This is a practical illustration of what the policy of the British government has been, and how it has from time to time submitted to circumstances. At first we have the theoretical principle of strict neutrality broadly asserted; then we are compelled to violate that principle in our own defence; an emergency arises in which the officers on the spot have to choose the alternative of an armed protection of British property, necessarily including a portion of the territories of the Imperial government, or the abandonment of British interests to destruction. Our own government confirms the decision of its officers—hence, first the ports themselves, and then the arbitrary thirty-mile radius are placed under foreign protection. At such a distance from the scene of operations, amid such rapid changes in the posture of affairs, and with such important interests at stake, it would be impossible for Downing Street to frame a code of instructions for officers in China which would apply to all possible contingencies, and impolitic to frame them on the pattern of the laws of the Medes and Persians. The abstract principle of non-intervention is very excellent in itself, but to adhere to it when our own material interests are directly assailed, would be pure infatuation. Expediency and self-interest must, after all, be our rule in China as elsewhere.
Our government at home, and its officers abroad, have always had a dread of complications in China, but much as they have studied to steer clear of them, they have step by step been sucked in, and the end is not yet.
The disturbances that have ruined so many of the richest districts in China are incompatible with the free course of trade. We have, therefore, a direct interest in the restoration of peace. The present government of China is on friendly, and even confidential, terms with us; it has shown great readiness to cement still closer our mutual relations. It is, moreover, such as it is, and with all its rottenness, the representative of order, and the rallying point for whatever remains of patriotism in the country.
The insurgents, on the other hand, are hopelessly given up to their propensities for desolation. If, therefore, peace is to be restored to China at all, within the present generation, it can only be by the subjugation of the insurgents, and the ascendancy of the Imperial government. With this view Admiral Hope first supported the American, Ward, a soldier of fortune, but a man of energy and genius, who disciplined and led a Chinese force in the service of the Imperial government. Following up the same line of policy, men and material were subsequently lent to the force, and, after Ward's death, a great number of her Majesty's officers and men were permitted to join it, and the little army was placed under the command of Captain (now Lieutenant-Colonel) Gordon of the Engineers. Under that officer the force grew to be a formidable power. Its career during the twelve months or so of Gordon's command was, with one or two exceptions, a series of brilliant successes.
It can no longer be said that the Chinese do not make good soldiers. Under leaders in whom they have confidence, they exhibit the highest military qualities. Gordon was, perhaps, the first who taught Chinese troops to overcome a repulse.
The result of Gordon's campaign has been to recover from the rebels the whole of the province of Keangsoo, between the Grand Canal and the sea. He has cut the Taeping rebellion in halves. The capture of Soochow, last December, gave him the command of the Grand Canal, and enabled him to interrupt communications thereby between the rebel garrisons of Nanking and Hangchow. Leaving the latter point to be acted on by the Franco-Chinese, who had Ningpo for their base, Gordon followed the Grand Canal towards Nanking, and captured all the cities that lay between. Nanking itself would probably have fallen an easy prey to him, but at that juncture he was compelled to resign his commission in the Chinese army. The service was, from the first, distasteful to him, from the position he occupied in relation to the Chinese officers with whom he had to act. The treachery perpetrated by the foo-tai, or governor of the province, at the capture of Soochow, in putting to death the rebel chiefs who had surrendered to Gordon, disgusted him; and, failing to obtain satisfaction from the government for this outrage on his own good faith, he determined to quit the service. The Queen's order in council which permitted him to serve the Emperor of China was withdrawn, and the "ever victorious" army has been disbanded, with what consequences the future will disclose.
It will be always a difficult thing for an officer with a high sense of honour, and with proper self-respect, to serve the Chinese government on its own terms, though it would be comparatively easy for a military adventurer, who is less particular, to build up his own fortunes in such a career. The system of management which places the forces of the empire under the control of local authorities, whose interests are frequently antagonistic to those of the nation and the Imperial government, precludes foreign officers from attaining their proper position. They are liable to be called upon to participate in proceedings of which their humanity disapproves. They have to listen to the constant complaints of disaffected troops in arrears of pay. They never can calculate with certainty on next month's supplies, and their men are always on the verge of mutiny. The disbursements for troops are provided out of the provincial treasuries, and hence the provincial authorities have a direct interest in levying as small a number of men as possible, and in doling out their pay in such measure only as may suffice to prevent a general rising. The scheme of supplying the Chinese government with a steam fleet failed for this, among other reasons, that Captain Osborn declined to serve under any mere provincial authority.
Whether the Chinese government will now of itself be able to give the coup-de-grace to the Taepings, or whether, through the incapacity and venality of local officials, anarchy will again distress the newly-conquered districts, is a question of serious import both to them and to us. The policy to be pursued by the British government in China, in any emergency that may arise, will demand honest consideration. It has been too much the fashion of political agitators to treat the subject flippantly, and to make the "China question" a parliamentary shuttle-cock. The general indifference to the subject which prevails in and out of Parliament, affords ample scope for misrepresentation, and some of the men to whom the country looks for sound views are often guilty of hiding their light under a bushel.
To go no further back than the last debate on China, as reported in the "Times," June 1st, 1864, we there find ample illustration of the fallacious arguments advanced by a certain class of politicians when dealing with this subject. Mr. Bright is very solicitous to clear his friends, who had preceded him in the debate, from the imputation of party motives, that their statements may carry the more weight. The disclaimer will naturally apply à fortiori to himself. But "qui s'excuse s'accuse." How does Mr. Bright treat those who ventured to express opinions at variance with his own? An honourable member, desirous of obtaining light on the question, sought for it in the prosaic region of fact. Applying to the most authentic sources within his reach, he had collected opinions from a number of persons who had a practical knowledge of the country. These various opinions were remarkably concurrent, but they did not suit Mr. Bright's argument. He therefore considers them "uninteresting," and accounts for their unanimity by insinuating that the honourable member had concocted them all himself!
The ponderous speech of Mr. Cobden is as remarkable for what it omits as for what it contains. His object seemed to be to show, first, that our commerce in China was not worth protecting at all; and, secondly, that he had an infallible scheme of his own which would secure the ends that the policy of the government had failed in attaining. The facts he adduces in support of his argument are judiciously selected; the inferences he draws from them are framed to suit his foregone conclusions, but have no kind of reference to the relation between one fact and another. Causes and effects are blended in a fantastic medley, well calculated to throw dust in the eyes of the unwary, but fatal to the elucidation of truth. Mr. Cobden excludes from his view of the China trade the most important part of it, selecting the smallest item—the direct exports from this country—as a criterion of our commercial progress in China. His deductions from such a partial view of facts must necessarily be worthless. But, even on the narrow ground he has chosen, his conclusions are all forced. He avoids saying so in plain language, but the only inference that can be drawn from his line of argument, is that the successive re-actions that have occurred in the advancement of our export trade to China have been the result of our war policy there, and of the closer intimacy of our political and social relations with that country. If Mr. Cobden means anything, he means that. Now what do the facts say, even as Mr. Cobden himself has stated them?