From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

Carrying out the same idea, the nation is only a larger family, and the government a patriarchal despotism. There is no representative government, no Congress or Parliament; and yet there is a kind of local government, like that of our New England towns. Every village is governed by "elders," who are responsible for its police, who look after rascals, and who also aid in assessing the taxes for the local and general governments. By this union of a great central power with local administration of local affairs, the government has managed to hold together hundreds of millions of human beings, and make its authority respected over a large part of Asia.

This family feeling moulds even the religion of China, which takes the form of a worship of ancestors. Those who have given them existence are not lost when they have ceased to breathe. They are still the links of being by which, and through which, the present living world came from the hand of the Creator, and are to be reverenced with a devotion next to that felt for the Author of being himself. Their memory is still cherished. Every household has its objects of devotion; every dwelling has its shrine sacred to the memory of the dead; and no temple or pagoda is more truly holy ground than the cemeteries, often laid out on hill-sides, where reposes the dust of former generations. To these they make frequent pilgrimages. Every year the Emperor of China goes in state to visit the tombs of his ancestors. The poor emigrant who leaves for America or Australia, gives a part of his earnings, so that, in case of death, his body shall be brought back to China to sleep in the soil that contains the dust of his ancestors. Thus the living are joined to the dead; and those who have vanished from the earth, from the silent hills where they sleep, still rule the most populous kingdom of the world.

One cannot leave China without a word in regard to its relations with other countries. In this respect a great change has taken place within this generation. The old exclusiveness is broken down. This has come by war, and war which had not always a justifiable origin, however good may have been its effects. The opium war in 1841 is not a thing to be remembered by England with pride. The cause of that war was an attempt by the Chinese government in 1839 to prevent the English importation of opium. Never did a government make a more determined effort to remove a terrible curse that was destroying its population. Seeing the evil in all its enormity, it roused itself like a strong man to shake it off. It imposed heavy penalties on the use of opium, even going so far as to put some to death. But what could it do so long as foreigners were selling opium in Canton, right before its eyes? It resolved to break up the trade, to stop the importation. As a last resort, it drew a cordon around the factories of the foreign merchants, and brought them to terms by a truly Eastern strategy. It did not attack them, nor touch a hair of their heads; but it assumed that it had at least the right to exercise its authority over its own people, by forbidding them to have any intercourse with foreigners. Immediately every Chinese servant left them. No man could be had, for love or money, to render them any service, or even to sell them food. Thus they were virtually prisoners. This state of siege lasted about six weeks. At the end of that time the British merchants surrendered all the opium, at the order of their consular chief, Charles Elliot, for him to hand it over to the Chinese; it amounted to 20,283 chests (nearly three million pounds in weight), mostly on board ship at the time. The Chinese received it at the mouth of the river, near the Bogue Forts, and there destroyed it, by throwing it overboard, as our fathers destroyed the tea in Boston harbor. To make sure work of it, lest it should be recovered and used, they broke open the chests and mixed it thoroughly with salt water. As it dissolved in the sea, it killed great quantities of fish, but that opium at least never killed any Chinamen.

This brought on war. Much has been said of other causes, but no one familiar with affairs in the East doubts that the controlling motive was a desire to force upon China the trade in opium which is one chief source of the revenue of India.

The war lasted two years, and ended in a complete victory for the foreigners. The Bogue Forts were bombarded, and foreign ships forced their way up the river. Canton was ransomed just as it was to have been attacked, but Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, and Chinkiang were assaulted and captured. The war was finally terminated in 1842 by a treaty, by the terms of which China paid to England six millions of dollars for the opium which had been destroyed, and opened five ports to foreign trade. This, though a gain to European and Indian commerce, was a heavy blow to Canton, which, instead of being the only open port, was but one of five. The trade, which before had been concentrated here, now spread along the coast to Amoy, Fuhchau, Ningpo, and Shanghai.

But the Ruler of Nations brings good out of evil. Wrong as was the motive of the opium war, it cannot be doubted that sooner or later war must have come from the attitude of China toward European nations. For ages it had maintained a policy of exclusiveness. The rest of the world were "outside barbarians." It repelled their advances, not only with firmness, but almost with insult. While keeping this attitude of resistance, as foreign commerce was continually knocking at its doors, a collision was inevitable. Recognizing this, we cannot but regret that it should have occurred for a cause in which China was in the right, and England in the wrong.

