore not well known to foreigners in the salons of diplomats, in the capitals of the Caucasic race, or to the masses of the Chinese in the north and west provinces, but he is a coming man, and perhaps the most consistent and steady of the reformers, as he is certainly the most promising, intellectual and coolly daring. Sun Yat Sen’s name may some day be Latinized into Sunyacius, just as Kung Fut Tse’s name became popular as Confucius. Why not also Latinize Yuan Shih Kai’s name into the more popular Yuanshius? The following incident will throw a light on Sun’s character: On February 22nd his elder brother, Sun Mei, a man ordinary in equipment, was almost elected governor of the great province of Kwangtung as a popular tribute to Sun Yat Sen. The latter wired from Nanking, disapproving of the choice for the province’s good, and urging “brother Mei” to confine himself to business, for which he was more fitted. Such frankness in family relations when public preferment is at stake, is scarcely common.

Wu Ting Fang, a Cantonese trained at Hongkong, London and Washington, blossomed out suddenly at Shanghai in November, 1911, as foreign minister of the provisional Chinese republican government of the fourteen central, eastern and southern rebel provinces. The western world stopped its breath in tremendous astonishment. Wu! the brilliant, fashionable and evasive Chinese minister at Washington, who would put you off on politics to discuss vegetarianism, a rebel! He was secretive beyond parallel, and had never talked revolution. The writer tried to get him to talk reform in 1909 in connection with the reform prophecies in his book, The Chinese, and though Wu had then fully decided on the part he would take in the coming revolution, he would only repeat what the writer said, and would express absolutely no opinion of his own. I have known writers who have flayed him for this abrupt evasion, calling him a “rice Christian” of yore, a temporizer, etc., but I admire him for his calmness, fixed resolves, and patience in waiting for the prodigious hour to strike. Wu knew what was coming, and was heartily, though secretly, in favor of it. He was the first of the rebels to insist on foreign acknowledgment of the rebel government, and he formulated the most brilliant move of the revolution—the announcement that if foreigners advanced money to the imperialists, and the republicans won, the latter would repudiate such loans. This really won the revolution, for numbers of the foreign syndicates, especially the Russian, were at first heartily in favor of the Manchu status quo. Wu has already codified the reform and penal laws of China, and is prepared to enter upon that difficult question, extraterritoriality. Watch Wu; he is not afraid to take the side of “China for the Chinese”, although he is the most polished in western culture of all Chinese officials. He aims to interpret the East to the West. Wu risked vast preferment, and therefore he is a more sincere man than doughty Yuan, and he will grow in power with the masses of the Chinese nation. His brother-in-law is the exceedingly able Doctor Ho Kai, Commander of the Order of Michael and George, the Chinese member of the Legislative Council of the royal colony of Hongkong Island, a thorough legislator, a lovable and brilliant man. Wu is a member of a worthy Canton family. He is a graduate of the Middle Temple, London; has practised before the Hongkong bar; and he served Li Hung Chang for many years as legal adviser at Tientsin and Peking, in drawing up foreign treaties, etc.

There were other reformers in China and abroad at work from 1898 to 1911, although the western press gave no attention to the really astonishing matter. The bitter Hunanese republican rebel, the irrepressible Hwang Hing, was also exiled by the empress dowager, Tse Hsi, in 1898. He fled to Japan, with a price on his head also, and could hardly be restrained from calling the psychic moment for a revolution into immediate declaration. He was a fast organizer, and being nearer the ground, was in close enough touch with the Chinese of the central provinces to be at Wuchang in October, 1911, shortly after the first blow was struck. He had much to do with the gentry of the Hupeh and Hunan province guilds, who largely financed and precipitated the main revolution. Hwang is considered by the extremists of his party as presidential timber. He is a fervent talker, and like Sun, the last man in the world to be an opportunist, which is the great Yuan’s one fault in the minds of many of the Chinese people. Hwang Hing is the one reformer who has some Japanese sympathies, on account of his education in Japan. He was born at Changsha in Hunan, where Yale College has a branch.

In America the editors of the Chung Sai Yat Po, the Chinese World, and Free Press in San Francisco; the Chinese Students’ Club in New York (225 East Thirty-first Street), which publishes a journal, and the Chinese Reform News in New York, often visited by Sun Yat Sen’s American representative, Wong Man Su, ably took up the propaganda, which was carried on in their own way by a thousand newspapers which arose throughout China from 1906 onward, first in the treaty ports, and later in Chinese cities, especially Canton, Hankau and Shanghai. Much reference was made to the fact that while China, the largest Oriental country, was without a real parliament, other Oriental countries had successfully overthrown despotism and oligarchism, and had popular assemblies, which granted some representation in return for the privilege of taxation. Japan had a Diet; even black Russia had a Duma; the Filipinos had an Assembly; Turkey had an Assembly; little Persia had a representative Mejliss; native members had at last been admitted into the Viceroy’s Council in India; and Hongkong, with its 500,000 Chinese had long had two Chinese as brilliant members of the Legislative Council.

Viceroy Seu Ki Yu’s essay of 1866, praising Washington and republicanism as ideal, was reissued and distributed, and had great influence. By 1909 and 1910 the reformers had compelled the Manchus to heed the howling of the wind, and see the shadow of a cloud, at least as big as a man’s hand, on the horizon of internal politics. The dowager empress, Tse Hsi, and later, Prince Ching, and the regent, Prince Chun—all Manchus—granted provincial and national assemblies; but they were called and considered only “Tsecheng Yuan” (advice boards), and not legislative bodies in the free and full sense of the word. The pensions of the Manchus and bannermen in the various Chinese cities were decreased, and land was offered them so that they might enter the industrial body. Many Manchus rebelled, as at Chingtu City in September, 1911. Argument increased. The cloud on the horizon grew larger. Objection was made to the court’s monopoly of the rich copper mines of Yunnan province, and complaint was reiterated that while the southern provinces mainly supported the imperial authority in taxes paid, these provinces were the least consulted, and the weakest in representation in any governmental consultations that were held at Peking. The government developed the armies and schools of the three northern provinces of Pechili, Shangtung and Shansi with taxes collected mainly in the southern provinces, where the government neglected schools, police and army divisions. It was hard to get the Stuart kings to call Parliaments, and when at a belated date they did, complaint was louder than ever, for there was something to complain of, and at last a constitutional place to complain in.

These Chinese assemblies gave little representation directly to the masses, a high property or high tax qualification debarring them as in Japan; but the gentry of the guilds, in many cases, espoused the reform sentiment of the masses, exactly as the Stuart Parliaments did to the disgust of the Stuarts who hoped for monarchic support, and as the barons of the “Magna Charta” did at Runnymede to the disgust of Plantagenet John. One provincial assembly president we must note at this point. He is Tang Hua Lung, of the Hupeh Assembly. When Hankau was taken on October 10, 1911, Tang jumped to the front as organizer of the first rebel provincial government; the “province of Hupeh of the Republic of Han”, with headquarters at Wuchang on the Yangtze River, the ancient viceregal capital of the illustrious Chang Chih Tung. With Tang Hua, Sun Yu, brother of Sun Yat Sen, came into prominence. In the mother province of reform, the most progressive province politically of all the twenty-one, Kwangtung, Wu Hon Man agitated in his assembly for reform, and when the imperial viceroy, Chang Ming Chi, fled to Hongkong, because he could find no other refuge, Wu Hon Man rushed into the yamen at Canton with the rebelling Sixteenth, and other regiments, and took charge of that great province for the republican rebels. In its nationalization-of-railways scheme, the Manchus confiscated the Kwangtung railways, promising to pay the owners only sixty per cent. of their investment. Title deeds of mines in Kwangtung and other provinces were also confiscated by the tyrannical Manchu government.

China’s army was a territorial one. Troops raised in this way are hard to control in local emergencies, but they are easier to recruit, mobilize, drill and discipline at the beginning than mixed corps. Among the Generals of Divisions, transferred from the Navy Department, was Li Yuan Heng, on whom the revolutionaries largely fixed their hopes as the man trained and true for the real deeds of deadly arms, which make new governments possible. Propaganda and patience are all right in their places, but powder needs a special man of a stern mold, fit to deal with merciless and terrible enemies. General Li was one of these men, and General Hwang, Sun Yat Sen’s special representative at the Hankau and Hanyang battles, was another. General Ling, on the rebels’ right wing and the republican commander-in-chief, General Hsu Shao Ching, at Shanghai, were others. General Li’s proclamation of the “Republic of Han”, with military headquarters at Wuchang, covered the following points:

1. Expulsion of the Manchu dynasty.
PROHIBITED ON PAIN OF DEATH
2. Injuring foreigners.
3. Injuring business by taking advantage of war.
4. Rapine, arson and adultery.
5. Mobbing.
6. Preventing recruiting.
7. Withstanding commissariat.
TO BE REWARDED HIGHLY
8. Supplying commissariat.
9. Supplying ammunition.
10. Protecting foreign concessions.
11. Protecting foreign missions.
12. Spreading republican and reform (Sia Hwei) propaganda.
13. Facilitating restoration of business and commerce.

General Li, a Hupeh man, was the Marlborough of the revolution, a young, dashing, Christian soldier, used to courts, fine-looking, full of humor, traveled, approachable. General Hsu, as the successful siege of Nanking was later to prove, was the Grant of the revolution, steady, reasonable, persistent, a spender of men, a strategist and a pounder. General Li was educated at the Pei Yang naval colleges at Tientsin and Chifu, and at Japanese military and naval schools at Tokio, Kure and Yokosuka, where the name of China’s one naval hero of the China-Japan War, Admiral Ting, of the famous battleships Chen Yuen and Ting Yuen, is held in considerable respect. Li passed through the terrific fire of the naval engagements of the Yalu and Wei Hai Wei in 1894. He is a Protestant Episcopalian. He traveled round the world with Li Hung Chang in 1896, so that America and Britain were then entertaining unawares one of the Washingtons of republican China.

As general of the Twentieth Division of the northern army, camped at Lanchow, just east of Peking, was General Chang Shao Tsen (we shall call him Chang the First to distinguish him from two other generals Chang of the Manchu camp at Nanking and elsewhere in the northeastern provinces). Chang the First was well trained by the revolutionists in their doctrines of liberty, and was told to watch two camps, the so-called People’s National Assembly at Peking and the Manchu Court at Peking. Chang the First was trained in war by Yuan Shih Kai and the Manchu general-in-chief, Yin Tchang, both of whom were effective men, the former schooled by Tientsin and Peking foreigners, the latter well trained in the Austrian ranks and before the line of guards at Berlin. In old Canton, the mighty stanch Wu Hon Man was president of the provincial assembly of Kwangtung province. He, too, was ready to declare for rebellion, despite the imperial viceroy, Chang Ming, and the loyal Tartar general, who were quartered on his province. In the north, Governor Sun Hao Chi, of classic old Shangtung province (the home of Confucius), was ready to go over. In the province where Shanghai is located, the president of the assembly, Chang Chien, who proposes to visit American chambers of commerce, and who is well known as the host in China of visiting Pacific coast chambers of commerce, was more than ready to declare for reform. He, with Wu Ting Fang, was insistent on the abdication of the Manchu dynasty and the declaration of a republic.

At Lhasa, in far-away Tibet, was an imperial resident who had been trained in reform at Shanghai and in law at Yale College, in America. He was the eminent Wen Tsung Yao, destined to be the assistant foreign minister of the first rebel government, and whose son (a West Point graduate) was slated to lead the most daring charges at Hankau and Nanking. Even in the home of the Manchus, at Mukden, Wu Yun Lien, a Chinese immigrant, president of the Manchuria Assembly, was filled with the doctrine and ready to declare for reform. Great viceroys, who had served China long in official positions under the Manchus, were ready to go over, but for the most part the radical reformers were new men, unknown to the world, as the Manchus had naturally never given office to them.

Many causes, all important, helped to precipitate the crisis. Sheng Kung Pao and others at Peking, Tientsin and Hankau, both Chinese and Manchus whom foreigners know well, had, partly under foreign advice and Japan’s example, planned to compel the provinces and the gentry of the guilds to sell out their many little railroads, a number of which were paying well, to the central government, which intended to nationalize the railroads quickly under immense loans from the banking nations of the Occident and Japan. These loans meant to the local gentry the extinction of distributed small fortunes and opportunities; concessions of mines to foreigners, such as the immense gifts of franchises to the British “Peking Syndicate” in Shansi province, to the London and China syndicate in Hupeh province, to Belgian, German, French, Italian and other syndicates; heavy interest; continuation of the unscientific Likin system of customs as a security, and payment of obnoxious bonuses, as when Hupeh province, under Chang Chih Tung, in 1904, had to pay a bonus to buy back a Chinese railway concession; and in 1911, when China had to buy the bonds which represented by an excess payment of $3,750,000 a Chinese railroad which existed only on paper; and as Professor Ross points out in The Changing Chinese, when Shansi province had to pay a syndicate over two millions to relinquish an undeveloped concession in China which cost them almost nothing. The bitter complaint, written in blood, of the Hunanese of Changsha City on this subject is quoted in the New York Railway-Age Gazette of October 13, 1911, and includes this sentence: “When a piece of meat is in the traitorous railway thief’s mouth, it is hard to take it out.” All may not agree with the Chinese position, but all should duly consider the Chinese side of the question as expressed in their words. “Peking has betrayed Wuchang,” cried the Hupeh men.

There were many more instances from the Sungari to the Yangtze basins, yea, to the Mekong basin, through 2,500 miles of mine and men, traffic and trade, of the hard bargain driven by the foreign lender, generally under bad foreign advice.

No foreign house should ever send a representative to China unless it is willing to send an enlightened and humane man, who intellectually appreciates the able Chinese as much as he appreciates the foreigner, and whose sympathies are equally divided between Cathay and his own nation. Only such a man can deal fairly and give impartial advice, which alone in the end will win for the foreigner what properly is his of the profit and prestige. “Why should we, with the richest mines on earth; the richest passenger, freight and labor field; with lands plethoric of water power and grain; and the lowest debt, if unjust coerced indemnities were wiped out, pay foreigners such immense bonuses, interest and concessions, discounts and profits to go out of our country”; rang the cry, not only in Hupeh, Hunan, Szechuen, Shansi and Kwangtung provinces, but even in native papers printed under the shadow of the foreign banks on the bund at Tientsin in the north.

There was one large meeting of protest held by the Chinese of British Hongkong in the Chui Yin Hotel on September 3, 1911, delegates attending even from distant Szechuen province. Viceroy Liu Ming Chuan’s memorial was recalled: “The wealth of the country is being monopolized by foreigners”. The Railroad Protective Association, of Chingtu City, in August, 1911, issued a famous placard in which the four banking nations in caricature were made to say: “The wealth of the four provinces of Szechuen, Kwangtung, Hunan and Hupeh, all is given to us four foreign nations to swallow down at one gulp”. Chinese men, women and children, bound together before the ancestral graves, are made to say: “Bound helplessly; it is unbearable. We are bound in one bunch to be given to foreigners. Come quickly, friends of the Railroad Protective Association, and deliver us.” The loot, lying ready for the syndicates of the four nations to take away, is pictured as cash money, bullion sycee, bank bills, and books of China’s Confucian classics and history. Other caricatures were prepared so as to inflame patriotism in the breasts of the new students, the foreigner being made to say cynically: “The venal students only want their up-keep, purchased diplomas, political office, four chair bearers, free theatricals and they’ll hush up. The mask may be brave as a dragon’s head, but the tail is cowardly as a crawling snake.”

Remembering that Russia and Japan, in 1896, etc., first sought for railway control and then practically occupied the three Manchurian provinces, we can understand the patriot’s side of the following article objecting to the three nations’ railway loan, published in Chinese in a Hankau paper: “The merchants of Hupeh urge the people to take shares in the Szechuen, Canton and Hankau railways. The people of China are in a sad plight. Why is China so poor that every foreigner is eager to come to her aid? You Chinese say you have plenty of money, but you are unwilling to loan it. Why do you not use your money to construct these railway lines? If you do not, the foreigners will come under false pretenses, destroy your nationality, and cut off your supplies. England has used this diabolical system to obliterate Egypt; otherwise how could she have got it?” Even if a foreign banker, statesman or merchant does not fully agree with the local feeling of the Chinese, it is wise to look frankly at their side of the argument in making educational, financial and political plans in the future.

There was much complaint also of the private hoards of the Manchu princes, both in strong-boxes and in foreign banks. The taxes levied in the southern provinces mainly supported the empire, and these taxes were increased. Something then was brewing, especially in the southern and central provinces. The word went forth, “We are not Boxer murderers if we cry China for the Chinese, and it is not fair to put a stone around China’s neck with indemnities just because you are ahead of us in possessing fleets. We love the American and British peoples, and their glorious books on Liberty, even if we do not love some of your unregulated trusts any more than you and your Supreme Court’s decisions do! We are willing to pay a fair rate of interest. Not a hair of a foreigner is to be touched. We appreciate the education and lovable alienation of the missionaries, and especially the miracle of Occidental medicine and surgery.”

Here is the guarantee of the “Sia Hwei” (reform association), of Fuchau, to the Methodist and other missionaries of Fukien province. “We have just heard that the missionaries, on account of the uprising of the New China revolutionary associations, with their just cause, have been requested by your foreign consuls to go to the provincial capital, Fuchau, to be protected. The Chinese people have become very much enlightened and their old customs have changed. The Chinese people and the missionaries’ church are at peace, because your church has opened schools, hospitals, orphanages and similar good institutions. Not one of these but is held deep in the hearts of the Chinese people. Although we are a humble folk, still we have seen and appreciated these things. This reform association requests that you missionaries remain at your posts throughout the province. Should anything unforeseen occur, we should, of course, exert ourselves to protect you and your property. We are quite sure that we can afford efficient protection from mobs and imperialists.” These Fukien people were as good as their word, for besides sending levies to the revolution, the “hsiang lao” (head men) of the villages organized home guards for the protection of both foreigners and natives. When the revolution broke out at Wuchang, the soldiers of the thirtieth regiment escorted the American missionaries out of the line of fire from Serpent Hill. The American Episcopal missionaries crowded aboard the German freighter Belgravia, bound for Shanghai, the American gunboat Helena, Commander Knepper, standing by. The revolutionary soldiers of Generals Li and Hwang shouted a peace message: “American republicans are brothers of ours; good-by!”

A cry went through the vast nation that the Manchu dynasty of usurpers was signing away the land with hardly a struggle: Tonquin to France; Formosa and vast Korea to Japan; rich Manchuria, and possibly Jungaria, to Russia; Kiaochou to Germany; and so on, even little Portugal wanting more of Heungshan Peninsula; the effete nations of Europe, with only paper ships, “bluffing” like the monster nations, all demanding “your provinces or your life”, and getting the provinces. The articles in the independent press in America were translated in many instances into Chinese, and the spirit of protest in America, Britain and Germany was emulated in awakened China. The minority Manchus could not be trusted to control the Chinese, and “pack” boards (Pus), ministries, and even assemblies, to suit themselves. Government by “privileged minority” was being called in question throughout the earth as unconstitutional; why not in China? There must be true popular government, which the Manchus postponed from month to month with “standpat” doctrines, and while a deliberative body was formed at Peking, the ministries, boards and the majority of the National Assembly were appointed in “machine” style by the Manchus from their set, which, of course, included many of the Manchuized Chinese, as well as Manchus and Mongols. The Chinese officials—the old literati—are the viceroys, ministers and members of the governing boards, whom we foreigners best know. Many of them are very able, and some of them love reform, but few of them dared anything for the revolution except Wu Ting Fang. Give him that credit as often as possible.

The heavy indemnities, amounting to the awful sum of $250,000,000, for the massacres of 1900, which the “Boxer” empress dowager, Tse Hsi, a Manchu, approved, have been a heavy load upon the Chinese people of the southern and central provinces, who had nothing to do with the persecution of foreigners. The Chinese of the taxed south greatly appreciated, therefore, American and British action in returning part of their indemnities. But other nations should do likewise. The Westminster Gazette, of London, now supports this position.

Histories of peoples, not dynasties and oligarchies, such as John Richard Green’s History of the English People; books which helped to bring about the American revolution; the American missionary, Doctor Macklin’s, Chinese translation of Henry George’s Progress and Poverty; great pæans of liberty and political pain the world over; editorials from the progressive American press; chapters from American and English books which sympathized with the Chinese, were translated and read. The notable book Service was re-read. It was written in 1897 by Tan Sze Tung, the son of a governor of Hupeh province. Tan was one of the martyrs of 1898 who were beheaded by the dowager, Tse Hsi. Tan’s book criticized absolute monarchy and recommended reform in politics and commerce. Sin Chin Nan, by translating parts of Dickens, had shown the Chinese people that the common man endured wrongs that should be righted. Thomas Paine’s The Crisis, which was read before the American regiments of 1776, was translated to be read to revolutionary societies like Sun Yat Sen’s “Ka Ming Tang” and the “Sia Hwei.” Special note was taken of the establishment of a Duma even in oligarchic Russia; the success of the Young Turk party in even such a terrific oligarchy as Turkey; the successful revolt in Mexico, where a practical oligarchy gave lands to favorites and would not grant real popular government; and the representation of the Oriental race in the legislative bodies of Hongkong, India, Straits Settlements and the Philippines.

The preliminary dance was opened in September, 1911, by far western Szechuen province, Peking issuing this edict in the yellow Peking Gazette: “Whoever shall serve us by killing rebels or by capturing and binding members of the rebellion party, shall be rewarded regardless of rules.” The Peking government had practically confiscated the railways of the Szechuenese, as the paper which they were given in exchange bore no guarantee of interest, and no reliance was put upon the value of the security by the provincial gentry, bankers and farmers. When provinces and states lose confidence in the sincerity of a fixed central government that is not run by parties, that government totters to its fall. A national anthem was given to the nation to sing:

“May China be preserved!
In this time of the Manchu dynasty,
We are fortunate to see real splendor;
May the heavens protect the imperial family.”

The south only sang it in parodies. The railway board (Yuchuan Pu) was putting through its nationalization-of-railways scheme, in accordance with the $50,000,000 gold loan from the syndicates of four of the banking nations. To back up arguments, troops were increased under the various generals, Tartar and Manchuized Chinese. Some of these troops were from the federal army, northern divisions, and had been trained by Yuan and General Yin Tchang. Some were provincial viceroys’ troops, trained both under foreign and native systems, like the splendid army of the Yunnan viceroy, Li Chin Hsi. The small railway owners, the small mine owners, the contractors of man-transportation, the noted farmers and river men of Szechuen province, were ordered to consent to the new scheme of a national railway to break across Szechuen province from Ichang to Chingtu, and for other railways in the province. The terms of the foreign loan, the price at which the bankrupt federal government would pretend to buy out the provincial gentry and guilds, the heavy new taxes on the west and south, were all partly explained, and the men of Szechuen (by blood largely Hupeh and Hunan provinces’ emigrants) rebelled and “fired the shot that was heard around the world”.

The Assembly Hall at Wuchang, where the Eighth Hupeh Division under General Li Yuan Heng fired the volley that was heard round the world, and ushered in republican China. In the background is Serpent Hill.

The high tide of the revolution; Nanking’s walls; the crowded boat life of China.

The Honorable Doctor Sun Yat Sen, founder of the Chinese republic, Director-General of the National Railway development; leader of the Tung Men Hwai, the advanced party in China. By birth, a Southern Chinese (Kwangtung province), the type best known to foreigners.

A noted, partially loyal Chinese general was shortly put in command of the imperial troops in the ancient capital, Chingtu. His name was General Chao Ehr Feng, the famous commander who did the astonishing thing, both from a religious and military point of view, in 1910, of driving the Dalai Lama out of Lhasa and Tibet into Darjeeling, in India, and thus putting Buddhism and its pope at the feet of Confucian China. China also brought up her bloodiest general, Tsen Chun Hsuan, infamous for putting out the last terrific Mohammedan rebellion in mountainous Yunnan province of the clouds, in unnecessary rivers of blood. Foreigners scowled at the employment of this man, and Manchu China was a little uncertain. Promises meant nothing to Tsen. He was a man-eating tiger, the bloodiest man in the world, who pretended and looked to be nothing else, and was descended from as bloody generals. Peking meant business, and the railway policy, which was as much a war policy, seemed to be going through.

It was not long, however, before General Chao’s forces were cooped up in Chingtu, which was besieged by the rebelling province of Szechuen under the leadership of the president of assembly, Pu Tien Chun, and in the engagements General Chao was captured and decapitated. The strategic importance of the railways already built then appeared like the flash of a saber at the bare neck of the victim. Modern troops were hurried down to Hankau by rail in twenty-four hours and up the river to Ichang by steamer, in the rear and on the flank of the besiegers. Then something like thunder happened among the divisions which had been mobilized at the triple cities of Wuchang, Hanyang and Hankau. The Eighth Division, under General Li Yuan Heng, territorial troops of the modern army, hoisted the rebel tri-color sun flag of red, white and blue over the yellow dragon of the Manchus, put white bands on their arms and rebelled for the new-born republic of Han. They captured the leading arsenal, steel and coal plant at Hanyang, the populous commercial city of Hankau, and the luxurious viceregal capital of Wuchang on October 13, 1911. This put a high standard on the rebellion, for Li was a young well-trained general of the new school, a diplomat, a sturdy man in the field, a patriot who could not be bought and who was organizer enough to see that his men were not bought. Admiral Sah, with a fleet of gunboats and small cruisers, aided the imperial divisions under the bloody general, Chang Piao Tuan, which tried to retake the native city of Hankau. Li’s troops, especially his “Dare to Die” (Pu Pa Tsze) Brigade of shaven round-heads, fought bravely, although their artillery was only equipped with percussion shells, as compared with the time-fuse shells brought down from Peking, Tientsin and Kiaochou to supply the imperial troops. When ammunition ran out, the rebel troops used the bayonet charge with reckless daring. It was a new era in fighting in China when yellow men would charge, with only cold steel, across an area swept by machine guns. On October 21st, Generals Li and Hwang, with 15,000 ill-equipped rebels, won the battle of Kwang Shili in Hupeh against General Yin Tchang, the Manchu minister of war and commander-in-chief, with 20,000 finely equipped loyalists. Part of General Li’s force was a section of an army division which had gone over. Others of his new troops were recruited from the most famous boatmen of the world, the Szechuen trackers of the wild rapids and sublime gorges of the glorious Yangtze River, and from the indefatigable, cheerful mountain coolies of Hupeh province, who are as agile as a chamois.

The propaganda of the rebels now bore fruit in rapid succession. On October 22nd the rebels, under the leadership of Tan Yen Kai, president of the Hunan Assembly, took Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. Yale College has a branch in this long forbidden city. Hunan has always been notable for honest, sturdy, independent men. It is the proudest province and the sternest in China. “What way Hunan goes, that way goes China.” It was the last province to permit missionary activity. Nanchang, the capital of Kiangsi province, the land of pottery, was taken on the same day, completing the occupation of the four adjoining central Yangtze provinces, which was all that Sun (Sunyacius) first planned to do, as a beginning and a basis on which to solicit foreign loans. It was rebellion indeed, and not a riot. The Tartars, Manchus and loyalists fled. New provincial governments were set up, each with a popular assembly. Peking was desperate, for China was almost split in half by the political earthquake. Peking felt sure that she held the north, however, with a well-equipped army of about twenty divisions. The reformers, however, had breathed into the ear of the troops, and pay was overdue in the impoverished condition of the central government.

On October 24th, ancient Singan, the capital of the north-western province of Shensi, the original capital of China, where the empress dowager, Tse Hsi, fled in 1900, went over to the rebels, despite the threats of the bloody Mongol governor, General Sheng Yun. This really meant a fifth seceding province, as far as the populace was concerned. On the same day, Kowkiang on the Yangtze went over. Then Kweilin, the capital of Kwangsi province, went over on October 25th. This was the first of the southern provinces to join the movement openly. On October 25th noble Fuchau, the famous seaport capital of old Fukien province, went over, and we have already quoted a wonderful message to the white man from their “Sia Hwei” (reform association). On October 26th, Ngan-king, capital of Nganhwei province, declared for the rebels, and on the same day General Li was suggested as provisional president of the forming republic of Han, with six of China’s twenty-one provinces already seceding. Reform was as hot as a prairie fire, and almost as hard to manage.

On October 29th a remarkable thing occurred among the divisions being massed for an attack on the rebels’ capital at Wuchang. The Twentieth Division was at Lanchow camp, east of Peking, under General Chang Shao Teng. They formed the famous Army League, and made reform demands on the packed National Assembly at Peking, just as Cæsar’s immortal Thirteenth Legion, before the rebellion, sent demands to the Roman Senate, whose orders they were supposed to take. In consternation, the packed National Assembly granted the Nineteen Constitutional Articles, and the Manchu regent, Prince Chun, an able and traveled man (he went to Germany in 1901) daily issued edicts and yellow Peking Gazettes, full of tearful promises, in which, however, the central and southern rebellious provinces had no confidence. They said: “Edicts are like the wings of day and night; it all depends on which side the sun is.” This action of the Twentieth Division halted the government’s war measures, and plans were laid to get loyal divisions near the Lanchow camp, and get rid of General Chang the First. This general was not strong enough to attack Peking on his own account, for there were imperial divisions between him and Generals Li and Hwang of the revolutionists. But he was strong enough to be stubborn, and not move forward. Peking was largely in panic. The railroad station was piled high with household goods, and excursion trains for the flight of the Manchus were running to Tientsin as fast as they could be switched. The streets of Peking were crowded with mule carts, bearing bullion sycee and coins to be stored in the vaults of foreign banks in the legation quarter. No one half guessed before the wealth which the pensioned and privileged Manchus had in cache. Proud princes of the blood were even willing to stand up all the way to Tientsin in open coal cars. Foreigners, legations, railways and banks were popular as never before in the north, as a very present refuge in time of trouble! Marvelous treasures of vases, tapestries, and jade were entrusted to foreigners for safe-keeping, and the treasures of the Mukden and Peking palaces were sacrificed, foreign agents taking advantage of the opportunity. Where could a Manchu take them: to Jehol, to Kalgan where the Russ waited, to Mukden where the Japanese waited? That was only like running from the door to be caught on the roof. Before long, treasures next in wonder to those looted at Peking in 1900 will find their way into the palaces, mansions and museums of the Occident, and artistic China will be robbed bare as a bone; for Peking has long been robbing China of art. The hotels and khans of Peking were crowded to the roofs, and the refugees overflowed into the cellars and stables and moats. Merchantmen were chartered, and held with steam up at Tientsin, ready to afford a refuge for panic-stricken Manchu princes, or disgraced Chinese officials like Sheng. Missionaries in the outskirts trusted the promises of the “Sia Hwei”, and stayed at their posts. Alarmed consuls arrested them in order to bring them into the capital, and the Chinese forgot the dignity due to their arms and laughed at the humorously incongruous situation!

On November 3rd, the Imperial Third Division under General Wong Chou Yuen, with the assistance of Admiral Sah’s fleet, attacked the rebels in native Hankau City. The vast flat city is not adapted for defense, and the loyalists were infinitely better equipped. General Li was short of ammunition. His troops, however, put up a brave fight, time and again charging hopelessly with cold steel against machine guns, and eliciting the unqualified admiration of the foreigners. On that day the Imperial Third Division made a bloody name for itself in the respect of massacre of non-combatants and arson. A prosperous city of nearly a million was reduced to the appearance of nearly a wrecked village. Both rebels and loyalists saved the foreign quarter along the Yangtze Bund, with its palatial consulates and business houses, and the American Episcopal St. Paul’s cathedral and St. Peter’s church, which were turned into hospitals by Doctors Glenton and MacWillie, and nurse Miss Clark of the Red Cross. Across the river at Wuchang, the buildings of the American Episcopal Boone University were turned into a hospital by Doctors Merrins, Paterson and others of the brave. Heroic missionaries held up their hands against the Third Division, and pleaded the rules of the Red Cross, but the Manchus, especially Prince Tsai Tao and others of the Tsai princes, desired by a massacre to induce the rebels to massacre the first time they had a victory, and thus bring on foreign intervention to save the dynasty. A dynasty that can not stand without foreign intervention will never stand, for true strength is in the hearts of the people alone. It was the old Boxer trick of the dowager empress, Tse Hsi, in 1900.

The rebels, however, meant to keep their heads, even under such terrific provocation as that bloody Race Track field of Hankau, over which the machine guns of the Imperial Third Division swept, and those bloody streets, maloos and walls where non-combatants were butchered if they wore a piece of white, or had their queues severed, both of which were hated rebel signs. To and fro the tide of war surged. On November 3rd, a great change occurred, for on that day the rebels’ great misfortune in having no fleet, was to a large degree nullified. Shanghai arsenal, which supplied Admiral Sah’s fleet, and Shanghai’s native walled city, went over to the revolutionists. This was the second great step forward. The rebels secured the well-known Wu Ting Fang as foreign minister of the republic of Han, and their organization spread and strengthened in everything except money and a modern equipped force.

On the same day, the far southwestern capital and province, Yunnan, with its splendid army and police, declared for the red, white and blue sun flag of the republic. Two days after, on November 5th, the famous bore-city, Hangchow, the center of culture, and capital of the coast province of Chekiang, was captured by assault, the Manchu general putting up a strong defense in the Tartar walled section of the city. Ningpo, in the same province, and Suchow, another ancient capital of culture in Kiangsu province, went over on the same day.

On November 6th, Admiral Sah’s sailors handed part of the imperial fleet over to the rebels at Shanghai, and the rebels were now able to reform their center line. This also gave the republicans their first nucleus of a navy. Admiral Sah Chen Ping received his baptism of fire in the battle of the Yalu, under the brave Admiral Ting and Commander Teng. He commanded in suppressing riots at Changsha in 1910, when Yale College branch was barely saved, and he is well known as the host of Admiral Emery’s American fleet at Amoy, when the white squadron was girdling the world under the surprised eyes of Japan, whose mixed-school and emigration “bluffs” were called by President Roosevelt in this significant but quiet way. It was most important to win Kiangsu province, and Chinkiang City was therefore talked over on November 6th. The same day, in the far north, the coaling city and naval base of Chifu in Shangtung province, declared for reform.

Up to this time the cultured old Ming capital of Nanking, the most beloved city in China, had held out under a concentrated force of 12,000 imperialists, who were unusually well equipped. After Wuchang, Hanyang and Shanghai, it was next in importance to capture Nanking on the right wing of the rebels. The imperialists knew that to hold Nanking was worth an army of 200,000 men, and General Chang Hsun (we will call him Chang the Second) was in equipment and temper a man to their minds. His second in command was General Chao, and it was rumored that bloody General Chang Piao was within the walls. The civil viceroy of Nanking was the well known Chang Jen Chung, who instituted the first Chinese industrial exhibition at Nanking in 1910. On the northeast of the walled city are the peaks of Purple Mountain, 1,400 feet high, dominating with its huge Armstrong and Krupp guns the north gate, Ta Ping Men, and the east gate, Chao Yang Men, and the great capital, around which the mighty Yangtze flows, yellow flooded to the brim. This hill, and the Tartar section of the city, Chang the Second fortified, so that it would take a hundred to one to drive him out. On November 8th, the dauntless rebels, led by General Ling, under the protection of fire from the Canton artillery, took the armory, arsenal and powder mills outside the south wall, rushed the outworks, and held part of the southern city with insufficient force. One of the cannon balls went crashing through the “North Pole” pagoda in the Tartar City. On November 9th, the imperialists at the strong south fort (Nan Men) hoisted a white flag of apparent surrender, and as the republicans came up, “near enough to see the white of their eyes,” they opened a treacherous fire upon them. The Manchu troops, under General Tieh Liang, looted their own fine military school in the city. There let us leave the rebel lines and pickets for a few days, while General Li and General Hwang on the far left wing were being appealed to for men, and above all, for siege and machine guns and ammunition.

On November 9th, Fuchau had to be stormed again, for the imperialists had been reinforced. On that same day, Canton, always stanch for a modern China, and mother of nearly all the reformers, went over to the rebels under President of Assembly Wu Hon Man, General Chan Kwang Ming, and Wong Ching Wai, and drove the imperial viceroy to Hongkong near by, where the British government pleaded with the great Chinese body to spare their unwelcome hostage, who had fled in Chinese custom “to a city of refuge”. All over China, as in the Palestine of the Bible, are towers of refuge for this very purpose. The American cruiser New Orleans, Captain Miller, had steamed up to Nanking and taken on board hundreds of foreigners, including seventy-five Americans, and records. On November 10th, bloody Chang the Second gave orders, in the old “Boxer” trick plan, for the awful massacre of Nanking. The aim was first to incite the imperial soldiery with the sight of blood, as tigers baited. On the lovely bright afternoon, the prison was opened and 200 prisoners were sent into the yamen courtyard, “to their freedom,” as they thought. There they were made to kneel in a row, while their necks were stretched out by the queue. An executioner, with a mercury weighted Taifo shortsword, hurried along the long line, using only one practised blow to sever each head. The heads were elevated on bamboo poles. The Manchu troops then tasted the blood in the belief that human blood would make them brave and invulnerable. They even dipped their coarse biscuits in the gory pools. They were then ready for anything that was merciless.

