The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 1 (of 2) / As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan

by Alexander Michie

In the light of the history of the subsequent fifty years, one is tempted to say that Lord Palmerston's dictum puts the eternal China question in a nutshell.

But when we reflect on the consequences of a man "of great experience" needing such lectures and yet left for years undisturbed at a centre of turbulence like Canton, can we greatly wonder at the periodical harvest of atrocities which followed?

The one important article in the April agreement was that suspending for a definite period of two years the operation of the article of the treaty of Nanking conferring the right of entering the city of Canton and the other ports of trade. Sir John Davis demanded either permission to "return your Excellency's visit in the city, or that a time be specifically named after which there shall be general free ingress for British subjects." To which Kiying replied, "The intention of entering the city to return my visit is excellent. The feelings of the people, however, are not yet reconciled to it." And Kiying easily had his way. Sir John thereupon explicitly sanctioned a definite delay of two years in the exercise of this treaty right, representing the privilege in his report to Lord Palmerston as of little importance.

Such, however, was not the view either of the Chinese or the British community of Canton. The throwing open of the city was by the latter considered the essential object of the recent expedition, and in their memorial to Lord Palmerston the merchants stated that the Braves having declared their determination to oppose the English at all costs, the withdrawal of our troops re infectâ "intoxicated all ranks of the people with an imaginary triumph." Exclusion from the city thus remained as a trophy in the hands of the reactionaries, to become in 1856 the crux of a new dispute and a new war.

It was no imaginary, but a very real, triumph for "the people"; and even looking back on the transaction with the advantage of fifty years' experience, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was an inversion of judgment to have a city entirely at your mercy and then yield to the city instead of making the city yield to you. The least that could have been expected was, that while the troops were on the spot they should have vindicated the treaty of Nanking once for all by opening the city gates and thus eliminating the most pregnant source of future strife.

On one point Sir John Davis was in agreement with the memorialists—namely, in "tracing back the conduct of the Canton populace to the operations of 1841, on which occasion they were spared by our forces at the rear of the city." But the merchants were pointing out to Lord Palmerston that Sir John Davis was himself implicitly following that very precedent.

The China career of Sir John Davis was destined to a tragic finale, for in the midst of a series of decidedly optimistic despatches he was startled by the news of the Hwang-chu-ke murders. Expiation was as prompt as could have been reasonably expected, the High Commissioner not daring to afford provocation for a further punitive expedition which might not have ended quite so easily as that of the previous April.

The Canton imbroglio of 1847 threw into strong relief the potency of the Chinese demos and its relation to the Central Government. The pretensions of the populace and the stress of events drove the Imperial Government into a corner and forced it to show its hand, with the result that the occult combination which had been the despair of British officials for fourteen years was resolved into its elements, and for a time made amenable to treatment. It was demonstrated by this experiment that though the Imperial Government dared not, except in extremity, oppose any popular movement, yet when necessity required the authorities assumed an easy mastery. Sir John Davis wrote in one of his latest despatches, "Kiying had clearly proved his power over the people when he chooses to exercise it." Coerced themselves, the authorities applied corresponding coercion to the people, even at the behest of foreigners, "truckling" to whom was equally disgraceful to both the Chinese parties. The interaction of the two Powers exemplified in a memorable way the principle of all Chinese intercourse, that boldness begets timidity and gentleness arrogance. When the people asserted themselves the authorities yielded and fell into line with them, and when the authorities asserted themselves the people succumbed. Such were the lessons of the Canton operations of 1847, lessons since forgotten and relearned again and again at ever-increasing cost.

But the relations between the Government and the people bore also a quasi-diplomatic character. They dealt with each other as if they were two Estates of the realm having parallel or concurrent jurisdiction. The most remarkable phase, however, of the popular pretensions which was evolved under the unaccustomed pressure of the British Minister was the attempt of the populace to diplomatise direct with him. So curious an incident may still be studied with profit. The new departure of the people was the more startling in that they had been hitherto known only as a ferocious and lawless mob addicted to outrage, whose hatred of foreigners gained in bitterness by a long immunity from reprisals. Now that they had felt the "mailed fist" of a man of fact, and were almost in the act of delivering up their own heroes for execution, they sought to parley with the Power they had despised.