FOOTNOTES:
[422] In Article iii. of the "Port Arthur and Talienwan Agreement" between Russia and China it is provided that "the duration of the lease shall be twenty-five years from the day this treaty is signed [March 27, 1898], but may be extended by mutual agreement between Russia and China." It may be noted that the British, German and Russian treaties with respect to the leases of Weihaiwei, of the Kowloon Extension (ninety-nine years), of Kiaochou (ninety-nine years) and Port Arthur (twenty-five years), all stipulate that Chinese war-vessels, whether neutral or not, retain the right to the free use of the several leased harbours. It is a right that seems to be seldom exercised. The ultimate "sovereignty" of China over the various leased territories is specially safeguarded in the treaties relating to Kiaochou and Port Arthur, and has been admitted in respect of Weihaiwei.
[424] It has been urged in some quarters that the occupation of Kiaochou by Germany and that of Weihaiwei by Great Britain are specially objected to by the Chinese on the ground that Shantung, through its associations with Confucius, Mencius, Chou Kung and other ancient sages, is China's Sacred Province, and one that ought to remain inviolate. There is no reason to suppose that this notion has any basis in fact. The Chinese undoubtedly regard certain districts in the south-west of Shantung with immense reverence, more particularly the district of Ch'ΓΌ-fou, which contains the temple and tomb of Confucius, but no pre-eminent sanctity attaches to the province as a whole. The province of Shantung, indeed, did not exist as such in Confucius's time. If China's provinces were to be arranged in order of sanctity or inviolability it is probable that both Honan and Shensi would, for historical reasons, take precedence of Shantung.
[425] There are many Chinese who speak English fluently, and the number is increasing daily, but as a rule such persons have devoted so much time to the acquirement of a totally alien tongue, and "Western learning" generally, that they have been obliged to neglect the culture of their own country. (One of the greatest dangers ahead of China is the possibility that her foreign-educated students may, through ignorance, grow contemptuous of the intellectual achievements of their ancestors, and that Chinese culture may consequently suffer a long, though probably it would not be a permanent, eclipse.) There are also some Englishmen who can speak Chinese fluently, but very few of them have had the time or inclination to acquire a sound knowledge of Chinese literature. Thus it too often happens that an educated Englishman and an educated Chinese whose natures are such that they might become intimate friends, fail to become so through inability to exchange ideas in the region of politics, philosophy, literature or art. A German and an Englishman, even if they disagree on the subject of naval armaments, may find themselves at one in the matter of the music of Mozart or the psychological condition of the mind of Hamlet. Between an Englishman and a Frenchman a friendship may spring up on the basis of a common admiration for the prose of Flaubert or Anatole France or the philosophy of Bergson. But though there are now many Chinese who can discourse fluently on evolution or the conservation of energy, how many Western students of Chinese would bear themselves creditably in a conversation with a Chinese scholar on the ethics of Chu Hsi or the poetry of Su Tung-po? In the vast majority of cases, conversation between a Chinese and an Englishman (unless the relation between them is that of teacher and pupil) is very apt to degenerate into the merest "small talk" and exchange of civilities, and it is obvious that friendships can hardly be built up on so slender a foundation as this. But among those Europeans and Chinese who have successfully surmounted the barrier of language there is, I believe, nothing to prevent the growth of sincere friendships. Yet it should be observed that a recognition of the possibility of intimate social intercourse between European and Chinese does not necessarily imply an acceptance of the view that the races may safely and successfully intermarry. This point must be emphasised, for my own views on the subject have been to some extent misapprehended by a very friendly critic in The Spectator (August 22, 1908, p. 268). This question is really one for biological experts, and no definite answer has yet been given to it, though Herbert Spencer, we know, was strongly of opinion that the white and yellow races should not mingle their blood. From the physiological point of view the question is, of course, in no way concerned with any fanciful theories as to one race being "higher" than another. (For Herbert Spencer's views see the Appendix to Lafcadio Hearn's Japan: an Interpretation.)
[426] See an able article on "Britain's Future in India," in The Times of June 28, 1909.
[427] These translations are from Dr. De Groot's Religious System of China, vol. ii. p. 508.
[428] In her purely commercial relations with China, Japan's policy will of course continue to be consistent and strenuously active. It is a vital necessity to Japan that she should enjoy a large share of China's foreign trade.
[429] "It is, I think, an error to assume that elimination of the school and immigration questions will mean complete restoration of the former Japanese-American entente. This never can be restored in the shape which it previously assumed. Conditions never will revert to the situation which gave it vitality. It is perhaps not going too far to say that relations of America and Japan are only now becoming serious, in the sense that they directly include propositions about which modern nations will, upon due provocation, go to war.... The genesis of a collision between Japan and the United States of America, if it ever occurs, will be found in conditions on the mainland of Asia." (The Far Eastern Question, by T. F. Millard (T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), pp. 60-61.)
[430] The question was asked by Captain Murray, M.P., and answered by Mr. McKinnon Wood, in September 1909.
[431] The "Mackay" Commercial Treaty between Great Britain and China was signed at Shanghai on September 5, 1902. Likin is an internal tax on merchandise in transit.
[432] A good general view of the nature of the grave difficulties that stand in the way of currency reform may be gained from a perusal of H. B. Morse's The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire (Shanghai, 1908). See especially pp. 166-9. Another recent work well worth consulting is T. F. Millard's The Far Eastern Question (T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), pp. 316 seq.
[433] Asiatic Studies (Second Series, 2nd ed.), pp. 374-5, 376-7.
[434] The following remarks by Lafcadio Hearn on the question of the admission of foreign capital into Japan are not inapposite. "It appears to me that any person comprehending, even in the vaguest way, the nature of money-power and the average conditions of life throughout Japan, must recognise the certainty that foreign capital, with right of land-tenure, would find means to control legislation, to control government, and to bring about a state of affairs that would result in the practical domination of the Empire by alien interests.... Japan has incomparably more to fear from English or American capital than from Russian battleships and bayonets." (Japan: An Interpretation, p. 510.) Urgent economic considerations have, of course, compelled Japan not only to admit foreign capital in enormous amounts, but even to make heavy sacrifices in order to obtain it: but if any other course had been open to her she would gladly have adopted it.
[435] Article xii. of the Mackay Treaty reads thus: "China having expressed a strong desire to reform her judicial system and to bring it into accord with that of Western nations, Great Britain agrees to give every assistance to such reform, and she will also be prepared to relinquish her extra-territorial rights when she is satisfied that the state of the Chinese laws, the arrangement for their administration, and other considerations warrant her doing so."