In force, Chang’s trained troops, with machine guns, swept down from Purple Mountain, Tiger fort, Lion fort and the Tartar section of the city, on the small force of republicans, and the innocent population of Nanking the Refined. Shame on the Ninth Division of Shangtung territorial troops and the old-style turbaned “braves”. Every man who had no queue; every woman who had the rebel sign of white in her apparel or hair; every man, woman or child who was a Nankingese was slaughtered without opposition, and the odious Ninth Division waded back to Tiger, Lion and Purple Hills through the bloody shambles. This was not war; not even hell; this was an insane massacre of the innocents. The few republican troops under the indomitable General Ling fought until their ammunition was spent, and then with cold steel set, they awaited the rain of bullets from machine guns across the lead swept spaces of the immense, half-built-up city. It availed nothing. Peking breathed with hope. Chang the Second was a general after the “Boxer” Manchu heart. Manchu princes—yea, even those who had visited America and England, like the dashing Prince Tsai Tao and Prince Tsai Chun, and who should have known better—had been urging massacres, and Chang the Second had apparently understood them. General Chang the Second was heartily backed up by the merciless Tartar general, Tieh Liang.

On November 11th, Amoy, the famous port of Fukien province, where American officers have been so often entertained by Admiral Sah and other Chinese admirals, was taken, the American cruiser Saratoga (the old New York of Santiago fame) and the American gunboat Quiros steaming out of the harbor so as to be non-combatants in fact and in influence. The American monitor Monterey, so as to protect foreigners, later steamed into the harbor, where she was often struck by stray bullets. On November 13th, the most remarkable thing thus far in the revolution occurred, though the impulse was not permanently fixed. Mukden, the home capital of the Manchu race, the mausoleum of their founder, and of many of their dead emperors, under the influence of Chinese immigrants, declared its independence under General Wuh Hsiang Chen, and the reform speaker of the Mukden Assembly, Wu Lun Lien. During all this turmoil, Pechili, Shansi, and Honan provinces were strongly held by Manchu and Mongol “banner” troops, but Foreign Minister Wu Ting Fang of the republicans got a note through to the American minister at Peking, asking him to deliver it to the Manchu regent, Prince Chun. The note requested the Court to abdicate, and retire to Jehol, 200 miles northeast of Peking, where they were promised positive protection, and liberal pensions. In the meantime Yuan Shih Kai returned from exile at Chang Te in Honan province to Peking, and took up the reins of power as provisional premier of a limited Manchu monarchy; began treating with the republicans, solidifying the Manchu army, and soliciting foreign loans, as the empress dowager’s strong-box no longer furnished funds. Only three out of twenty-one provinces, and three territories, were now remitting to Peking, but Peking had the mighty northern army.

On November 17th, the revolutionists under Generals Li and Hwang attacked the imperial lines at Hankau, and despite their poor equipment in machine guns and artillery, led by a regiment of Roundheads called “Dare to Die” (Pu Pa Tsze) men, commanded by Colonel Wen, who graduated from West Point in 1909, they took three of the four parallels by cold steel charges, sapper work and bomb throwing. One of the rebel shells from Wuchang punched a hole in a 2,000,000-gallon tank of oil in Hankau, and the streets were flooded two feet deep with kerosene. It was the first time that Chinese had met Chinese in scientific modern war, and it marked the entrance of China into the modern arena, where Might strikes for Right, instead of only arguing for it. China had begun to find herself. Meanwhile there was distress in Singan in the north, which city had declared for reform on October 24th. The Manchus had retaken the suburbs of the city, for it was in their sphere of control, and had begun, with their mobs, to massacre missionaries, as was expected. The China Inland Mission outside the city was attacked, and the English Baptist, Scandinavian and American missions throughout the province were struck at. Blame was put on the Mohammedans wherever possible.

Let us go down to Nanking for a moment, to see how the war is progressing. To keep Nanking and Shanghai in touch, the Americans had brought up their beautiful cruisers New Orleans and Albany, for the American Vice-consul Gilbert and the intrepid American missionaries, Doctor Macklin, President Bowen, Mr. Blackstone, Mr. Garrett and others were in the city. General Hsu of the imperialists, with the Thirty-fifth Regiment of Infantry, on November 21st, hoisted the red, white and blue flag and left the strong lines of Purple Mountain and the Tartar city to join the rebel ranks, which were being reinforced from Canton and other directions also. Bloody General Chang the Second, the imperial commander, immediately had all General Hsu’s relatives in Nanking murdered in revenge.

In far-away London, Doctor Sun Yat Sen, with an American adviser and friend, “General” Homer Lea, set sail for Shanghai on the same day. He first went to Paris, and then took the liner Martha at Marseilles for Hongkong, from which place he planned safely to reach Shanghai to complete the rebel government. On November 22nd, when the imperialists with all their foreign friendships were unable to consummate their loans, the rebels at Shanghai opened a Republic of Han Central Bank, with a capital of 5,000,000 taels. The title of the bank was the “Chung Hua”, and the first notes were dated in the 4609th year of Huang Ti (august sovereign), he being the mythical first emperor of China, and the inventor of the Chinese ideograph. The notes were printed in English on one side and entitled “The Republican China Military Bank Note”. Other notes were issued by the provincial rebels and read as follows in English and Chinese: “The Chinese Revolutionary Government promises to pay the bearer —— dollars after one year of its establishment in China on demand at the Treasury of the said government in Canton, or its agents abroad. 1st January, 1911. For President (sd.) Sun Wen.” It will be noted that the Christian calendar had now come into effect. The shops immediately took the notes at a premium, something unique in China, the land of financial discounts and chaotic exchange. Enthusiasm grew. For the first time in the history of modern China, a company of women took up arms and advanced with the lines. There were also many Red Cross corps of women, from Canton, Fuchau, Wuchang, Shanghai, etc.

We shall return to Nanking. On November 25th, by hard scraping at Canton, the rebels under General Ling brought up twelve field guns for six hours and fired on the imperial position on Tiger Hill and Lion Hill on the northwest, near the famous Ming tombs, which are outside the walls of Nanking (not to be confounded with the remainder of the Ming dynasty tombs which are at Nankou, northwest of Peking). Then 1,500 troops, led as usual by companies of queueless “Dare to Die” boys, many of whom were students in Nanking Protestant University (American), charged, and drove twice their number of imperialists from the strong lines, which were supplied with heavy Armstrong and Krupp four-point-seven and six-inch guns. Unfortunately, many shots struck the gate of the tombs, behind which the imperialists had also fortified themselves. The rebel navy now came nearer, despite the fire of Lion Hill, and prepared for the attack, as the rebel infantry drew their lines closer around the largest walled city of China. Guns were immediately brought up to breach the heavy walls and high gates and train on the Lion Hill and Tiger forts, which were within the Tartar city, and keeping the navy back.

On the left wing at Hankau the rebels were gaining successes. At an armistice, on November 24th, Yuan Shih Kai’s representatives told General Li (whom they met at the British consulate on the bund) that he had better trust the Manchus, as they could secure the hated Russian or Japanese intervention as in the old notorious days of 1896 and 1900. Li replied that the republicans had no trust any more in Manchu promises of reform or real permanent constitutionalism; that the usual relapse of the “Boxer sickness” would come! At Manila, Hongkong and Singapore, the Americans and British were preparing troops to be ready, as in 1900, to rush them to Tientsin to save the Peking legations and missionaries, if the Manchus, or Hunghutz, or Mongol brigands brought on a massacre to secure foreign intervention. Though America and Britain emphatically stand for non-intervention and non-partition of China, both these nations feared Russia and other powers which were hard to restrain. Britain’s action at this time in restraining ambitious Japan (greedy with the taste of Formosa, Korea and South Manchuria) can not be praised too highly. Wu Ting Fang, Doctor Sun and General Li of the republicans, from Shanghai, London and Wuchang respectively, issued proclamations that foreigners and missionaries were to be respected highly as the best friends of New China. In Shansi province the republicans, separated from their base, were having a hard time against the Imperial Sixth Division under General Sheng Yun, which had every advantage of succor by railway from Peking and the junction at Ching Ting. The imperialists bribed soldiers to assassinate General Wu of the republican forces operating in these northwest provinces. This was a terrible blow to reform.

On November 26th, the rebels, under General Ling Chang, attacked the strong hill forts above Nanking with determination. There was much firing of heavy guns from the river also, as the new navy of fifteen small vessels came up. Dogged charges were made across the open and up the zigzag of Purple Hill. The rebel losses were tremendous, and Chang the Second, of the imperialists, proved himself as grim a defense fighter as he was a ruthless leader of massacre. The rebel attack under General Ling Chang was brilliant and reckless. Who will sing the feats of the new Chinese arms,—yes, the Chinese, who the world said would never make soldiers, even if they had a great cause at heart. The fighting was not as magnificently solid and desperate as Pickett’s gray charge at Gettysburg, the Cuirassiers’ wild ride into the valley of death at Waterloo, Linievitch’s grim defense of Putiloff Hill, the shouting sweep of Oku’s dwarf Japanese up Nanshan Heights, or the silent plunge of Oyama’s ranks into the Liaoyang valley, or against the black Mukden lines. It was as determined, daring and brilliant, however, as any land engagement in the South African or Spanish-American Wars, and far braver and stronger than the theatrical engagements, with air-ship accessories, of the Italy-Tripoli War. The world’s critics must now change their criterions. A strong cause WILL make a strong battle anywhere the world over, no matter what the color of the soldier, or the cut or tint of his battle flag. The fighting now closed in on Nanking, the old capital of the Mings, the high-water city of the Taiping rebellion, and the rebels had a great deal to avenge, and a great deal to gain. To fail in the attack on Nanking meant a tremendous setback to the rebellion. Few reinforcements could come, for the fighting was in half a dozen provinces, and along a broken front extending from Chingtu to Hankau and Nanking, 1,000 miles, with railway transport service, foreign ammunition, money and sympathy, favoring the imperialists; and sea and river transport, and the sympathy of the British and American peoples favoring the rebels, who, of course, had no navy worth counting as yet.

The alarmed Manchu regent, Prince Chun, at Peking, now gave out his oath, in the name of the child emperor, Pu Yi (throne name, Hsuan Tung), sworn before the open heaven to God (Tien), before the Confucian ancestral tablets, and before Buddha’s image, as follows: “My policy and choice of officials have not been wise; hence the recent troubles. Fearing the fall of the sacred Manchu dynasty, I accept the advice of the National Assembly. I swear to uphold the Nineteen Constitutional Articles (demanded by the 20th Army Division at Lanchow) and organize a parliament, excluding the Manchu and Mongol nobles from administrative posts. The heavenly spirits of your forefathers will see and understand.” They understood! The educated Chinese of the central and southern provinces laughed; they had heard the like before, and besides, this oath was taken under compulsion of the Army League. The new rebel government in Kwangtung province, under Wu Hon Man, its president, was as yet unable to police the notorious pirate waters of the Si Kiang (West River), running far up country from Canton, and the large British tonnage, though armed, suffered. Chief Officer Nicholson, of the steamer Shui On, was killed in a private attack at Junction Creek on November 30th, which infuriated British Hongkong, which was holding its gunboats in leash. The large Chinese tonnage in fear tied up to the wharves and bund of Canton and the riverine ports. A trick of the West River pirates was to anchor a deserted stoneboat across the channel, and as the steamer slowed up, the snake boats and motor launches of the pirates dashed alongside from the creeks and cane-brakes. The most daring of these brigand chiefs was the notorious Luk, from whom we shall hear later. Everywhere else, however, as we have shown, for instance at Fuchau, the republicans were splendidly protecting foreign traders and missionaries.

I have said that the revolutionists’ line was too long to defend, with two principal sieges taking place three hundred miles apart. Peking understood this, and while the rebels reinforced their attack on the right flank at Nanking, the imperialists brought down reinforcements by railway to General Feng Kwo Chang, at Hankau, who at once attacked the rebel left flank in force, aiming to cripple the rebels by taking back the essential Hanyang arsenal. Hei Shan, Meit Zu and Tortoise forts were taken by machine and field gun fire and charges, and General Li’s rebel ranks fell back under severe loss. The retreating ranks didn’t carry their bird cages with them as the gentlemen soldiers of Chifu did in the China-Japan War of 1894! General Feng’s and General Wong’s imperialist troops, after breaking through the Tung Chi (East Messenger) gate and looting, now put the torch to the rest of Hankau, destroying the homes of a million people, and burning a hundred million dollars’ worth of property. Such an uncalled for, accursed outrage, such an unjustifiable act of wholesale arson against non-combatants has never been known. What would history have said had the Germans burned Paris, the British, Pretoria or the Americans, Manila? What should be said when the Manchu imperialists burned Hankau? Why didn’t they rather sell its tiles, its silk, its oils, its mountains of tea? They admitted that they needed money. At least there would have been no world’s loss of property. Hankau belonged to the world as much as to China. The Manchu must yet answer for this arson, for arson and murder are unjustifiable world crimes. Arson makes it harder and costlier for an American, a Briton, a German, a Frenchman, to live, as the wave of cost rolls on, as much as it makes it harder for the Chinese to live. In these days of world conservation, no nation should be allowed to put the firebrand to property because men are fighting or arguing over an idea. Shame on the sack and burning of Hankau by the Manchus. The British, Americans, volunteers and jackies, and other foreigners on the long bund, heaped up breastworks of even rice bags, and swept the riverside and race track on either flank in defense of the palatial foreign concessions. Here a blue-jacket, there a marine, and between an ununiformed volunteer clerk, the boys shouldered their Springfields, Lee-Enfields and Mausers, and held brave guard at the thinnest part of the long-stretched line of the white man’s empire of influence and trade.

On the same day the rebels were doing better on the right flank at Nanking, despite their long front of fifteen miles wide. The Ta Ping Men (North) gate of the city, and Tiger Hill fort within the walls were bombarded, and General Ling brought up the rebel guns to bombard General Chang the Second, who had contracted his lines to Purple, Lion, Tiger and Pei Che Kao forts in the northeast of the city, as far away as possible from the rebel fleet, part of which had to be recalled to Wuchang to assist General Li in his extremity. The imperialists held the strong Nan Men gate in the south of the city, and the Chao Yang fort at the east gate, which was fortified with two six-inch, two four-point-seven, and two three-inch guns, as well as Maxims, surely a deadly armament. In wise patience America and Britain still held their troops at Manila and Hongkong, respectively, but Japan was allowed, on the 26th of November, to rush 1,000 more legation and railway guards to Tientsin, and the railway guards along the Japanese railways in Manchuria were reinforced far beyond international conventions. Captain Sowerby, with the newly organized Foreign Frontier Guards, started from Peking to help the harassed missionaries who were being murdered in Singan and Taiyuen in the north. This astonishing expedition was remarkable for its intrepidity and its success. Within a month and a half Captain Sowerby’s men had gone from Taiyuen to Singan, gathered together forty missionaries, and following the course of the Wei and Yellow Rivers through the famous Tongkwan pass, brought his charges safely to Honan City on the Honan railway, from which place they could easily reach Tientsin. Lies began to spread like wildfire. Pirates committed atrocities along the West River section of Kwangtung province, and the Manchus and their sympathizers blamed it on the ineffective rebel organization of Canton. In the north, Hunghutz, Mongol and Boxer brigands murdered missionaries, rebels and non-combatants, and the republican sympathizers blamed it on the ineffective Manchu government. This is certain: the rebels desperately disliked foreign intervention, and only pleaded for time to win and organize, while the Manchus saw that, if driven to the last wall, massacre and lawlessness would help the retention of the dynasty by causing foreign interventions; and the Manchus were willing to lose all Manchuria to Japan and all Mongolia and Turkestan to Russia, to bring this about. The reader will note that none of the many old generals has appeared on the imperial side, as the battles narrowed down to engagements with modern weapons of precision and power, requiring generals trained in modern war. Generals Li and Hwang, of the rebels, opposed Generals Feng and Wong at Hankau, and Generals Ling and Hsu opposed Generals Chang and Tieh of the imperialists at Nanking. More foreign officers, especially Japanese and Germans incognito, served in the loyalist ranks than in the rebel ranks, and German ammunition and guns were freely served to the imperialists. After the battle of Hanyang, two Germans were found among the imperialists’ dead, and two of the imperialists’ wounded were Germans, one of them a colonel in the German army. The Japanese trusts, the princes of the Choshiu and Satsuma clans, who control the House of Peers and the Genro Council, and thus run the government by veto, did not want a republic in China. They feared it would bring about the control of the budget by the House of Representatives and real popular government in Japan, which country is now absolutely controlled by the aristocracy; for the Japanese Diet is no more representative of the overtaxed people than is the Russian Duma. They feared also that if the Chinese pope-emperor could fall, so could the Japanese pope-emperor who was no more holy. The German syndicates were also anxious to maintain their confiscatory privileges in Shangtung province, which were obtained from the Manchus. Dictator Yuan always preferred German instructors in his Pechili, Honan and Shangtung armies.

On November 27th, Yuan Shih Kai, the premier-dictator at Peking, had poured out the treasures of the Manchu empress dowager’s private chest, and well paid and well armed troops were rushed to Hankau. Generals Feng and Wong Chou Yuen had 30,000 modern drilled and equipped men, and the divisions were heavily supplied with precise artillery. Hankau City and Hanyang arsenal across the river were bombarded mercilessly, and the imperialists of Wong’s bloody third division, under cover of this artillery practise, crossed the Han River thirty miles up and flanked the left wing of the rebels, whose old Armstrong artillery, using percussion shells, was no match for the modern three and four-inch guns of the imperialists, who had the arsenals of the north and the Germans at Kiaochou to draw on. Neither was the rebel infantry equal, as half of their regiments had been drawn back to Nanking, 400 miles away, by river. The best the rebels could do was to oppose 15,000 men, with weak artillery, to 30,000 excellently equipped imperialists. The result was that the all-important Hanyang arsenal and world-wide known iron works were lost, and Generals Li and Hwang Hing had to retreat to Wuchang, the rebel capital across the Yangtze River, which is a difficult place to defend, as its flanks and rear are vulnerable. The result of this great reverse was that the lukewarm viceroys in the northern provinces, who had gone over to the rebels’ cause in the first flush of success, began to declare again for the Manchus. Shangtung province went back, and Yuan Shih Kai by the telegraph on this day got his own province of Honan to return to the imperial fold. Both of these are northern provinces. Premier Yuan now began rushing reinforcements down the Grand Canal and railway to Yangchow and Pukow, nearly opposite Nanking, so as to succor redoubtable General Chang the Second at Nanking, and enable him to again occupy Tiger fort. General Feng came over from Hankau to advise Chang. The plan was, by taking back the Hankau cities and Nanking, to turn both the left and right flanks of the revolutionists, rush their capital of Wuchang, and crumple up the rebellion in Shanghai. Everything in equipment, transportation, foreign men, money and artillery favored the imperialists. Everything in daring and enthusiasm favored the rebels, whose American-trained students recited the dictum of Herodotus on republicanism: “The Athenians, when governed by tyrants, were superior in war to none of their neighbors, but when freed from tyrants, became by far the first. This then shows that as long as they were oppressed they purposely acted as cowards, as laboring for a master, but when they were free every man was zealous to labor for the State.”

There was one thing the rebels were weak or uncertain in. If they destroyed China’s religion of aristocracy and king worship, what would they give in its place? Would they give Christianity (their leaders, Doctor Sun and General Li, being Christians), and a permanent satisfaction with the rule of a native president and congress over twenty-one provincial presidents and assemblies? It was a mighty task,—the greatest the world has known,—and few of the old viceroys and Manchuized Chinese literati of the Hanlin were at heart prepared for its radical solution. True, the rebels could staff the twenty-one provinces with advanced Kwangtung, Szechuen, Hupeh, Hunan and Kiangsu province men, but that was not republican home rule.

The aim and difficulty of the rebels was to maintain the new ideas against reverses in the provinces, which had developed few modern thinkers among the officials, who, like the troops, were looking for salary first and country afterward. Yuan, the premier-dictator, who had weighed it all up in Honan, said to himself, according to some southern critics: “Give me money enough for 100,000 splendid, modern-drilled northern men, and give me trunk railways. I’ll find men who will fight for whichever side pays their wages; we must have order, which is civilization’s first law.” Yuan was a believer in that truism that the radical reformers do all the work, and bear all the risk of reform, and that the “standpatters”, the moderate progressives and reactionaries, enjoy all the fruit and political offices. Differently from Sun, Yuan wanted office first and influence afterward. He was now active in soliciting foreign loans, securing $1,000,000 from Russia and Belgium, and the promise of $30,000,000 from Russia, Belgium and Japan, these being the pro-Manchu powers, while America and Britain represented pro-Chinese sympathies. The rebels were just as active in soliciting private subscriptions in America and the Straits Settlements, and 70 per cent. of the Chinese abroad sent a quarter of their fortunes to Sun Yat Sen and Wu Ting Fang at Shanghai for the republican cause.

However, it must be admitted that when the Manchus recruited Yuan Shih Kai, the Honanese, they secured a tower of strength, another Li Hung Chang, to a large degree a dictator, a believer in money, troops, quick trial by drumhead, and decapitation, a good servant of any master who would steadily employ him; a believer in dynasties more than peoples, a modern progressive but not an idealist or natural republican, a man who hated the words “turbulent liberty”, but who loved the word “order”; a statesman more like Diaz, Bismarck or Richelieu than like Washington or Lincoln. He had never traveled abroad like thousands of other Chinese officials. He could not speak or read English, and so knew little of the great documents of liberty and idealism in their first fire of the original. He knew that he was smashing rapid progress for the second time, just as he had gone against the reform Manchu emperor, Kwang Hsu, and the palace reformers from Canton: Kang Yu Wei, Liang Chi Choa, etc., in 1898, and joined the reactionary “Boxer” dowager empress, Tse Hsi. He feared the rebel sympathizers might assassinate him, and he rode as dictator about Peking with a cavalry escort. His headquarters were in the modern Wai Wu Pu Building, which is fitted with steam heat, elevators, electric light, etc. There he gave regular interviews to the foreign press representatives, in emulation of the methods long practised by Sunyacius and Wu Ting Fang at Shanghai. He made the Manchus weak, too, for he matched their troops at Peking with his old Shangtung and Honan territorial troops, man for man. He also sent the turbulent, stubborn twentieth division, shorn of its commander, Chang, far to the eastward. The majority of the National Assembly had fled, and the Manchu princes would not come out of their bedrooms. If the rebels were to win now, they must produce even a stronger man than Yuan. Who was that man; where was he in the making?

It is quite orthodox not to despair ever of immemorial China, and to expect a great man to arise when politics is at its worst, for Confucius arose from the rivalry of sixteen states, and he formulated his political philosophy when he was a persecuted exile from his own state of Lu. When the republicans were most dejected, that great republican, the American Methodist bishop, J. W. Bashford, of Shanghai, in season and out of season, unofficially beseeched them to quit themselves like men. So large-hearted a man could not stand by and see men who were fighting for liberty droop at their guns. He cheered them; he talked to their students; he gave megaphone interviews to the world press and supported the discouraged propaganda, fearing naught the criticism which arose. He was a missionary, but more than that, he was a man, and an American. Some British missionaries, too, came in for criticism because they could not refrain from whispering in the ear of liberty the Cromwellian encouragement: “Be of good cheer.”

By November 29th the lack of money was thinning the lines of the rebel forces, and Dictator Yuan, at Peking, was growing in strength with small foreign loans and arms from Russia, Japan and Germany. The rebels, at Wu Ting Fang’s suggestion, in desperation, threatened to boycott the commerce of any nation making loans to the Manchu government, and a German compradore was shot down at Hankau as he was in the act of delivering arms over to the imperialists. The Manchu Tsai princes sold their art treasures for arms. The rebels melted the idols of the nation to make coin. In accord with the protocol of 1901, America now formally offered the Peking government 2,500 troops to assist in keeping the railway from Peking to Tientsin open to the sea. The Japanese had already landed their quota of this foreign force. Naturally the rebels looked on this landing of foreign troops in the Manchu section of the country as, to a degree, foreign aid to the Manchus, as it increased their prestige and sources of advice in the north. More subtle forces than those of arms began to work now on some of the rebel leaders, and the cause lapsed into darker days because of the lack of money. Dictator Yuan, in Peking, was exultant, and said to one member of the legations: “I give the rebellion eight more days to live; I expect to have 100,000 modern troops and a railway.” Professor E. H. Parker, the eminent sinologue, now of Manchester University, England, when a British consul in Korea, wrote of “Yuan’s Machiavellian character” in his book, John Chinaman. Even some of the Manchus agreed in the cry of the rebels: “Yuan is making himself dictator; he may seek the throne; he may split off Northern China; Peking is too near Russian Siberia.” He had sent the Manchu troops away from Peking, and gathered his old divisions (like Cæsar with his Thirteenth Legion) of Shangtung and Honan troops around him.

Yuan appealed to the provinces to send delegates to Peking to discuss a constitution, but the rebel provinces replied: “No National Assembly can discuss constitutional government with freedom while your troops, pounding their rifle stocks, stand at the door; remember the Parliaments of King Charles.” The rebels cried: “If Yuan and the Manchus win now, it is foreign money that does it. Why can’t we get foreign money; we’re the overwhelming majority of the people.” Some of the foreign governments replied: “We are only interested in trade and order; we can’t wait for you to fight this out, and possibly kill some of our missionaries; you must win quickly or we’ll stand by the powers that be.” The rebels replied: “Cromwell and Washington, Thiers and Grant didn’t win quickly, and if you let us lose now, we’ll fight it out again. You can’t withstand the constitutional rights of 400 million people for the sake of a dynasty of raiders, who seized and entrenched their throne with five million subsidized cavalrymen, who have now grown effete by subsidy. We are opposed to entrenched privilege just as much as you are. In Roosevelt’s words: ‘The land has got to be as good for all of us as it is for some of us.’ These minority Manchus must cease to usurp office, pensions, privileges and concession granting. We of the south are taxed without representation. If America could go to war with this as a cause, why can’t we?”

Yuan, under certain foreign advice, planned to throw a bridge across the Yangtze River at Hankau, and get his railway down into the heart of the southern rebel provinces. He believed in quick facilities for throwing his modern troops against uprisings, for his railway from Peking to Hankau had won him the present turn in the tide of affairs by enabling him to flank the long rebel lines. Oh! at this time, some cried, for an emperor warrior of the real Chinese, a descendant of the Mings; a descendant of the house of Confucius (the Duke Kungs); or a Washington-like president of a Chinese republic, who could get foreign loans. This was the cry that was arising against the return of the Manchu ghost, and the ominous shadow of a dictator. However, something had been won. The agitation and the battles had taught the sweet themes of deathless liberty and a new Chinese nationalism to thousands who had been supine, provincial, or anarchistic in their despair. It was recalled that Tau Sze Tung, the reformer and son of a Hupeh governor, who was beheaded in 1898, said on his way to the place of execution: “Martyrdom must always precede revolution; shall I not be the first martyr?” Liberty is never defeated, for each time she falls she makes her conqueror concede something, for she only falls to her knees and rises again. The reactionary empress dowager, Tse Hsi, after her victory in 1898, conceded reforms from 1900 to 1908, and it would be so with her successors, perhaps, after this lesson of protest. A plan was laid by some foreign bankers, and some Chinese, that if the republican government was not a success, a direct descendant of Confucius, one Kung, an American Presbyterian Christian of Shangtung province, would be backed for the throne in the hope that the Chinese race would flock to his banner.

On November 28th, 29th and 30th, the rebels, under Generals Hsu and Ling, made a master effort on their right wing, for which purpose they had weakened their left wing, allowing the two Hankau cities to go. The Canton bomb throwing levies and artillerymen went into battle singing this new hymn to Liberty, which is certainly rugged poetry of merit:

“Freedom will work on this earth,
Great as a giant rising to the skies,
Come, Liberty, because of the black hell of our slavery,
Come enlighten us with a ray of thy sun.

“Behold the woes of our fatherland.
Other men are becoming all kings.
Can we forget what our people are suffering?
China the Great is as an immense desert.

“We are working to open a new age in China;
All real men are calling for a new heaven and a new earth.
May the soul of the people rise as high as Kwangtung’s highest peak (Nan Mountain);
Spirit of Freedom, lead, protect us.”

Nanking was attached in force. The American navy withdrew, while the small rebel navy of fifteen vessels, under the protection of captured forts holding back free play of the Lion fort guns, moved up within range to support the wide rebel attack of fifteen miles frontage. It will be remembered that General Chang the Second, of the imperialists, held some of the peaks of Purple Hill outside the northeast walls, and Yuwatei fort on the south, and nearly all the city. The rebels took the Tiger Hill fort and four of the northwest gates and forts, after bombardment by the Cantonese, sapping, and a spirited rush. Then Purple Hill and Yuwatei forts were bombarded and rushed after a terrific engagement, the imperialists, under Generals Chang and Tieh, making a last stubborn stand behind the ninety-foot high and thirty-foot thick walls of the vast city. The scene was terrible to view. Clouds of cannon smoke, lighted by terrific flashes of gun fire, made the night of November 30th memorable. The revolutionists, practising Wolfe’s strategy before Quebec was taken, by a secret path, rushed up a peak of Purple Mountain, above the imperial position, and shelled the imperial park of guns. Then in the night a charge, led by Colonel Wen, was made by the “Dare to Die” picked brigade, who carried hand bombs and swords. A wild retreat followed down the mountain. Even boys fought with the greatest bravery. The dying down of the terrific cannonade in the south meant that the republicans had rushed the Nan Men fort, and an explosion showed that they had successfully blown it up. Just as daylight broke, the strong Chao Yang, Tiger and Lion forts were again rushed and taken. The rebels were bitter, and there was great slaughter of the imperialists in revenge for General Chang’s merciless massacre of innocents when he declared a state of war at the beginning of the month. Great lawlessness overspread the land, the rebels as well as the imperialists being unable to establish a police force, while they fought out the reform questions. Even in British Hongkong, where 500,000 Chinese are ruled by 5,000 British, the authorities had to institute the public whipping of offenders, so as to keep disorder on the part of the lawless intimidated. Complaint increased along the Yangtze valley that the Germans were supplying arms to the imperialists at Hankau, as well as in the northern provinces, from their colony base of Kiaochou. Bitter complaint was also made that Baron Cottu was the go-between in asking Russia, France and Belgium for a $30,000,000 loan for the Manchus and Yuan Shih Kai, which would give the Russo-Asiatique Bank the same intrusive excuses that Russia availed of in 1898. The rebels were weak in Shensi province, and American missionaries were killed by the mob in Singan. Dictator Yuan threw the Sixth Division from Honan into Shensi to take the province back.

On Saturday, December 2nd, at ten o’clock, a memorable scene occurred at Nanking. General Chang the Second escaped across the Yangtze River through the Ta Ping gate on the morning of December 1st to Pukow, the northern railway terminus, after planting a mine under the Tartar General’s yamen, which was to be blown when the rebel General Hsu was caught in the trap at the capitulation. He also secreted eighteen other mines in the Tartar city, which had therefore to be burned so as to make the explosion safe. General Chao succeeded in command of the imperialists. The investiture was complete, and the situation was now hopeless for the defenders. Twelve brave Americans had remained on the scene, the great missionaries, Doctor Macklin, Mr. Garrett, Doctor Blackstone, President A. J. Bowen, of Nanking University, and others, and the vice-consul, Mr. Gilbert, who dramatically, with field glasses, watched the bombardment from a high graveyard within the city. They believed in saving blood (“Chiu Ming,” as the Chinese say), much provocation for revenge as there was on the side of General Hsu’s victorious men. They pleaded with Hsu for the first humanitarian surrender in Chinese civil war, as a thrilling example for all time that Chinese revolutionists, like George Washington’s and Oliver Cromwell’s men, were patriots and gentlemen at heart, and not mere feudists fighting under the name of a great cause.

General Hsu, with the advice of Generals Ling, Li and Hwang, and Foreign Minister Wu Ting Fang, rose to the high level. He agreed to a surrender with honors, even guaranteeing the life of the notorious murderer of non-combatants, General Chang the Second. The negotiations took place under the guns of historic Purple Hill, while the panting troops held enthusiasm in control. Behind the walls the imperialists breathed hard, and the great populace of shopkeepers eagerly waited and watched the republican sun flags on Purple Mountain. Hurrah! a shout went up that lives would be guaranteed (“Chiu Ming”); yes, honor, too! Fling open the pounded, riddled iron “Great Peace” gate! The steel muzzles of the hot Armstrongs, the deadly four-point-sevens, the spitting Rexer rapid fire and three-inch Krupp guns on Purple, Lion and Tiger Hills, held their smoky breath like good hounds in leash, but straining. The generals and captains marked time; the troops craned their heads; the Cantonese artillery hitched up the limbers to the gun carriages. The American missionaries thanked God and led on the way of peace for a China that would never forget the moving scene, where forgiveness towered over revenge. Here they come, General Chao riding ahead of the doughty Shangtung territorials with their yellow dragon flags flying for the last time, and the bloody turbaned men of escaped Chang’s army. Ground arms and mark time! The victorious rebels kept their places, and under the fluttering red, white and blue sun flags of the new republic, looked on at the impressive acts. The great column of imperialists deployed with music playing, saluted and piled their arms before the feet of the victors, General Hsu sitting on horseback where the pacificators stood. Sun flags and white flags fluttered everywhere as the sign of rebel dominance. Who are these who now come up with reversed arms? They do not wear the German peaked caps, and the khaki uniform of modern troops, but the old turban and slovenly blue uniform of the ancient troops of China. They are Chang’s bloody old-style warriors, 1,000 of them, wearing white bands in deep contrition and as a seal of their lives from massacre. They, too, salute Hsu, the giver of their lives, some of them giving the unmilitary kotow instead of the modern salute. A cheer went up, the bands playing with greater spirit. Hold open the “Great Peace” gate! Victorious Generals Hsu and Ling, and their men, they of a hundred cold steel and bomb charges, blowing hot the trumpets of victory, and led by the shaven heroes, the “Dare to Die” regiment of immortal night charges, are on the ringing, clanging march for the ancient Ming city, which they have conquered, Nanking the cultured; Nanking the proud capital of capitals; Nanking where was the yamen of the illustrious Viceroy Liu Kun Yih; Nanking of the Taipings, and Nanking of the world’s widest republic! A friendly hand had touched off the mine under the Tartar general’s yamen, and the eighteen other dastardly mines, so that the victors should not be blown up treacherously in the crowning hour of their rejoicing. White flags flutter everywhere. Once the sign of death in China, they are now the sign of peace in China, as well as in the rest of the world. A shout of welcome goes up from the populace, who from the beginning, like all the rest of the central and southern provinces, have been in sympathy with the revolution. Generals Hsu, Ling and Hwang at Nanking then have indeed balanced for the rebels the imperialist victory at Hanyang won by General Feng. The rebels lost their left wing, which was turned. The imperialists have also now lost their left wing, which has been thus crumpled up at Nanking. New moves must now be made on the checker-board by Dictator Yuan at Peking.

Governor Chan Kwang Ming and President Wu Hon Man, of the Canton Assembly, sent out their torpedo-destroyers Wu Ying and Wupang, and with the British gunboats Robin, Sandpiper and Moorhen from Hongkong, and the American gunboat Callao, attacked the West River pirates, and patrolled that romantic river as far as the shadow of Wuchow Pagoda, 220 miles of varied temples, islands, gorges, reaches and river peaks. Mercantile vessels steamed up two by two, their wheel-houses sheathed with steel, their gun racks full, the barred hatches, which let air in but no smuggled pirates out, nailed down on the ’tween decks, a guard at each hatch and over each port, and double quartermasters manning the wheel. Commerce had gone back to medieval conditions, and it was exciting. Rich compradores of Hongkong, like Chan Kang Yu, of Douglas, Lapraik and Company, contributed 2,000 uniforms and outfits to equip a regiment of President Wu’s provincial troops. Part of the rebel navy now made a four-hundred-mile dash at forced draught to Wuchang and Hanyang, from Shanghai, to try to keep the successful right wing of the imperialists from crossing to the rebels’ temporary capital. If the gunboats could keep the loyalists engaged at Hanyang, it was not impossible that the rebels, if greatly reinforced from Canton, could turn the flank and strike the loyalists’ supply railway in the rear.

On December 5, 1911, new moves were made at Peking. Prince Chun, the regent father of the baby Emperor Pu Yi (his real and not his throne name), resigned in favor of two co-regents, one a Manchu, Prince Tsai Su, and the other a Chinese, Hsu Shao Ching. This was a buffer move to save the throne from the republican demands. For the first time in the three hundred years’ history of the Manchu dynasty, a Chinese was thus brought to share the regent’s power. Prince Tsai Su had been a grand councilor in the old days; and when a national assembly was granted he was put in as its president by Manchu power. Later he was president of the Navy Board, and president of the Wai Wu Pu (Foreign Board). He is a moderate progressive, a Manchu of the Manchus and related to the emperor. Hsu Shao Ching, a Pechili Chinese, is well known as a former minister to Russia and Germany, and the first president of the Chinese Eastern Railway. He was a grand councilor in the old days, a viceroy of Manchuria, and president of the Railway Board (Yu Chuan Pu) in charge of loans. He has visited America. The appointment of this republican general-in-chief was, of course, mere flattery, and he did not serve.

Mortuary statues near tombs of the last native Chinese dynasty, the Ming, near Nanking. The crowning battle of the revolution swept over this hillside.

American, French and British gunboats protecting foreigners at Shameen Island, Canton, during revolution, 1911–12. In foreground, wupan, or boat of “five boards.” Note wide awnings required on gunboats. The awnings on second gunboat (British) were riddled by bullets of contesting forces.

The famous gate giving entrance to the native city, Tientsin. Reform in schools, industries and army really started in this city under the viceroyships of Li Hung Chang and Yuan Shih Kai, and the taotaiship of Tang Shao Yi.

