Another week has gone by, the atmosphere is still tense and surcharged with feeling, and the situation remains unaltered. However, the newspapers have changed their headings from "Outrage" to "Affair," although they are still devoting columns and columns to the matter. Protest meetings are still being held, and the run on the French bank must have been pretty successful, from the Chinese point of view, for there is now talk of an indemnity for the damage done! Listen!
Already Threats of Indemnity. The French Consul at Tientsin is already threatening to demand damages. He contends that the Tientsin people should not be allowed to hold a meeting of protest against what is clearly an outrage on the integrity of China. He says the Chinese authorities are guilty of the "violation of treaty rights" and therefore must be held responsible for any damage done to French[Pg 102] commerce. The French Consul also objected to the presence of officials [Chinese] at the meeting, but omitted to state that the local officials did their best to calm the people and persuade them to wait patiently for the decision of the Government.
Well, I have always wondered how it was that poor old China is forever paying indemnities, first to one country, then to another; I have never known how it came about. Pretty easy, come to think of it! First grab a piece of Chinese soil, then suppress all protests by levying an indemnity.
The "Gazette" seems to have gone too far in its championship of China, and has got into trouble. Almost from the beginning the editor has insisted that the French Government itself was not to blame for this affair. He has asserted repeatedly that this high-handed procedure was the individual action of the French consul-general. As far as I can see, these little "affairs" always take place in the absence of the minister,—a well-timed vacation, during which an irresponsible chargé d'affaires acts on his own initiative. Be that as it may, on this occasion the French minister happens to be in Paris, and the "Gazette" is insisting that the chargé d'affaires has exceeded his authority and acted without instructions. Apparently this interpretation is given partly because of a desire not to involve the two governments in a hopeless snarl admitting of no retreat, and partly to calm the rising anger of the Chinese, who are incensed at the delay in restoring the captured land. While stoutly refusing to retire from its position as the champion of Chinese liberty and territory, the "Gazette" is insistent that this act could not have been committed at the instigation of a country at present fighting for liberty and justice, a great nation pledged to noble ideals.
Whether this attitude has been due to a sincere belief in the Allies' professed ideals, or whether by the fixing of blame on an irresponsible official who has exceeded his authority, the French are being offered a loophole to retreat from an intenable position without "losing face," I don't know. Certain it is that "justice, liberty, and civilization" have been dragged into the argument, day after day, with irritating persistency. Really, the Oriental mind, plus contact with a higher civilization, was becoming unbearable. So a stop was put to it in this way: One morning the papers contained an announcement that "The Allied and neutral ministers despatched an identical note to the Chinese Foreign Office, warning the Chinese Government against allowing the Chinese press to attack the diplomatic body in the way it had lately done, and practically demanding that the Government take some steps to prevent the attempted raising of anti-foreign feeling."
Isn't it lucky we are here at this moment! Could you believe it! Now you know how "indemnities" are raised, and how "anti-foreign feeling" is aroused. A day or two afterward, a further pronouncement was made:
Comments in the Chinese press have been rather rude and sharp, so that the Ministry [Chinese] has been requested by the British, Russian, French and Japanese and other foreign governments to caution the editors and proprietors of Chinese papers to[Pg 105] exercise more care and discretion in their recording of foreign intercourse affairs, and that sufficient politeness should be showed to foreign ministers and consuls as a sign of courtesy toward the representatives of Treaty Powers in this country.
There you have it—the Chinese press muzzled at the instigation of foreign powers! Since that happened a few days ago, I haven't got nearly as much fun out of my "Gazette" in the morning when I have had my "pollidge." But, thank Heaven, the English newspapers, representing the interests of the foreign powers, are able to spout freely. And these papers have been having a wonderful time describing the happenings in Tientsin, where the threatened boycott has gone into effect. For the Chinese, baffled in their attempt to regain their captured territory, have instituted what they call that "revenge which must take the form of civilized retaliation, namely, refusal to buy or sell French goods." On an appointed day there was a general walk-out in the French concession in Tientsin. All the Chinese in French employ—house servants, waiters, electricians in the power-houses, stall-holders in the markets, policemen, every one in any way connected with or in French service—took themselves off. Moving-picture shows are in darkness; interpreters and clerks in banks and commercial houses have disappeared; cooks, coolies and coachmen have departed; and life in the whole French concession is entirely disorganized! The French consul-general sent a letter of protest to the Chinese Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, calling for "strict preventive measures on the part of the Chinese authorities," and the answer of the Commissioner, the prompt and polite reply, was to the effect that the only preventive measure for these disturbances would be to hand Lao Hsi Kai back to the Chinese!
How demoralizing this boycott is may be gathered from the way the foreign press is raging about it. One bitter editorial, entitled, "A Plain Talk to the Chinese," has this to say:
Boycotts and strikes, in lieu of diplomatic action, are becoming somewhat of a fad with the Chinese. They have been practised with impunity and[Pg 107] considerable success for the past fifteen or twenty years.... We wish to impress upon the Chinese people and Government that these anti-foreign agitations are becoming somewhat of a nuisance, and it is high time the foreign powers stepped in and put a stop to them.... The foreign powers have no means of getting directly after this handful of agitators, but they have the means and the power—the will only is necessary—to hold the Chinese Government responsible, and to demand satisfaction in full for all losses suffered by firms and individuals as a result of these organized boycotts. We wish to warn the Chinese that this boycott business can be carried out once too often, and it looks to us that they have just now reached this once-too-often stage. If the French Government, backed up by the Allies, demands indemnity for all losses sustained, we will hear the last of Lao Hsi Kai and all similar affairs in China. It may be just as well to remind the Chinese Government, in case they conclude that the Allies are too busy in Europe to pay serious attention to Chinese affairs, that the Japanese are one of the Allies, and their hands are not particularly tied at present.