It seems reasonable, therefore, here to introduce some of the reflections of Consul Alcock while he was as yet comparatively new to China. These occur in various forms, as in confidential despatches, in private memoranda, and notes for literary articles apparently never extended. One of these notes, dated January 19, 1849, summing up the results of six years' working of the treaty of Nanking, may well serve as a landmark in the record of foreign intercourse with China.
Some extracts from this and other papers are printed for the convenience of the reader in an Appendix to the present volume.[16] Though bearing directly on the policy of the time when they were written, they are no less applicable to present circumstances. They show that nothing had changed then, as nothing has changed since, in the attitude of the Chinese to foreign nations. "The same arrogant and hostile spirit exists, and their policy is still to degrade foreigners in the eyes of the people.... Without the power [on our part] of commanding attention to any just demands, there is every reason to believe the Chinese rulers would still be the most impracticable of Orientals.... We cannot hope that any effort of ours or of the emperor would suffice to change at once the character and habits of the people or even the population of a city."
While advocating a resolute policy in maintaining all British rights granted by treaty, the far-sighted consul uttered a timely caution against pushing demands for concessions too far. In this he was in accord with the policy, often enunciated by the British Government, of not imperilling what we already possessed by striving after more. Mr Alcock indicates clearly the danger which threatened British interests from the prospective influx of Western Powers pressing through the doors which Great Britain might be constrained to open:—
Powers who, having no such great interests to jeopardise, are without this beneficial and most needful check, and may therefore be induced to repeat at a semi-barbarian Court the intrigues and counter-projects for the destruction of our influence and the injury of our trade in the East which are at work in our own times in every capital in Europe, as formerly in India and the Eastern Archipelago.
Nor could a much more accurate description of the state of affairs now existing be given than the picture of the future drawn by Consul Alcock:—
Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and America, with their several jealousies and united rivalry with England, their missionary enterprises or commercial and political schemes clashing in their aim and development, are all capable of creating such turmoil, strife, and disturbance throughout the empire, if free access to the Court and the provinces were insisted upon by Great Britain, as could only end in the ejection of Europeans from China as formerly from Japan, or an intestine war in which European force would probably be involved on opposite sides, and to their mutual destruction as States with commercial interests in the country. These, again, might lead to attempts at territorial possession, suggested in the first instance, as in India, in self-defence, and afterwards continued from necessity. With Russia spreading her gigantic arms to the north and east, Great Britain on the south and west, Spain, Holland, and Portugal with their colonies in the Chinese and Indian seas, a struggle for superiority on the soil of China for exclusive advantages or predominant influence might be centred in Peking and embroil the whole of Europe in hostile relations.
An interesting feature in the prognostications of both Mr Alcock and Mr Meadows in those early days was the ignoring of the Power which is now assuming such an active part in the rearrangement of the Far East. Germany was not even thought of as a world Power, but her entry on the stage has only added confirmation to the soundness of all these predictions.
The more immediate significance, however, of the elaborate exposition of the Anglo-Chinese situation which we are now considering, lay in its connection with the chain of events which followed within a few years, and its coincidence with the progress in the views of the British Government, which might almost be traced back to the date of the paper. The year 1849 was one of the critical epochs in foreign intercourse with China, for it was then that the last promissory note as to the opening of Canton became due, and was dishonoured. The years of grace successively granted to the Chinese authorities to enable them to prepare for the execution of the treaty stipulation had been used by them, or at any rate by the populace, to render its execution permanently impossible. Mr Bonham, who proceeded up the river to apply for the fulfilment of the agreement of 1847, which promised admission to the city within two years, was received, not with the suave evasion of Kiying but with the coarse rebuff of Governor-General Seu, who amid popular enthusiasm caused a memorial arch to be erected to commemorate the third repulse of the barbarians. The turning-point of affairs had been now reached; the scales fell from the eyes of the British Government. Reluctantly they were driven to the conclusion that they had for seven years been trifled with, that their agents, one after another, had been duped; that while they deluded themselves by imagining that by their concessions they were pouring oil on water, they were, in fact, throwing that inflammable substance on fire. Such systematic blunders could not be made with impunity. It began, in short, to be perceived that the ground so weakly surrendered at Canton could not be recovered without, in the prophetic words of Lord Palmerston, "coming to blows" once more with the Chinese.
The attention of the British Government being thus seriously directed to China, they entered into correspondence with their plenipotentiary, the governor of Hongkong, as to the best means of arresting the decline of British prestige and of placing the interests of trade and residence on a satisfactory footing. The plenipotentiary had no resource but one for obtaining either information or advice on such large questions, and that was always Consul Alcock at Shanghai, a thousand miles from the seat of trouble, who had not then even seen Canton. Mr Alcock was alert to respond to the invitation of his chief, copiously, fearlessly, and with masterly lucidity as well as comprehensiveness. In a despatch to Sir George Bonham dated January 13, 1852, the development of the new policy may be traced.[17] And the whole situation is fully laid bare in a further despatch of June 17, 1852.[18]