These moves on the recommendation of Dictator Yuan, who was an old enemy of Regent Chun, who exiled him, did not satisfy the rebels, who named Nanking as their permanent capital, called for delegates from all the rebel provinces, and pressed on the war. “The name is changed at Peking, but it is the same old game,” they said. A republican loan of ten million taels, bearing twelve per cent. interest, and sold at about eighty per cent. of face value, was sought at Shanghai, Wu Ting Fang seeking American subscriptions especially, for he kept reminding Americans: “You are the mother of republics; the greatest republic, as we will be the largest republic.” Wu also wired prominent American and British financiers and their governments, pleading that loans should not be made to the Manchu government, and respectfully warning that: “The republican rebels would remember if loans were made to fight their cause.” This really had a deterrent influence, for Americans and Britons were able to influence France to suspend financial action for a while. The American-educated Tang Shao Yi, Dictator Yuan’s chief assistant, now went to the rebel headquarters at Wuchang and Shanghai to interview General Li, Minister Wu and General Hsu regarding peace, and the rebels held sessions of delegates from the Yangtze, southern and western provinces. Kwangtung province began its republican organization, and sent up another quota of 3,000 modern troops from Canton, added to 10,000 previously sent, to reinforce General Li, who stood marking time at Wuchang against General Feng of the imperialists at Hanyang.

By this time the fine Tyne-built, gray Chinese cruiser Hai Chi, which sailed from New York in October, arrived at Shanghai, and amid wild rejoicing, such as only the southern Chinese can express, ran down the triangular yellow dragon and hoisted the square tri-color sun flag of the republican revolution. She was at once ordered to report at the arsenal with her heavy load of ammunition, which was a godsend to the revolutionists. This cruiser was the best known abroad of Chinese war vessels, and at once became the flagship of the rebel navy. She is armed with two eight-inch, and ten four-point-seven guns. On December 14th, Doctor Sun Yat Sen (Sunyacius), with the American, Homer Lea, arrived safely at Penang, Straits Settlements, a hotbed of Chinese reform, which has from time to time sheltered all the reformers like Sun, Kang, etc., since the coup d’état in 1898. The rich foreignized Cantonese owners of tin mines have been loyal to reform from the beginning. When Sun arrived at Singapore on December 16th, a band of Chinese girls met him, each waving the tri-color of the revolution and of the emancipation of Chinese womanhood, and singing the Chinese Marseillaise, Chung Kwan. The Chinese wore no queues, and the caricatures which they distributed showed the pig, the dog, the monkey and the Manchu as all belonging to the races which wear queues! Who will say that the Chinese are not distinguished for humor! I have for years been trying to point out this quality in them.

The first wave of the revolution, which had died down somewhat by the Hankau defeat, had rolled on even into far mountainous Tibet, and Gyangze, a walled and fortified town on the trade route between Lhasa and Darjeeling, fell before the revolutionists on December 14th. Gyangze will be remembered for the stand it made against Sir Francis Younghusband’s brilliant campaign in 1904 to open up the way from India to Lhasa, and also for the operations in its neighborhood by General Chao Ehr Feng, who drove the sacred plotting Dalai Lama for the first time out of China into India in the startling campaign of 1910.

During this week the Yangtze River for six hundred miles presented a remarkable scene, as Tang Shao Yi, the emissary of Dictator Yuan, sailed down to Shanghai to discuss peace terms with the revolutionists at the Town Hall at Shanghai, which was guarded by British, Sikh and other troops of the international settlement. At Hankau the last yellow dragon flag of the imperialists was seen, as the imperial legates, Tang Shao Yi, Yen Shih Si and Yang Shih Chih, on the steamer Tung Ting, sailed between the new navy of the rebels on patrol of the great river, which was now their six hundred miles of front. The fine cruiser Hai Chi, with New York Chinese among the crew, the companion cruisers Hai Yung and Hai Sun, the gunboats Kwang Kang, Kwang Poa, On Nam, etc., headed the republican fleet, which flew the red, white and blue sun flag. The armistice was not kept in Shansi or Shensi provinces by the imperialist general, Sheng Yun. When the pourparler opened, the six powers, at America’s suggestion, informed Wu and Tang that they would appreciate a settlement, because neither side seemed to be able to keep down piracy, it being as bad along the Liao River in the north as along the Si valley in the distant south. It will be recalled that the Manchus of Shansi province early in the campaign assassinated the great rebel general, Wu Lu Cheng. It was now rumored that the Chinese had induced Tuan Fang’s troops in the same province to murder that noble Manchu, who was the greatest friend the foreigners had among the Manchu officials in the dark “Boxer” days of 1900. Tuan had been governor of Pechili and Szechuen provinces, head of the railway development in the Yangtze basin, and above all head of the famous constitutional committee (Hsien Cheng Pien Cha Kuan), which, in 1906, went abroad to study foreign parliaments and congresses. He was the noblest of the Manchus, a repetition in character of Prince Kung of Victorian days, and he died like a modern hero. “Kneel and be decapitated,” his troops demanded. “You’ll shoot or cut me down where I stand,” he declared. Individual virtue does not belong exclusively to any organization.

The rebels went on with their work in calling up troops from Premier Wu Hon Man at Canton, and in equipping aeroplanes, run by Americanized Chinese, for a possible air attack on Peking, if the peace conference should break up in failure, and Hankau could be won back. The missionaries agreed to flee to the Methodist compound which adjoined the legation quarter in the Tartar city of Peking, on a signal being given by rocket. The foreigners in the northern provinces were dubious that a republican government could be established, but it must be remembered that many of these foreigners were more surprised than the rest of the world that the reformers ever shouldered arms for reform and declared for a republic on October 10, 1911. The foreigners of the northern provinces were accordingly at first largely in sympathy with the retention of the Manchu, under a limited monarchy system, and the election of Yuan as premier. Many of the foreigners of Peking and Tientsin tried to impose their views upon the foreigners of Shanghai and Hongkong, who naturally knew more about the reform and republican movement in China, for the initial reformers of China all came from Canton, Penang, Manila and Shanghai, where they were influenced by British Hongkong, Singapore and America. The income of the imperial authority had been levied mainly on the southern provinces, which had least representation on the Peking Boards (Pus) since the coup d’état of 1898. Taxation again without representation! The doubt in the minds of the reformers was that if the Manchu was retained, he might revert to his old faults of by turns oppressing China, and by turns looting it, for certain foreign concessionaires. True, said some, peace could be fixed up now, and matters fought out again, if faith was not kept. But, said others, by that time certain foreigners will have given Yuan Shih Kai an army of forty divisions with a fortified base at Peking in touch with the Russian railway, a navy of battleships, 2,500 miles of new flanking railways down into the south, and a full exchequer box, while the new parliaments may be without a Cromwell, a Pym, a Hampden, a Jefferson, a Franklin, a Lincoln. It was a great question, the largest any nation has ever handled, and the one answer was: “Well, then, develop your Cromwells, Pyms, Hampdens, Jeffersons, Franklins, Lincolns, out of such timber as you have in Sun, Wu, Kang, Li, etc., and let us have peace.”

There are two things that the writer believes and prays for, viz.: that China will remain a republic, and will become a republic based on the worship of Christ and the study of the Christian’s Bible. Such a wonderful nation of four hundred millions, preserved from the immemorial past as one people, must have been preserved for some providential purpose, to put irresistible might behind certain altruistic world ideas. Are those ideas the giving of a truer republicanism, and a more unselfish Christianity than we have exemplified, to mankind? Japan made one irremediable and lamentable mistake; she has ignored the fact that the strength of the West is not in fleets, but in Bible knowledge, certain trusts and occasional wars notwithstanding. It will be remembered that the secretary of the Board of Rites, Wang Chao, recommended to the reform emperor, Kwang Hsu, in 1898, that Christianity should be named as the state religion. President Sun and General Li of the republicans are, as I have said before, a Congregationalist and an Episcopalian.

As the friendly note from the six powers to the imperialists and revolutionists at Shanghai was, at America’s and Britain’s suggestion, identical, it was virtually a tentative recognition by the powers of the belligerents, which happy result the latter had been trying to obtain at Minister Wu’s urgency for over two months. Yuan threatened to fight if a republic was insisted on, and he seized a great part of the Manchu hoards at Peking and Tientsin, under the name of a forced loan. He needed two million dollars a month to pay the Manchu and northern bannermen. Four of the powers were in favor of lending Yuan money, but the rebels said, if you don’t also lend us money, we will boycott your trade in the central and southern provinces, and you know that most of the foreign trade emanates from Southern China, that is, your tea and silk come from that section, and your exports go there in exchange. If you want to know what a trade boycott by us means, ask the Japanese, who will recall the “Tatsu Maru” incident. The rebels also threatened that if loans were made by foreigners to the imperialists, and the rebels were successful, the latter would repudiate these loans. This was the most brilliant move to date of the republican diplomacy. The rebels now made a surprising and broad-minded move. They wanted to save bloodshed. They knew that a Paul converted had been made out of a stubborn Saul unconverted; that some reformers were in their day stanch “standpat machine” men! They offered Yuan the presidency of a republic, with Sunyacius as vice-president possibly, and Wu as a possible foreign minister, until real elective assemblies could form parties, and elect their nominees. Yuan’s emissary at the Shanghai Conference, Tang Shao Yi, was impressed with the fact that Yuan and others in North China had no idea how strongly the republican idea had seized on the rebel provinces. Tang, it will be remembered, is a graduate of an American university, and he is even more progressive than his patron, Yuan. In making overtures to Yuan, Sunyacius and Wu of the rebels were showing that they were strong and calm diplomats, who could waive a detail to win a general cause. Recent Occidental politics exhibit no such example of the suppression of factiousness. Wu, however, did not hesitate a minute to tell the six powers that if they loaned money to the north, or interfered, they would only prolong the war indefinitely.

On December 21, 1911, the line-up was as follows. Yuan, three of the powers and some of the world’s financial syndicates, in favor of a monarchy or war, with a loan to the north, arrayed against the republicans. Wu, ever persistent in demanding a republic, or renewing the war, with a trade boycott in the southern and central provinces, against any foreign nation that loaned the north money. Some of the American journals, surprisingly, opposed the republic. For instance, on the very day that Doctor Sunyacius was named president, the New York Outlook (December 30, 1911), with snap judgment, stated that a Chinese republic could, would and should not be set up at present, and further that “Americans would do well to throw all their influence on the side of a constitutional monarchy”. Nine-tenths of the Outlook’s readers doubtless thought that if Homer could sometimes nod, such surprising retrogressive words as these might be forgiven the generally progressive Outlook. Similarly in England, the large London house of Montagu, which has been prominent in very profitable railway loans to China under the Manchu régime, issued a circular stating its “satisfaction” when the republicans lost Hankau to General Feng, under atrocious circumstances of unforgivable massacre and unnecessary arson. Memoria longa, lingua brevis! Some of Britain’s diplomatic force, arguing like the reactionaries of George the Third’s day, said that they favored a monarchy because India might want a greater share in self-government than she had, forgetting that a wide-awake and fully developed India meant greater trade for Britain. Three monarchical nations said that they would favor destroying the American doctrine of the “non-partition of China” and splitting the four dependencies and the eight provinces north of the Yellow River from the rebel provinces.

Now, if ever, was the time for America to act, to give the largest and oldest nation on earth true freedom, and stop massacre and the sowing of eternal hate between the yellow and the white races. If the republican idea was decapitated by three of the monarchical nations willingly, and two of the constitutional nations unwillingly, revulsion would sweep through the camp of the republicans, and foreigners and missionaries would be slain by the mobs, who always act before they think the important second time. This was just what the plotting Manchus had been endeavoring to bring about since October 10, 1911. “Make the republicans, or the mob in their provinces, massacre; that will bring in foreign interference, which will save the Manchu dynasty.” In return, the Manchus promised certain foreign interests almost any concessions which they might ask for. They could loot China, the mineral Eldorado of the ages, and exploit the labor host of a new Goshen. Perfide! ye who are retroactive at this late day after all the lessons of the crowded past, and who love Money more than Man. Hail! American republic, the mother of republics, and hail, too, the germinating Chinese republic! Even Count Okuma, the most liberal of the Japanese, the founder of the enlightened Waseda University, of whom most sympathy was expected with China’s effort for freedom, came out with a pessimistic article at this time, prophesying the “failure of the republic, years of degeneration, and an inevitable new dynasty”. Did he mean that Japan would supply one, after first absorbing two provinces of Manchuria?

Yuan, the dictator, began moving his divisions, the Twentieth, now rid of its reform general, Chang Shao Tsen, being sent from the Lanchow camp to a point north of Tientsin, to split the republicans of the three provinces of Manchuria from joining the republicans of Shangtung. Sunyacius, with Premier Wu Hon Man, of Canton, now left Hongkong for Shanghai, and the world stood back and waited for the lightning to come out of the clouds. The half million Chinese of British Hongkong gave them a rousing send-off, which was at heart approved by the five thousand British merchants and troops of Hongkong, for Hongkong knew what a trade boycott in the southern provinces meant. Canton had now struck a swinging pace, and Premier Wu had sent bodies of troops, particularly his fine artillery and bomb-throwers, to strengthen the two wings of the rebels under Generals Li, Ling and Hsu at Wuchang and Nanking, respectively. Among these troops were one thousand students recruited by the Fong Yuen College at Canton. God send great things to earth! God save liberty for China, and keep progress from slipping back a thousand years!

So far, the strongest move in the rebellion was the declaration of Foreign Minister Wu Ting Fang that if Britain joined the three monarchical powers in loaning Yuan money, a trade boycott would be instituted in the southern and central provinces against foreign trade, of which Britain held the largest share. This won Hongkong, and Hongkong was able to hold British diplomacy on Downing Street, London, and indirectly on Legation Street, Peking. It was a master move, as brilliantly effective as Napoleon’s Berlin Decree of November 21, 1806, blockading British commerce, and only for it the rebellion would have been swamped by four of the six nations arming and provisioning Yuan, the Manchu and the north. Whatever comes in the next few years, this cry surely is forever in the heart of Lincoln’s and Washington’s America: “Long live the republican idea of distributed wealth and distributed liberty in good old China, America’s yellow brother across the narrowing purple Pacific.” On Christmas day, 1911, the steamship Cleveland, from New York and San Francisco, with five hundred American world tourists, arrived at Hongkong. The republican army immediately invited them to Canton to see their barracks at the Five Hundred Genii Temple and elsewhere, the resolution saying: “as America was the first country to become a republic.” Auspiciously on December 26th, Sun Yat Sen arrived at Shanghai, two war-ships escorting his launch up the river from the Wusung bar. He immediately took an automobile at the bund wharf and proceeded to Wu’s residence, where conferences were held, and Nanking decided on as the provisional capital of the fighting republic. The republican Chinese were delighted that the Americans had eleven war-ships at Shanghai.

On December 26th, Yuan and the Manchu princes wired Tang Shao Yi from Peking that they would leave the decision as to a form of government to a national convention of the twenty-one provinces, the delegates to meet as soon as possible. The harmony which prevailed in the conferences at Shanghai between Sun, Wu and Li’s representatives was delightful to those interested in Chinese progress. The harmony which prevailed between the missionaries and the revolutionists was also inspiring. In a village of Hupeh province (Taiping) the people insisted that Mr. Landahl, of the Netherlands Mission, should head the local Safety League which was maintaining order, and they pushed that astonished gentleman to the head in the successful pursuit of notorious pirates who were injuring the causes of both revolutionists and imperialists. One notorious brigand of Honan province, named Wang, collected a band of 2,000 robbers, and at Harbin in Manchuria a band of Hunghutz captured an imperial treasure train with half a million of money. Vast preparations should now have been made to protect Chinese and foreigners in the north from massacre, if the National Assembly should on convening declare for a republic. There could not but be bitterness when only 17 million Manchus abdicated the rule of 400 millions Chinese, and the widest and most absolute throne the earth has known, wider than Pharaoh’s, Alexander’s, Xerxes’, Cæsar’s, Charlemagne’s, Baber Mogul’s, or Tsar’s. The problem of ruling 17 million Manchu discontents was a greater one than the long dominion which the subsidized Manchus had enjoyed over 400 millions of disunited and supine Chinese. The republic of China has mighty problems before it. Let all the world help her; above all, let education, hope and creature comforts be bestowed as quickly as possible. There is glorious altruistic work ahead of everybody for the whole of one’s life.

As the republicans solidified their government about Nanking, the enemies of China—the land-grabbing nations—who forgot their old antipathies and quarrels and acted in accord in their scheme of aggrandizement, prepared to strip her of her vast dependencies, Russia towering over Turkestan, Mongolia and Northern Manchuria, and Japan gathering about Lower Manchuria, a secret treaty between the two having been effected. No place was to be reserved for the great Chinese people to accommodate their emigration, as the size of farms should be necessarily increased throughout the land. The American and British doctrine of the “non-partition of China” was to be struck down. America, Britain and China will remember, for a Chinese republic can yet gather an army of millions to take these provinces back, and American and British naval forces, as a world’s altruistic police, can, if necessary, stand at the doors of the Baltic and Black Seas and remind Russia of her broken promises and greed. What a conflict there will yet be, won either by a swamping emigration, or by an engulfing army, as Russia, Japan and China come nearer together in the old Chinese dependencies of Turkestan, Mongolia and Manchuria. Mongolia, with her capital at Urga, and Turkestan, with her capital at Kashgar, practically seceded on December 29th under Russian intrigue. Religious Khans and Lamas, named by Russia, drove the Chinese ambans out and took charge, a Russian railway policy to break across country and control Peking being at once planned. The Manchu dynasty, with a following of from ten to seventeen million Manchus, sheltered in either Mongolia, Pechili province, Shangtung or Manchuria, under the egis of either Russia, Japan, or other nations, will always be a covert weapon for intrigue, which the bureaucrats of those nations can use against a Chinese republic.

On December 29th, the military convention at Nanking—one vote to a province—voted unanimously for Sun Yat Sen as the first president of the provisional republic, until elective assemblies could meet. The civil delegates from fourteen of the provinces, meeting at Shanghai, also agreed on Sun Yat Sen as provisional president. The armistice was now extended, President Sun calling upon the imperialists to respect the neutral zone between the opposing armies. The rise of President Sun was astounding and his task immense. From an impoverished propagandist and exile, wandering over the earth for a whole lifetime, with the Bible in one hand and Progress and Poverty in the other, he suddenly became the head of the largest nation upon the earth, and the government of that nation he was expected to change from being the most absolute monarchy into the freest of republics. His career is the most inspiring example that was ever presented to reformers in the world’s history. They say of typhoons and of troubles, that when things are at their worst, only a change for the better can be looked for, and so it has been with President Sun’s career.

At the peace conferences at Shanghai, the imperialists pressed for some northern city as the venue of the convention of provincial delegates, and the republicans pressed as strongly for Shanghai, because in distinction from Peking, it was removed from Russian influence. Yuan refused to disband his army and gave notice that if the republicans advanced, he would order an attack. The imperialists then tried to get the republicans to agree to pay the northern troops a sum of money in return for laying down their arms, but the republicans wisely refused to provision the imperialists in this way for a continuance of the fighting. They did, however, offer to pay for the surrender of artillery and ammunition. Yuan held many fruitless conferences with the Manchu princes and dowager, offering to continue the war if they would give up their hoards, but of the hundreds of millions of dollars of their wealth, all he could get was a subscription of $100,000 from the old lion, Prince Ching, who has been the mentor of the Manchus since Prince Kung died in the 60’s. The whole of the south, in emulation of the Christian president, Doctor Sun (Sunyacius), began cutting off their queues and wearing khaki, as a sign that servility to the Manchus was ended. Committees of persuasion, the members of which carried shears, operated even in Yaumati and Kowloon (mainland sections of Hongkong colony). The Chinese were approached and asked to go to the barbers. If they refused, shears were drawn and the ancient badge of servitude to the Manchu, the queue, was severed. The Chinese of Bangkok, Siam, were humorous in their methods. The republican tri-color was hoisted to the peak, and two hundred sheared queues were hoisted under it, up the flagpole! Doctor Sun, president, named the following as his provisional cabinet:

Vice-President, General Li Yuen Heng, commander of the republican left wing;

Premier, Hwang Hing, organizer in Japan of the rebellion;

Minister of Justice, Wu Ting Fang, formerly Minister to the United States, and reformer of the Chinese penal code;

Minister of Communications, Posts and Commerce, Wen Tsung Yao, American educated, formerly Amban in Tibet, unusually able official;

Colonial Secretary, Fung Chi Yueh, represented Sun in the United States;

Secretary of State, Wu Hon Man, President Canton Assembly;

Ministers of Finance, Chin Tao Chen, and M. Y. Sung, Manager Chung Hua rebel bank. I know both well.

Minister of Navy and Marine, General Hwang Hing, second in command at Hankau, and Sun’s personal representative while he was absent in America and England;

Foreign Minister, Wang Chung Wei, American educated;

Chief of Staff, General Hsu, the victor of Nanking.

The subject of adopting the Christian calendar was discussed and decided on, though it was decided to please Chinese pride by letting the republican bank-notes, issued in December, stand. These notes went back to mythological times, and named 1911 as the 4609th year since the first Emperor Huang Ti! The custom of dating the year with each Manchu emperor’s succession was of course at once discarded in fourteen of the rebelling provinces. President Sun assumed charge at Nanking and immediately collected a strong garrison in the old capital of China. In his former work, The Chinese, the author strongly recommended the change of the capital of China farther south so as to be nearer the center of China, closer in touch with the majority of the people who popularly desire the change, and safely removed from Russian influence and possibility of attack by Mongolian railway. Preparations were at once made to bring finance, education, army, navy and a federal government under the control of the coming parliament, the provincial parliaments already being in tentative operation in half of the provinces. We have already quoted the text of notes issued by the republican government of Kwangtung province. Dictator Yuan, at Peking, in a temporary huff, wired that he would not recognize Tang Shao Yi as his representative any more at the Shanghai and Nanking conferences, and that he would only confer by telegram. He demanded that Peking, and not Nanking, should be named as the meeting place of the proposed national assembly, which was to select the form of government. This really broke up the peace conferences, and Wu Ting Fang so informed the foreign governments.

Yuan then called upon the Manchu princes and royalty for money, saying that if they would draw two millions a month for six months from their foreign banks, he could carry on the war. Fearing that the republicans would send an army by sea from Shanghai to Chin Wang Tao (where the Great Wall and Peking railway meet the sea, and the only ice free port in the north) to break Manchuria from the north, and march on Peking, Yuan sent an army to Chin Wang Tao, but several of the Chinese regiments rebelled. The republicans had arranged for such a transport service, as they had seized the ships of the government steamship line, the China Merchants’ Steamship Company. At the Lanchow camp east of Peking, several Chinese regiments also rebelled, and there was much bloodshed in putting down the riots. Yuan had five strong northern armies, one under General Feng at Hanyang, one under Chang the Second north of Nanking on the railway, one under Sheng Yun operating in Shensi and Shansi provinces, and an army in both Shangtung and Honan provinces. It looked as though the war would continue, the republican strength being mainly in that they threatened, if successful, to repudiate any loans made after January 1, 1912, by foreigners to the Manchus. Hongkong now sent the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Indian Regiment of Baluchis, a battalion of the Yorkshires and a battery of English garrison artillery to Shameen Island, Canton, to protect the famous foreign settlement and assist President Wu, of Canton, in maintaining order. The island was fortified with sand-bags and barbed wire entanglements. The Hongkong Chinese were enthusiastic for a republic, and the British government did not prohibit their rejoicing. Their processions included the use of automobiles and brass bands. What a changed Hongkong, which used to hide its head in a monster dragon and parade the streets!

President Sun now informed foreigners that while he could employ them in all the remainder of China’s development, he could not do so in the republican army, as the republicans desired to be free of suspicion, and did not want to create foreign entanglements or embarrassments. The foreign nations divided up the Tientsin-Peking railway, and foreign men of war, independent of the republican navy, patrolled the whole rebel front from Shanghai to Hankau. Germany despatched another full regiment to Tsingtau in addition to the large garrison already there, America alone up to January 7, 1912, had held her troops at Manila. When the imperialists were evacuating Hanyang on January 4th, a regiment broke parole, necessitating an attack by General Li’s republicans, which attack was promptly and effectively sent in. On the right wing the republicans advanced up the Nanking-Tientsin railway, forcing General Chang the Second to withdraw to the north. President Sun was now active in appeals to the foreigners for recognition of the republic, his manifesto of January 5th, reading as follows:

1. Treaties of Manchus up to October 13, 1911, will be observed.

2. Concessions granted by Manchus up to October 13, 1911, will be respected.

3. Foreign loans and indemnities incurred by Manchus up to October 13, 1911, will be recognized.

4. Foreigners and their property will be protected by the republic.

5. Manchus and their property will be protected by the republic.

6. We will remodel laws; revise civic, criminal, commercial and mining codes; reform finances; abolish restrictions on trade and commerce; insure religious toleration; and cultivate better relations with foreign peoples and governments.

It will be noted that President Sun does not here take up that difficult question, the nationalization of railways, the premature forcing of which by the five banking nations on the Manchus largely precipitated the preliminary revolution in Szechuen province in September, 1911. When the republican finances will permit just compensation of provincial owners of railways, the nationalization of trunk railways will be a proper and opportune project, but confiscation of railways by a promissory note at sixty per cent. of investment, as was offered by the Manchus to the Kwangtung province owners, can only bring revolt. By the end of the first week in January, 1912, certain of the banking groups and powers, fearing that there would be a long civil strife, attacked the American doctrine of the “non-partition of China” and canvassed for two Chinas, the northern section to be retained by the Manchu monarchy, or a republic with Yuan at the head. Even this would bring its difficulties. To mention one of a thousand, where would the dividing line be, the Yellow River or the Yangtze River? The feeling of the republicans on this division can be gaged by asking what was the feeling of the Americans on the subject of secession. On January 8th the republicans approved a heavy bond issue, based on internal revenue (the customs being already pledged by the Manchus for foreign loans made before October 13, 1911, which loans the republicans recognized), and bearing eight per cent. It was also decided to put the currency on a gold basis, and though one-dollar, fifty-cent and subsidiary silver coins would be issued, they were to be only tokens, and their face value was to be secured by a gold reserve, as in the case of America’s and Japan’s silver coinage, which is only a token system.

On January 12, 1912, Major-General Franklin Bell despatched on the transport Logan from Manila the First Battalion of the Fifteenth Infantry, under Major Arrasmith, to take care of that part of the Peking-to-the-coast railway allotted to the Americans. This was a confession of two things: first, that the Manchus might not be able to restrain the “Boxer” mobs in the north, and second, that it was expected that the republicans would be able to come north with their three old and two new armies when hostilities should be opened. Part of General Bell’s thrilling and characteristic American speech to the troops should be quoted: “The Chinese are worthy of a square deal. Treat them in a worthy way.” The expedition was a trying one, and was provided with cords of fire-wood. The enervated troops left the hot humid climate of Manila for the cold windy climate of North China. The news that came from the Lanchow camp at this time was most distressing, to the effect that Yuan’s imperialists were massacring and torturing republicans by the fiendish lin chee (cutting into a thousand pieces, the victim being placed in a cage). Men who had adopted the republican badge of the New China by cutting off their queues were being slain. Even the Red Cross attendants were attacked. Clearly the Manchu troops at Lanchow had gone out of hand and become a mob. The American Bishop Bashford now telegraphed from Shanghai to Dictator Yuan, urging the Manchus to abdicate for humanity’s sake. General Hwang Hing, minister of war, was now arranging for five republican armies to march north and converge on Peking. These armies were:

General Li, with the left wing, from Hankau to Peking, through Honan province.

Generals Hsu and Ling, with the right wing, from Nanking, through Kiangsu and Shangtung provinces, along the railway.

A new army, by transport and cruisers, from Shanghai to Chifu, or some northern port.

A new army of Canton and Hupeh troops to march north in General Li’s rear.

The combined republican forces of Shensi and Shansi provinces to march northeast.

The Chinese are exceedingly excitable when aroused from their usually placid state. This is because their experience is limited, and they have not yet learned to adapt themselves rapidly to new conditions. They therefore commit suicide in surprising numbers under the sudden pressure of anger, shame, poverty, trouble, uncertainty and fear. At this time of revolution, especially in the northern provinces of Shensi and Shansi where the republicans were strongly opposed, many officials, widows of soldiers and the poor, jumped into wells, swallowed balls of opium, or begged their friends to strangle them.

On January 15th, the republicans sent three cruisers and three transports, with three battalions, machine and mountain guns, from Shanghai to Chifu, in preparation for a converging attack on Peking, America sent in the cruiser Cincinnati, and the Japanese sent in two cruisers to watch proceedings and protect the foreign colony, which, however, was not menaced. On January 19th, Foreign Minister Wang Chung Wei sent a despatch to the powers, requesting recognition of the republic “to avoid a disastrous interregnum”. On the same day the republic from Shanghai sent the following drastic demand to Yuan and the Manchus:

1. Abdicate.

2. No Manchu to participate in the provisional government until the country is quiet.

3. The provisional capital can not be Peking.

4. Yuan can not participate in the provisional government until the republic has been recognized.

President Sun gave the Associated Press this statement:

1. I have taken an oath to oust the Manchu rulers and restore peace to the country before resigning.

2. I have taken an oath to establish a republic in China, and if I consented to the proposal laid down by Yuan (to resign and put him in charge) I would be foresworn. I am convinced that a republic is not only practicable, but that it would be the best thing for China. Those (monarchical nations and syndicates) asserting otherwise know nothing about the Chinese. This republic is now an established fact. Nothing can swerve me from what I consider my duty to my fellow countrymen. Undoubtedly the best thought unanimously supports the republic.

3. China can not allow outsiders to dictate as to her form of government.

4. There is no question of North and South China; it must be One China.

5. We are confident of the righteousness of our cause and the superiority of the military strength of the republicans. If Yuan Shih Kai persists in obstructing, our armies will be instructed to march northward.

On January 21st the Manchus persisted in not abdicating, and contemplated appointing the minister of war, Yin Tchang, and the president of the War Board, Tieh Liang, both Manchus of the ultra type, as dictators over Yuan. This was in contravention of the agreement of Nineteen Constitutional Articles between the Manchus and the old National Assembly, pressed by the soldiers of the Lanchow camp in October, 1911, that no Manchus were to be placed in authority until a constitutional government was established.

While the world was watching the camps of war, where the men stamped eager for blood, two million women and children, in three other parts of the land were starving from flood, famine and the absence of their bread providers. Look on the map at the old bed of the Yellow River across the middle of Kiangsu province; the valley of the Hwei River across northern Nganhwei province, emptying into Lake Hangsu; and Wuhu, on the Yangtze, where the flooded river tried to break east across the flat country to Shanghai, instead of arching north to Nanking. Not since 1906 have crops or homes been long above water in these crowded districts. What the missionaries mainly, and others (native and foreign) of the Central China Relief Committee, with headquarters at Shanghai, have done, a library of books could not adequately tell. Part of the story would be the relief trains of gift flour which left Minneapolis and was transported free across the Pacific by the United States army transport Buford; and more of the story would be the work of the American Red Cross; the grand missionary periodicals of America; and the Pacific Coast Chambers of Commerce, which put business aside for philanthropy. Their altruism, their manly effectiveness, their human kindness that has been so deeply Christian and Confucian (as you look at it from both an Occidental and an Oriental standpoint) has been moving beyond words, and it is largely owing to this action on the part of America that the hand of the war-inflamed Chinese was stayed against foreigners in this campaign. Their women said: “Don’t strike the white physicians and bread-givers; the men who speak in mercy and are clothed in altruism.” The soldiers of the Eighth Division of Hupeh men, under General Li, at Wuchang, in bidding the American Episcopal missionaries good-by, cheered them with these words: “Americans are our brothers.” Never had such a scene of suppressed emotion and earnestness occurred in China. I have already recited General Li’s manifesto to his men concerning the treatment of missionaries. None was more surprised than the good missionaries themselves. From their experience in the “Boxer” campaign of 1900, the missionaries expected unflinching loyalty from their converts, but they did not look for the highest Geneva Convention amenities from the new levies of the revolutionary soldiers. It was really astonishingly delightful. But on second thought, it might have been seen that it was only the first fruits of the seed sown long ago by the missionaries themselves, and now being garnered after many days when the sowing had been almost forgotten.

Reports came from Peking that the boy emperor, Pu Yi, was utterly unconscious of trouble and the tottering of the oldest and widest throne on earth, in all this ebb and flow of war and intrigue. Deserted by his guardians, parent and tutors, he was left most of the time in the Forbidden City with eunuchs, who humored his every whim, with the result that his temper took on true Manchu characteristics. When opposed, he threw the first thing at hand at those near him. When the food displeased him, he cracked the dishes over the heads of his kneeling servitors. The Break-Up of China indeed, but by another author than Lord Charles Beresford!

On January 26, 1912, the armies got in motion again, one corps leaving Tsinan, the capital of Shangtung province, to checkmate the republican expedition which had landed at Chifu. Up the Nanking-Tientsin railway, General Chang the Second, of the imperialists, and General Hsu met in an engagement at Kucheng, in northern Nganhwei province, and the former was defeated. At Wuchang, General Li’s Hupeh forces, reinforced with Cantonese troops, got in motion to meet General Feng’s imperialists up the Peking-Hankau railway. Large consignments of Mauser and Krag rifles and ammunition for Krupp guns, ordered from German firms for the imperialists, on this day passed through St. Petersburg on their way to Peking by the Siberian railway. On January 28th, the provisional republican Senate of forty-two members (three each from fourteen rebel provinces) convened at Nanking in foreign clothing and without queues. A remarkably enthusiastic scene occurred at the close of President Sun’s address, which address urged unity. The members all rose and cheered for the republic, while a modern band played martial music. The republicans for the first time in modern history instituted the use of a remarkable regiment of bomb-throwers. They went to the front with large canvas bags of dynamite bombs hanging from their shoulders. It required exceptional bravery to enlist in such a corps, as when a bag was hit by an imperialist’s bullet, the explosion not only shattered the bomb-thrower, but detonated the bags of his fellows if they were near. This corps was uniformed in the British military peaked cap, and they wore tunics and puttees, and had no queues.

By February 3, 1912, the Manchus had fully discussed abdication. It was proposed that the sacerdotal succession should be maintained, thus continuing the famous Chou and Confucian sacrifices and ancestor worship among the Manchus. This would reduce the Manchu emperor to a Confucian pope, similar to the Mikado before he conquered the Shoguns, and similar to the Taoist pope at Lung Hu Mountain, in Kiangsi province, and the Buddhist popes at Urga, in Mongolia, and Lhasa, in Tibet. The Manchus also stipulated that their hereditary titles should remain. This was a foolish move, as it removed them more than ever from participation and influence in the social body, just as the private retention of titles keeps the descendants of the old French nobility hopelessly divorced from power in republican France. The republicans again offered Yuan Shih Kai the presidency, with Sun Yat Sen as premier, this being a union of the democratic principles in the American and British systems. Yuan was inclined to insist on a dual republic, but the Nanking republicans insisted that Yuan should come to Nanking. The republicans under Generals Hsu and Ling now advanced their right wing, striking General Chung Fung of the imperialists, at Siuchow, in northern Kiangsu province, and winning a great victory.

I have said that the most brilliant diplomatic move of the republicans was that by Wu Ting Fang, who announced in December, 1911, that if any foreign syndicate or nation made loans to the Manchus, the republicans, if successful, would repudiate those loans. The most brilliant strategic move of the republicans was made in November, 1911, when General Li induced Admiral Sah’s navy to join the republican cause. This enabled the republicans to hold the large commercial fleet of the China Merchants’ Steamship Company, and it was on this latter fleet that the republicans were able to raise a loan in February, 1912, from Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, when they were at their wits’ end where to find money to balance the subscriptions which the Manchus had made from their hoards, and the money which they were drawing from the cash tills of the rich imperial railways of North China. The Nippon Yusen Kaisha tried to buy out the China Merchants’ Steamship Company so as to give Japan dominance in the China coastal trade, but Britain interposed. The republicans had only one little railway from Shanghai to Hangchow, 104 miles, whose surplus earnings could help them, as compared with the 4,000 miles of successful railway in the territory controlled by the Manchus.

As neither Manchu nor Yuan could hold Manchuria, Japan now advanced a battalion to Mukden, a measure pregnant with precedents and controversy in the future. America maintained her reputation for altruism, Secretary Knox, on February 3rd, addressing the German ambassador a note to the effect that America’s idea was that all the powers should restrain their nationals from interfering with loans as much as with arms in China. The powers which were inclined to break leash were Japan, Russia and Belgium. The southern republican navy found the international forces and legations a bar in the way of the capture of Peking. The navy was off Chin-wang-tao, the only open port on the Liaotung Gulf, in February, 1912, and was ready to transfer the fifth republican army from Chifu. As long as Peking was dignified with the legation staffs of foreigners, the prestige of the foreigner supported to that extent the cause, or rather the integrity of the imperial north, and the rebels hesitated to send their attack home on account of international complications. Again and again the republicans asked for recognition and the transfer of the legations to Nanking. America only gave any attention to this request, sending Doctor Tenny, of the Peking legation staff, to pay an unofficial call on and make unofficial inspection of the republican government at Nanking. Japan and Russia closed their fists tighter on South and North Manchuria, respectively, lending money right and left to industrials and mines and thus establishing a mortgage and excuse for remaining in case of a break-up.

Wherever the capital is to be, whichever faction is to control, whatever style of government is to win, it does not seem impossible that the free China of the future will have fewer internecine conflicts and rows than the England, America or France of history. Liberty goes through about the same birth pangs whether she is born white, brown, black or yellow! On February 11, 1912, (probably at Yuan’s private suggestion), forty-eight generals of the imperial army wired Yuan that they would fight no more for the Manchus, so that the seed of the Lanchow camp had finally spread into a whole forest. The official birth of the Chinese republic came on Lincoln’s birthday (think of it, America!), February 12, 1912, the abdication decree of the Manchus including the following sentence: “Let Yuan organize to the full the powers of the provisional republican government, forming a great republic with the union of Manchus, Chinese, Mongols, Mohammedans and Tibetans.” President Sun Yat Sen telegraphed Canton in particular to accept Yuan, and another telegram instructed all Chinese consuls abroad to adopt foreign dress. The United States at once arranged to recognize unofficially both the northern and southern provisional Chinese republics under Presidents Yuan and Sun respectively, until a national assembly could form a united government.

