The natural resentment of the Chinese in such circumstances was intensified by the conduct of the foreign soldiery. Army life is not a school of virtue anywhere, particularly in Asia where a comparatively defenseless people open wide opportunities for evil practices and where Asiatic methods of opposition infuriate men. In almost every place where the soldiers of Europe landed, they pillaged and burned and raped and slaughtered like incarnate fiends. Chefoo to-day is an illustration of the effect. It is a city where foreigners have resided for forty years, where there are consuls of all nations and extensive business relations with other ports, where foreign steamers regularly touch and where war-ships frequently lie. There were five formidable cruisers there during my visit. Surely the Chinese of Chefoo should understand the situation. But during the troubles of 1860, French troops were quartered there and their conduct was so atrociously brutal and lustful that Chefoo has ever since been bitterly anti-foreign. The Presbyterian missionaries have repeatedly tried to do Christian work in the old walled city, but have never succeeded in gaining a foothold, and all their local missionary work is confined to the numerous population which has come from other parts of the province and settled around Chefoo proper. Nothing but battleships in the harbour kept that old city from attacking foreigners during the Boxer outbreak. Even to-day the cry ``kill, kill'' is sometimes raised as a foreigner walks through the streets, and inflammatory placards are often posted on the walls.
With the record of foreign aggressions in China before us, can we wonder that the Chinese became restive? The New York Sun truly says: ``It was while Chinese territory was thus virtually being given away that the people became uneasy and riots were started; the people felt that their land had been despoiled.'' The Hon. Chester Holcombe truly remarks:—
``Those who desire to know more particularly what the Chinese think about it, how they regard the proposed dismemberment of the Empire and the extinction of their national life, are referred to the Boxer movement as furnishing a practical exposition of their views. It contained the concentrated wrath and hate of sixty years' slow growth. And it had the hearty sympathy of many, many millions of Chinese, who took no active part in it. For, beyond a doubt, it represented to them a patriotic effort to save their country from foreign aggression and ultimate destruction…. The European Powers have only themselves to thank for the bitter hatred of the Chinese and the crash in which it culminated. Governmental policies outrageous and beyond excuse, scandalous diplomacy, and unprovoked attacks upon the rights and possessions of China, have been at the root of all the trouble.''[59]
[59] Article in The Outlook, February 13, 1904,
And shall we pretend innocent surprise that the irritation of the Chinese rapidly grew? Suppose that after the murder of the Chinese in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a Chinese fleet had been able to seize New York and Boston Harbours, and suppose our Government had been weak enough to acquiesce. Would the American people have made any protest? Would the lives of Chinese have been safe on our streets? And was it an entirely base impulse that led the men of China violently to oppose the forcible seizure of their country by aliens? The Empress Dowager declared in her now famous edict:—
``The various Powers cast upon us looks of tiger-like voracity, hustling each other in their endeavours to be first to seize upon our innermost territories. They think that China, having neither money nor troops, would never venture to go to war with them. They fail to understand, however, that there are certain things which this Empire can never consent to, and that, if hard pressed, we have no alternative but to rely upon the justice of our cause, the knowledge of which in our breasts strengthens our resolves and steels us to present a united front against our aggressors.''
That would probably be called patriotic if it had emanated from the ruler of any other people.
When with Russia in Manchuria, Germany in Shantung, England in the valleys of the Yang-tze and the Pearl, France in Tonquin and Japan in Formosa, the whole Empire appeared to be in imminent danger of absorption, the United States again showed itself the friend of China by trying to stem the tide. Our great Secretary of State, John Hay, sent to the European capitals that famous note of September, 1899, which none of them wanted to answer but which none of them dared to refuse, inviting them to join the United States in assuring the apprehensive Chinese that the Governments of Europe and America had no designs upon China's territorial integrity, but simply desired an ``open door'' for commerce, and that any claims by one nation of ``sphere of influence'' would ``in no way interfere with any treaty port or any vested interest'' within that sphere, but that all nations should continue to enjoy equality of treatment. In response, the Russian Government, December 30, 1899, through Count Mouravieff, suavely declared:—
``The Imperial Government has already demonstrated its firm intention to follow the policy of the `open door.' . . . As to the ports now opened or hereafter to be opened to foreign commerce by the Chinese Government, . . . the Imperial Government has no intention whatever of claiming any privileges for its own subjects to the exclusion of other foreigners.''
The other Powers also assented. But it was all in vain. Matters had already gone too far, and, beside, the Chinese knew well enough that the Powers were not to be trusted beyond the limits of self-interest.