The right given in the French treaty of acquiring land and building houses in the interior is one of the most constant causes of local quarrel. Real estate in China, being held not on personal but on family tenure, can only be rightfully alienated by the common consent. A dissentient member holding out, or reviving his claim for purposes of extortion after assent has been given and transfer made, may become a convenient instrument in the hands of agitators against the foreigners; and where there is no such dissentient it is not unusual for the local authorities to create one by forcible means. A case in point may be mentioned in illustration. A building was made over to the Baptist Missionary Society by a Chinese family, every precaution being taken to obtain the unanimous consent of its various branches. When the deed had been signed by the head of the family and other responsible members, the local magistrate examined the chief of the clan, denounced him, and punished him severely by bastinado. Two of the signatories, thus intimidated, disowned their own act, thereby invalidating the deed by non-unanimity.
Nearly all the attacks on missionaries proceed in one form or another from that fecund nursery of feuds, the land question. Whatever the merits of the dispute, the foreigner is prima facie in the wrong; for he is an alien, an intruder, and he erects buildings which are outlandish, offensive to taste, and of sinister influence; and whosoever, albeit the most disreputable member of a family of three or four generations, proclaims a grievance by which he has lost his birthright, is sure of a sympathetic following. Thus without taking into account individual indiscretions, or infirmities of temper, open attacks on time-honoured customs, and so forth, there is a perennial root of bitterness in missionary enterprise in the interior of China, which throws out shoots culminating in murder and fiendish ferocity; and all this without even a distant approach to the kernel of Christianity which lies behind the outworks.
For what the Chinese authorities have failed to do by the legitimate means at their command, their underlings and the circle of gentry that surrounds each provincial centre attempt to do by illegitimate and criminal methods. Hatred of missions and converts shows itself by violent outbreaks in which innocent and guilty suffer a common fate; mobs are excited by false suggestions, scholars write inflammatory placards filled with the foulest calumnies, and the higher officials "let it work"—secretly applauding, but ready, if called to account, to exculpate themselves and blame the poor ignorant people.
The charges which form the staple of these attacks turn largely upon the murder of children in order to make use of eyes, members, blood, &c., in certain Christian rites; and they are so extravagant and absurd that foreigners are apt to doubt that even the most ignorant among the people really believe in the crimes which are alleged against Christians. The best authorities, however,—as, for example, the late Sir Thomas Wade,—do not question the sincerity of the popular belief; and indeed if we compare these charges with those made against the Jews by influential sections of Christians in Europe, we shall be surprised at their practical identity.
For this deplorable state of things no one has been able to suggest a remedy. What has been done cannot be undone. To mend it even would require such united action among the Great Powers as it is hardly possible in the present state of the world to conceive. France, indeed, on the morrow of the Tientsin massacre, did appeal to the co-operative principle as a protection to all foreign interests in China. The French ambassador in London addressed the Foreign Office in these terms:—
Bien que les victimes de ces attentats soient presque exclusivement des Français, on ne saurait contester que des faits pareils révèlent l'existence de dangers qui menacent indistinctement tous les étrangers résidant en Chine. C'est en considérant leurs intérèts comme solidaires dans ces contrées de l'extrême Orient que les Puissances européennes peuvent arriver à assurer à leurs nationaux les garanties et les sécurités stipulées dans les traités.
In the subsequent action of France in China, however, there has been no trace of regard for any such principle of solidarity. Indeed, were the Powers ever so amicably disposed towards each other on other questions, they could not agree in this, the objects of their policy being absolutely irreconcilable.
"We cannot doubt," wrote Sir Rutherford Alcock, "that the missionary question is the main cause of disturbance in our relations with China, and of danger to the Chinese Government itself no less than to all foreigners resident in the country, missionaries and laymen alike." He recommended in 1868 that "the treaty Powers should, if possible, come to some understanding on the religious and missionary question as the necessary preliminary to any united action for the common benefit, the acquisition of increased facilities for trade, &c." And he says, "As regards Chinese converts, any attempt to extend a protectorate over them would of necessity either fail or be subversive of the whole government of China." But in the same paper he states that "France, with no trade in the East, is ambitious of a protectorate over Roman Catholic missions"; and that "with regard to converts protection has been partially extended to them under the ægis of the French Government, and that persistent efforts were being made to make that protection effectual." These efforts have been still more persistent during the generation that has since passed. With France the protectorate over native Christians is the great objective of her Chinese diplomacy—not the ultimate end, indeed, but the lever by which that end may be attained. To suggest to France, therefore, the abandonment of this policy would be about as hopeless as asking her to give up her colonies as the preliminary to an international conference. And while France protects the proselytising machinery of the Roman Catholic Church and its consequent usurpation of the Chinese authority, it would seem of little avail to place other missionaries under restriction.
The fruits of this war of the social elements began to be harvested in 1868, as Sir Rutherford Alcock observed; but that was only the beginning of a long series of conflicts which have marked the progress of missionary work in China up to the present day. Riot, outrage, and massacre are its regular landmarks. The outbreaks have so much in common that it would serve no useful purpose to trace them in detail, or attempt to apportion praise or blame to this or that individual or sect. The one which has left the reddest mark on history, and, being enacted in the presence of a foreign mercantile community, brought the several factors in the question into a clearer light than can ever be thrown upon outrages in remote parts of the interior, is the Tientsin massacre of 21st June 1870. This occurred six months after Sir Rutherford Alcock left China, while Mr Wade was chargé d'affaires for Great Britain, and Count Rochechouart for France, in Peking.
The massacre of sixteen French Sisters of Charity, including an Irish girl, Alice Sullivan, a French consul, and several French subjects, also—unwittingly, according to the imperial edict treating of the occurrence—a Russian merchant and his wife, was the work of an organised band, led by the city fire brigade, under the direction of the civic authorities. The crime had been planned for some time: it was preceded by the murder of an isolated English missionary, Mr Williamson, near Tientsin, and by an attempted anti-foreign rising in Nanking, which was promptly suppressed by the viceroy, Ma, who was soon after himself assassinated. (He was a Mohammedan.) The impending outrage in Tientsin was foreseen, and warning given, several days before. An Englishman was attacked on the 19th for no reason. The official highest in rank on the spot—not, however, a territorial authority—was Chunghou, a Manchu, holding the office of Imperial Commissioner for Trade, and very friendly to foreigners. Admiral Keppel says of him that he was the most finished Chinese gentleman he had ever met, with the exception of the viceroy of Canton (probably meaning Kiying). The governor of the province was Tsêng Kwo-fan, whose capital was Paoting-fu, some 100 miles in the interior; and his subordinates, the prefect and magistrate, were the authorities at Tientsin immediately responsible for the massacre. Chunghou had warned the Peking Government several weeks before of the progress of the agitation against the French mission.