On February 15th, the Christian Chinese provisional president, Sun Yat Sen, performed a remarkable act of self-sacrifice to win the north for republicanism and induce Yuan to join the great cause. He also was able to induce the vehement south to accept the former reactionary Yuan. Doctor Sun resigned as provisional president in favor of Yuan. The National Assembly at Nanking paid him this tribute: “Such an example of purity of purpose is unparalleled in history. It was solely due to your magnanimity and modesty, Doctor Sun, that northern China was won over to republicanism.” Here was the man who had achieved republicanism, laying by all its honors in favor of the man who had longest and most powerfully withstood republicanism. Yet Sun was happy. China was happy. Yuan and his aide Tang were happy. The Chinese republican navy at Chifu, Shanghai and Nanking saluted the republic with a broadside, and the Chinese legations throughout the world hoisted the new sun flag. With the least bloodshed ever known, Sun and his cabinet had achieved the greatest revolution ever known, and had established a republic of twenty-one republics, four times the population of America. They will be managed by a combination of the British and American systems, as their bulk is too great for the strong centralization which is now becoming popular in America to correct certain corporation evils. The provincial republics will develop largely as units, until the individual is educated sufficiently for greater cohesion. Sun Yat Sen will go down to history as the greatest dreamer, prophet, organizer, altruist and political philosopher the modern world has known, not that he is brainier than the white man, but being a yellow man, he has been able to accomplish more than any white man. His reception, certainly the reception of his cause, by the hearts of men should be enthusiastic. He stands not alone. The scores of idealists and fighters of his cabinet made the way for the constructive men who will now take hold. Above all, he converted Yuan by his self-obliteration, and Yuan converted the obstructionist north. What if the Honanese Yuan is at the head of affairs for a while instead of the Kwangtungese Sun? They are both Chinese and both republicans. China now has the center of the world’s stage, and America has built the Panama canal to reach quickly a front seat at the stage. The actors will have long and strenuous parts, and the house is filling up rapidly to hear, and see, and applaud, if all is done well, as it should be. Doctor Sun has done the most for a republic. Long years ago he planned it, and he has been persecuted most by the Manchus for opinion’s sake. When the assemblies succeed each other, his turn as president or premier will doubtless come.

Kang Wu Wei had dropped into astonishing silence during all these strenuous days, but on February 18, 1912, he suddenly and insanely (allow the emphasis) burst out in rebellion against the republic in Manchuria. Yuan he opposed; Sun he opposed. Did he, and the rebelling governor, Chao Ehr Sun, plot then for the Manchus or the Japanese in Manchuria? Why did not this first reformer Kang repress himself? Why did not Yuan and Sun repress themselves somewhat and win him? A bas, personal jealousies, antipathies or overleaping ambitions! Surely there is room for all in twenty-one republics, which are to be bound as one commonwealth. The Chinese are intense in feeling and clannish in spirit, and they often turn vehemently on one another; their Tong wars in New York and San Francisco for instance. Thus Yuan might hate Kang, and Kang have none of Yuan, whereas, according to Macaulay, “both should serve the state”. It is this repression of individual resentment and ambition which has made England and America so governable, and it is something China will learn as the years of stress surge about the ship of state. The title of captain or president amounts to very little in the light of patriotism; all are equal when it comes to manning the pumps and shortening or letting out sail according to the winds that blow. Parties will arise; provincial feeling will be assertive; leaders and their followings will clash, but the Chinese must learn, as we all have to learn, that the striving must be one way o’ the rope and not a tug against each other because of personal greed, low ambition or unruliness. In hundreds of documents issued during the rebellion, the republicans held up two men, Washington and Napoleon, as representing successful protest against tyrant kings. But Washington laid the sword by the minute statesmanship could win. Napoleon used his sword to advance himself and crush every will except his own; the way of an egotist. If China needs a foreign model to look at occasionally, let it be that of Washington, with his moderation, his unselfishness, his charity, his honor, his true republicanism, which sees in every citizen (man or woman) a king equal to himself, for the ballot and tax receipt have made all men equal kings!

I have pointed out the inconsistencies of character in Yuan and Kang. They may develop in other leaders from whom we expect much. It will be recalled that the great Empress Tse Hsi alternated “Boxer” and reform edicts; the lopping off of heads, and unbinding of women’s feet; the composing of poems on gentleness, and teaching her sleeve dogs to run at foreigners. The greatest viceroy of Wuchang, Chang Chih Tung, wrote books recommending modern gun foundries and steel mills one day, and the compulsory enthronement of worn-out Confucianism the next day, in the land which had always declared that any man could perform all religious rites. The genial Manchu Tsai princes who were the most affable of men when the Army, Navy and Constitutional Commissions visited England and America in recent years, were the irreconcilable Ruperts who insisted on the slaughter of foreigners and non-combatants in the northern provinces during the rebellion. The venerable and cultured viceroy of Nanking, Chang, who was the first official to open a modern exposition in China, was the very man who helped to hurl that awful slaughter on the innocents, with the ruthless division of Shangtung troops on November 10, 1911, at Nanking. The reform emperor, Kwang Hsu, the father of the immortal progressive edicts of 1898 in the Peking Gazette, the possessor of the sweetest face that ever graced a Chinese, was known to beat his waiters over the head with dishes, and his aunt, the Empress Dowager Tse Hsi, whose private ambition was to be the best painter of plum blossoms in the land, was known, according to Ching Shan, the comptroller of her household, to dance in rage that was awful to behold, and which left its wake in broken crockery and clocks. They have not as yet “lunacy commissions of three” in China, whose infallible tests are walking the chalk-line without a corkscrew motion, record of screaming and throwing vases, talking to one’s self and having wigglety eyes at times, or men of tawny color might have been incarcerated long before fame came to them! In the same inconsistent way the Japanese Prince Ito was a constitutionalist when a student in England, and a red imperialist as a statesman in Japan and Korea. With the Oriental it often is, “who pays for my ration, his is the flag I fly”. The larger sentimentality and altruism of republicanism will doubtless equip the new Chinese with deeper conviction and more enduring sentiment and devotion to ideals. We call a man who is not a good republican out of office, or a good Liberal on the left side of the speaker’s desk at Westminster, not much of a patriot in America or England, and China and Japan must learn the Pauline admonition to Timothy regarding manliness: “Be instant in season and out of season.”

Owing to deferred pay, some of General Li’s republican troops at Wuchang, and General Wu’s republican troops at Canton mutinied in the middle of February, and on February 29, 1912, regiments of the notorious Third Division of Yuan’s northern troops mutinied at Peking, partly for the same reason, partly because they did not want Yuan to go to Nanking; but mainly all this was a recrudescence of the tricks of the Manchus to bring in foreign interference. The Manchus had received part of their pension from the foreign loans and were illegally using it to stir up sedition. The mutineers burned a mile of houses, stretching from the Manchu’s Forbidden City to the new Wai Wu Pu Building, which is Yuan’s headquarters, and millions of dollars of treasures were destroyed, including the historic Wu Men gate leading to the imperial purple and yellow city. Many shopkeepers hung out signs, “Already looted; now empty” in an effort to save their buildings. The houses occupied by Mr. Straight, the representative of the Morgan Syndicate, and by Mr. Menocal, of the American International Bank, were looted, as were other foreign houses, but personal affront was not offered to foreigners. The quarters occupied by the delegates from the Union Assemblies of the south, who came from Nanking, were fired. The reactionary troops of Yuan showed their hate of the southerners on every possible occasion. This was his punishment for raising an army mainly in the two Manchu provinces, instead of generally enrolling it throughout the country. These troops wanted to support the rule of the nation by an unconstitutional Privileged Minority. It would be folly to agree with their politics, and it would mean terrible bloodshed to disagree with them.

The question they have raised is far from settled. One shell was dropped into the American legation compound. For strategic purposes, American soldiers took possession of the Chien Men gate and pagoda tower, and the German troops occupied the Hatamen gate and pagoda tower, both of which overlooked the legation and Methodist Mission quarters. One thousand more foreign troops were brought up from Tientsin to guard the legations. During the burning the Manchu eunuchs, who had witnessed the 1900 siege, could be seen in the moonlight gathered on the glistening yellow roofs of the imperial palaces. It will be recalled that this Imperial Third Division under General Feng, committed the uncalled-for and awful arson of Hankau in November, 1911. The Muse of History will in vain turn the pages of her index to find a record in her volumes of incendiaries who surpass the reactionary Third Division, whom Yuan now locked up in their barracks. He then called upon the old-style Chang Ku turbaned troops to defend the city. Yuan was continually showing distrust and fear of his troops; neither would he permit the southern delegates to bring up southern troops to defend the constitution and their liberty, nor would he permit the empress dowager and the emperor to retire from the imperial city to the summer palace, some twelve miles distant, or to Jehol:—he said he feared to arouse the northern troops. The southern delegates replied: “It is too bad that we deferred thoroughly whipping these northerners while we were at it.”

On February 29, 1912, the first partial recognition of the republican government was made by the American House of Representatives, unanimously passing the Sulzer resolution congratulating the “people” of China on assuming the responsibilities of self-government. All throughout Pechili, at Paoting, where the Anglican missionary, Mr. F. Day, was killed by a mob which was looting with the Sixth Division, at Tientsin, and throughout Shangtung province, the revolt spread, as a recrudescence of the Manchuized anti-foreign or “Boxer” movement. Native Christians were assassinated or had their eyes put out. Doctor Sun, at Nanking was distressed, and promised to stand by Yuan and republicanism. He sent telegrams to all the assemblies requesting them to be steady, and generously saying that Yuan had rendered a service by inducing the Manchus to abdicate. The situation reminded one of Burke’s description of the French revolution: “The National Assembly is surrounded by an army not raised either by the authority of their crown or by their command, and which, if they should order to dissolve itself, would instantly dissolve them.” The new Tientsin mint was looted. Doctor Schreyer, an eminent German physician of Tientsin, was assassinated. The American legation guard got through to Peking to the delight of the foreigners. Foolishly none of the foreign guards brought artillery, and the legations were therefore at the mercy of any artillery attack that the northern troops might direct against them. At Fengtai, the British Somerset regiment was on guard when 1,500 Chinese modern soldiers stopped the eastbound train. The Somersets, with the traditional bravery of the British, gave the Chinese troops one hour to clear out. By that time the 700 British Inniskilling Fusiliers, under command of the soldierly Colonel Hancock, were brought west, detrained quickly, and with the Somersets, marched at once on the positions of the obstructionist Chinese troops, who found discretion to be the better part of valor. Then the freed train started for Tientsin. There were now 3,000 foreign troops in Peking, and on March 3rd the Fifteenth American Infantry, under Major Arrasmith, led a grand march of the quarter to show Yuan’s rebelling troops that order at last could be sustained, and Japan was called upon, as in 1900, for 5,000 troops. Hongkong and Manila were also wired to send reinforcements. The troops of the north who had fought against the republic for four months, were now showing themselves to be a disgusting set of “Boxer” looters, incendiaries, murderers and “agents provocateurs” for intervention. The outcome of the whole matter might be the bringing of the remobilized southern forces north and the immediate unification of nationalism at Peking under Sun, Yuan and General Li; although the south at heart desires Nanking to be the capital, as it is removed from Russian influence and northern sectionalism.

Military company of St. John’s American Episcopal University, Shanghai. Numbers of these young men took part in the revolution, and they are leaders in the New China.

The bund, Tientsin, where the Legation Guards disembarked during the revolution of 1911–12.

The heart of religious China, the only reservation made by the abdicating Manchu emperor; the chaste, blue-roofed Temple of Heaven, Peking. The beautiful proportions of this building have been widely praised by foreigners. The three galleries are of marble.

Amid all the disturbance, another cloud, the size of a man’s hand, loomed up on the horizon. The Marquis Chu Cheng Yu, a lineal descendant of the Chinese Ming kings, began to canvass the rioting army for adherents. Two hundred American marines were rushed from Shanghai to Tientsin on the collier Abarenda, and the American fleet left the southern ports for Taku. The transport Warren sailed from Manila with another battalion of the Fifteenth Infantry and marines. The four-nation bankers, with the approval of six powers, came to Yuan’s help with $1,000,000 loans on nine months’ warrants, to aid him in putting down mobbing and mutiny by paying off soldiers, who, however, used the money as fuel for more mutiny. It was decided to loan the dual republican governments at Peking and Nanking about $5,000,000 a month. Some of the old-style troops were more loyal to Yuan than were the notorious Third Division at Peking, the Sixth Division at Paoting, in Pechili province, the Second Division in Honan, and the Fifth Division, in Shangtung province, which were loyal to no cause or person. At the same time the preliminary contract of February twenty-first, by which the Russo-Asiatic Bank independently was to advance Sun and the Nanking republican organization $7,000,000, was canceled, and the four banking powers advanced Sun, at Nanking, $1,500,000 to pay off Cantonese troops and hire police. The rebellion of Yuan’s troops made many confess that the southern republicans had probably made a mistake in not following Chang the Second’s imperial forces of northern troops north in January, 1912, and giving the northern army several sound thrashings until the organization was broken up.

On March 9, 1912, the irreconcilable imperial governor of Shansi and Shensi provinces, General Sheng Yun, a Mongol by blood, still had 15,000 troops (many of them Mohammedans) fomenting Manchu propaganda and slaying everywhere, while General Yin Tchang, at Japanese Dalny, Governor Chao Ehr Hsun, at Mukden, and Prince Su, at Jehol and Kalgan, were doing the same thing. What a confused state of affairs existed in the mutinous army, of the north, which was divided into five corps. General Sheng’s Mohammedans were setting Shansi and Shensi provinces on fire. The corps of Imperial Guards and Manchu divisions at Peking were at heart of course for the deposed Manchu dynasty. The Mongol divisions in northern Pechili looted and decapitated and laughed at President Yuan’s orders. The old-style turbaned troops of Yuan’s were loyal one day and disloyal another, and the same thing was true of divisions of territorial Shangtung, Pechili and Honan troops of Yuan’s modern army. In the southern provinces the republicans had a little more cohesion in the five armies of their recruited corps and their two territorial armies. In Yunnan province an entirely isolated army was marking time and had done nothing for either southern or northern cause of late. Oh! for a strong hand to weave and hold all these cords in one cable of some strength.

On March 10th, amid the crashing of walls and institutions, a pathetic but inspiring scene occurred in the modern Wai Wu Pu (Foreign Office) at Peking. Yuan Shih Kai, dressed in military uniform, was formally inaugurated provisional president of the republic of China, in the presence of the Nanking assembly delegates, military and naval officers, provincial envoys, and many foreigners. Of course, legation staffs and missionary bodies did not attend officially. Yuan read a declaration promising progress, to observe the constitution, and retire when the National Assembly appointed a permanent president for the decided term, if he himself was not chosen. Two yellow robed Lamas from the Buddhist temple stepped up, presented Yuan with two honorary scarfs and called him, in Pekingese, “Da Dsoong Toong” (in Cantonese, Ta Tsung Tung),—the great president. It was a businesslike military scene, there being very little of Oriental display or the gorgeous robes of old. Tang Shao Yi was named premier. President Yuan signalized his assumption of office by pardoning all prisoners, except murderers and robbers, remitting all overdue land taxes and announcing that for the present the old laws would stand, except where they were obviously contrary to the spirit of republicanism.

The new constitution provided that the supreme power was in the hands of the National Assembly; that all acts of the president required the approval of the assembly, that the cabinet was answerable to the assembly; and that the assembly was to elect the president and vice-president, and have power to pass laws over the executive veto. This was vastly different from Japan’s stultified parliamentarism, and was a union of the American system of the lower house being supreme, and of the British executive efficiency obtainable from a small cabinet. Doctor Sun promised to turn over the great seal of his office. Disorder ruled throughout the armed north, where a republic was unpopular with the mercenary troops. Republican flags were torn down wherever the merchants of Peking put them up. The rebelling troops decapitated the crowd by thousands at Peking, Tientsin, Kalgan, Paoting, and throughout Shansi, Shensi and Pechili provinces. So many heads and bodies lay on the street that the donkeys and mules refused to pass the heaps. Yuan himself had to add the head of the headtaker to the pile. He sent the tall, venerable General Chiang Kwei Tai with old-style turbaned Nganhwei troops, who mowed off heads right and left through the streets of old Peking. The famous Tongkwan pass, at the heel of the Yellow River, commanding Shensi and Honan provinces, was seized by the reactionary troops of General Sheng Yun, who compelled the merchant guilds to pay blackmail or have their stores looted. Clearly Pechili province, with its hosts of irreconcilable mercenary troops, was the rock on which the ship of republicanism was now stranded. Yuan had to change his body-guard from day to day, one day old-style troops, another day Manchu troops, and again the champion looters of the Third Division, but the real hand which afforded what little steadiness there was, was the magnificent body of foreign troops which amounted to 3,000 picked men.

On March 12th, Provincial President Wu Hon Man and Governor Chan Kwang Ming, at Canton, were harassed by the notorious pirate chief, Luk, who was remarkably successful. Luk, through the mutiny of the soldiers, gained the historic Bogue, Yuchu, Whampoa and Fumen forts, and the arsenal and admiralty buildings. All the foreign navies, led by the United States gunboat Wilmington and the British fleet under Commander Eyres, anchored off Shameen Island, cleared for action, and the passenger steamers, on which probably every world tourist has probably been, the Fatshan and Honan, sailed from Canton for Hongkong with two thousand passengers each. The famous old shallow draft British gunboat Moorhen, the hero of a thousand pirate chases in intricate Kwangtung province waters, had her awnings and spars torn by bullets during the night, as she protected the electric station, so that the pirates could not strike Canton into midnight, and in the dark massacre along the narrow streets, the maloos and the bund. Eight hundred British and French troops patrolled the little foreign island of Shameen.

Before the days of direct primary nominations in America we suffered from the machine system, which advanced the incompetent and debarred the eminent and efficient from service in the state. A saloon-keeper who brought 2,000 votes would demand, for instance, the position of secretary of state. “But you’re not fitted for it; you’re a hoodlum.” The ward-heeler would answer: “I must have it; I have to pay my 2,000 brigands the ‘graft’ which we claim is ours; otherwise, remember our revenge next election.” One Shek Kam Chuen, a young stone-cutter and human hair hawker of Canton, was very successful in smuggling arms for the revolution, and on the declaration of independence, he led a following of 2,000 nondescript men, who did effective work in fighting. They were men who loved a fight more than liberty, not liberty more than life. When the republic was victorious and his troops, after being paid, were disbanded, Shek was unsatisfied. He, a hawker, wanted high office, when even President Sun turned his brother down from politics to business in Canton because he was not eminent for political ability. Shek made demands for his men that the state could not consistently grant. He smuggled arms to take up piracy in reprisal on the harassed state. The way the governor of Canton treated Shek and his legal adviser, Chang Han Hing, was, under the constitutional pressure of public opinion, to capture them at their headquarters, and under military law, or the application of the popular “recall”, have them both shot, to the great rejoicing of good citizens and taxpayers. That ended one instance of heelerism, bossism, packed primary, professional office holding, “public office a private graft”, piracy, or whatever you like to call it, in modern China! The “Popular Recall” was a success, despite the cynicism of the standpatters in Canton, and one of those standpatters was Shek’s lawyer, Chang, who shared his client’s fate, much to his disgusted surprise. I am sorry William Dean Howells was not in Canton at that time to write A Modern Instance!

General Wu Sum, with 2,000 republican provincial troops, left Canton for Swatow to put down pirates operating around that noted old city, and the famous General Ling, and General Ho came down from Nanking to assist. On March 14th the irreconcilable “Boxer” Manchu leader, Prince Tuan, exiled in Kansu province, raised the standard of revolt, with his son Ku Kwei, as a pretender to the throne. He had not the moral support of all of the imperial clan, because he had in 1900 plotted to displace Prince Chun’s emperor son, “Pu Yi”. Tuan is a shrewd, able and persistent leader. If he had not been a reactionary in 1900, he might have preserved to the Manchus a longer lease of power.

The battles of the international financiers still went on at Peking, Premier Tang Shao Yi’s action in raising $5,000,000 from a Russian-Belgian syndicate on the Chinese-built Peking-Kalgan railway, incensing the international group. Tang gave a laconic interview, merely saying: “China need not necessarily put herself forever in the hands of four nations; we can deal with independents where we are able to find any. The loan was first offered to American bankers, but those American bankers who are now in the Far East would not act independently of the four nations.” Russian, Japanese and Belgian bankers seemed to fall in with Russia’s plans, as in 1896, to put China under a financial thraldom. Russia did not want a loan given to China for her army, as Russia and Japan both desire a weak army in China. The four-nation bankers now offered China $300,000,000, of which $60,000,000 was to be for army purposes. If Japan joins in this loan, it will be because she does not want to be shut out of a share in controlling China’s finances, and an apportionment of the concessions. The National Review of Shanghai published at this time a caricature, showing Russia pushing old China, and “Foreign Grafter” pushing New China, out of the way, while North China, a clam, had shut its shell on the beak of South China, a heron. The Chinese fable of the bird and the shellfish was quoted as follows: “A bird attacked an open shellfish on the beach; but the shellfish closed his shell with a snap, and the bird was caught. Both were then helpless, and fell an easy prey to some covetous fishermen.” Nearly all the Japanese papers, including the influential Tokio Nichi and Jiji, and the Osaka Mainichi, came out attacking Yuan, and endeavoring to stir up differences between North and South China. If Japan could prove that Chinese conditions were unstable, there evidently would be more plausibility for Japan’s possible intervention in Manchuria! On March 16th, Premier Tang Shao Yi announced a provisional northern cabinet as follows, until the National Assembly of seven delegates to a province could meet. None of the appointees is a Manchu.

President, Yuan Shih Kai, a Honan man.

Premier, Tang Shao Yi, Cantonese, educated at Yale University, America.

Army, General Tuan Chi Jui, Nganhwei man, once viceroy of Hunan, active in revolution.

Navy, Admiral Lin Kwan Hsung, a man of considerable experience in the old and new navies, at Canton, along the Yangtze, etc.

Foreign Affairs, Lou Tseng Tsiang, Minister to Russia, Netherlands, etc. In this appointment Yuan shows how natural it is for him to favor Russia, whom he fears.

Interior, Cheo Ping Chun, a native of Hunan.

Education, Tsai Yuan Pei.

Railways, Posts, etc., Liang Ju Hao, Cantonese.

Commerce and Labor, Chen Chi Mei.

Agriculture, Sung Chiao Fen.

Justice, Wong Chun Hui, American educated, very able.

Finance, Hsiung Hsi Ling, Hunan man, once in Exterior Department of Hupeh province.

Most of these are southern men, some of whom replied that they did not see how they could come without a southern army to protect their lives from the loosely-held northern troops, who had no idea what constitutional honor or promises meant. The whole of the American Pacific Navy, including the fine cruisers California, South Dakota and Colorado, left Honolulu for the Far East, and the United States steamer Monterey, on the same day, landed one hundred men at Swatow to preserve order and the tanks of the Standard Oil Company. On March 19th the republican troops at Canton and Swatow gained back after severe engagements the forts that the mutinous troops and pirates had taken. The government at Canton bought up all the food in the shops so as to starve out Luk’s pirates. Amid all the conflict of accusation and denial, it is fitting that Yuan Shih Kai should speak for himself, and therefore I quote parts from his long address to the old conservatives and to the provincial governors shortly after the abdication of the dynasty, which abdication he adroitly and successfully urged when, to use his own words, “it was well nigh impossible to make stand against the republicans.”

“From the time when I again led the troops and later when I came to court, I was animated with the purpose of establishing a constitutional monarchy, but the state of the country changed. The National Assembly and the provincial assemblies all fathered the policy of not using military force to put down the disturbances. When Hankau was regained, the naval forces were lost. The moment Hanyang was reconquered, Nanking fell. The power of the government over the waterways and the sea was gone, and the sources of revenue were cut off. Although in various ways I encouraged the military to greater effort, secured the revocation of Shangtung’s declaration of independence, subdued the capitals of Shansi and Manchuria, and did all in my power to prop up the North, yet the tide was too strong and swept every locality. Revolutionary societies among the people were scattered everywhere. At this time there was international intervention and it was requested that in the interests of humanity a truce be declared and negotiations undertaken. Foreigners continually uttered reproof on the scores of commercial interests and the indemnity. Because the country was in such a chaotic state politically, it was difficult to restore order. Within there was ruin; without there was furnished the possibility of foreign intervention. The revolutionary forces were coming by various routes to attack the North. The spirit of the army was shaken. Had the strife been continued, in a very short time the revolutionary army would have come north, and in that case it would have been impossible either to fight or to negotiate for peace. What of the imperial family and the livelihood of the bannermen? Recently the ministers of foreign nations, the commercial associations at the ports, the different conferences, the various troops and the provincial viceroys and governors have sent telegrams, all stating that the will of the people is bent on a republic, and that it would be well-nigh impossible to make stand against it. Should the enemy arrive at the walls of the capital, the disasters resulting would be unimaginable. How much better for the throne, of its own grace, to proclaim the republic at an early date. There was condemnation of the policy of staking the fate of their imperial majesties and the lives and property of the North on a single throw, trusting to luck in a single battle. An edict was issued by her Imperial Majesty directing me first to settle with the revolutionary army regarding the especial consideration to be accorded the imperial family and the treatment of the Manchus, Mongolians, Mohammedans, and Tibetans. If an agreement could be reached by the two sides, then the imperial family might enjoy glory, and the hereditary nobility among the Manchus, Mongols, Mohammedans, and Tibetans, as well as the allowances of the bannermen, might continue without interruption. An agreement was made, resulting in the present state of affairs.”

Neither Yuan nor the north has yet explained to the world the reason why the nobility of the Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans, etc., expect titles and pensions, unless it be the argument that is now wearing out over the world, in nation after nation, that it is constitutional to maintain rule by a Privileged Minority over a taxed majority! Yuan says: “An agreement was made resulting in the present state of affairs,” but the “present state of affairs” is not entirely satisfactory. At times, it seems in China that Confucius has abdicated to Confusion. The solution lies in three things: railways, education, and a real republican congress, none of the three to be interfered with by either a riotous or office-greedy army, but rather dutifully served by a patriotic army. There can be no doubt that the action of the ninety generals of the northern army in forcing the National Assembly at Peking, in July, 1912, at the sword’s point, to accept against their will the second cabinet which Yuan Shih Kai had selected, and some of his foreign-advised measures, was inimical to the vitality of constitutionalism in China. The result was the forming of a constitutional party in the Yangtze and southern provinces by Doctor Sun Yat Sen and his friends, called the Tung Men Hwei (Sworn Brother Society), some of whose measures were the supervision of Chinese finances, and railway and industrial development, largely by Chinese, and the discharge of more regiments of northern troops. The National Assembly and cabinet have recently put in Sunyacius’ charge the formation of a central railway board to arrange for the extension of railways.

II
WIT AND HUMOR IN CHINA

In his book Alone in China, Julian Ralph, the New Yorker, wrote in 1898 the following sentence:

“The men and women of China will live in my mind forever, here and in heaven, as the jolliest, kindest, most sympathetic and generous souls I ever found in such profusion anywhere in my roving.”

I have lived and traveled three years in China, and have found that the Chinese influence the foreigners and that the foreigners influence the Chinese, sharpening each other’s wit, and smoothing each other’s kindly humor. The jewel has many facets of view, depending on the angle of vision, and in the following I shall attempt to recall many of the angles.

Regarding the foreign custom, written of by Kipling and others, of the troubled or exiled ones of the treaty ports taking copiously to liquor for consolation, a wit remarked: “A corkscrew will never pull a man out of sorrow.”

The Manchu soldiers read little, and have been under the impression that others are like them. The “braves” on guard at the Ta Ping gate of Canton had been in the habit of extorting many a “cumshaw” from humble-looking citizens before they were allowed to go on their business. They caught a Tartar in 1910, when they seized a modern editor, who aired his complaint in his newspaper, which was read in due time by the Military Prefect Lo. What occurred between Lo and his old-fashioned braves was not reported, but the braves for many months before the revolution of 1911 saw in every passer-by an editor. Up to the time of free types, complaint had been smothered at the yamens.

Revolutionary spies had gone ahead of new appointees to distant provinces and impersonated them with a recitation of their record. In August, 1911, the Peking Gazette recited that the cabinet would in future despatch a photograph in a sealed envelope to the governors, so that “they could pick out the man who fitted the record by physiognomy as well as memory”.

Back in the 80’s the famous Szechuen pioneer, Archibald Little, dunned the ears of the Tsung Li Yamen (Foreign Board) at Peking for permission to open the whole Yangtze River from Shanghai to Chungking to steamer service. “Yes,” said the humorously evasive board at last, “you may run your steamer, but you know that a modern steamer will cut the unwieldy junks down. Therefore all sailing craft will tie up to the bank of the great river two days of each week, and give the terrible Fung-kwei (foreign) steamer full reign on the Yangtze, but on those two days of the week only. For five days of the week the steam craft must in reciprocation, tie up to the bank.” This would require weeks longer to ascend the river than could be done by tracking and sail, and Mr. Little’s plan for fast steamer service was effectually disposed of by the wily Manchu Board, which boasted that it “never denied a foreign request”.

Two trains of coolies meet, and words or a jostle precipitate a combat. After it is all over, and your men take up again the arms of your chair, you remark that although your leader’s clothes are nearly ripped off, he is laughing about it. In astonishment, you ask him why, and he replies: “You should see the fellow I tackled; he hasn’t any left.”

In the country parts, if you hand a cigar to a man at an inn, he thinks it is proper manners to pass it to every one, to take a puff, just as he would do with a pipe.

The Chi Feng Pao, a native paper of Peking, reported that in the month preceding the great 1911 revolution, even the house servants of the Court had not received their wages for months, and that one morning this anonymous placard was found placed on the comptroller’s door: “Not even a shadow of our pay to be seen yet. Why?”

A Chinese merchant, who was disgusted that all his heirs died upon birth, called at a life insurance office at Tientsin, and asked if “they could insure a well and proper birth”, for if so, he would gladly take out a policy. He supposed that was what the new American life insurance meant.

A Hakka woman of the south was seldom given chicken by her husband, who complained of the expense. She obtained his permission, however, to purchase a fowl for the god in the Taoist temple. The husband came home, found his wife eagerly eating the bird, and shrieked out: “How is this? I bought it for the god, not for you.” She replied: “I offered it to the god, who ate all he could of it. I am only eating the remainder, thanks to the god, and not to you, for that.”

It is the custom for the mandarins who go into a country inn, to hang out a red card, stating that “This inn is full”. A rejected guide replied: “Rather the mandarin is full.”

I have seen a humorous drawing on a screen, which shows a cat chasing a mouse. The cat has only been able to catch a hind foot of the mouse, which keeps running, the foot lengthening in a most comical way, judging by the disgust on the face of the cat, and the laugh on the face of the mouse, which says: “That is all you get, anyway.”

“How is it that there are no one-legged men to be seen in China; do you have no accidents?” an intelligent official was asked, and he replied humorously: “Oh, yes, but as we know nothing of surgery, when a man’s leg gets in trouble, we bury the whole man.”

Some of their merry proverbs are:

“If you must beat the priest, wait till he has ended the prayer for you.”

“It’s all very well to tell the priest that you are penitent, but prove it by pennies.”

“A wheelbarrow ahead means a trail behind.”

“Man’s mouth is wider than a volcano when it comes to words.”

A sick man, sleeping fitfully, is said to be having a “raw sleep”, and correspondingly a tired or a drunken man, enjoying deep rest, is said to be having a “ripe sleep”.

It has been the custom of the French and Germans, when a missionary or an ambassador has been unfortunately assassinated, to compel the Chinese government to erect a stone arch or pailoo, with the intent of warning the nation of the wrath of the foreigner. When you ask the common people, who can not read, if the arch is “in memory of Ambassador So-and-So” they generally reply: “Oh, no, it’s to the other fellow. It’s in memory of patriot So-and-So who was executed by a coerced government for killing a forward foreigner.”

Beheading, outside of Kwangtung province, which has recently adopted modern methods, is the punishment for far too many crimes. Scores of prisoners are often beheaded together, as they kneel in a row. The Chinese loathe this method of punishment, as no good Confucian can appear in the next world with a headless body to be worshiped as a god by his descendants. They overcome the difficulty by having the head sewed on the body before it is buried. There is little to identify the almost unclothed bodies, and the Doms or coolies who are hired to perform the gruesome task sometimes get the bodies and heads mixed up, delivering the right body but the wrong head to the surprised though mourning family, which stands ready with the coffin and the identifiers. The Chinese are so possessed of humor that it is not unknown for retainers to burst out laughing at the incongruous spectacle.

“The American cost of living is nothing compared to the Chinese cost of loving,” said the demure mandarin, as he pointed to his five wives, et cetera!

Here is a story that went the rounds of Peking, regarding the equipping of the First Division. A sum exactly sufficient had been allotted by the Ping Pu (War Board). The first prince was too good a worshiper of his ancestors to let such a sum of money pass through his hands without giving the tablets their share, and he loved his women folk too much not to give them a present, and then there was his own “cumshaw” or commission, patriotism being a theory and “graft” a fact. The second prince would be quite lacking in the Li code of manners if he failed to copy the elder first prince, and so the money dwindled down the line, until the Ordnance Department was supplying wooden shells to field guns and wooden cannon to ramparts. The First Division personnel was on the list all right, but there was no money to uniform or arm them. By and by a beggar was found in tatters by the wall. An orderly hurried up, shouted, “You’re the First Division, go and sew some of your patches together, and defend Peking from the enemy; here’s your ammunition.” He handed the beggar the last penny of the appropriation. The beggar grasped the penny, ran off to the first cake stand, and as he swallowed the rice, exclaimed: “Hunger is the enemy, and I’m going to buy him off, for did not Confucius teach that diplomacy always could defeat arms?” Such then was the famous equipping of the First Division. A traveled Manchu who heard this said: “How about your American Manchus? We read your newspapers. Why don’t you foreigners make jokes about the Quay ring of Philadelphia, and the Tammany ring of old New York, when you supplied your courts with everything but justice, even to triplicate bills for undiscoverable fixtures, and quadruplicate pay-rolls for undiscovered appointees? How about that story of the lighting of the streets of your Darktown, each official taking his perquisite, so that when the last penny reached the solitary lamplighter, that worthy concluded that it was so near morning that he would go in a saloon opposite the unlit lamp, and drink up the money, letting nature furnish daylight to atone for the weaknesses of her children of the West?”

Here is a story altered to suit any circuit in China. A stern mandarin got the name of the “Old Devil”. One day, ahead of his escort, he reached his inn, where quarters had been engaged for him. On attempting to walk into the best room, the inn-keeper, who did not know him, strenuously objected, explaining that the room was reserved for “the Old Devil himself”, and woe betide them all if the engagement was not respected. When his escort came up, the mandarin had the inn-keeper flogged for daring to speak disrespectfully of a judge who was a dignified “father and mother” of the people, and at the same time handed the man a handful of coins as a reward for keeping faith with the said mandarin.

The coolies take some of their metaphors from their dirty inns. When a fellow acts impulsively they say: “A louse is loose in his thoughts” or “a flea has found his brain.”

A conductor of a Chinese railway running out of Canton had his difficulties both with the English language, and possibly with certain English or American sailors on a holiday. He pasted up this notice in his coach: “Small piecee bags onlee. Shaky head, shaky tongue, crazee men, no can attain. Dirtee men must not smelee. Sick men more better die, and go freight. Onlee Number One passenger can attain this car.”

Quick transportation is not appreciated in every guild in China. In Ichang the “loata” (captain) of a Yangtze gorge junk objected to the proposed railway to Wan Hsien. As an object lesson he was asked how long it took him to take a cargo to Chungking, and he replied twenty days. When he was told that a railway could deliver it in a day, he asked with a grimace, half between a sneer and a smile: “What would my men and I do with the other nineteen days?”

Yunnan, the capital of the great southwest province, was the first city of China, under the progressive Viceroy Li Chin Hsi, to erect a sanitary modern prison, with workshops, commissary, etc. Yunnan, though an extremely rich province in minerals, is so mountainous that the people, who live on agriculture, are reduced to great poverty, and are in constant slavery to oppressive landlords who are really foray chiefs. Now that the comparatively palatial prison has been erected, there is a rush to commit life-sentence crimes, so that the boarders may be sure of a fine bed, good food, medical care, personal security, and interesting work in the various workshops for the rest of their happy lives, as compared with the unbearable penury and danger of their lives among the hills. The Miaos, Lolos, Shans, and Chinese of Yunnan know a good thing when they see it, and penology is a fad which is spreading like a fire among their mountain terraces at present.

Here is a story of merry days at Peking. The legation ladies had informed the Manchu princess that she must be modern since the Dowager Empress Tse Hsi had decreed it; that she must learn English, music and dancing. As it was the trend of the hour, the suggestion was accepted. The Manchu learned various things. It came to be her duty in time to receive a delegation of earnest missionary ladies, to whom she was ready to prove that she was modern, and had received the foreign branding. “I know modern American hymn; national anthem of great flowery flag country; hail to America. I will sing it and I will dance it.” She danced it and she sang it, and here is what the horrified missionary ladies heard Madame Manchu Innocence thrill: Waltz Me Around Again, Willie.

“With butter at fifty cents a pound and eggs at fifty cents a dozen in your honorable country, I should think you’d move the piano out, and move the cow and hens into your best room so as to be sure of the precious creatures,” said a Chinese economist, who was reading the last American paper at the Hankau guild, and who was satisfied with three cents a dozen for his eggs.

The tea-tasters employed are all foreigners, and it is essential that the taster shall abstain from liquors and tobacco. When the first man among them is seen at the bar in a foreign club at Canton or Hankau, it is a surer sign than the calendar that July 1st is around again.

Mencius relates the story of a thief who, when apprehended, promised that if he was not punished, he would gradually reduce his peculations until he reached the stage of honesty; that it was cruelty to stop him short; that as he had been used to the privilege so long, he did not know any other way in which to gain his livelihood. If Grover Cleveland were living he might say that this Chinese was the first attorney for the tariff, and its progeny.

The humorous pirate, who infests Kwangtung province waters near Hongkong, seldom kills his victims now, as he has as effective a way of escape with the loot, while the helpless bark drifts at the mercy of the waves to the wonder of the foreign navigator, who afar off spies its strange actions because of the unmanned rudder. Lately at Mui Shah, a swift snake boat pulled up in the darkness alongside a slow-sailing junk, which was boarded. After robbing the crew, the pirates battened them down beneath secured hatches, and made good their escape, smiling at their aptitude in carpentry.

It is well known that Chinese doctors are only rewarded for cures and for keeping their patients well. A physician was called in to see a sick tax-collector (yamen runner). “You’ll have to call in another doctor,” said the physician. “Am I so bad that you must have a consultation?” inquired the alarmed patient. “No. You will remember, however, if you have as good a memory as I, that last week you searched high and low and taxed me the last cash on the limit of my property and maximum income. I have too much conscience to kill you, but I’m honest enough to say that I want as little as possible to do with curing you, so good-by.”

There are more Chinese Macks and Mc’s in Canton and Hongkong than in all Argyleshire, Scotland. I recall a particularly droll character, Mak, who was our godown-man at West Point, Hongkong. Mak (we never called him his personal name, which was Fun) was in full charge of the warehouse, and came to the office twice a month with proper accounts, which always checked up with the yearly inventory. When, by appointment, I went down to supervise that inventory, all was as it should be. Mak had a clean warehouse, in which neither rats nor coolies were tenants, and his wharf was kept free of junks and sanpans. I returned unexpectedly one day and found Mak collecting wharfage for himself from junks which he had allowed to tie up at the wharf, and rent from coolie families whom he had allowed to camp, with possibly their plague Bacillariaceæ, between the aisles of gunny bales in the godown. Longfellow speaks of “folding their tents like the Arabs and silently stealing away,” but on this occasion, the retreat of the enemy with their camp paraphernalia was accomplished with both confusion and noise, because of the haste involved. “How is this, Mak?” I shouted as a stern typan should. “Oh, cousins overnight, you sabee; plenty bobbery, but Confucius says, shelter your kin,” Mak blandly replied. I made him assure me that they were all sailing for parts known or unknown on the morrow, but I knew that if I caught them there again, they would be “other cousins” who had claimed hasty hospitality under the same law and the same necessity. There was only one way to match the blandness of Mak Fun, or any other godown-man, and that was to move in myself. As Mak was in other respects a good godown-man, I was blind in the port eye thereafter to this adaptation of the “cumshaw” by the clan of Chinese Macks, though as I passed, to quote from the same verse of Longfellow’s poem, “the night was filled with music” in Chinese Mak’s direction.

The Chinese accept the saddest thing in the world in a droll cheerful manner. A son, who had grown prosperous in Hongkong, sent his father, who lived in the silk district outside of Canton, a splendid lacquered coffin, which he was to keep before him in the best room for friends to see. The son’s letter said: “Here is something gorgeous for The Event” (that is, his father’s death).

The North China Herald gives the following as a sample of a Chinese boy’s request upon his employer for a recommendation, after he had been discharged by the officious butler: “Before I have leaved here the services, was troubled by here butler. He squeezes (steals), lies, and makes private of anythings, and also he said wrong of my bad conducts as a rascal. He discharged me for his brother in secret. After that you lost things which are determined in my brain. Now I beg you to request of Missy (the employer’s wife) which as possible as you can. But I am unliking at there Master to do anythings, I am much obliged to come to my new place under of your charges (recommendation) and beg you to bless me as boy or coolie business for my content at all, or please you to commence the any other places you know of. So I hope you to grant me a good report, for I am beg it to you on knees. Shall be much obediently and obliged. Address me to here as ‘No. 2 boy’. I remain, Sir, That obedient coolie servant, etc.”

For centuries there has been an amusing burglary insurance system and a droll code of courtesy between watchmen and robbers in China. If you do not wish to run the risk of being robbed, you pay the Head Thief, or Chief of the Robber Beggars, a fee, and he protects and insures you from loss and annoyance. Your watchman pounds his drum to show you that he is earning his salary, and at the same time to let the thief know where the watchman is, so that he may operate in safety if the owner has not taken out the usual insurance.

A coolie urged his cousin “for ten thousand reasons” not to go into the foreigner’s church, where the powerful orator was “sending people who stole to hell.” He was fully convinced that if no one spoke over him the dreadful words of objurgation, he could steal and run no chance of going to the inferior regions. In ignorantia salus!

On the subject of compressed feet, here is the Oriental side: “It’s fear, not modesty, that denies you white men more than one wife,” said the Chinese joker. “You equip your women with first-class feet, and they are as strong and swift as your men. What would one lone man do in a retreat before many claimants?”

There is a law prohibiting fortune-tellers soliciting on the streets. The Hongkong Telegraph writes that a fakir is standing at a hotel door, desiring to peer into the future of the passers-by. The paper, with its usual wit, suggests that an officer of the law should peer into the fakir’s immediate future!

The same paper coins this aphorism: “We never know how many friends we have till we don’t need them; or how few friends we have till we need them.”

A motor truck was rushing by with a load of empty barrels. “Nothing can stop them,” suggested the admiring Chan. “Nothing but corks,” replied the punnist Choi.

The Oriental has seized on Billiken, with the exaggerated mosquito-bite on his bald head, his elongated cranium, his wolf’s ears, comedian’s smile like DeWolf Hopper’s or Coquelin’s, his elephant’s feet, Buddha’s barrel-stomach, and monkey’s arms, as the god of western wealth, humor, or what-not. The idiot idol, warming his enormous feet, is installed before many a footlight of burning tapers and punk-sticks in the shrines of eclecticism in both Taoist and Buddhist China.

To show that hygiene is not fully understood yet in China, which is so anxious to learn, they tell this story. A European passenger in a coast-wise steamship, who had to share his room with an Oriental who had been modernized too quickly, found the latter using his tooth-brush in the morning ablutions. “You blankety son of the sun, that’s MY tooth-brush,” exclaimed the disgusted Occidental. “Me bow low for pardons; me thought it was ship’s tooth-brush,” apologized the Oriental.

The witty Hongkong Mail (was the veteran Murray Bain or the scholarly Reed the author?) explained to the fellow into whose nog glass an ancient egg was deposited by the Chinese boy that it wasn’t the fault of the Cathayan hen, but the fault of the administrators of her estate.

A visitor chided a Hongkong volunteer with the sounds of revelry which proceeded from one quarter of the camp, and a wit connected with the local Press shot out this repartee: “Oh, I know Ancient and Honorable Military Companies where you come from, whose strategy is greatest on the canteen, whose night attacks are mostly on the bottle, and whose field-glass is a wine glass.”

The Happy Valley Cemetery trustees at Hongkong were arguing over the prices of graves. One wit defended the resolution before the board by saying: “A man only dies once in the East, and surely can afford the luxury of a high-priced grave.”

The astrologer complained of thieves robbing his house. “You’re an infallible astrologer, aren’t you?” inquired the judge. “Yes, indeed,” replied the soothsayer. “Well, why didn’t you foretell the advent of the thieves?” remarked the droll mandarin. Tableau!

Said the ignorant but successful man of enormous paunch to the caustic wit: “I have no use for a man whose head is so big that he has to scratch his hair away out here.” “Nor I,” said the wit, “for the little-brained hog who has to button his vest away out here.”

The Chinese poor sleep in the open—the Great Unroofed—generally on their backs against a pillar or wall, with their knees drawn up. A new mission hospital gathered in the sick, the lame and the blind, who were sweetly tucked in soft clean beds, under sheets, and commended to their lullabies. In the morning the staff came upon an amusing sight. Every patient had dropped out of bed, and was sleeping in the tried and true, good old fashion against the bed post on the floor. All they would say was: “Me no sabee new fashion.”

The patient missionary at last reminded John that it was all right to eat rice “on him” and get hospital treatment, but that there was a little card which he had signed promising to be a regular contributor as well as a benefiting member of the organization. John wrote: “My venerable Rev.: Blushed am I to have been reminded of my forget in worshipping and offering. Here I enclose my apology and the sum you like if I am right in making out your multiply. Your spoiled lamb.”

Many nations have been credited with this witty repartee, and the Chinese are included in the list. The Hongkong merchant prince was showing his mountain palace, his tennis courts, his stable, his automobile, possibly his flying machine, his billiard table, his bowling alley, etc., to the Solon from Canton. “You see that when we British devote ourselves to pleasure, we do it regardless of expense.” “Rather,” replied the Chinese, whose relaxation was of a gentler kind, such as walking in gardens, and flying birds and kites, “I should say you devote yourself to expense regardless of pleasure.”

Solomon came to humorous judgment when two women of First Kings brought their case before him, and Lord Kitchener is credited with a grim humor in dealing with the Arab sheiks who wanted to enlist in the war against Italy. Here is Chinese humor of the same sort. All of the mandarin’s staff at his new station thought they would embarrass him by applying for promotions. Granted with gusto! Every one’s position was advanced one grade, but the salaries were all reduced one grade at the same time owing to retrenchments needed.

A freshman of Queen’s College, writing of the popularity of Sir Matthew Nathan, the indefatigable British governor of Hongkong, who died from exposure in the 1900 typhoon, said: “He is a very common man.” He, however, meant common in the Scriptural sense that the heroic governor’s fame was common to all.

Chinese women are short and soft as compared with the larger and stronger foreign women seen in the treaty ports. A Chinese student satirist, who had served as a house boy in San Francisco, thus described in an essay his former American mistress and her daughters: “The Americaness is open air breather, consequently her meat is harder than Chinese (he meant her muscle). In a dangerous melancholy acting, the young Americaness quickly traps her sorrow husband who comes to pity, but soon runs to grieve in divorce when loving voice of Americaness recovers from coyness. Bud of romance early frosted makes scandal column of paper, which is best advertising much sought and read like dog in manger by all actress without job. Cold ethics of Chinese woman in comparison sprouts not too quick ruin, consequently wears better. Americaness system much exciting is open-air theater for all to laugh and read as run. Americaness never reaches next birthday, consequently always fresh and sweet like comquat in syrup; but American poet says: ‘Beware, some sweets do cloy, but food is good each day.’ I think then China wife is like food, if plain, always satisfying, and fills the bill, as American Zoo keepers say. American man and Chinese man believe womans should go slow; consequently Americaness wear hobble skirt like lasso on ankle, and Chinese woman bind foot. Both mens take no chances, and exchange mutual wink. However, Chinese woman and Americaness woman, is both queenesses of talk—when once begun then heroes run. Talk then is kingdom of womens called Suffragetia, where mans sees finish and casts his weapons in humble dust.”

Describing life among his friends, the bell-boys at the Shanghai hotels who have frequently to answer calls for a B. & S. after a bath, another wit said: “The guests are ringing (wringing) wet in two spellings.”

Was this Oriental a flatterer of womankind, or a droll cynic regarding mankind? The wife of the missionary asked the native pupil to translate our maxim: “Out of sight, out of mind,” and he rendered it into these characters: “Your husband is insane when he is away from you.” Another boy wrote it: “The angels are crazy.”

At the Chinese Club a scholarly Chinese traveler warned me to follow the Royal Hongkong Golf Club’s motto, “Festina lente” (make haste slowly), in dwelling upon the wonderful traits of the Chinese, and he related the following humorous story: “In your country an enthusiastic missionary, daringly stimulated by the applause of his audience, put wonder upon wonder, Pelion on Ossa piled, in describing the vicarious virtues of the Chinese, by saying: ‘Yes, dear children, lives are cheap in China. I knew a man there who made his living by selling himself to the executioners to take the place of those condemned to death.’”

Here is a tale of facetiousness and evasion. A wag, whose appearance was against him, called at a prison, and held this dialogue with the clerk: “Is the mandarin in?” “No.” “Is the deputy in?” “No.” “Is the jailer in?” “No.” “Is the bamboo-wielder in?” “No.” “Oh, say, are the prisoners in, Mr. No-No-No?”

One of the modernized officials labeled his friend’s book of personal press flatteries, “The Pursuit of Egotism.”

The well-known Bankers’ Association of Tokio is called the “Eel Society”. I asked my Chinese friend for his interpretation of this, and he explained: “Because they are as slippery in the grasp of their Diet as is your Money Trust in the hands of Congress.” He further told me that they call the administration papers which say that “everything is lovely and the goose hangs high”, “official frogs”, because they only know one note, and one sets the others going on the same old thing.

Two wags met on the street of the Shansi Bankers’ Guild, Peking. One wore a sour and the other a comical expression. The cynic clenched his fist at the teak-barred windows of one bank, and with a wry face exclaimed, “I don’t know how he’s giving it away, but I do know how he got it.” The other, holding out the hush-money of a silver sycee bar, and pointing to a banker’s residence across the road, answered: “I don’t know how he got it, but I happen to know how he’s giving it away.”

A popular Chinese restaurant bears the legend of “The Quiet Woman”, and the caricature shows a standing woman, whose decapitated head lies at her feet, and wears at last, before her triumphant husband, a defeated expression. The double humor is that henpecked men may safely come to this restaurant, and enjoy that quiet and retirement which home does not afford.

The humorist tells of a stutterer who held up an old friend, and clinging to his pajama-frog (for pajamas are outside and not inside clothes in old-style China), said: “If-f-f-f-f y-y-you h-have an hour I’d l-l-like to h-have a m-m-minute’s c-conversation with you.”

Athletics of all sorts, except Rugby football, are popular at China’s best technical school, Pei Yang University at Tientsin. English is used for all lectures except, of course, Chinese classics. The subject of establishing a debating class or a Rugby football team came up, and a professor who defended the former said that “he preferred a man who could stand on his feet and make his head work to one who could stand on his head and make his feet work”.

A rich brute went to meet his victim whom he had impoverished. He jeered, so as to break his spirit as he had done to his estate: “My! what a come down; what poor clothes.” Quick as a flash from the never-say-die man came the repartee: “Yes, I expected to meet you, but you should see me on ordinary days.”

The practical joker has visited romantic Macao. They tell this story of the Portuguese Sé Mission Cathedral. The Macao women are short, and the fonts of holy water are placed too high on the wall for them to look into. The devil was put into the sacred waters by the bad boy, the devil this time being crabs, which unseen, nipped the fingers of the superstitious women as they searched high up for the soothing blessing.

The naming of the Chinese servants on board ship, in mess, hong, office or godown, has presented many a difficulty, and the civilian is more inconsiderately humorous than the missionary, especially when his help changes often, as is the case in Hongkong. Numbers instead of names are generally used. “Number Two piecee cook” is what you would say if you desired the second cook called. “Number One piecee topside boy” is what your wife would say if she desired the first up-stairs chamber boy called. There are no chambermaids. Where a woman is employed, she serves only as an amah; that is, mother-nurse, or mother-maid. In the irreverent messes and barracks, some of the men name their servants after some personal distinction or appearance, such as “The Tall One”; “One Eye”; “Melica”, because he told you that he had once sailed on a ship for America; “Jesus man”, because he told you he got converted at a mission school and preferred the name; “Governor boy”, because he was once a servant in the governor’s yamen. Sometimes the messes christen their servants according to their favorite political leaders in America or England: “Loosy Velly” is, of course, Roosevelt; “Blyan” is Bryan; “Wheel Sun” is Wilson; “Salls Belly” is Salisbury; “Loy Jo” is Lloyd George, and one boy rejoiced in the name of “Jimmy de Blaney” (Blaine). Hundreds of these silent servants are moving about the dining-room of the palatial Hongkong Club at tiffin (lunch) time, yet you will not hear a footfall, as they wear felt-soled shoes. Perhaps they are as silently giving you and me numbers, instead of names, in Chinese. Indeed, I know they do, and would be ashamed to tell my tourist friends that some of them are soon known as “Wigglety Walk”; “Always Shout”; “Fool Laugh”; “Pig Eye”; “Wine Face”; “Wine Whiskers” (red beard); “Buddha’s Belly” (stout); and when women attract them, “Tea Flower” (pale one); “Buddha’s Mother” (a sweet matron); “Flowery Flag” (American); “British Queen”; “Snow Flower” (Canadian), etc.

Kipling, Archibald Little, Price Collier and others have written that some men sometimes drink hard east of Suez. The writer himself in a former book related the bravery of a famous 11 A. M. Cocktail Brotherhood in the blazing stifling Orient, and two world-known knights of the pen took him to tournament to break a lance because of it. One witty evening an old hand on the club veranda admitted the soft impeachment, and gave himself and some others medals for the dangers he had passed in these words of Cicero in the immortal “Murena” oration: “If Asia does carry with it a suspicion of luxury, surely it is a praise-worthy thing, not never to have seen Asia, but to have lived temperately in Asia.” Ah! we who had weathered many a storm, sighed, and in bravery ordered one more, drinking not to the habit, but to the wit. As Archibald Little, veteran of the East, said, the tea-tasting season was over, and a mile-stone should be set to mark it!

A droll Chinese boy brought his fast running watch to Gaupp’s jewelry store on Queen’s Road, Hongkong. On being asked to explain as best he could what seemed to be the trouble, the Celestial rolled up those expressive eyes of his, which must move the gods, as they always do men, to laughter: “Oh, he too muchee to-mollow (to-morrow); you jerk back to to-day.”

“We have come here to stay,” boasted a corps of the enemy, which took up an advanced position. “Yes, they stayed,” replied doughty General Li Yuen after the battle, and his grim smile explained that they stayed as dead bodies.

Yen Tsz, an eminent premier of the Tsi principality, and a contemporary wit with Confucius, referring to the increase of crime which called for the punishment of the amputation of feet, used this ironical phrase: “False feet are cheaper than shoes these days in our market-place.”

The humor of war is grim. Shortly before Confucius’ day the prince of Tsu State had overcome the army of Tsin State. The dead lay in heaps. The Tsu prince was asked if he would not order a tablet raised over the brave enemy. “Not much,” said he, “I will have a tablet to my own ancestors raised over them, giving thanks that we do the crowing instead of them this time.”

A fireman on the new Canton-Hankau railway made out his report of a regrettable fatality in a collision as follows: “The engineer was died without senses.”

A consolidation of three formerly independent samshu liquor dealers of Canton advertised as follows: “This three rice bier dealers, before separate, is now amalgamated for quite economic, and glad with much public order for oblige soled more cheap to foreign friends.”

On a landing in a curio store, popular with foreigners, was the following sign: “Peoples alighted here go down stairs if curious wishing.”

A penitent convert wrote his mission school teacher as follows: “Many thoughts of unpleasant come into my mind. Many tears drop my spiritual soul not to speak of outside eyes. I break my beautiful promise. I contemps the difficults but was mistake. I was failed that time to finish the very good of God which begunned. Deep repents of my throat is blocked thickly in bearing regrets for everlasting, but I standing for your forgive and excuse of God like poor Peter in three times with handkerchief on shame face and water eyes.”

Just as humorously confused is the attempt of nine-tenths of the foreigners to make themselves understood in Chinese. Sometimes the efforts of our missionaries and translators reach the old book-shops, and are promptly thrown with a smile, which is more humorous than cynical in these days of humor and enlightenment, into the compartment entitled: “Second Hand Religion.”

I asked my Chinese friend why their ideograph for two friends was two pearls, and he explained: “Because each is equally precious, without the possibility or necessity of being exactly alike.” Let this answer for a picture of America and China as the new days dawn on each side of the Pacific. A Tientsin shop seems to have grasped satisfactorily the situation, its sign reading: “All languages spoken: American understood.”

The many thousand ideograms of the Chinese language are memorized, and words are often tabulated for the pupil by rhyme. They have no alphabet and therefore can never use a linotype or typewriter. The Chinese, accordingly, have wonderful memories, but their memory-method sometimes places them in humorous situations. English is now required in nearly all the new Chinese schools, though the Chinese mandarin examiners know little about the language as yet. A confident Chinese candidate appeared before the board of a Kwangtung province school as an applicant for the position of “Professor of English”. “How much English do you know?” profoundly inquired the mandarin from behind his heavy, tortoise-rimmed glasses. The amusing reply was: “Numbers, one to ten; a hundred words beginning with ‘A’, and ten words rhyming with sing.” The Chinese board accepted the Chinese teacher of English for want of a better man. The new Chinese are eminently a business race, and therefore, in their excellent business judgment, the day will come when they will be compelled to throw away their ideographs so as to avail of the business facilities of our alphabet-typewriter and linotype. The present Chinese ideograph case in a printing office has thousands of ideograph types, and it is a sadly humorous sight on a hot day in humid South China to see a Chinese typesetter darting about the room like a dragon-fly, trying to meet the editor’s demand for an “extra.”

The carriages of a funeral procession rolled along the maloo of modernized Shanghai. The mourners in the first carriage played cards and laughed. Every one else in the procession joked and smiled. I asked my Chinese humorist to explain the astonishing incongruity and he replied: “Why shouldn’t everybody be happy when everybody is deeply satisfied? Hop Long’s enemies believe that he has descended below to get at last the many punishments that are coming to him, and Hop Long’s friends just as confidently believe that he has ascended on high to receive his richly merited rewards; therefore, you see, all are joyful.”

The landlord made an agreement with the tenant that when the rice was harvested, he should receive one-third. Harvest was long past in its pale and sickle moon, and the landlord, receiving nothing, accosted the tenant: “Look here, thou Choi, didn’t we make an agreement that I should receive one-third of that rice?” Choi, nothing daunted, replied: “Yes, Laoye, but there was no third; there were only two baskets of rice and they are both mine.”

Two Chinese youths were discussing their ambitions. One said: “When I grow up I want to belong to a theatrical company.” His brother replied: “Humph, not I. I want the theatrical company to belong to me.”

The Chinese do not raise milch cows or goats. The following aged milk joke accordingly has been trotted out before every mess table of Treaty Port China, and been made to blush as a novice for the entertainment of every griffin. It seems that the new China hands insisted on having fresh milk in their tea. For the sake of peace the Number One boy at last procured it. The new hands said: “Of course it’s not like the June grass milk at home, but it will do in a pinch.” The Number One boy smiled blandly. At last the milk ceased and the new hands demanded an explanation, which the Number One boy gave as follows: “No molo milkee; that piecee olo pig have now got litter of lil pigs; that piecee bucket whitewash now makee finish.”

III
INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL CHINA.

The eastern states of America and Great Britain have a new slogan: “Get ready for the Panama Canal.” The western states of America, and indeed all America, should have another slogan: “Get ready for the China trade.” It is not far off; it is already on the horizon, “arising a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand”. It may come with a rush any year and thousands of companies will have their headquarters at New York. There are many things to arrange, internally and externally, in currency, in a tariff of twelve per cent. instead of five per cent., in provincial, inter-provincial and international politics, in loans and finances, in education, in nationalization of trunk railways, in harbor, canal and river conservancy, in reforestation, in patent, copyright and mining laws, in commercial law, in army matters, in a revenue navy, in police, in municipal organization, in hygiene, in paternalization as far as famine, flood and seed grain are concerned, in collection of taxes, in civil service, etc., but none of these difficulties is insuperable. Then comes the great trade.

On my travels and life of three years in China, I have listened, and I have glanced about for signs of the new times; and I shall relate just a few of the indications of progress, indications as different from the old manifestations as day is from night. Three years ago, yes, one year ago, few thought that these things were possible. Twenty recent books and five thousand newspaper articles prophesied that they were not possible. Thirty recent authors and ten thousand newspaper writers were Laodicean in attitude. Alas, ye Manchuized scribes! A few books, a few articles, many missionaries, and the October, 1911, revolution said they were possible, and the fall of Nanking proved it.

Industrial China. The government, foreign and native capital are vieing with one another in developing industries of all kinds. Wages are rising, so that the West need not be alarmed.

Modern road (bund); electric light; telegraph; buildings; trees on border; at Canton, South China.

The grandest river gorges in the world, on the Yangtze. These difficult rapids have separated Eastern and Western China, but a railway is now under construction. A modern road skirts the cliffs.

Agricultural machinery will before long be required on the great plains of Pechili, Mongolia and the three Manchurian provinces, whence America will draw much grain, meat, oil, lumber and coal. Nail, needle and glass factories are going up on a small scale. China has the iron in the mine, but she will need our machinery. Paper mills are largely increasing, and we need their pulp. Some mills use bamboo, which the Japanese successfully experimented on in Formosa. Factories for making soap, the most glaringly deficient thing in dirty China hitherto, have been erected, even in far western Chingtu City. China, like Japan, has concluded to adopt wool in the northern provinces instead of padded cotton and sheepskin. Woolen mills have been erected at Shanghai, Peking, Lanchow, Hankau, Kalgan, etc., to work up to the vast supplies of Mongolian and Pechili shearings. The old method of making winter clothing was to pad cotton and silk with cotton batting and silk waste, the wearer being transformed into a comical Falstaffian size. Modern tanneries have been erected by Mohammedan Chinese at Hankau, Lanchow, Singan, etc. Hardware and enameled ware factories have been erected at Tientsin, Canton, etc., but China can not for years take care of her needs in hardware. Flour mills abound at Harbin, Shanghai and Hongkong, and will be rapidly extended throughout the north. Cement is being heavily produced, and will increase, great factories now being run at Tongshan in Pechili, Canton and Macao in Kwangtung, and Tayeh in Hupeh provinces. All of these industries will need machinery. Of all municipal improvements, China has needed modern water-works the most. They are now in operation in the cities of Shanghai, Hankau, Tientsin, Canton, Peking, Mukden, Chingtu, Nanking, Hangchow, Chinkiang, Swatow, Tsinan, Newchwang, etc. Electric cars are run at Canton, Shanghai, Peking, Hongkong, Hankau, Tientsin, Tsingtau, etc. Hongkong has a wonderful cable railway up 1,500 feet of mountain, which will be copied at Kiukiang, and other hill resorts from the heat. Telephone service is installed at Hongkong, Canton, Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, Tsingtau, Chingtu, Wuhu, Hangchow, Ningpo, Nanking, etc. Electric light is furnished at Nanking, Peking, Tientsin, Tsingtau, Hankau, Swatow, Mukden, Newchwang, Shanghai, Hangchow, etc. In little of this have the Americans entered as yet, though they will on a vast scale as American finance and industry extends its agencies. The financing and the contracting often go together, and it is not unknown for the British and Germans to combine, though the British would be glad to join with the Americans, if there were Americans on the ground. Often the suppliers divide on a plant, the British furnishing the engines and boilers, and the Germans the dynamos. Gas works are also being erected, and the incandescent mantle lamps are very popular. As China has untold riches in coal, her development in gas lighting will be extensive. There is a great field for American machinery here. Her pipe foundries will grow, as she has as much iron as coal. For many years, however, her industrial, municipal and railway supplies, and certainly her machinery, must largely come from abroad. It is a great field for the manufacturing nations, and even Austria is entering it with recent success. She has increased the service of the Austrian Lloyd Steamship Company from Trieste, and her manufactures are seen more and more throughout the Far East. Yet Austria is not a nation that can be compared with America, Britain or Germany in potentiality.

Since China has become a purchaser of machinery, she invites the world to advertise in Chinese in her newspapers, and to open agencies in China, where Chinese is read by the compradores at least. She hates concession hunters when they are of the Pizarro and Cortez type, and desires to exploit and profit by her own wealth. I have seen the bitterest complaint in the Ching Wei Pao, an able native paper of Tientsin, that too many franchises are given free to foreigners, who pay small wages and take the profits out of the country. Can you blame them for desiring municipal ownership, if they are willing to buy our machinery and hire our instructors?

China is slowly establishing fire departments in its municipal and marine life. I have seen a fire break out on oil boats in the West River of Kwangtung province. Gongs were struck everywhere, and tugs and launches hastened to the scene and with hose poured water upon the blaze.

The Chinese engine builders of Hongkong, who were apprenticed at the British Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company, are successfully copying foreign marine engines and pumps, and for boats under one thousand tons European builders can not compete with them, except in the matter of quicker delivery, which is often important. Many motor-boats, manufactured in Hongkong, are brought across the Pacific for delivery in Canada via the C. P. R. steamships. Until recently the Szechuen and Hupeh boatmen of the upper Yangtze would not permit the competition of steam, but the Kwangtung province men of the West River—the brainiest men of modern China—have been quick to adopt machinery, possibly because wonderful Hongkong was so near as an example of the new era and an efficient interpreter of the West to the East. While the labor at Hongkong is Chinese, most of the capital and the expert foremanship is British.

The total taxes that a Chinese pays for national, provincial and municipal purposes is one dollar per head per year, against seven dollars in Russia, and twenty dollars in Europe and America. As most of this money is wasted on soon obsolete navies and armies, and is drawn from mines and land that can not be replenished, one can see the vast wealth with which China will some day suddenly step into the world arena, China strong, and the others impoverished in all but brain power.

In Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces, very simple methods are followed in producing cotton-seed oil. The seeds are heated, packed into a barrel and pressure is exerted by driving wedges under a hoop. Meal is made in buffalo-driven stone mills. These methods will soon change with modern industrial organization and the importation of our machinery.

At Kiating in the south of Szechuen province are the remarkable gas and salt wells, the former supplying fuel to evaporate the brine of the latter. The industry is immense, there being many thousands of wells in the opulent Min River valley of Central China. The salt is a government monopoly, and may be retained as such in the new financing, as in some features of national revenue French and Japanese methods, instead of American and British, may be followed. In that case, the federal government would be the purchaser of the new machinery.

Only north of the Yangtze River are ponies seen. Szechuen province has the most beautiful, many of them being black. The Mongolian pony of the provinces farther north has a heavier body and a worse temper. Japan has commenced the stocking of horses, and China will do likewise, when she widens her roads, and increases the size of her farms so as to make an animal useful, the men displaced from employment going to the new mines and railways. Moreover, China is at her wits’ end for fertilizer, which stock will furnish. She has been at her wits’ end for fuel and has been burning the field stubble and straw needed for compost. Now coal will save for her this land enricher.

The fine guild houses in the various cities are erected by subscription and are put in charge of a caretaker. Meeting halls, showrooms, restaurants, theater and sleeping quarters are provided. It is the same as if the Ohio men put up a guild house in New York, and the New York men put up a guild house in Cincinnati; or if Edinburgh traders erected a guild house in London, and London men reciprocated. It was the reciprocal working of these guilds which showed the Chinese that assemblies and parliaments were feasible, and next to the foreign-trained students, the guild men have been foremost in China’s representative political bodies. Here are some of the practical proverbs that are hung up in the guild rooms:

“He who keeps everlastingly at it will grow legs long enough to jump the highest mountain.”

“When there’s fire a distant lake is not so good as a near bucketful.”

“Gambling is not good, but still I have known one who risked his last penny and got his first pound.”

“You don’t need to thrash a fast horse, or yell at a wise man.”

“Trust an orange-seller to say that his oranges are sweet, and a shoemaker to say that his shoes don’t leak.”

“A smiling salesman enhances his wares.”

“A little attention to the cutting end of a chisel makes necessary only a little attention to the striking end.”

The inland Chinese are sometimes clever in working themselves into the foreigner’s personnel of staff. First the father brings his boy, and the boy brings his cousin, imploring the foreigner to let them wait around the office to pick up a little English. They insist on doing or pretending to do chores; they whisper to the staff to halve their work with them, and then they beg for or demand a wage “while they are learning English.” Seldom does the kind-hearted foreigner refuse it, and he is really spreading the commercial and literary gospel of the West by doing so.

In some of the Yangtze provinces designs are even yet stamped into the dyed cotton and silk, by stencil with lime, which takes out the color, as compared with our system of rolling the inked design on plain goods. The old will be rung out by the new, as Tennyson prophesied.

Man as a beast of burden must depart in patient earnest China, which is associated with such unique sights of physical slavery as dozens of coolies harnessed to a wagon-load of teak in Hongkong, or several hundred trackers tied to long bamboo hawsers, while they pull junks through the terrific rapids of the noble Yangtze gorges between Ichang and Wan Hsien. Men for thousands of years have also supplied with their legs the motive power of irrigation wheels for raising water, and of tread wheels for turning paddles. Billions of tons of freight have been carried on the backs and from the shoulders of men, women and children over the hundreds of mountain passes on the great trade routes of mountainous China, such as the steep Mei Ling pass of Kwangtung, the Tangyueh pass of Yunnan, the Tachien pass into Tibet, etc. Hongkong’s thousand palatial villas and châteaux eighteen hundred feet above the clouds were carried up brick by brick and stone by stone in baskets and on bamboos balanced on the bare shoulders of human beings, who panted piteously in a stifling hot and humid atmosphere in the equator region. Men have pumped the brine from the deepest brine wells in the world. Their arms have lifted the weights that have driven the wells for gas and brine. A pulley, a rope, an endless chain, have been unknown, and hearts and feet have strained up the thirteen stories of the pagodas with the coping stone and upcurled eaves. The day of labor-saving devices dawns for a China whose population is going to decrease within reason, not with the intent to starve labor, but so that labor may devote itself to better-paying work. Government officials only can supervise this condition in China or in America, government’s work being to govern the big as well as the small, as we are just discovering in the West.

Shopping has been done by a tedious system of bargaining extending over days, the contract concluding with a shout of “Mai Te” (sale attained), which corresponds with our stock exchange phrase of “Bid taken.” Doubtless the modern Chinese will adopt the Anglo-Saxon method of saving time and coming to a decision quicker. Healthy competition will bring this about.

Many guilds and Chinese merchants continue the old custom of sending letters from city to city by messenger or trusted traveler. Hongkong has attacked this competition with the government post-office by fining those who deliver private letters from out-ports, though Hongkong permits private delivery by the excellent “chit-book” system within the city.

China is finding that she can knit her own goods, and she will soon import yarns mainly. I shall instance the Wei San factory as a sample of five factories in Hongkong. Canton has ten factories, and Kwangtung province has many more, not to speak of the immense number of hand-knitting machines which the Japanese and the Germans are supplying. Tientsin and Shanghai have several knitting factories, and much foreign machinery will be needed throughout the land, especially in the Yangtze valley.

Up to Viceroy Chang Chih Tung’s régime in Hupeh in 1906, China scraped and raked the whole world for cargoes of old horseshoes and iron scrap, but since the blast furnaces at Hanyang have been a success, China is doing considerable smelting of ore, of which she has beds almost as rich as her coal and lime beds. The largest iron mines now worked are at Phing Ting in eastern Shansi province and Tayeh in eastern Hupeh province. The Hanyang smelters supply the rail mills of Hanyang, and also ship pig iron to the Wakamatsu iron works on Kyushu Island, Japan; 40,000 tons of pig to the Western Steel Corporation of Seattle, and to the eastern seaboard of America, as well as to Hongkong, on occasions. There is iron ore in more than half of the provinces, notably in Kiangsu (near Nanking); Nganhwei and Kiangsi, besides the provinces mentioned. China is already turning out 400,000 tons of iron ore a year, largely by primitive methods. The Han Yeh Ping Iron and Coal Company at Hanyang, Hupeh province, has three German blast furnaces, eight Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnaces, a rolling-mill of one thousand tons a day, blooming mills and a foundry. The cranes are run by electricity. The iron ore and limestone are secured at Tayeh eighty miles down the Yangtze from Hankau. Here a whole range of hills is full of hematite ore. A railway of fifteen miles brings the ore to the Yangtze River, where it is loaded on junks and towed by steam launches up to Hanyang.

Among the Chinese companies (stock held by Chinese and foreigners) which have been managed successfully are the Taku (Tientsin) Tug and Lighter Company; Shanghai Tug and Lighter; Shanghai Dock and Engineering; Shanghai and Hongkew Wharf Company; China Oil Company; Tientsin Iron Works; Union, Yangtze, North China and Canton Marine Insurance Company; Hongkong, Canton, Yangtze, North China and China Fire Insurance Companies; China Merchants’ Steamship Company; Ewo, Shanghai and Soy Chee Cotton Mills; Hai Ho Conservancy (Tientsin); Ching Ching Mining Company; Kiangnan Dock and Ship-building at Shanghai; Yangtzepoo Dock and Ship-building at Shanghai; Vulcan Iron and Car Works; Han Yeh Ping steel plant at Hanyang; colliery at Pinghsiang; iron mines at Tayeh; Commercial Press of Shanghai in publishing; Chee Hsin Cement Company (at Tayeh, Hupeh).

In joint stock organization, China will for a while suffer from two things, nepotism and graft. We have ourselves not yet emerged from staffing companies with inexperienced and dummy relatives, and from plundering the corporation exchequer. The Shanghai taotai who decamped during the rubber panic of 1910, having given several million dollars of fiduciary funds to friends, will never be forgotten in the Paris of the East. No more however will the “squeezing” Manchu mandarin come down “like a wolf on the fold” on struggling concerns or private business.

China mines only 15,000,000 tons of coal yearly, mainly at the following mines:

Kaiping (near Tientsin), in Pechili province; Wei Hsien, in Honan (anthracite).

Pingsiang, in Kiangsi province; Lin Cheng, in Pechili (anthracite).

Fangtsze (near Tsinan), in Shangtung province.

Lung Wang (near Chungking), in Szechuen province.

Tse Chow, in Shansi province.

Ching-Ching, in Shansi province (anthracite).

Pao Chin, in Shansi province (anthracite).

Fushun (near Mukden), in Manchuria (owned and operated by Japanese).

Heijo (near Chemulpo), in Korea (owned and operated by Japanese).

Ping Yang, in Korea (owned and operated by Japanese).

Hungay and Kebao, in Tonquin (owned and operated by French and Hongkong capitalists).

This of course is only a beginning. On account of poor transportation by rail and canal, China imports about 2,000,000 tons of Japanese coal, and Hongkong and Shanghai import Australian and Welsh coal, some of it for admiralty purposes. The largest anthracite mines now open are, in their order, in Shansi, Honan, Pechili and Shangtung provinces; the bituminous as far as mined, in their order, in Pechili, Kiangsi, Shensi, Kansu, Shangtung, Szechuen, Yunnan, Kweichou, Hunan and Kwangsi provinces. Over a million tons of lignite are mined yearly in Manchuria. England has a coal supply for only one hundred and fifty years, and America’s supply will not last much longer. This means that China will step full-panoplied into the coal and iron arena with plethoric supplies which, with her population, will make her probably the world’s richest nation, in material resources, if not in brains. The first shipment of Chinese coal for America occurred in July, 1910, when the steamer Inverkip called at Ching Wang Tao on the Gulf of Pechili and loaded the famous Kaiping coal for San Francisco. The British Peking Syndicate, mining anthracite coal in Shansi province, purposes to build colliers to take coal to America. Coal costs at the mines only seventy-five cents a ton, and with machinery opulent China could reduce this cost. It is a knowledge of the potentiality of this great wealth that kindled some of the fire of the October, 1911, revolution, and led the provincial assemblies of Szechuen and Hupeh to say: “China’s mines and transportation franchises shall not be passed over to foreigners.” The Peking Syndicate, mainly British, operating hard coal and iron mines in Shansi, is capitalized at $6,000,000. The Chinese Engineering and Mining Company has a capital of $5,000,000. It has for many years operated the famous Kaiping coal mines north of Tientsin. This is the company which employed Mr. Kinder, the British engineer, who surreptitiously built the “Rocket,” the first locomotive used continuously in China.

A wonderful tin mine has been worked for many years at Kuo Chao, in the southeast corner of Yunnan province, the tin being exported through Mengtsu. It used to seek Hongkong via the Red River and Haiphong and sometimes via Nanning, the West River and Canton. The costly narrow gage railway which the French have run from Haiphong to Yunnan now catches nearly all of this product. There is much complaint regarding rates, which are based “on all the traffic will bear,” and it is proposed by the Chinese to build a railway to Nanning, and send the tin the remainder of the way by junk and launch. This rich mine produces about 15,000,000 pounds a year, valued at nearly $6,000,000, and now that German machinery and German experts have been introduced by the Chinese miners, a greater and a purer product will result. Until recently the product had to be resmelted at Hongkong. Of course, great as this product is, the Straits Settlements still lead in tin mining. There are 30,000 miners (mostly boys, on account of the narrow unhealthy shafts) at Kuo Chao, and owners, miners, smelters, porters and the government representatives all have their compulsory labor unions. This protection of labor must be copied in all countries, the government forcing the laborer to protect himself, and making the industry share in the cost of government supervision. Charcoal is used as fuel at the clay smelters, and the bellows are hand-worked.

As is well known, Southern China is cursed with white ants and humidity. The former eat the wooden beams, and the latter rusts iron beams. Ceilings have to be perforated to admit air and light between the floors so as to keep down the ravages of the white ant. However, Southern China is copying Hongkong’s example and risking metal beams and ceilings, the trouble being to find a suitable protective paint. China has graphite, lead for oxides, carbon, silica, and oils in abundance, and she will in time manufacture her own protective paints, but we shall supply the machinery. Brass hardware is used instead of iron on account of the humidity.

The important copper mines of Yunnan were worked as a Manchu monopoly. Hunan is perhaps the next richest province, with Szechuen, Shansi and Kweichou following, although every province has copper. Nickel mines exist in Yunnan, Kwangsi and other southern provinces.

The first engagement between the two immense sugar refineries (Butterfield’s and Jardine’s) at Hongkong and the great refiners of Formosa has been won by the latter, which were helped until recently by indirect Japanese subsidies. When the Sugar Trust, after the government fine and municipal suit, jumped the price two cents a pound, in 1911, if America had a Price Board at the head of affairs to induce Congress to act as was done in the coal shortage, Formosa and Hongkong sugar could have flooded the country until the price was restored to the five cents rate, or about that rate. The immense Hongkong refineries (Taikoo and China Sugar) use Javan raw sugar. The Formosa refineries use their local raw. They not only supply Japan under a protective tariff, but have enough to supply China. Formosa produces 600,000,000 pounds a year, and could handily double the amount. America has the Louisiana, Hawaii and Philippine cane fields to protect, it is true, but if sugar rises over five and one-half cents a pound retail, the insistent knockers at the high door, Formosan and Hongkong sugars, might be allowed to come in, as the tariff-enslaved countries are going to heed the new cry that food, clothing and building material must be duty-free, or nearly so.

Flake and amorphous graphite are mined in the Ping An section of northern Korea, and Japan will, therefore, enter into the manufacture of crucibles, lubricants, pencils and steel-paint.

China continues to use the earthenware jar and the paper bottle, reinforced with bamboo withes, to transport her valuable nut, bean and seed oils. Sometimes staves are brought in by foreigners and set up at Hankau, Newchwang, etc., in barrels, but it would seem that tin would eventually come into use, with the idea of conserving wood. The earthenware and bamboo paper containers are the ideal from a conservation point of view, but they are too tender and risky for movement abroad. The Hanyang plant will probably have the first tinware factory.

The royalty imposed in Korea for mining by the Japanese government is thirty per cent. of the net revenue. The Chinese royalty is twenty-five per cent. in general, plus an additional twenty per cent. in the case of precious stones, ten per cent. in gold, silver and quicksilver mines; five per cent. in coal and iron; and export duty of five per cent., and likin (inland customs and provincial transportation tax, literally “cash a catty”) two per cent. As China’s mines are more lucrative, this royalty is not so onerous as the comparison would seem to make it, and the tendency is to reduce it, under the new government.

The ship-building and dock facilities of the Far East have fully risen to the demands. The three largest are at Hongkong, all British owned. The Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company on the China mainland of Hongkong (Kowloon), and at Aberdeen on Hongkong Island, over the mountains from the city of Victoria, has six docks, one of them seven hundred feet long on the keel blocks. The company builds ships, locomotives, cars, bridges, engines, motor-boats, boilers, machinery, and, indeed, anything after the steel is furnished to them, by Britain chiefly.

The Taikoo Dock (Butterfield & Swire) on the eastern end of Hongkong Island has a dock 787 feet long, and is also equipped to turn out the largest ships.

The Admiralty Dock of the British Navy on Hongkong Island was built from shore in the center of the city of Victoria, into the water by reclamation, instead of being cut out of the rock, as was done with the other docks. It is equipped to handle large battleships, and can be used by the mercantile marine in an emergency.

The Tanjong Pagar Dock at Singapore is equipped to handle battleships and maritime vessels. It is controlled by the Crown Colony.

The Mitsu Bishi Dock, cut out of the high rock at Nagasaki, has one dock 722 feet long. This company built the new 19,000 tons displacement ships, oil burners, of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha for the San Francisco route, and like the Hongkong and Whampoa Dock it always has large salvage steamers ready to go to the rescue of wrecks, now that wireless has been established in the Orient. There have been some wonderful expeditions of help recently on the romantic seas of the Far East.

The Kawasaki Dock Company at Dairen, South Manchuria, has a dock 380 feet long, together with the usual machine and boiler shops. There is a commercial dock at Kobe, the Harima Dock at Oh, and large government docks and arsenals at Yokosuka (near Yokohama), Kure and Sasebo. The last named dock, 777 feet long, built the dreadnought battleship Kawachi, 21,000 tons.

The Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works, Shanghai (Chinese), built the imperial yacht once owned by Prince Tsui, and small cruisers which the republicans seized. It has a dock 575 feet long on the blocks, and has the usual machine and boiler shops. The Yangtzepoo Dock at Shanghai (Chinese and foreign owned) has a dock 455 feet long on the blocks.

The Shanghai Dock and Engineering Company (Chinese and foreign) has docks 560 feet long, where some of the vessels for the Philippine government were built in 1912.

The Tsingtauer Werft, owned by the Germans, has a floating dock at Tsingtau, Kiaochou, Shangtung, China, lifting vessels 460 feet long, and there is the immense floating dock, “Dewey”, of the American navy, at Cavite, Manila, which does not refuse to do a friendly act for maritime commerce, when necessary, if the ships are not over 600 feet long.

The French have small docks at Haiphong and Saigon. It will be seen that as far as taking care of battleships is concerned, only Britain and Japan have more than one string to the bow, Britain being easily in the lead. America has only one dock, and that a floating one. It could not lift a dreadnought, and therefore America has in the meantime wisely moved her first defense line, as I think the writer, Thomas Millard, a Shanghai American, recommended in his books, back to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, counting on Cavite, Philippines, as a picket post. Germany at Kiaochou, and Russia at Vladivostok are as yet out of the running, with inferior docking accommodations. The Russians are spending $10,000,000 in Vladivostok on a floating dock, ice-breakers and a wharf. As far as America is concerned, she can count on Britain. Dewey fitted out at Mirs Bay, Hongkong, despite all conventions. As Commander Tatnall said at Taku in China, “Blood is thicker than water,” which was reciprocated by Admiral Seymour at Manila. When Admiral Diedrichs asked what the British would do if the Germans fired on the Americans, Seymour replied: “You had better ask Admiral Dewey, who is informed.” That is the story that goes the rounds in the East, and if it is not wholly true in fact, it is so potentially.

There is a growing number of smaller Chinese docks, machine shops and ways. Inland at the Pinghsiang colliery on the borders of Kiangsi and Hunan provinces, China has machine shops fitted to turn out almost anything, and the Hanyang Steel Works, across from Hankau, have been already described. Railway shops are opening up everywhere, and do creditable work, especially the North China railway at Tongshan; the Shanghai & Nanking Railway shops at Wusung, near Shanghai, and the Hongkong and Whompoa Dock shops. The Vulcan Iron Works at Shanghai construct railway and street-cars.

The immense cement works which are already in operation are the Indo-China Cement Company at Haiphong, in Tonquin (French); Tayeh, in Hupeh province (Chinese); Chee Hsin Cement Company, at Tongshan, near Tientsin (Chinese); Green Island Cement Company, at Macao and Hongkong (British and Chinese). Half of the many bridges that are being erected for the immense transportation development throughout China and the Philippines are made of this new concrete.

The Chinese furniture makers of Ningpo, Yunnan, Shanghai, Hongkong and Canton, are famous. They copy foreign models and also execute the native designs. The artistic cabinet work of Li Kwong Loong can be seen in the Shanghai and Hongkong clubs, in the Hongkong Hotel, and in Watson’s Store at Hongkong. The best effects are in the prized teakwood, which is becoming the rage in San Francisco. Vantine’s and the Metropolitan Museum, New York, exhibit specimens of the careful and strong handwork of these Chippendales of the land of Han. China can take care of herself in furniture making if time is not of the “essence of importance.” Loving art, I would not recommend sending her our machinery for furniture, but if government schools and offices are to be supplied quickly, I suppose we shall be compelled to make esthetics surrender to utility here also!

The Germans plan to meet the leadership of America, Britain and Japan in technical instruction in China. The British and Americans control the Tongshan Engineering School at Tongshan, and the Americans are powerful in the Pei Yang Science College at Tientsin. At Mukden the Japanese are influential. At the mechanical shops at Hongkong, Shanghai and Hankau the British are influential. The Germans plan, with the aid of Krupps, their foreign office and the Deutsche Asiatische Bank, to establish a central engineering college at Tsingtau, Shangtung province, with branches possibly at Hankau and Kaiphong. They believe that the graduates will order German machinery and material for China’s coming prodigious development.

The American government has included in its humanitarian pure food laws a prohibition on the importation of green tea, which is colored in the pot over the fire with Prussian blue, indigo, talc and gypsum. This changes the leaf from its flat state and dull yellow and green color to a ball state, colored lustrous emerald, and increases the aromatic flavor slightly. The Chinese complain of having to pot-dry the green tea longer to preserve it under the new rule, and moreover old custom dies hard in China as far as agriculture is concerned. The American government has done a world service in improving the quality of the ideal beverage, and the Chinese, who do things by wholesale, will insist in time that Australia and England, the champion tea-drinkers per capita, though not in bulk, shall take what the Americans have made “ploper fashion.” There were amusing instances of cousin John’s habit of “bluffing” laws on the maxim followed in more lands than in China, “If laws interfere with your business, why laws?” He heard of the May 1, 1912, law of the Americans, but he sent his crop over just the same, saying, “Surely America won’t put it back on my hands, as I haven’t got used to the law yet; like Mencius’ thief, I can only get used to law gradually!” Had America relented, John would have seen that his firers never got used to our laws.

China formulated a patent and copyright office at Peking in 1905, but it has not yet reached efficiency for various reasons, one being that the states’ rights feeling is stronger than the centralized government movement up to date. In the meantime the district or municipal taotai will, upon application of the foreign consul, issue a proclamation prohibiting all Chinese within his jurisdiction from manufacturing, selling or consuming property which is pirated; and such theft and infringement are considered unpardonable by the great body of highly moral Chinese guild merchants, as compared with the lack of similar honor in the first days of modernized commercial Japan. Prosecutions have been actually carried on in the mixed courts of foreign consuls and Chinese taotais against Chinese dealers for handling goods made in Europe and imported into China under marks similar to American marks registered with the taotai, and the dealers, whether ignorant or not, have been convicted and severely punished. Until China is able to establish an efficient patent department the method that should be followed is to register the mark or patent at the consul’s and taotai’s office in each province and port where the goods are to be sold. This will answer very satisfactorily until the growth of trade, transportation and machinery of government make the central government more familiar with modern business methods and international law. It is important in China and absolutely essential in Japan for the foreigner to register his patent promptly, for a pirate may precede him and cause irrevocable loss, in Japan at least.

I want to portray a Chinese character as a type of one interesting and powerful set of men with whom the West will now come in contact. Ah Chuk (I shall call that his name for present purposes) was a Cantonese about fifty-five years of age, though he looked much older because of his parchment face. He had few of his teeth, because he lived in the days before the advent of foreign-trained dentists. In his youth he did not fear to strike. His race were the men who had set in motion the greatest rebellion ever known, the Taiping scourge. My patriotic and legal duty was to obey the law in spirit and in letter, and in addition, under no circumstances to lose temper, but to treat Chuk with unfailing manners. Chuk was the only Chinese whom I ever knew who disobeyed his Confucian code of flowery courtesy (Li). He hated me, as he bitterly hated all who firmly withstood him, and he showed his feelings on every occasion. His gods were not Buddha, but money and power. On one occasion he said: “I can get you a Chinese slave girl for four hundred dollars.” I replied: “You insult me, Chuk.” He hissed, “I meant to.” He asked me why I could not obey the letter of the law and not the spirit, and I told him that an Occidental corporation employé, like the soldier, was expected to be absolutely loyal to orders. He said I was a fool because I made a god of conscience, instead of expediency; that I had no tact. I replied by quoting their maxim; “Tact is the discounting of principle in the mart of expediency.”

He feared neither the American, British or Chinese governments, nor the rich corporation. He corrupted foreign consulates in the old days when forged citizenship certificates were not unknown. He bullied the Canton viceroy. He was lord over half a dozen valleys and a hundred hamlets of Kwangtung province, whose inhabitants were his slaves, because they had signed bonds of $1,000 each for every Chinese whom he safely got into that Eldorado, America. He did not press the man in America any more than he would attempt to press a man in Mars. He pressed his father, his relatives in Kwangtung, who were on the bond also, for the payment of the $1,000, and it took the son in America twenty years to pay the money and the heavy interest. With his foot on the sacred bones of his grandfather he held the grandson in America in constant fear.

He was lord of the underground routes which ran to South Africa, America, Australia, Mexico, Canada and wherever Chinese laborers are not received free. He seldom dressed well; it did not do in those days to look opulent in China, and besides American inspectors might suspect a well-dressed dealer in contract slaves. His voice, unlike the usual pliable voice of his race, was deep in his raucous throat. He would not fear to take life if he had a chance in the lonely walks of his province, if his opponent was a strong obstacle to his worship of his two gods, money and power. He could not get in as many as he wanted by the direct route, so he determined to institute the first Chinese trans-Pacific steamship company, crossing the Pacific to Mexico. I told him that he never could get the money, as Queen’s Road, Hongkong, was a long way from Wall Street; that he would sink a million of the money of his beloved countrymen. He got the money from the Chinese, intensely conservative as they were, which proved the power of his persuasion, and he sank it all in two years. He could not be drawn into much expression by me, though he could speak English well. I heard him, however, speaking like a Rooseveltian tornado of storm and lightning unto his own, and once to two foreigners in whom he trusted, because they had obeyed him at their risk, and he owned them by the bribes they had accepted. His will was of iron, unyielding. His persistency was as tireless as Napoleon’s, and his swift victories were many. He could live without sleep when he planned his campaigns. He would go anywhere and to anybody to accomplish his aims. He loved whispering. He cast looks which wielded men. He swept like a vulture on lambs. He struck at his opponents like a tiger. He was not a Manchu, but he was Manchuized in his confidence that the Oriental was superior to the foreigner. I shall never forget the time when he told me that he had “a white man working for him.” That white man was descended in the third generation from a brother of a president of America.

Chuk was not uncomfortable when he thus wore the crown. He ruled over his subject races of the West with all the assurance which Xerxes or Kublai Khan did. He could plot; he could bribe; he could threat; he could spend with a lavish hand. One time he would travel in state at home and abroad, and on another occasion incognito like a spy. He felt he was abler than any white man because he added the easier conscience of the Orient, which he called wisdom, to an ability equal to the white man’s, and a will just as imperious. He despised all religions as he said “conscience makes faint-hearts of us all.” He had no pity for his dupes or victims. He was a Cantonese Tippo Tib. I never know, when I am speaking to an American or Cuban Chinese, if he is not a slave of Chuk’s, remitting to his old father in Kwangtung province, who will in turn remit to Chuk or Chuk’s heirs, to pay off that $1,000 and usurious interest added. Chuk is a Cantonese example of the power which may come to a money lord who has decapitalized labor, which will never catch up with the principal. His profits on the real cost were 1,500 per cent. Not even a surveillance of communications could probe Chuk’s underground methods. Three insurmountable barriers interposed, the extent of the territory, the Chinese language, and the changing codes which he used. It would be as difficult as ferreting out a criminal in the Trastevere section of Rome, if for one reason alone, because the Trasteverans will not turn informers. Neither will the Chinese. Therefore, with espionage of communications and informing for bribes eliminated, a secret service on Chinese law breakers, as far as we are concerned, is as yet in many respects ineffective.

IV
FINANCE AND BUDGET IN CHINA

With a reformed system of tax collection the following budget is quite feasible, and will, without any greater pressure on the individual than at present, lift China out of the slough of despond.

REVENUE	GOLD DOLLARS
Land tax, 400,000,000 acres cultivated, at 50c a year	$200,000,000
Salt monopoly	10,000,000
Maritime customs	50,000,000
Railway surplus, nationalized trunk lines	10,000,000
Fisheries, tobacco, samshu, mining, steamship, bank, incorporation, telegraph and other fees	50,000,000
Income tax	10,000,000
	$330,000,000
EXPENDITURE
Interest on foreign loans,—past, $200,000,000; and in prospect, $200,000,000; total, $400,000,000, at 4 per cent.	$16,000,000
Civil service salaries, etc.	30,000,000
Army, a full division for each province, 100,000 men at $100 a year	10,000,000
Conservation, public works, repairing national architecture, famine relief, etc	50,000,000
Navy for revenue purposes mainly, with one dreadnought a year added	24,000,000
Education and crafts schools	100,000,000
Canals, railways, steamships, telegraph, telephone, etc., extensions	100,000,000
	$330,000,000

This proposes $330,000,000 a year for 400,000,000 people, against Japan’s $350,000,000 a year for only 55,000,000 population. This plan wipes out the obnoxious opium and likin taxes. The taxes proposed are less than half per capita what poorer India is paying, and one-tenth of what Japan is paying, and so China would remain the lowest taxed nation on the earth. The outstanding government debt of China, even including the proposed four-nation loans of $50,000,000 gold for currency reform, and $50,000,000 for new Szechuen and Hunan province railways, is, as I have detailed elsewhere in this article, only £113,000,000, whereas the present government debt of Japan, with infinitely less resources and population, is £300,000,000, not to speak of Japan’s private industrial loans abroad, which would add another £60,000,000. India’s debt is £170,000,000. The tax proposed in China is so small that room is left for each province to charge a door and head tax of 25c each a year, bringing in an additional $100,000,000 gold for provincial revenues to take care of justice, provincial public works, etc. Municipalities could then raise their ordinary taxes in the usual way. All that is wanted in China is an honest audit, the end of nepotism, and a cessation of “shaking the pagoda tree” by peculating officials. The whole central and provincial tax would not amount to much over $1 a head a year, and the municipal taxes would not be any larger than $1 per capita. This would not be a burden to cause complaint or revolution. With the immense sum collected China would almost at once take her place as one of the mightiest of nations. Her credit would be enormous, and her opportunity for good the greatest in the world because of her wider ethnic connections. She would not need to raise her customs much above the present five per cent. ad valorem, and thus oppressive monopolies could not grow up in the land. Free trade would flow to her with its riches, as it flowed to Britain, and every man would have enough, and no man too much; certainly an ideal condition. This budget would provide a splendid army of well-paid men ($8 gold per man per month is abundant); 100,000 strong, able to throw back any invasion at once, and always ready to keep down piracy. Riot and strikes are not unpatriotic piracy; they are the localized suppuration of an economic distress that can be cured or forestalled in a democracy by other means than a soldiery, which we have found a failure in America and Britain. The new Chinese navy could add a new dreadnought battleship each year, and provide crews, yards, and a full revenue marine. Above all, education and transportation would be taken care of lavishly, and China would not need to beg at any one’s door for a loan. She would be a land of peace, because a total tax of $2 gold a year per capita can raise not the slightest discontent in any land.

The debt of the Chinese government, contracted before October 13, 1911, which debt the republicans recognize, is as follows:

Loans	Amount in £	Amount Interest in £	Due
7% silver loan, ’94	£490,500		1924
6% gold loan, ’95	800,000		1924
6% gold loan, ’95	333,400		1915
5% gold loan, ’96, from France and Russia for Chinese-Eastern Railway	12,397,425		1933
4½% gold, ’98, Britain and Germany for railways	14,022,625		1933
5% gold railway loan	1,955,000		1933
5% gold (Boxer indemnities, etc.)	52,500,000		1940
5% Shanghai-Nanking railway	2,900,000		1915
5% Canton-Kowloon railway	1,500,000		1920
5% Tientsin-Pukow railway (British)	1,850,000		1918
5% Tientsin-Pukow railway (German)	1,100,000		1918
5% Shanghai-Ningpo railway	1,500,000		1918
5% Hukuang railways	1,500,000		1921
Total gov’t debts—
China	£92,848,950	£4,642,000
Japan	300,000,000	12,000,000
India	170,000,000
Italy	1,000,000,000
France	1,200,000,000
Britain	1,000,000,000
United States	200,000,000

If Japan returned to China the £35,000,000 indemnity coerced from her by the Shimonoseki treaty, the Chinese debt would be greatly reduced. This is Japan’s moral duty, especially if she is allowed by the nations to retain Formosa, Korea, and possibly part of Manchuria, all of which she plans to retain. Several of the European nations should follow America’s example and return the excess in the Boxer indemnities. The banking nations, as long as America and Britain retain their present high standard of altruism, will never again permit any power to wheedle an indemnity out of China.

The foreign and local banks operating in China are the following. I use gold dollars for the table:

Bank	Capital Paid Up	Reserve
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation	$5,000,000	$15,000,000
International Banking Company of America	3,250,000	3,250,000
Deutsche Asiatische Bank	5,500,000	3,000,000
Yokohama Specie Bank (Japan)	10,000,000	7,000,000
Lloyd’s Bank (British)	20,000,000	15,000,000
Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (British)	4,000,000	5,000,000
Netherlands Trading Society	18,000,000	2,000,000
Netherlands-India Commercial Bank	6,000,000	700,000
Russo-Asiatic Bank (Russia-France)	19,000,000	4,000,000
National Bank of China	1,500,000	400,000
Banque L’Indo-Chine (French)	6,000,000	3,000,000
Bank of Taiwan (Formosan Japan)	1,800,000	300,000
Mercantile Bank of India (British)	5,500,000	800,000
Eastern Bank (British)	2,000,000
Chino-Belgian Bank (Belgian)	2,000,000

It will be noted that with one exception all of these banks are strong institutions. The hoary patriarch among them, endowed with exhaustless strength still, is the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which has been operating in China since 1865.

There is a movement in Canton to establish an “Industrial Encouragement Bank”. The merchants are anxious for currency reform throughout the kingdom and the establishing of coins of fixed value on the American decimal plan, but going to a lower decimal to accommodate small trade and the lower values of China.

It is also proposed by prominent members of the Nanking Assembly to establish a Sino-American bank, plans for which were laid just before the October, 1911, revolution.

At the height of the revolution in November, 1911, the rebels did a remarkable thing successfully at Shanghai. The loyalists at Peking were unable either with their own imperial Ta-Ching bank, foreign loans, or the immense ramifications of the Shansi Bank guilds, to uphold their credit, and the chief fighter of the Manchus, General Chang Hsun Chung, could not pay his troops. The republicans at Shanghai under Sheng Wan Yung, minister of finance, and Wu Ting Fang, foreign secretary, organized the “Chung Hua” Bank at Shanghai with a capital of 5,000,000 taels. The shops immediately took the money at a high premium, doubtless to give an impetus to confidence. “Chung Hua” is the Chinese name for China. It means “central glory”.

Nothing hampers China’s interprovincial trade more than the absence of a national credit system and commercial paper. Treaty-port China gets long enough loans from the foreign manufacturer. The trouble is that the importer can not collect quickly from his customer, and when he does, the medium is coin, bullion and barter, unnecessarily and clumsily handled, whereas coin, bullion and barter should only be used for the balances. China needs a modern currency system, and a modern credit system as well.

It is in accord with manners and business accuracy when at a fair you are informed that an article will cost you a thousand coins (cash) to say: “I’ll pay you 500 good coins.” If you had a thousand counterfeits you could elect to pay with them, but never be so bucolic as to pay a thousand good coins when a thousand coins are asked. As suggested by America, China’s new coinage will have a silver dollar, half, quarter, dime, nickel, two cents, cent, half a cent, and one-tenth of a cent, all minted in government mints, and alone accepted as legal tender in taxes, telegraph, railway, telephone, customs, likin, stamp and other charges. Very slowly the old system of using provincial coinage of debased value, bullion (sycee) exchange, private bank notes, etc., will pass away. A central bank, like the Ta Ching, helped by a four-nations foreign loan, backed 40 per cent. by the government, and 60 per cent. by private subscriptions, with about $6,000,000 capital, could make a good beginning in taking care of the new system. Although a silver coinage, the government, like Japan’s, stands to guarantee the fixed value of the coinage as equal to half its face in gold; that is to say, the central bank will hold reserves so as to redeem or guarantee a silver dollar at fifty cents gold. The silver is to have a fixed purity standard, like the Philippine peso, or the American dollar. Japan stepped into Korea and refused to accept the old coinage. It immediately became copper bullion, and had no other value. For safety’s sake, the Japanese insisted that the coins, worth nominally one-tenth of a cent, should be broken at the square hole in the center. The steamer Seneca, in 1912, brought 1,400 tons of these broken Korean coins to New York, whence they were shipped to Chrome, New Jersey, to be smelted. China can not be so rigid, as she has not the police or army, but if she could safely be rigid, nothing would clear up the coinage question better than copying this Japanese example. Since the adoption of the gold standard in Mexico, the government has to accept the old Mexican dollar as legal tender for one dollar gold, which gives a profit of 100 per cent. to the lucky holders of these silver dollars. There are many of them in China; indeed the Mexican dollar was for many years the monetary standard in China, and the thrifty Chinese are smuggling the unchopped coins into Mexico as fast as they can be gathered up from the Shansi, Kwangtung and other bankers. The Mexican government anticipated this move, and placed a duty on Mexican dollars returned from abroad. The honors are even along the Rio Grande boundary; Mexican dollars are smuggled southward, and Mexican Chinese are smuggled northward! Most of the Mexican dollars in China, however, have been chopped in the banks and fan-tan houses, and the thrifty Chinese shroffs groan when they contemplate that by egotistically sinking their chop into the face of the Aztec eagle and the Texoco snake, they have now lost 100 per cent. profit. Moral: never mutilate the coin of a realm, whether it is your own country or not.

As illustrating the irregularity of the currency, let us cite the situation at Newchwang in 1912 for instance. National taxes are paid in Kuping taels; provincial taxes in Manchurian dollars. Customs duties are paid in the usual Haikwan taels; local octroi in small silver. The national post-office will only accept Mexican dollars. The national telegraph office will only accept Manchurian dollars. The national Chinese railway cashiers must receive payment of freight bills in either Peiyang or Kiauchou (German) dollars. The pursers of the national China Merchants’ Steamship Company demand payment of fares in either Mexican dollars or Newchwang taels. The Japanese, who run a railway, a concession, public utility works and a hotel here, demand payment of their bills in the Japanese silver yen (dollar). On their railway line they demand payment in the Japanese gold yen. The Russian demands payment in his paper ruble note. The Americans and the English demand payment respectively in eagles and sovereigns. All of these concerns will discount other moneys at a heavy profit, so that they, and the money changers, in the multiplicity of standards, soon shave the dollar down till its pride and distinction of stamp are humble and thin enough! A tael, the old monetary system, is a Chinese ounce equal to 1⅓ ounces avoirdupois. The Haikwan tael, the standard of fineness accepted by the Custom House, is rated at 100, in comparison with which are the Tientsin tael at 105; the Hankau and Newchwang at 108, and the Shanghai at 111. When new silver arrived at the old provincial mints, it was refined or adulterated to conform with these grades. The edict of October 5, 1908, suggested that if the standardization of silver was successful, a gold standard might be looked for. This would probably slightly raise wages and costs in China, and slightly decrease them elsewhere.

The national customs, heretofore called the “Imperial Customs”, managed from Peking in succession by the British knights, Robert Hart, Bredon and Aglen, continue to be the financial pillar of China, the basis of foreign loans, the payer of the hated indemnities, the provider of armies, pensions, and nearly all the machinery of government and even “graft”. Until a reorganization of the taxes is effected, the customs might be raised to double what they now are so as to get China on her feet. The department has been honestly managed, and is a monument to the late Sir Robert Hart, the sinologue. Where a missionary or a Buddhist monk is not at hand to take care of a needy traveler, there will be found a national customs cadet, generally a Briton, an American or a German.

How China is neglected by London, the world’s banker, is illustrated by the following investments of new capital in a normal year, 1910. China was given only $3,500,000 in 1909, and $8,000,000 in 1910, whereas to nearly a billion already loaned, Japan was given $30,000,000 more in 1910; Mexico a like amount; Argentine, $112,000,000; Russia, $20,000,000; and even little Denmark, Greece, Turkey and Cuba each received as much as dormantly opulent and vast China. The neglect of China by America reveals a similarly regrettable situation. Trade follows the loan as much as it follows the flag and the missionary, as England’s trade relation with Argentine proves.

The famous Russo-Chinese Bank, which was the catspaw for the Russians in securing from the Chinese the troublesome concession for the Chinese-Eastern railway, which largely led to the war with Japan, was absorbed in a new institution in October, 1910, called the Banque Russo-Asiatique, which is largely financed by the Banque du Nord and the Société Générale of Paris. The old Russo-Chinese Bank had a capitalization of 21,000,000 rubles, one-third of which was subscribed by China. The capitalization of the new bank is double that of the old.

The oldest and strongest bank operating in China; the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. It has branches throughout China, on the British banking plan. The building in the background is the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China.

The abundant use of street advertising by the new commercial China.

Court of the splendid Swatow guild house at Canton. These are their chambers of commerce and clubs combined, and are a power in the new commercial China, almost equal to the new assemblies. The heir of a tea magnate rides the statue of a griffin.

China is suspicious regarding foreign loans, and many of the new China party which precipitated the October, 1911, revolution are opposed to even railway loans. Objection has been made to one American loan that it included, besides proper interest, a bonus of millions to take up bonds of a previous American syndicate which never performed railway work in China for those bonds; that is, they were organization paper, not property paper. Objection is also made that our loans name as security the perpetuation of the odious likin system which disjoints the trade, politics and transportation of the provinces. The Chinese of the south have constructed many short railroads, which are run at a profit without foreign loans, and it is this system which the “states’ rights” people wish to spread. Political and economical education in the provincial assemblies will in time teach them the wisdom of the nationalization of trunk railways at least. There is the same conflict in China between the states, or provinces, and the federal power, as there is in other countries. In the matter of foreign loans, the provincial papers complain that the central government has sold the nation by paying bonuses and heavy interest. The trouble with provincial loans for railways will be the mixed security offered, one province providing for the continuation of the objectionable likin, and another province withstanding it. It is a perfect curse along the magnificent Shanghai-Nanking railway built by British contractors. The strong desire of the provinces, in the first ebullition of patriotism, is to build and operate their railways without foreign aid or federal intervention.

In times of political trouble, the Chinese place vast sums in the trust, not only of foreign banks at Tientsin, Shanghai and Hongkong, but valuables and money are placed implicitly in the care of missionaries, whose fiduciary honesty is esteemed by the Chinese, who, if they do not understand the text, understand the living example! The missionary is not only a tower of “doctrine”, to use the Chinese idiom; he is a tower of finance also. It is a remarkable thing that when the white man’s honesty at home in certain scandals exposed by government prosecutions, is rocking like a wooden steeple in the grasp of a tornado, the white man’s honesty in China is standing steadfast as a rock, and unmoved in the typhoon of local and international distress, and political, religious and educational change. It seems that it is a wholesome time to send some of our monopolists to China, and bring some of our missionaries back to reform things at home!

The licensed pawnshops are called Tang Po Tien and Chi Tien. The “Yah” pawnshop corresponds to our “fence” shop, to which thieves bring their plunder. The regular pawnshops are an embryo trust company. They loan on land, crops, jewels, rent, bills receivable, possessions, houses. They change money and sell notes of credit. The pawnshops of Mukden and the north loan on crops, such as beans, millet, etc. The visible grain, and not a warehouse receipt, is the security, and therefore the pawnshops of the north have yards and sheds in connection with the plant. The towering square pawnshops of Kwangtung province in the south are higher than in the other provinces, showing that capital circulates more among the active Cantonese merchants. The Chinese of America are mainly Cantonese, or Kwangtungese; that is, if they are not of the provincial capital, they are from the province.

Trained carrier pigeons are still used by the Shansi Bankers’ Guilds in carrying secret code messages stating the exchange prices of silver. This is quicker than the post, and more secret than the telegraph.

Regarding salaries that will be paid in China’s reconstruction, the following may give some indication. The salary of advisers to the privy council has been $90 per month in a nation of 400,000,000, compared to the salary of an American attorney-general of $1,500 a month.

It is often said that the Chinese are absolutely honest, but when an exception occurs it is as startling as a bolt from a clear sky. As an aftermath of the rubber speculation at Shanghai, the taotai, Tsai Nai Huong, absconded in August, 1911, owing several million dollars to the government, which sum had been loaned him to assist the local banks.

Some of their proverbs hung up as texts in their guild houses are:

“Don’t wait till you are thirsty to dig your well.”

“Don’t wait for the battle before you sharpen your sword.”

“The higher up, the deeper down when the tumble comes.”

“Fish and fools are the same; neither sees the string on every bait.”

“The fish is measured by your bait.”

“He who buys luxuries soon sells his necessities.”

“A debtor never remembers as long as a creditor.”

“Conscience grows heavier as store weights grow secretly lighter.”

“Hot broth and a time loan both require deliberation.”

“If you are rich and live in a desert, it’s never too far for your poor relatives to come.”

“If you have money, even your enemy will slave for you.”

“There’s such a thing as drawing the line somewhere; I don’t lend my umbrella in the dog-days.”

“Some men’s faces are as good as a credit slip.”

It will be perceived that they had a Franklin in China!

The idiom for a lunar eclipse is: “The moon has suffered a deficit,” but the other expression of the Chinese astronomers: “All round again”, indicates that losses have been underwritten and solvency reestablished! May the international financial astrologers in and out of China soon bring in this happy state. Then a “cycle of Cathay” will be as good as any other cycle, despite Tennyson’s dictum, and this will redound to the good of every nation, particularly America and Britain.

V
BUSINESS METHODS OF FOREIGNERS IN CHINA

The British national board of trade, partly on the advice in Admiral Lord Beresford’s book, has appointed commercial attachés separate from the diplomatic and consular bodies to work as specialists and free lances in China. In contrast with the diplomatic and consular departments, they are free to use the helpful publicity of the home newspapers in order to correct and create interest. Canada in a small way has followed Britain’s example. A consular officer is fixed to his post on account of his daily relationship with shipping, courts, visits of nationals, emigration and health inspection. A commercial attaché has more of a roving and special commission, and it is important in the nature of his office that his advice should be followed promptly in China and at home. He is in a position to strike quickly and bring trade to his flag. He is not necessarily that loathsome being which flourished in China previous to the Russo-Japanese War, a concession hunter and a looter of weak countries. His aim is to strengthen weak countries, as he knows that only a rich and contented people can trade richly with his flag. The more he is of a scholar, gentleman and Christian the better, for such a person in the long run makes an ideal trader and patriot, as the American reformers are insisting. He should be a statistician, an economist, and also an idealist, so that he may be able to formulate a policy amid the present confused conditions. He is not in any sense a historian, for he is not to follow his country. He is to lead it, and, moreover, he must also sympathize with the Chinese point of view to a sufficient degree.

Europe and America have been trading in China on an extended scale since in 1842 the Nanking Treaty opened up Canton and four other ports. Surprisingly few traders have learned the language. The home-rule principle has been recognized, and the Chinese have been allowed to run the trade in their own way on the compradore and shroff system. The foreign firm takes into its employ at a percentage, with a guaranteed minimum, a Chinese compradore, who speaks English, and who is bonded by the Chinese, and the compradore takes into his employ a shroff cashier, who is bonded to him by Chinese. The compradore pays the wages of his Chinese staff. The foreigner (Si Yang Jin—West Sea people) must deal with the Chinese customers only through the compradore, and the compradore must under no circumstances appeal to the head of the foreign firm in London, San Francisco, etc. He must deal with the agent or branch in the China port, in whose office he is located on the first floor, with a Chinese staff as large as the foreign staff up-stairs. One who enters the offices of the Pacific Mail, American (International) Bank, Standard Oil, P. & O., Butterfield and Swire, Jardine’s, Fearon’s, and other companies in China, might think at first that the concern was Chinese. No one but Celestials is to be seen. This system is an approximation of two views. The Chinese might desire to handle his own trade, in which case the compradore would set up for himself, and buy sewing-machines, oils, machinery, tobacco, cotton, etc., direct from the foreign agent at the treaty port, or he could ignore the foreign agent and send his Chinese buyer across to San Francisco, or over to London. Or the foreigner might learn the language, dismiss his compradore, and try to sell direct to the Chinese consumer and Chinese merchant.

It is a world-trade question, a terrific struggle in economics, this getting rid of the middleman, the drone, and it is therefore still an unsettled question in China. The compradore and shroff exist, although many foreign commercial travelers, especially Germans and Japanese, are selling direct to the Chinese in small lots. Many of these compradores have become notable and able men, especially those employed by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Again, some compradores have tricked the foreign agent and company with all the legerdemain of a conjurer. That is, instead of inducing the foreign agent to bring out large quantities of oil, flour, etc., we shall say, in time for a high market, the compradore, with his Chinese alliances (or conspirators, shall we say!) induces the agent to get stocked in godown when a low market suddenly drops on him. The compradore shifts and says the market will drop lower still, and the agent authorizes the compradore to sell quickly. The compradore sells to himself by dummy, and the oil or flour suddenly rises. The agent is mad clear through, but if he changed compradores every time this happened he would change so frequently that his concern would lose prestige with the Chinese. The Chinese compradore will bleed you, but he will not knowingly bleed you to death. Of all ornithologists of trade, he does not believe in killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. He only plucks the goose occasionally! I have heard tales which, if they are true, would indicate that the Chinese compradore is not alone expert in legerdemain, but that the foreign agent sometimes “stands in” with him. There certainly are some mountain palaces and a princely ménage on the hills of the sumptuous Far East that the savings from an agent’s salary, or an unexpected legacy never bought. In trade and in politics, as well as in religion, “by their fruits ye shall know” compradores, agents, and every one else!

Successful companies operating in China, with foreign managers and with the majority stock in foreign hands, but using Chinese money also, are the following incorporated or joint-stock registered companies:

Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (British and German).
Indo-China Steam Navigation (British).
Peking Syndicate (British), Shansi and Honan anthracite coal.
Anglo-French Syndicate (Yunnan mines).
Anglo-French Land Investment Company.
Hongkong Land Investment Company.
Hongkong and Whompoa Dock Company.
Hongkong and Kowloon Wharf and Dock Company.
Green Island Cement Company (Hongkong and Macao).
Société Anonyme du Luhan (Belgian), s. e. Shansi coal.
Tientsin Land Investment Company.
Tientsin Gas and Electric Company.
Tientsin Water-works.
Hongkong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company.
Hongkong Cotton Company.
Hongkong Rope Company.
Hongkong Dairy Company.
Chinese Engineering and Mining Company (British), Kaiping coal mines.

The immense Taikoo Company (Butterfield & Swire), operating docks, shipyards, sugar refineries, steamship lines, etc.; China Sugar Refinery; Bank of Australia; Eastern and Australia Cable Company, etc., are owned mainly by British capitalists, who operate an extensive apprentice system or school in maintaining their personnel in the Far East. The Banque l’Indo-China is, of course, mainly French, as is the Anglo-French Syndicate. The Russo-Asiatique Banque is French and Russian. The Cathay Trust Company is British and Chinese. The Shell Transport (oil and shipping) is Dutch, largely. Humphreys’ Land Company is British, mainly. There are scores of rubber companies whose plantations are in Malaysia, but whose shares are actively dealt in by the Chinese and foreigners of Shanghai, Hongkong and Tientsin. Large department stores of Hongkong and Shanghai are incorporated, and their shares are actively dealt in. I refer to Lane-Crawford, Watson, Central Stores, Weeks, Moultrie, Hall & Holtz, etc.

The largest foreign commission houses, banks and agencies, with offices in the various treaty ports, are the following:

United States Steel Products Export Company (American).
Standard Oil Company (American).
American Tobacco Company.
Singer Sewing-Machine Company (American).
International Banking Company (American).
Yokohama Specie Bank (Japanese).
Deutsche-Asiatique Bank (German).
Mitsui & Co. (Japanese), Fushun coal, machinery, cotton, etc.
Mitsu Bishi (ship-building at Nagasaki).
Kawasaki Dock Company (ship-building at Dairen).
American Trading Company.
Sassoon & Co. (German).
Reiss & Co. (British).
Melchers & Co. (German), machinery, shipping, etc.
Arnhold, Karberg & Co. (German).
Henley’s Telegraph Works (British).
Shewan, Tomes & Co. (British and American).
Fearon, Daniel & Co. (American).
Andersen, Meyer & Co. (German).
Carlowitz & Co. (German), smelting, matting, machinery, etc.
J. G. White & Co. (American), engineering.
Punchard, Lowther (British), engineering.
Pearson (British), engineering.
Tsingtau Dock Company (German), ship-building.
Rose, Downs & Thomson (British), oil, machinery.
Priestman Brothers (British), dredgers, excavators.
Indo-China Cement Company at Haiphong (French).
Bohler Brothers (British), hardware.
Siemssen & Co. (German).
Kelly, Walsh & Co., Brewer & Co., North China Herald (British), publishers and booksellers.
Brunner Brothers (German), gas lighting.
Hohenzollern Company (German), locomotives.
Konigs Company (German), bridges.
Reinecker Company (German), machinery, tools.
Hurst-Nelson Company (British), railway equipment.
Glasgow Rolling Stock Company.
Mellowes & Co. (British), station roofs.
Hunt & Co. (British), machine shops.
Leeds Forge Company (British), steel cars.
Cassella & Co. (British), engineering instruments.
Tangye & Co. (British), oil engines.
Yorkshire Copper Works, Union Electric Company (British), electric plants.
Wilkinson-Heywood Company (British), paint.
Dudgeon, Ltd. (British), excavators.
Waygood & Co. (British), elevators.
Nasymth Wilson Company (British), locomotives.
Vickers, Ltd. (British), railway equipment.
Hawthorne-Leslie Company (British), mining equipment.
Arts and Crafts Company (British), decorators.
Sun Life of Canada, insurance.
Royce, Ltd. (British), cranes.
Herring, Hall, Marvin (American), safes.

The Mutual Life Insurance Company, of New York, opened a branch in Hongkong in 1903, but it was closed in 1904, insurance companies preferring, as a rule, to act through general commission houses at present.

Foreign firms advertise in Chinese almanacs, which circulate in immense numbers throughout the land. An example is Hallock’s Miscellany, printed in a scholarly manner by the American Presbyterian Mission Press, 18 Peking Road, Shanghai. The Chinese editions of the Hongkong and Shanghai papers are excellent mediums, if one is not on the ground. Chinese travelers arrive at a station hours before the departure of a train, and foreign firms find it advantageous to display their cartoons and advertising in Chinese at railway stations. Even if some of the Chinese can not read, they become familiar with the “chop” or cartoon, which accordingly is more important than in any land, and should therefore be registered with the foreign consul and the Chinese taotai. The Asiatic Petroleum Company, of London, (Dutch-British), uses a cartoon of three square oil tins, with a tin lamp flaming on the top. The Standard Oil Company uses a picture of the hand lamp and some paraffin candles. Scott’s Emulsion Company shows the familiar codfish on the back of the man. Green Island Cement Company shows the famous mountain island of Macao’s inner harbor, with the cement chimneys at its foot. Barnard & Leas Company, of Moline, Illinois, use a picture of their grain sifter. Mousin et Cie, of Frankfort on Main, use a picture of a rose spray and a Chinese man and woman. The New Home Sewing-Machines use a picture of the machine and a greyhound. The Victor Talking Machines show the well-known fox-terrier listening to “His Master’s Voice”. Many of the firms draw attention by quoting an epigrammatic gem of Chinese wisdom. The Singer Sewing-Machine insists that the Chinese shall become familiar with the English letters and not the Chinese letters in the bridge of their machine, and they have had wide success. The Wheeler & Wilson Sewing-Machine Company shows Gabriel blowing his horn, or the spirit of reform telling China to wake up! The Longines Watch Company, of Paris, uses a Chinese lily in a vase and a winged hour-glass. The Chinese are becoming large buyers of time-keepers, and these trade-marks are most important. Several suits over trade-marks on watches have appeared in the courts of Hongkong. The Taussig Soap Company, of Vienna, uses a man-headed bird, which appeals to the humorous Chinese, whose hobgoblins are legion.

The get-equipped-quick advertising correspondence schools are teaching advertising pupils in America to change their advertisements constantly. This will not do in China. Nothing pays like a known “chop”, rigidly adhered to for decades. The Chinese will have nothing else than their favorite cartoon, or “chop” on cotton bolt, flour bag and everything else. “Once a customer always a customer” is truer in China than anywhere else in the world, but it is harder there than anywhere else to get that customer the necessary “once”, as he has probably linked up with a “chop” that preceded yours. The Harrison Knitting Machine Company, of Manchester, England, merely show cuts of their machines, and a competitor could do the same, and thus confuse the Chinese. Staedtler, the pencil manufacturer of Nuremberg, shows the man in the moon and a cock. J. H. Birch, of Library Street, Burlington, New Jersey, shows merely cuts of his rickshaws, which compete with the Japanese vehicle. The whisky houses of Britain cease neither day nor night in the attempt to give China something Occidental to take the place of the debarred opium. They try to adopt different shaped bottles to distinguish their goods, and some double bottles are now blown almost in the shape of the whisky’s “W”. The Burnese Alps Milk Company, of Stalden, has adopted a mother Teddy bear, giving a baby bear forced lactary injections. Nestle’s Milk Company, of Vevay, shows the “cow that jumped over the moon”. Aquarius Water Company shows a Chinese boy bearing a tray with the aerated water. Pathe’s French Films show the crowing cock. The United States Steel Products Export Company use the crouching tiger. Swift’s Hams show “S” in a diamond. Clarke’s Manila Coffee uses a volcano of coffee beans in imitation of Mayon volcano in the Philippines. The Chee Hsin Cement Company, of Tangshan, Pechili province, has a pony whose fiery breath has set the sun on fire. This is the weird mythological style of “chop” with which the poetical Chinese are familiar and which they like.

The Chinese are a race who have nearly as much imagination as the Greeks. The Hupeh Cement Works, of Tayeh, use a seventeen-storied pagoda, which is supposed to represent a very fine product, as pagodas tower only thirteen stories at the highest. The Indo-China Cement Company uses the well-known dragon of the Manchus, which tosses three medals in the air. The British-American Tobacco Company advertises a nautch girl pulling portiéres apart, a “chop” which is a little more luxuriously Mohammedan than staid China cares for. Veluvine Protective Paint has adopted a crouching bulldog. Isuan Aerated Waters, of the Philippines, use a hand pouring a bottle that fills a glass. The Toyo Kisen Kaisha uses a red circle in a white fan on a blue flag. Flags are becoming popular chops. Shields are also used by the British and the Spanish, but they are rather intricate for the Chinese to understand. There is not much competition yet, and most of the foreign firms, in their desire to educate the Chinese, are merely using photographs of their machinery and product, but as soon as John Chinaman has to choose between two dynamos, two gas engines, two pumps, etc., each of them must use a “chop” or trade-mark, just as the oil, the flour, the ham, the cement bag, the bolt of cotton, etc., have now to be chopped to maintain their position on the slogan popular throughout Canada and Britain of “what we have we hold.”

The treaty ports of China, such as Shanghai, Tientsin, Hongkong, etc., show that almost every form of business is incorporated. Doctors and dentists form companies, and bring out juniors under indenture. The share list shows active trading in the following companies among others: railway, steamship, rubber, banks; marine, life and fire insurance; oil, refineries, sugar, mining, engineering and contracting, ship-building, car building; docks, wharves and warehouse (godown); lands, hotels, clubs, buildings, cotton mills and plantations, cement, power, light, water, trams, millinery, telephone, telegraph, cable, tailors, dairy farm, abattoir, soda water, distilleries, flour mills, iron mills, gas, electricity, druggist, newspaper, booksellers, conservancy, athletic clubs, race course, import and export firms, jewelers, silk filatures, tea farms, matting factories and plantations, furniture factories, etc. I know of no place where the craze of men to get rich faster than savings will accumulate is indicated more than at Shanghai, Hongkong and Singapore. The bund of Shanghai is as speculatively feverous as Wall Street.

British Hongkong, like China, holds that all land is crown or state land, and therefore leases are granted instead of fee-simple deeds, American style. The British government has gone extensively into the land business at Hongkong, leveling many terraces, filling many valleys in the mountains, and reclaiming from the sea vast areas at West Point and East Point, Hongkong, and at Yaumati, Kowloon and Hunghom on the mainland section of the hilly colony. Leases for these valuable sites are then put up at auction, bringing about twice the rental that obtains in Brooklyn or Jersey City, or the outlying districts of London. In the same way the foreign concession municipalities of Shanghai, Tientsin, Fuchau, Amoy, Hankau, Newchwang, Harbin, etc., prepare land for long leases. These will in time all be strenuous questions with the new republican government of China. When the foreigner gave up the extraterritorial right in Japan, the Japanese never again permitted him to own land, unless he became a Japanese citizen. Many land companies, subletting long leaseholds, have been formed in all the treaty ports where there are foreign concessions. I do not believe that republican China desires to acquire these leaseholds for many years, and if she did she would purchase them. The foreign navies would see to that.

VI
RAILWAYS IN CHINA

In the third book of Paradise Lost, Milton humorously discussed transportation in China as follows:

“On the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light,”

but the matter has now reached a development worthy of being discussed seriously.

China had in 1912 about 5,500 miles of railway in operation, new main lines having been built from Tientsin to Nanking (Pukow) by German and British contractors, and from Nanking to Shanghai by British contractors, so that it is now possible to take cars at Shanghai and go through to Calais, France, by rail. Branch lines connect the German colony of Kiaochou and Chifu with this Tientsin trunk railway, so that a German may go straight through from his Crown colony in cars to Berlin. Before long, when the Canton-Hankau section is completed, Hongkong’s colonial secretary will be able to leave Government House, facing the wonderful Botanical Garden on the hill of Hongkong, take a chair down to the Star Ferry Wharf, cross the mile of harbor, then take his railway carriage and be whisked through to Downing Street, London, to take his orders from the secretary of state for the Crown colonies, with only one ferriage, that from Calais to Dover. Not only a northern railway route is available, but a southern railway route will soon be open. When the easy section through Persia, and the short railway from Yunnan City through Mung Ting pass connects with Mandalay, it will be possible for the colonial secretary of Indo-China to leave the palatial Palais at Hanoi and entrain at the Tonquin Railway Gare on the palm-lined boulevard, going straight through to the Ministré on the Quai d’Orsay, Paris, via Hyderabad, Teheran, Constantinople and the Gates of the Danube, all the way without seeing salt water. Likewise the governor of Singapore will soon be able to entrain opposite Government House for Calais and London, and cross the teeming continents, passing through the site of the Garden of Eden, on his way to Downing Street to consult with his chief. He can also pick up his traveled friend (since the entente cordiale), the Gouverneur at L’Hotel du Gouverneur, Saigon, and drop him at the Gare du Nord, Paris, on his way to the departments on the left bank of the Seine.

The Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo railway, built by the British and Chinese Corporation, and by the Chinese themselves, will soon be completed. The Peking-Kalgan railway (the route for the tombs of the Ming emperors) has been finely built by China’s leading engineer, Jeme Tien Yao (educated at Yale, 1883) and this road will some day, with Russian and French help, break across Gobi Desert to Kaikhta and Irkutsk, flanking two thousand miles of Manchurian railway, and saving all that distance in reaching Europe from Shanghai. The Kaifong-Singan railway will soon be ready. It is planned to open a new port at Haochow, where the Yellow River (Hoang Ho) used to meet the Yellow Sea, and to run the railway through to Kaifong, Singan, Lanchow (in Kansu province) and on to the historic Tarim valley, and Kashgar, opening up Turkestan. It is also proposed to open a new port at ice-free Hunshan on the Ginmen River, D’Anville Gulf, Sea of Japan, where China owns a narrow neck of land running between Northern Korea and the Vladivostok district of Siberia. From Hunshan a road would be run to Kirin, two hundred miles over difficult forest-covered country. From Kirin China has independent lines running between the Russian and Japanese lines. Hunshan would be an excellent port whence to attack commercially the two rich northern provinces of Manchuria. The road planned by America from Chin Wang Tao to Tsitsikar and Aigun is possibly more of a postponed than a dead road despite Russia and Japan.

The roads from Hankau north to Mukden have paid heavy dividends and helped the imperial exchequer during the revolution of 1911. These roads have been hindered neither by difficult construction, nor by obstacles to traffic such as the likin tax system, which has cursed the free trade and transportation of the southern part of the country. The Hanyang iron mills can supply rails at one-third the American cost, viz., nine dollars as compared with twenty-eight dollars per ton, so that China can afford to build four miles of railway to America’s one mile, and reduce rates accordingly because of the lower capital cost. The cars can be erected at Hongkong in the south, Hankau in the center, and at Tongshan in the north of China. The locomotives and trucks will be imported from America, Germany and England. The necessary coast railway from Hongkong to Ningpo has only been constructed in the neighborhood of Amoy. Something has been done on the railways from Hongkong to Yunnan City, and from Hongkong to Chungking, and from Yunnan to Chungking. American engineers have made the surveys. The railway along the ancient Ta Peh Lu (Great North Road) post road from Chingtu to Singan has not yet been begun. A road, too, will break across west from Chingtu to the Tibet gateway at Tachien. Mention should be made of the railway from Kidalova, following the north bank of the Amur to Blagovestchensk and Khabarovka, which Russia is building so as to have an all-Russian railway to Vladivostok. This railway is under way, although the debt of the Russo-Japan War has almost destroyed Russian railway building, and postponed Russia’s commercial (and other?) attack in India’s direction. Had it not been for that debt, Russia might to-day be striking for railway entrance to Peking, to Hankau, to Herat and Constantinople, as so many of the British imperialists like Kipling and Sir Gilbert Parker fear.

Hongkong has at last beat out Shanghai for the trade of the great western provinces of China. Transshipment is made at Hongkong for Haiphong, where the new French railway takes merchandise five hundred miles northwest to Yunnan as a distributing center. Hongkong also has the West (Si Kiang), Yu, Hong Chu, Eta and Peh Rivers as arteries into the west. Until two hundred miles of Yangtze gorges and rapids are flanked by a railway, Shanghai must lose more and more of the vast western trade which she used to control before the French railway was built. The French finished in 1910 this remarkable railway from Haiphong to Yunnan, five hundred miles, and have thus beat out the British, who, because of Colquhoun’s books, were approaching Yunnan from three points in Burma. This railway attack on Yunnan has been a battle of two imperial minds of the Kipling imperialistic type, Colquhoun and Doumer. Colquhoun, the British governor and author, began urging the construction of British railways in 1881, and followed up his arguments with a further book in 1898. In 1897, the famous Paul Doumer, once a printer, went to French China as governor. In 1898 he began his railway to Yunnan. The line, though narrow gage, has cost $50,000 a mile, even with cheap Oriental labor. Near the coast of Tonquin the country is that of flat rice fields and only requires trestling and banking. From Hung Hoa (Bed River) to Lao Kai no fewer than 180 bridges had to be erected (a fine contract for French structural firms) to cross the wild broken country of stream, marsh, gorge and mountain pass. The line rises from sea level to a pass of 5,000 feet altitude. Much of the Yunnan tin and other exports, which, by pack saddle and shoulder load, formerly went down to Nanning and took the Yu and Si Rivers to Hongkong, are now diverted to Haiphong, from which port the French run branch ship lines to Hongkong and Saigon, connecting with the great subsidized Messageries Maritimes line to Marseilles. The French need subsidies because the foreign trade which their bankers control is not so heavy as is that of Britain and America.

The Hongkong and Canton Railway, 106 miles, has been completed and marks a new lease of life for Hongkong as the emporium of South, West and Central China, when the railways from Canton are extended. The Hongkong Railway starts from Kowloon, across the narrow harbor, running through 19 miles of British territory, and the remainder through Chinese territory. The British section, on account of the many tunnels through mountains, cost almost as much as the entire Chinese section. The fine steamers of the Hongkong and Canton Steamboat Company, which are well known to world tourists, and many Chinese steamers and junks compete, but there is traffic for all, and when there isn’t there will be pooling for all. The Hongkong government, through the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, loaned the Kwangtung province government the money for the Chinese section. (This is an illustration of a few loans which have not been made to the national government at Peking, and represents provincial as against the nationalized trunk railway scheme which helped to bring on the revolution.) The road runs through a part of the country requiring much trestle work, and bridging on account of waterways. The long Chinese section of the road cost less with one exception than any standard gage railway in the world, $35,000 per mile, the nearest approach to this in America being sections of the Great Northern Railway built years ago at $40,000 per mile. Nearly all the freight and passenger cars were made at Hongkong. The best built railway in China is the Shanghai-Nanking. In easy country it cost $55,000 per mile. It was built by British contractors on the elaborate, permanent English plan, whose maxim is, “a stitch in time saves nine”. What spoiled the Chinese in hiring foreign contractors was their experience with a section of the Shanghai-Hangchow railway. The Kiangsu and Chekiang provincial governments, hiring native contractors and engineers (who were trained in America) built a satisfactory road of 125 miles at $25,000 per mile, as compared with the British continuation north, of $55,000 per mile. The Chinese have never ceased talking of this economy, although they admit that the English road is better and worth $35,000 per mile, but not $55,000. Another objection they make is that foreign syndicates charge five per cent. commission on their purchases. In the railway from Pukow (opposite Nanking) to Tientsin, the foreign syndicate was not allowed commission on purchases, so that the “Pukow plan” is favored. In reference to the low cost, $35,000 per mile, of the difficult Peking-Kalgan railway, 140 miles, which was built by the Chinese exclusively, the Chinese Students’ Journal says: “In the construction of the railway, economy, which must not be confounded with cheapness, must always be kept in view. All railways built in China must be paid for by our people, and our people are poor. A railway is not a club-house on which to expend millions. The redemption of bonds must not be forgotten for a moment. On the Peking-Kalgan railway there was no temptation to spend money recklessly, as no five per cent. commission was needed to enrich the coffers of the foreign corporation. There were no foreign style residences, cement tennis-courts, ice machines, palatial house-boats, and princely salaries; no interpreters to make a fortune (i. e., compradores); no graft. There were no unpleasantnesses through the interference of foreign consuls, and no reference of insignificant incidents to ministers at Peking.”

The Siberian Railway cost $150,000 a mile through flat country, but $100,000 of that amount was for nepotism, graft, bureaucracy, boodle and sweet Roederer champagne.

The revolution and the argument over the nationalization of railways of course delayed the great Gorge Railway which runs from Ichang to Wan Hsien on the Yangtze, thus surmounting the almost impassable rapids of the gorges, which heretofore have split populous Szechuen province from Hupeh. It would be hard to say how many books have been written about these difficult rapids and the sublime scenery. The most notable are by Archibald Little, the trade pioneer of the Yangtze, and then there are interesting works by Dingle, Geil, Mrs. Kemp, Mr. Bird, Mr. Blakiston, Mr. Hart and Mrs. Bishop. The road could not possibly parallel the river along the parapets of the gorges. It breaks inland through great tunnels, some 6,000 feet long. This gorge railway was the most necessary in the whole world; it should have been the first begun in China. When it is running, however, the finest scenery in the world will be shut out from the wondering eyes of man, as the famous gorge boatmen and trackers will give up their work, and, as it is, many of them have been killed in the recent war of the revolution, Szechuen and Hupeh provinces being the first to recruit armies. From Wan Hsien railways will go across country to Chingtu, and up the Yangtze to Chungking, thus linking the great west with India, French China and the populous eastern and northern provinces.

General Kuroki’s military railway from Antung to Mukden has now been turned into a standard-gage road, and a bridge has been thrown across the Yalu River (famous for its great naval engagement) to Wiju. It is now possible to take a sleeping-car from Tokio to Shinonoseki, cross the strait by ferry, take another sleeper at Fusan, and go all the way through Mukden to Kuang Chang Tsu, connecting there with the Russian line for Moscow and St. Petersburg. For fast service, however, the Russians are able to favor the all-Russian line to Vladivostok, whence steamers can be taken for Hakodate, etc. Passengers from Shanghai can take two routes, one by steamer to Dalny, and thence via the South Manchurian (Japanese) railway, or via Tientsin, Newchang, etc. (Chinese railways). The Korean-Yalu route, however, is infinitely the more scenic. Most of the bridges of this route were brought from America.

The German railway of 271 miles in Shangtung province shows the effects of the iron hand in paying small wages, the working expenses in 1910 being only thirty-five per cent. of the gross earnings. The gross earnings were $8,000 a mile. In a bare country, where mining is undeveloped, the average receipts were only seventy-one cents per passenger mile, and ninety cents per ton mile. Over 90 per cent. of the traffic is third class. The average mixed trainload is 150 tons of freight and sixty passengers. The famous beans, straw braid, grain and petroleum predominated in the traffic, but in 1912 coal was beginning to be a growing factor. The German railway in Shangtung province has set the example of planting trees. It was copied by the Pennsylvania railway. Nearly all the railways of China are copying the reforestation methods.

At Tongshan, eighty miles northeast of Tientsin, are the modern shops, engineering college and town of the national railways of North China. Here the first Chinese locomotive, the “Rocket”, was built in stealth by the British mechanical, railway and mining engineer, Mr. C. W. Kinder, who has done so much for the railways and mines of North China. The college turns out railway engineers, and some of the instructors are American, like Mr. F. A. Foster. Other lecturers are British, like Mr. Kinder and Mr. Pope.

Railway cars can now be built in the Tongshan shops, the Hanyang works, the Shanghai works and the Kowloon (Hongkong) works, as well as at Dalny. The Tongshan works can and have built locomotives.

In 1910 the Department of Communications established at Peking a railway school. Three hundred of the six hundred students were under twenty-five years of age. There were eight foreign and thirty-five foreign-trained Chinese teachers. The course was three years. English, mainly, and French, German and Chinese were taught. There is no military drill, and the curriculum includes history, economics, railway bookkeeping and law, engineering, management of traffic, shops and stations, physics, chemistry, drawing, mathematics, geography, etc.

Electric tramways have been established at Peking, Tientsin, Shanghai, Canton and the Manchurian cities, the example having been taken from Hongkong’s tramway, built in 1905. Recent photographs show the remarkable change in the bunds and roads of the treaty ports, where the automobile, electric car, rickshaw, wheelbarrow, chair and litter all have their fight for the passenger and his nimble coin.

On new lines it is necessary to use blue instead of white glass in the coaches, as the coolies in their excitement over the scenery forget and put their heads through the white glass, to which they are not accustomed.

The old system of transportation has not altogether departed, and even if it had, its memory would linger long. Neither the Peking cart, nor the mule litter of Shansi, in which one rides between two tandem mules, is on springs. They are padded so that the passenger, who is not made of rubber, may be somewhat protected. If the conveyances were not padded, only a man dressed up for American football could survive the jolting. These are the vehicles in which dignified (on other occasions) ambassadors have ridden at Peking in all the years since foreigners were granted the legation privileges.

VII
SHIPPING AND WATER ROUTES IN CHINA

The larger steamship lines now supplying the China ports are the following:

American
Pacific Mail—Trans-Pacific.
Standard Oil—Trans-Pacific and Suez route.
Dollar Steamship Company—Trans-Pacific.
Northern Pacific Railway—Trans-Pacific.
American and Asiatic—To America via Suez (agency, American; flag, British).
Barber Line—To America via Suez (agency, American; flag, British).
Shewan, Tomes & Co.—To Philippines.
British
Canadian Pacific Railway—Trans-Pacific.
Peninsular and Oriental—Suez route to Europe, and coastal.
Ben Line—Suez route to Europe.
Shire Line—Suez route to Europe.
Sassoon Line—To India.
Jardine, Matheson & Co.—To India, coastwise and Philippines.
Butterfield and Swire—Australia, India, coastwise, etc.
Gibb, Livingston & Co.—Australia and Africa.
Blue and White Funnel Lines—Europe, trans-Pacific, coastwise.
British-India—India, trans-Pacific, etc.
Japanese
Toyo Kisen Kaisha—Trans-Pacific to America and South America.
Nippon Yusen Kaisha—Trans-Pacific, Europe, coastwise and riverine.
Osaka Shosen Kaisha—Trans-Pacific, coastwise and riverine.
Nippon Kisen Kaisha—Coastwise.
Mitsui Bussan Kaisha—Coastwise.
German
North German Lloyd—Europe, coastwise and probably trans-Pacific.
Hamburg-America—Europe, coastwise and probably trans-Pacific.
Hansa Steamship Company—Europe.
Austrian
Austrian Lloyd—Europe and coastwise.
Chinese
China Merchants’ Steamship Company—Coastwise and possibly trans-Pacific.
British and Chinese
Chinese Engineering and Mining Company—Coastwise and trans-Pacific planned.
Peking Syndicate—Coastwise and trans-Pacific planned.
French
Messageries Maritimes—Europe, Indo-China and coastwise.
Russia
Russian Volunteer Fleet—Europe and coastwise.
Chinese Eastern Railway Steamers—Coastwise.
Spain
Spanish Royal Mail—Europe via Suez.
Holland
Shell Transport and Trading—Coastwise and Europe.

When the Panama Canal opens, many more Atlantic lines, such as the Royal Mail, International Marine, German lines, etc., will probably extend their service in time to China, and many trans-Pacific lines, especially Japanese and the Pacific Mail, will extend to America’s eastern coast, not to speak of new lines which may be formed. The British-India Steamship Company intends to extend its Calcutta line across the Pacific and to New York. The American railroads could, at small cost, by a generous pro rata of division rates, have covered the Pacific and Atlantic with American steamship lines, but they have held off, expecting the really unnecessary government subsidies. The subsidy argument would possibly have a different complexion if it were assured that the steamship lines would remain forever independent, and permit no dummy holdings of stock. In the meantime, Japanese and British vessels have been employed on the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans on account of the lower cost of officers’ wages only, the crews’ wages being the same on a Pacific mailer and a Nippon Yusen Kaisha mailer, for instance. Both hire Chinese mainly, who are good and cheap sailors. The American railroad, controlling the west-bound freight, and the American banker, controlling the heavier east-bound freight, could make American steamship lines on the Pacific profitable; indeed, the Pacific Mail already pays its way. The government could, of course, pay a just amount for mails on an increasing ratio for time made, but if the American railroad, American banker, American shipper and American globe-trotter will come to the aid of the American ship, we can, without subsidy, except to independent smaller owners, cover the Pacific with our starry flag.

All the large lines are building new ships for the China trade. The Osaka Shosen Kaisha, running to America in connection with the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, has ordered steamships from Armstrong, in England, and from the Japan shipyards. The Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship Company and the Pacific Mail are having twenty-knot ships built. The Hansa Steamship Company, running from Bremen, has ordered ships from the Weser Ship-building Company, of Bremen. The Russian Volunteer Fleet has ordered new ships from the Alexander-Nevski works. Wireless is to be used generally, the first shore station having been fitted at Hongkong. The Chinese Merchants and the Sino-American companies (both Chinese) intend to run ships to America, as their plans enlarge. We may yet see the Chinese flag regularly in New York. The Japanese are to run a line into the Black Sea in competition with the Russian Volunteer Fleet; they have already sent boats into Trieste in competition with the Austrians, and they have before now humbled the Germans in the Bangkok-Shanghai service. To show that the Japanese are not the least timid in declaring their maritime ambitions on the Pacific, I shall quote the following circular signed by Manager Iwanaga of the subsidized Nippon Yusen Kaisha (the steamship line in which the Mikado is a large shareholder) at the time of the competition with the long-established British firm of Butterfield and Swire, a firm which had been very friendly to the Japanese during the Russian War. Mr. Iwanaga says: “These foreign firms must be induced to pay respect to the Japanese mercantile flag. It is the duty of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha to check the arrogance of foreign steamers east of Suez.”

The history of China’s greatest steamship line, the China Merchants’ Steamship Company, is as follows: When Li Hung Chang was viceroy of Pechili province at Tientsin in 1871, on advice of Americans and British who were in his employ, he formed this government-controlled line, partly to carry tribute grain from the south; because the Grand Canal was allowed by the various governors to collect silt, while their pockets collected gilt (and guilt)! Merchants and guilds were invited or coerced to subscribe to some of the stock. In 1877 the company bought the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company and its dock for 2,000,000 taels silver. In 1878 Li diverted from the Grand Canal to the steamship company the Yunnan copper destined to the Peking and provincial mints. The great government university at Peking, with provincial branches, created by Kwang Hsu’s reform edicts of 1898, was to be financed partly by the revenues of this steamship company. The republicans used its revenues to aid the 1911 revolution because the imperialists used the railway revenues. The head office of the company is in Shanghai, and it has branches at Newchwang, Chifu, Tientsin, Chinkiang, Kowkiang, Hankau, Ningpo, Fuchau, Hongkong and Canton. The ships are distinguishable at the Chinese ports both by the yellow funnel, and by the immense Chinese characters which, in Austrian fashion, are not always borne on the bow, but midships. The fine vessels of this company were once put under the American flag in 1884 to save them from the French, who were at war with China.

One of the great movements of the future in the reforming Far East will be the Malay Peninsular Canal, about fifty miles long, which will save 1,500 miles in the voyage from Saigon to Calcutta, Madras, etc. It will not cut off and make useless the expensive garrison port of Singapore, which holds the five equatorial seas for Britain, as the Singapore-Rangoon railway will run along the entire peninsula. All these probabilities in the Far East should be considered in full by the student of world politics, finance, commerce and ethnology. A dozen Chinas, Americas, Britains and Germanies could well work many centuries before the world is restored to the economic Eden state, where each man will be free, and have enough to support him and his in peace. Every work of commerce is then a world-work, claiming the altruist’s enthusiasm, and while we often use the phrase, “war of the ports of the Far East,” we mean that joyful exhibition of strength which the wrestler, rather than the warrior, puts forth.

A movement is growing in Japan to deprive foreign ships of the right to trade between Japanese ports, which is similar to a regulation now in operation in America and Canada. Japanese vessels, of course, trade between British and China ports. Another plan that is advocated is to place on ships not built in Japan such a high duty that Japanese owners will be compelled to build in Japan, which would include a personal penalty if Japanese owners owned steamship stock under a foreign flag. All this involves considerable conflict with British interests that have loaned immense sums in Japan, and it is certain that the British foreign office, now so friendly to Japan, will hear from the British Board of Trade, as it is hearing every day from the consular service and such writers as Beresford, Colquhoun and Gilbert Parker.

Whampoa, the first port in China where Europeans traded, is to be opened by the Chinese as a treaty port for deep-sea trading. It is about six miles below Canton. The port will, of course, compete with Hongkong; but Hongkong opened up a railway to Canton to protect herself, and she will see that fast and cheap handling maintains her leadership. The taotai, and Chang Iu Hin who was educated and enriched at British Singapore, are representative republicans of Canton who are interested in Whampoa port. It is proposed to do dredging and make free grants of land for godowns, wharves, etc.

Portuguese Macao, the second port in China where Europeans traded, forty miles from Hongkong, is dredging her silted harbor preparatory to bidding for some of the great oversea trade that is expected. China, which has ambitions for native ports in the vicinity of Canton, frequently sends her warships into Macao waters. The natives of the Macao district (Heung Shan) do not like Portugal’s ambition, and much bitterness is shown.

The Whang Poo Conservancy Board has deepened the river from Wusung up to Shanghai, and larger ocean steamers are now able to ascend to the bund. For a long time the largest vessels must lie at Wusung bar, the “heaven sent barrier” against foreign intrusion, as the Manchus called it years ago. The Tientsin Conservancy is deepening the river up from Taku. Both of these boards are controlled by the foreign settlements, although the Chinese share in the expense. Foreign engineers are hired.

Other trans-oceanic ports planned by China are at Chin Wang Tao in Pechili province; Hunchun, near Vladivostok on the Japan Sea, and Haochow, near the junction of Shangtung and Kiangsu provinces. The British may also develop the port of Wei Hai Wei, now that connection with the trunk railways of China is in sight.

Few of the great Chinese ports look after the foreign seamen, but Hongkong has established a sailors’ club and seamen’s institute on a liberal scale. This idea should be copied along the long yellow coast, for the devil’s whisper is loudest and his traps are most numerous in China.

The Grand Canal as a shipping factor is grand no more, for three reasons: it has silted up; it has been paralleled by the railway from Hangchow to Peking, 1,000 miles; and it has also been paralleled by the China Merchants and other steamship services from Shanghai to Tientsin. This once noble work, with its beautiful bridges, pagodas, embankments, sluices, aqueducts and picturesque junks, passes into history, so far as its transportation feature is concerned. It may be continued in parts as an aqueduct, for conservancy purposes in relieving the water pressure on the flood districts of the Whei and Yangtze valleys, or for water power for a vast scheme of manufacturing, but that is for engineers, and not economists, to decide. Marco Polo first made this famous work known to the western world. The southern section from Hangchow, the bore city and capital of the Sung dynasty, to the Yangtze River at Chingkiang, was dug about 610 A. D. The oldest, and most important section from a conservancy point of view, from Chinkiang to the Whei River, 130 miles, was built about 485 B. C. Kublai Khan is credited with being the dreamer of the idea, the digger of the ditch, the De Lesseps of China, and the fact is that he built the northern section of about 650 miles from the Whei River to Peking in 1289 A. D. in order to bring the tribute rice and copper of the southern provinces to Peking. Those who are interested in the canal in its last days of picturesque use should read the works of Sir John Francis Davis, who was governor of Hongkong, and whose experience in China covered the crowded years from 1820 to 1846. The American general, J. M. Wilson, has also written a book covering his inspection of parts of the canal.

On sections of the Yellow River and on the Kia Ling River in Szechuen province, lumber boats are made up to carry produce to market, the boats being broken up at Chungking. Return freight which can not be tracked through the rapids is portaged. Although the Yellow River is 2,500 miles long, it is only navigable 150 miles from its mouth to Tsinan City, and in short broken sections in Mongolia and Honan. The loess silt which it carries, and the porous loess bed through which it flows, make it only a roaring unmanageable spring and summer drain, China’s sorrow of flood and famine. Its memorable changing of bed to mouths 300 miles apart, from Kiangsu to Shangtung province in 1854, and from banks 100 miles apart in the Gobi Desert, are well known.

Most of the riverine and coast, junk and sanpan sails are square or oblong, but at Ichang there are strange wupan boats which use the towering peaked sails seen on the Arab dahabiyehs of Aden and the Nile, the object being to coax down the high breezes of the difficult gorges of the Yangtze. This is not the only instance in China of Arab influence in crafts, arts and blood.

Chinese riverine shipping is growing heavily. All flags are seen on the Yangtze, and several flags in the lower parts of the Kan and Siang Rivers. The British and Chinese, and some French flags go up the West and Yu Rivers to Nanning. Chinese shipping on the Liao River to Newchwang is heavy in the ice-free season. There are scores of other rivers which will be dredged so that they may feed the steamship and railroad lines.

The Chinese have an amusing word for captain. “Lao ta” is literally “old fellow”; because the captain of the old Yangtze rapids boats was generally the oldest man on board. The captain of the Hakka sanpans of Canton is often a woman, but she is humorously called “lao ta” with the rest! China led in all inventions, including woman’s rights!

In the coming great development of Western China, the one name to inscribe on the tablets is that of the pioneer merchant writer, Archibald Little, who, after twenty years of effort, broke the veil of the Yangtze gorges and took the first steamer to open up the ports of Ichang and Chungking in 1898. This brought him within beckoning distance of British Burma and Archibald Colquhoun’s propaganda, and split China in two with the wedge of commerce, despite the obstructive Tsung Li Yamen at Manchu Peking. Mr. Little’s three books on Western China are: Through the Yangtze Gorges, To Omi Mount in Szechuen, and Across Yunnan; and he wrote, moreover, a very important geological work which places him high as a prospector and explorer.

VIII
AMERICA IN CHINA

Where the Happy Valley Road branches off, one part leading to the Royal Golf Club, and the other to the Mohammedan, Parsee and European cemeteries, and Wong Nei Chong valley, Hongkong, on a spot where Secretary William Henry Seward stood in 1869, there is a monument which has particular interest for Americans and Britons, and possibly it is a prophecy of their united work in the future in developing China. The monument tells its own story of brothers in arms in the dangers of the Far Eastern seas in lonely days as follows:

Erected by the officers and crews of the
United States steam frigate Powhatan
and
H. B. M. steam sloop Rattler,
in memory of
their shipmates who fell in a combined attack on a
fleet of piratical junks off Kuhlan (Kowloon)
August 4, 1855.
Killed in the action:
Powhatan.

John Pepper, seaman.
James A. Halsey, landsman.
Isaac Coe, landsman.
S. Mullard, marine.
B. F. Addamson, marine.

The first American treaty is dated 1844 when Caleb Cushing and Daniel Webster’s son, Fletcher, went to Hongkong, Canton, Macao, etc., but American trade began at a still earlier date, when the Empress of China, Captain Green, Purser Samuel Shaw, sailed from New York on Washington’s birthday, 1784. The ship Alliance sailed from Philadelphia in 1788 without charts. The ship Massachusetts sailed from Boston in 1789, armed with twenty six-pound guns, and half the cargo being useless furs for the southern Chinese! The old Philadelphia merchants interested in the China trade were of the Archer, Girard and Rulon families. The Boston merchants who despatched regular packet ships to Canton were of the Forbes, Perkins, Cabot, Sturgis, Russell, Cushing and Coolidge families. The first American consuls lived at beautiful Macao. Major Shaw, purser of the Empress of China was consul in 1786, Samuel Snow in 1794, and Edward Carrington in 1804. On November 16, 1856, just before the “Arrow” war, Captain Armstrong, U. S. S. Portsmouth, attacked the Canton (Bogue) forts. This was the only time America attacked China, except at Peking in 1900. When all Europe hesitated to befriend the northern states, China issued this edict to viceroys in 1863: “Keep a careful and close oversight, and if the Confederate steamer Alabama, or any other vessel of war, scheming how it can injure American property, shall approach that part of the coast of China under your jurisdiction, you are to prevent all such vessels entering our ports.”

The American representatives in China were first trade commissioners, and afterward diplomats, and the tendency now, at least with the British and Germans, is to have both commissioners and diplomats. The American officials were the following:

Caleb Cushing, commissioner, 1844 (first treaty).

Alex. H. Everett, commissioner, 1846 (died, Canton, 1847).

John W. Davis, commissioner, 1847.

Humphrey Marshall, commissioner, 1852.

Robert M. McLane, commissioner, 1853.

Doctor Parker, commissioner, 1856.

William B. Reed, minister, 1857 (first minister).

John E. Ward, minister, 1859.

Anson Burlingame, minister, 1861 (remarkably brilliant).

Mr. Low, minister, 1870.

J. B. Angell, minister, 1882 (later president University of Michigan).

Charles Denby, minister, 1885.

Mr. E. H. Conger, minister, 1900.

W. W. Rockhill, minister, 1905.

Mr. Calhoun, minister, 1909.

The most famous secretary of the American legation was Samuel Wells Williams, the author of the Middle Kingdom, etc., and editor of the Chinese Repository. His son serves at present in the Peking legation. It would take a volume to cover Mr. S. W. Williams’ brilliant work as interpreter of missions and legations, printer at Canton and Macao, translator, author, lecturer, secretary, dictionary compiler, professor at Yale, sinologue, money raiser for the causes of missions and letters, and diplomat.

Note the use of English signs. These balconied shops and homes have a Spanish effect.

Modern buildings; wider streets. Note woman with deformed feet being carried on shoulders of servant; also the healthy alert boyhood of China.

Where the first treaty between America and China was signed. The Porta Cerco gate between Portuguese and native China. The treaty was signed by Caleb Cushing and Daniel Webster’s son, Fletcher, on July 3d, 1844, the tablets on the gate being of a later date, and commemorating a Portuguese victory.

Daniel Webster had not a little to do with America’s relations with China. He studied the subject deeply. He suggested the first mission that secured a treaty, and wrote the president’s message of December 30, 1842, to Congress suggesting the mission. Cushing’s letter of instructions was signed by Webster, and showed deep knowledge of Chinese affairs. The treaty was signed in a temple at Wanghai, outside the Porta Cerco stone gate at Macao; and I would recommend the pilgrimage to the many tourists who visit the picturesque settlement in South China.

In 1861 an American, Frederick G. Ward, formed the nucleus of the Manchu imperialist army which finally overcame the Taiping rebels. Another American took service with Li Hung Chang as secretary. His name was W. N. Pethick. He had served in the Civil War in America. Mr. Pethick had considerable influence with Li, assisting him in treaty making, reading to him reform and economical books, and taking a part in urging the crusade against opium. Mr. Pethick died from the hardships of the siege of Peking in 1900.

When John Hay and Philander Knox secured the assent of the nations to the American and British doctrine of the non-partition of China, they were repeating the “square deal” terms of the famous treaty of 1868, which the brilliant American, Anson Burlingame, on behalf of China, which nation he was then serving as commissioner, secured from America, stipulating the “territorial integrity of China, and disavowing any right to interfere with China’s eminent domain”.

In 1900 the American troops found a great store of silver at Tientsin, but gave it up, as America returned the Boxer indemnity of 1908, and the abstention of the American troops from looting in Peking in 1900 set the usual high standard of altruism and soldierly honor which Sun Yat Sen and Wu Ting Fang say China connects with the name America.

In 1901 Mrs. Conger and the other ladies of the American legation began the work which threw down the zenana bars which held Manchu and Chinese women in repressive exclusiveness.

Years ago prominent Chinese made some study of American leaders. Seu Ki Yu, governor of Amoy and member of the Tsung Li Yamen (Foreign Board at Peking) in 1866, to whom Secretary W. H. Seward sent a picture of Washington, composed the following essay:

“Washington was a very remarkable man. In advising plans he was more daring than our heroes, Chin Shing or Han Kwang. In winning a country he was braver than Tsau or Lin Pi. Wielding his four-foot falchion he enlarged the frontier myriads of miles, and yet he refused to usurp regal dignity or even to transmit it to his posterity; but, on the contrary, first proposed the plan of electing men to office. Where in the world can be found a mode more equitable? It is the same idea, in fact, that has been handed down to us from the three reigns of Yau, Shun and Yu (the immortal reigns of China). In ruling the state he honored and fostered good usages, and did not exalt military merit, a principle totally unlike what is found in other kingdoms. I have seen his portrait. His mien and countenance are grand and impressing in the highest degree. Who is there that does not call him a hero?” This essay was reissued by the republicans in 1911 and had a wide influence in their propaganda.

The American exports to China, including Hongkong, consisting chiefly of cotton, machinery, oil, flour and tobacco, were as follows: 1908, $34,000,000; 1909, $28,000,000; 1910, $23,000,000 (exports to China from all countries, $305,580,000); 1911, $25,000,000.

The American imports were, in their order, chiefly silk, tea, hides, wool, straw braid, pig iron, musk, hair, raw cotton, albumen, bristles, and amounted as follows: 1908, $24,000,000; 1909, $31,000,000; 1910, $38,000,000 (exports by China to all countries, $251,460,000); 1911, $32,000,000.

This is but a beginning, as it were, “a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand”.

America should keep stocks in Manila to attack the Chinese market, where “time is of the essence of importance”. This applies to iron, hardware, tinware, structural beams, cottons, woolens, yarn, shoes, machinery, educational and military apparatus, foods, utensils, pipes, and everything necessary in municipal, industrial and domestic development. A Cantonese or Shanghai Chinese does not mind the trip to Manila to inspect, though he would prefer seeing what America has to offer in Hongkong, Shanghai, Hankau, Tientsin, Mukden, Chingtu and Yunnan, if America shortly concludes to take advantage of these seven strategic trade centers. In the meantime full stocks at Manila would be a good beginning. Even in disturbed years, such as 1911, America’s imports from China were $32,000,000, and exports $25,000,000. These figures are small compared to those that will soon obtain, and, of course, America desires first to increase her exports of machinery, drugs, novelties, utensils, loom products, tools, etc.

American food and harvester companies will doubtless yet take up land directly or indirectly in fertile Manchuria, where America must look for supplies of vegetable oil, wheat, fertilizer, oil cake for milch cows, lumber and coal, and a market for machinery and manufactures. There is a virgin territory seven hundred miles by seven hundred miles, inviting the agriculturist. The American-Chinese Railway planned in 1910, from Chin Wang Tao, the only ice-free port on the Liaotung Gulf, to Tsitsikar and on to Aigun on the Amur River, was an excellent scheme and one which may eventually be accomplished.

The Western Electric Company, of America, installed Peking’s telephone system. The American Banknote Company set up China’s central bank engraving department. American companies furnished the stamping machinery for the new mints. American bridges and locomotives are frequently seen throughout China. American sewing machines, oil cans and tobacco papers are on view everywhere throughout the twenty-one provinces, and the American flour bag, when empty, patches the sails of the southern junks. Some American presses have come over, but they do not as yet compete strongly with the British and German presses. American hotel and kitchen utensils would compete were it not that the palatial treaty port hotels are controlled as yet by British and German shareholders. American mining, gas, electric, cranes, sawmill, cement, flourmill and pumping machinery are coming in, excepting where foreign contractors and bankers interpose. British shipyard machinery is still ahead. American protective paints for steel are holding their own in competition with the British and German paints, especially in the Yangtze valley. American turbines are slightly ahead, but American pipes, dynamos, stationary engines, winches, heating plants, dredgers, condensers, cables, electric fans, bleaching and cotton machinery, refrigerating machinery, wood-working machinery, water meters, hauling plants, lamps, etc., are still behind the British and German article, the British trade exceeding the American four to one. American machinery, with its generally nicer finish and greater adaptation and efficiency, has a vast field. In sugar machinery, Japan leads, but America will pass her. In car wheels, rails, and in simple foundry and rolling mill output, China can not be competed with for any length of time. In shovels, ballast unloaders, coal and ore hoists, America will lead, as she leads in locomotives. In the immense telegraph development, Britain leads. In water-tube boilers, America leads. In couplers, roofing, steam hammers and drilling machinery, America has a fair chance. In military supplies, Germany and Japan lead. In motor-boats, America will lead, although if time is not important, the Chinese dockyards can not be competed with in steam launches, which are now used very largely to tow the cargo junks. In automobiles, America leads. In family hardware, America and Britain lead. In lubricating oils, America meets some competition from the Dutch and Russians, but in illuminating oils, America leads. In fuel oils, the Dutch probably lead at present, the Shell Company having tanks of Sumatra oil at the ports. One of them was dramatically punctured with a shell in the recent revolution. In brakes, Britain and America share the field. In elevators, America will win. In reinforcing steel, America will lead. In typewriters, she long ago won the field. In sanitary hardware, scales, safes, rubber goods, America has an excellent chance. In phonographs, she has won, but in amusement films, France is ahead. In milks, Switzerland leads, and France leads in candies. In extensive systems of harbor improvements, sewerage, water supply, municipal improvements, power and light plants, institutions, mill erecting, etc., America will win as soon as the banking department is attached to the erecting and contracting department. At present the British and Germans lead, as they have done in South America, because of the banking department being attached to the constructive and diplomatic. In sporting goods, drugs, book supplies and school furniture, America will soon close up on Britain’s lead. In jewelry and fancy goods, France, Japan, Britain, Germany and America divide the field, in which there is a fighting chance, with the Chinese themselves as apt pupils in the competition. In brewery machinery, Japan and Germany lead. In canning equipment, America could easily seize the kingdom, and give the world added table necessities and delights from a new realm of sunshine and warmth. In leather, felt and underwear, America could lead. In special pianos for the moist climate, Britain leads, but she could be outplayed. In types, America could win. The field is not for war, but tournament, and the most efficient should and will win the joust! There are enough events to provide honors and rewards for each and all. Those nations which have had high tariffs will suffer most at the beginning of the competition, because while a high tariff may be the mother of the trusts, it is seldom the mother of a prodigy in competitive efficiency.

America’s and Britain’s recognition of the Chinese republic might naturally raise a temporary discontent in the Philippines, India and Egypt, but in homogeneity and responsibility these patronized people can not compare with the Chinese. If it should turn out that China, like Russia and Japan, is not yet ready for republican or constitutional self-government, much less is the non-fusible muddle of Viscayan, Tagalog, Ilocano and Moro, in the lovely summer islands; Mohammedan and Bengalese and Copt, Fellahin and Sudanese. Altruism is a sane creature, walking steadily on two legs, and is not going to lose its head and permit anarchy anywhere just to humor sentimentalism. Theodore Roosevelt made this plain in his Guildhall speech at London, which landed Kitchener in Egypt again to finish his work, and it would apply as well to-day when certain overanxious Filipinos compare their organization, temperament and constitution with the superior Chinese. America, like Britain, can strike with the same hand with which she shakes hands. The civil service and a host of foreign school-teachers in the Philippines and India is the shaking of hands. Let the Philippines and India appreciate it in that way. It would be quite different for them if monarchical Germany, Japan or Russia controlled. We shall recognize the republican trial in China because we believe China is homogeneous, educated and patient enough to make that trial safely, but neither America nor Britain will for a long time yet permit the trial in the Philippines, India or Egypt. If those countries ask the Anglo-Saxon why, we have but one answer; “Look at your history until we managed your interests, and look at our history.” In recognition of Japan’s power, America has dropped her first line of defense back to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In a new understanding of Britain’s oneness with us; of the Philippines linking Australia, India and Canada; of China’s welcome of our style of government and altruism, let us, when we have the docks, move our advance line back to the Philippines; for we mean to have as much to say in protecting China as any other power, which policy does not involve annoying illustrious Japan. But we are going to be on the ground, for as far as Russia and Japan and some others are concerned, they have a land-grabbing appetite and tendency which is not calculated to give China fair play in bringing out the great possibilities which are in her, if we respect her most majestic history. If the complaint is listened to, and America and Britain should withdraw, consider the kind of liberty our successors would deal out: the oligarchic rule of Russia, and the Satsuma and Choshiu nepotism of Japan.

Japan, in traditional Oriental style, has been on occasions alert to play one nation against another, with the view of gaining an advantage of slow prodigious China. When the treaty with America was to expire one year ahead of the termination of treaties with other nations, Japan extended the latter treaties one year, so that her treaties with all the powers might expire together. The obnoxious emigration clause in all these treaties would mainly be taken advantage of, however, in America’s case, and we should have, if the treaty was insisted on by a sudden opposition which gained power, the constant strife of the Japanese labor question in Hawaii, the Philippines and the Pacific coast states, which strife served the deep purpose that America, being technically in the wrong, might neglect to press Japan on greater matters where Japan was taking advantage of treaties, as in Manchuria and Korea. Some of the adroit Japanese statesmen, instead of being wounded at our attitude, really enjoy it in secret. Certain Jingo Japanese, however, would have liked, with this excuse, to have tried America’s naval strength on the Pacific in 1908, and attempted the capture of Manchuria, Fukien province, the Philippines and Hawaii, which test was probably avoided by the dramatic master stroke in sending America’s great fleet of battleships across the Pacific as an object lesson to the Nipponite chauvinist. Japan should for the future be reasonable enough to assent sincerely to an interpretative emendation of the “most favored nation clause”, so that it will really mean the “most favored Oriental nation”, as far as the emigration of laborers is concerned. This will put Japan on a par with China. America sends no laborers to Japan; Japan has discharged American professors in Japan and Korea the very moment the Oriental understudy reported that he was ready to assume charge; America has bought from Japan vastly more than she has sold to her; the timely loans of America to Japan, as Mr. Jacob H. Schiff has said in his notable speech of 1910, enabled Japan to continue the war with Russia until victory was won; American friendship for Japan enabled that nation to secure larger treaty stipulations from Russia at Portsmouth than any other host of the negotiators would have encouraged, and above all, the tactful American, Perry, opened up Japan to modernity in 1854. Japan’s vaunted Confucian and Shinto manners should teach her to protect the blood of her historic friend in his own house, and to respect the greater expense the American laborer nobly goes to in providing, under greater difficulties, for the living and education of his family. There should be no more emigration to the American mainland or Hawaii of Japanese labor than there is of Chinese. Let the Japanese laborers go to Formosa and Korea, where there are wide enough opportunities and where their own government, customs and language rule.

Particularly as America has loaned Japan money, there should be an unequivocal “open door” policy in Manchuria, where Japan is operating already one double-track and one single-track trunk railway, with branches, and has intruded many bands of colonizers on old China, which bands live in settlements where Japan collects taxes against agreement and in practical contravention of China’s sovereignty. This “open door” policy should end the brigandage against foreign traders of directly or indirectly rebating to Japanese shippers on the monopolistic railway privilege to which America never agreed. Cotton and other goods for the Japanese trade colonies should not be entered free at Dalny as “railway supplies”! The Japanese government through the Yokohama Specie Bank should not lend at the ridiculous rate of two per cent. to Japanese importers and common carriers the money that came largely from America, if it affects American trade. This is interpreting an “open door” policy as it is understood at Tokio and Dalny, not as it is written at Tokio and Washington. Since generous America buys vastly more from Japan than she sells to her, Japan should lower her tariff instead of raising it. Japan wants to raise her tariff to sixty per cent. in some cases while we of the august righteous Occident only permit vast good-natured China a tariff of five per cent. ad valorem.

The railroads of our Pacific coast, controlling the eastern shipments, should not invite over Japanese steamship lines, and lay off American lines as was done with the Boston Steamship Company at Seattle in 1909. As it is now, our railroads have made contracts with five Japanese steamship lines, so as to force our government, many critics say, to grant a ship subsidy, which is unnecessary, as the traffic is great enough to pay, with a mail payment, the lines on the Pacific running cheaper than those on the Atlantic on account of the crews being all Chinese. Japanese merchants in Manchuria have petitioned the Japanese government for state assistance to be given Japanese manufacturers in Manchuria.

Despite Japan’s and Russia’s rejection of America’s suggestion in 1910, there will remain only one course eventually to be taken as the result of Secretary Hay’s announcement in 1899 of the “open door” policy for all time in China and Manchuria, and that is for a revivified China to secure an international five-nation loan, or preferably a four-nation loan, to take over from Russia and Japan all the railways held by those two nations in Manchuria, and clean those three provinces of Japanese and Russian troops and Achranie Straja (railway guards), Manchuria thereafter acting as a buffer Chinese state between those really irreconcilable contestants, who under present conditions promise to throw the whole world into warlike turmoil every decade. The Japanese and Russians, by blocking, in 1910, the American railway concession from Chin Wang Tao to Aigun (which America did not intend to occupy with troops) really confessed that they considered, since it so suited them, that the secret agreement which Russia forced from China in 1899 was of superior power to the Japan-Russia Treaty made at Portsmouth, which avowed the “open door” policy. Britain, under pressure from Russia, agreed in 1899 that the former was not to interfere north of Peking, and the latter agreed not to interfere in the Yangtze valley (as though she ever could!). In that same year John Hay secured the assent of the nations, including Russia and Britain, to the policies for all time of the “non-partition of China” and the “open door”, which policies were confirmed by the Portsmouth Treaty, and therefore Japan and Russia, in blocking the Chin Wang to Aigun railway, Chin Wang to Kailar, or any other northern or Manchurian railway, were acting ultra vires, and negotiations in the interest of China, and the development of America’s trade, might well come up again. Certainly the South Manchurian railway has all the traffic it can handle, and it can no more serve great Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia than could a railway confined to Florida serve the eastern and central states as far north as Philadelphia.

Had this Chin Wang to Aigun railway been laid, besides the vast grazing, agricultural, mineral, lumber and mining territory which would have been developed, several important centers would have been made known to the world. Hulutao and Chin Wang are new ports which are ice free longer than Newchang, which should be made the advance post, instead of Shanghai, seven hundred miles away, for America’s attack on the rich Manchurian trade. Some day we shall run steamers across the Pacific to Hulutao and Chin Wang, and thus be independent of Japan’s port of Dalny. Tsitsikar on the Nonni River is a great stock, lumber, mining and railroad center. Aigun, on the great Amur River, is the proposed northern terminus of this seven hundred and fifty miles of railway. Up to 1900 Aigun was the largest city in Manchuria, but during the Boxer troubles Russian troops in revenge razed it to the ground. Here, in May, 1858, was signed the famous Chinese treaty with Russia, delimiting the present bounds of Manchuria. Aigun is a most important fur, lumber, agricultural, flour, gold and general mining center, and has all the great Amur, Sungari and Shilka Rivers to draw cargoes to its docks.

Across the Amur River on Siberian soil (I can hear George Kennan revive his reminiscences) lies Blagovestchensk. This city was the scene, in 1900, of one of the most cruel massacres of the ages, which should reveal fully to the world the real heart of the oligarchal Russian army and government with which we have had to deal, afar off as yet. Thousands of unarmed Chinese shopkeepers and gold miners (who had absolutely nothing to do with Boxerism one thousand miles away) were led to the riverside, and at the word of command from General Chitchegoff the Russian troops at the point of the bayonet drove the innocent victims into the swift Amur, where many were drowned. Blagovestchensk is a thriving modern city. It is the center of the opulent Siberian gold industry, and has many live American advance agents who would welcome the American railway by a bridge over from Aigun! It is lighted by electric light, has clubs, hotels, libraries, docks, river steamers when the river is open (!), theaters, colleges, factories, flour and sawmills, splendid churches, fine brick residences, roads and horses.

Besides its exceedingly rich mines, Manchuria produces in the south, oak-leaf silk which we in America call Shangtung because it is like the silk of Shangtung, which was the first known of the wild silks; cotton, jade, maize, barley, pulse, the very valuable soy-bean, wheat, oats, the very valuable kaoliang (tall millet), the grain of which produces spirits and the stalk of which produces paper; hsiao mi (short millet), poppy, polygonum, used for blue dye; castor oil bean, sesamum, ginseng, paper spruce, fine fruit and flowers, salt, bean oil, famous vermicelli from loutou beans, the best tobacco produced in China, hemp (abutilon avicennæ), true hemp, charcoal, peas, fine reed matting, indigo, etc. Northern Manchuria, besides much of the foregoing, produces the famous black pigs of Kirin; soda bricks, cattle, leather, bear and deer skins; a vast amount of the world’s finest furs, including squirrels, tiger and dog skins, which last are produced on dog farms largely for the American market; gray bricks, tamara salmon, sturgeon, etc. The land is a future granary to feed the manufacturing hundreds of millions in America, who, despite intensive farming, will have exhausted the natural productiveness of their country.

IX
THE NATIVE LEADERS

In the revolution chapter of this book we have given many names of the new leaders. Others who have attained prominence are the following. Most of them have seen foreign service, or been educated in America, Britain, Germany or Japan. In March, 1912, a descendant of the Ming emperors came forward at Peking to add to the complexity of the situation. He endeavored to obtain the allegiance of Yuan’s rebelling northern troops, who seemed loyal to no cause or person. He was the so-called “Marquis” Chu Cheng Yu. A Ming claimant would more naturally make his appeal at the old Ming capital, Nanking, but Nanking was now all for the republic.

Tang Shao Yi, Yuan’s assistant, educated in America, visited America on many commissions; a superior man, worthy of special mark in the coming China; Yuan’s representative at the Shanghai peace conferences.

Yen Shih Si and Yang Shih Chi, assistants of Tang at the Shanghai peace conferences; Board of Finance and Railways, Peking, 1911.

M. Y. Sung, manager of the “Chung Hua” republican bank at Shanghai, and manager of the China Merchants’ Steamship Company.

Shih Shao Chi, known as “Alfred Sze”, American educated; served on American embassies; very popular and able.

Chang Chih Yen, republican Board of Commerce, Shanghai.

Tang Wen Chai, Hupeh Provincial Assembly; Board of Commerce, Shanghai; head of Changsha University.

Sun Hao Chi, Shangtung Provincial Assembly.

Chang Chien, Kiangsu Assembly; Board of Commerce, Shanghai; great and progressive.

Wang Jen Wen, Szechuen Provincial Assembly.

Wang Shao Liang, head Pei Yang Technical University; established English as official language in science.

Li Chin Hsi, Yunnan Assembly; as Viceroy established modern army, police, industrial schools.

Wuh Hsiang Chen, Manchuria Assembly.

Wu Yun Lien, Manchuria Assembly.

Wong Chung Wai, represented republicans at Shanghai peace conferences.

Tsai Chu Ting, represented republicans at Shanghai peace conferences.

Cheng Teh Chuan, Kiangsu Assembly; once Governor.

Li Ping Hsu, Mayor Shanghai; Civil Administrator Kiangsu Assembly.

Shen Wan Yung, Financial Department; Kiangsu Assembly.

Wang Yi Ting, Trade Department; Kiangsu Assembly.

Li Chia Chu, President first Parliament at Peking, 1911.

Tang Hua Lung, President Hupeh Assembly; a mighty man.

Chen Chun Tao, educated at Hongkong and Yale; first President Ta Ching Government Bank, 1910; one of the ablest financiers in China.

Chau Tien You (popularly “Jeme”); educated Yale; builder of Peking-Kalgan Railway; ablest engineer in China.

Kwang Sun Mao, able builder of Canton and northern railways.

Doctor Wu Lien Teh, educated Cambridge University; hero of 1910 plague in Manchuria; one of the ablest modern Chinese doctors.

Chun Tao Tsai, President Chamber of Commerce, Canton.

Lu Hung Chang, President Chamber of Commerce, Hankau.

Admiral Chin Pih, visited New York on cruiser Hai Chi; joined republicans at Shanghai, December, 1911.

C. T. Wong, graduated from Yale University, 1909.

Admiral Chin Yao Huan, visited New York on Hai Chi; became republican December, 1911.

General Lau Tien Wei, republican general in Manchuria, 1911; visited West Point, 1912.

Wu Chung Lin, progressive Chinese minister at Rome, 1912.

E. M. Sah, American educated; authority on municipal government; son of Admiral Sah.

Hsuing Hsi Ling, Finance Board.

Chow Tsze Chi, Finance Board.

General Chang Cho Lin, Manchuria, victor over Mongols, 1912.

The old leaders who go down to defeat are the following, and of the many who are called in the reorganization, some of the following will be found worthy, and some of the disappointed ones may possibly be found leading the discontented at times.

Chang Ming Chi, imperial Viceroy at Canton; fled to Hongkong, 1911.

Chao Ehr Hsun, Viceroy Mukden, strong but uncertain.

General Wong Yin Chat, imperialist leader Fourth Brigade at Hankau, 1911.

General Tsen Chun Hsuan, Viceroy and stern imperial leader; enlightened.

Wei Kuang Tao, Viceroy Hupeh, Canton, etc.; modern.

Prince Ching, elderly dean of Manchus; long head of Privy Council; modern.

Na Tung, Vice-President of old Manchu Council; modern.

Hsu Shih Chang, progressive Chinese member of Manchu Council; turned General-in-chief of republicans.

Chao Ping Chun, progressive Minister of Peking Police, and Department of Interior.

Shih Tao, progressive Mongol Prince; Vice-President of National Assembly, Peking, 1911.

Admiral Sah Chen Ping, imperial Admiral who joined republicans; entertained American fleet at Amoy, in 1908.

Admiral Jui Cheng, imperial Admiral.

Luk Yuk Lim, Minister to Britain, 1911; progressive.

Prince Kung, able Mongol leader, Peking, 1911.

Liang Tun Yen, American educated; head Foreign Board (Wai Wu Pu), Peking, 1911; protégé of famous Chang Chi Tung, of Wuchang.

Hu Wei Teh, progressive Vice-President of Foreign Board, 1911; Minister to Russia, etc.

Liang Ju Hao, Vice-President Railway Board, Peking, 1911.

Nang Shih Cheng, Board of War, Peking, 1911.

Tien Wen Tih, Board of War, Peking, 1911.

Shen Chih Pen, Board of Justice, Peking, 1911.

Liang Chih Chiao, famous old reformer of 1898 coup d’état.

Tang Ching Chung, Board of Education, Peking, 1911; literary chancellor Kiangsu province, 1904; learned in old and new.

Prince Chun, deposed Manchu Regent, 1911; brother of Emperor Kwang Hsu.

Lu Chuan Ling, Privy Councilor, Peking, 1911; modern.

Prince Pu Lun, first President Peking Parliament, 1911; visited St. Louis Exposition; a most dignified progressive; familiar with Hongkong.

Prince Tsai Tse, Manchu head Finance Board, Peking, 1911; visited America, Britain, etc., 1905.

Prince Tsai Tao, Manchu head of Army; visited America; brother of Emperor Kwang Hsu.

Prince Tsai Su, Manchu head of Navy; visited America; Interior Board also.

Prince Tsai Hsun, Manchu head of Navy; visited America, 1909; brother of famous Manchu Emperor Kwang Hsu, first reform Emperor of China.

Chang Jen Chung, Viceroy defense of Nanking; stubborn; enlightened; holder of first exposition in China; well known to Americans.

General Yin Chang, Manchu General-in-chief; director Nobles College; Minister to Germany, 1901–5; a superior theoretical man, but not a brave leader in battle.

Liu Ju Lin, Secretary to Washington Legation; Vice-President Foreign Board.

Chang Yin Tang, Minister to America, 1910.

Sheng Kung Pao, leading defender of nationalization of railways, Peking, 1910.

Sheng Tah Jen, leading defender of nationalization of railways, Peking, 1910.

Liang Shih Yi, manager Northern Railways of China.

Chen Tung Liang, Minister to Britain, 1904; educated in America.

Li Ching Mai, grandson of illustrious Li Hung Chang; visited America, 1909; a bright man.

Chen Kwein Lung, Governor Pechili, 1910.

Tong Kai Son, President Ambassadors’ College, Peking, 1910; educated at Yale.

Hu Wei To, Minister to Hague, Russia, Japan, etc.

Liu Shih Hsun, Minister to France, etc.

Ku Hung Ming, able editor of “standpats”.

Chow Chang Ling, manager North China Railways, 1909.

Chen Chao Chang, Governor of Kirin, Manchuria, 1909.

Hsu Chen Pang, educated at Hartford, America; Naval Board, 1910.

Chang Yu Chuan, Foreign Office, 1910; educated at Yale.

Tan Tien Chih, University of California; Superintendent Railway College, Peking, 1910.

Wu Kwei Lin, Cornell; Railway Board, 1910.

Tsai Ting Kan, Yale; Supreme Court, Tientsin.

Chien Shao Cheng, visited America; Department of Prisons, Peking, 1910.

Wen Tsung Yao, Amban at Lhasa; helped to drive out Dalai Lama, the Pope of Buddhism.

Tam Hao Heng, Cantonese; Navy Board, Peking, 1910.

Prince Yu Lang, Grand Councilor; Board of Police; organizer of Imperial Guard; Army Board, Peking, 1911.

Chou Chi Lai, Assistant Foreign Minister, Peking, 1911; progressive.

Shao Chang, Minister Justice, Peking, 1911; Secretary Foreign Board, 1901.

Shou Chi, Minister Dependencies, Peking, 1911; Minister of Mongolia, 1900; Captain of Hatamen Octroi (Customs) Gate, Peking, 1909; an amusing type of old-style effective revenue man.

Lu Jun Hsiang, Grand Secretary, Peking, 1910; head of Opium Suppression Board, 1911: a really effective man, representing the best traditions of old China.

Jung Ching, President Board of Ceremonies, Peking, 1911; remarkable type of thorough-going conservative.

Sheng Yun, irreconcilable imperial Governor of Shensi and Shansi provinces, 1911–12.

Prince Tuan, irreconcilable “Boxer” Manchu; exiled in Kansu, and father of Pretender to Throne, “Ku Kwei”, 1912.

Hsun Pao Oi, Governor of Shangtung province, 1912.

Tong Chao Chuen, progressive; Railway and Finance Boards.

Shum Chun Hsun, experienced Viceroy of various provinces.

King Yu Yuet, Principal Law College, Nanking.

Chan Ki Me, Governor of Shanghai.

Chan Kwang Ming, experienced; progressive Governor.

X
CHINA’S INTERNATIONAL POLITICS.

The treaties and international notes which hold China in obligations to the outside world (Wai Ih, outside foreigners), and which the republicans promise to observe, are in part as follows. The “most favored nation” clause admits nations which did not participate in the original treaty.

1842. Nanking Treaty—Nanking, Canton, Amoy, Fuchau, Ningpo and Shanghai opened.

1858. Tientsin-British—Newchwang, Chifu, Swatow, Kiangchow opened.

1860. Tientsin-French Treaty—Tientsin opened.

1861. German Treaty—Chinkiang, Hankau opened.

1876. Chifu Convention—Ichang, Wuhu, Wenchow, Pakhoi opened.

1881. Russia-China—Russian commercial influence in Ili, Mongolia, Manchuria; consulates and extraterritoriality provided for.

1890. Chungking Convention—Chungking opened.

1895. Japan Treaty—Suchow, Hangchow opened.

1896. Russia-China Treaty—Russia given railway and other privileges in Manchuria; this brought on the war with Japan in 1904.

1897. West River Ports—Samshui, Wuchow, etc., opened.

1899. Russia-China—China not to build railways north of Peking without Russia’s consent.

1902. British Commercial Treaty (Mackay)—Changsha, Ngan-king, Wan Hsien, Waichou opened. Likin to be abolished and customs possibly raised from five per cent. to twelve per cent. ad valorem.

1905. Japan-China—Grants to Japan by treaty what war with Russia won for Japan; i. e., military, commercial, mining and railway dominance in South Manchuria, and Japan to have power to nullify Chinese or other foreign railway schemes.