In the wars of England and France with China, Europe has fought with Asia, and has gotten the victory. Will it be content with what it has gained, or will it press still further, and force China to the wall? This is the question which I heard asked everywhere in Eastern Asia. The English merchants find their interests thwarted by the obstinate conservatism of the Chinese, and would be glad of an opportunity for a naval or military demonstration—an occasion which the Chinese are very careful not to give. There is an English fleet at Hong Kong, a few hours' sail from Canton. The admiral who was to take command came out with us on the steamer from Singapore. He was a gallant seaman, and seemed like a man who would not willingly do injustice; and yet I think his English blood would rise at the prospect of glory, if he were to receive an order from London to transfer his fleet to the Canton River, and lay it abreast of the city, or to force his way up the Pei-ho. The English merchants would hail such an appearance in these waters. Not content with the fifteen ports which they have now, they want the whole of China opened to trade. But the Chinese think they have got enough of it, and to any further invasion oppose a quiet but steady resistance. The English are impatient. They want to force an entrance, and to introduce not only the goods of Manchester, but all the modern improvements—to have railroads all over China, as in India, and steamers on all the rivers; and they think it very unreasonable that the Chinese object. But there is another side to this question. Such changes would disturb the whole internal commerce of China. They would throw out of employment, not thousands nor tens of thousands, but millions, who would perish in such an economical and industrial revolution as surely as by the waters of a deluge. An English missionary at Canton told me that it would not be possible to make any sudden changes, such as would be involved in the general introduction of railroads, or of labor-saving machines in place of the labor of human hands, without inflicting immense suffering. There are millions of people who now keep their heads just above water, and that by standing on their toes and stretching their necks, who would be drowned if it should rise an inch higher. The least agitation of the waters, and they would be submerged. Can we wonder that they hesitate to be sacrificed, and beg their government to move slowly?

America has had no part in the wars with China, although it is said that in the attack on the forts at the mouth of the Pei-ho, when the English ships were hard pressed, American sailors went on board of one of them, and volunteered to serve at the guns, whether from pure love of the excitement of battle, or because they felt, as Commodore Tatnall expressed it, that "blood was thicker than water," is not recorded.[12] American sailors and soldiers will never be wanting in any cause which concerns their country's interest and honor. But hitherto it has been our good fortune to come into no armed collision with the Chinese, and hence the American name is in favor along the coast. Our country is represented, not so much by ships of war as by merchants and missionaries. The latter, though few in number, by their wisdom as well as zeal, have done much to conciliate favor and command respect. They are not meddlers nor mischief-makers. They do not belong to the nation that has forced opium upon China, though often obliged to hear the taunt that is hurled against the whole of the English-speaking race. In their own quiet spheres, they have labored to diffuse knowledge and to exhibit practical Christianity. They have opened schools and hospitals, as well as churches. In Canton, a generation ago, Dr. Peter Parker opened a hospital, which is still continued, and which receives about nine hundred every year into its wards, besides some fifteen thousand who are treated at the doors. For twenty years it was in charge of Dr. Kerr, who nearly wore himself out in his duties; and is now succeeded by Dr. Carrow, a young physician who left a good practice in Jersey City to devote himself to this work. Hundreds undergo operation for the stone—a disease quite common in the South, but which Chinese surgery is incompetent to treat—and who are here rescued from a lingering death. That is the way American Christianity should be represented in China. In Calcutta I saw the great opium ships bound for Hong Kong. Let England have a monopoly of that trade, but let America come to China with healing in one hand and the Gospel in the other.

Nor is this all which American missionaries have done. They have rendered a service—not yet noticed as it should be—to literature, and in preparing the way for the intercourse of China with other nations. An American missionary, Dr. Martin, is President of the University at Peking, established by the government. Dr. S. Wells Williams, in the more than forty years of his residence in China, has prepared a Chinese-English Dictionary, which I heard spoken of everywhere in the East as the best in existence. In other ways his knowledge of the language and the people has been of service both to China and to America, during his twenty-one years' connection with the Legation. And if American diplomacy has succeeded in gaining many substantial advantages for our country, while it has skilfully avoided wounding the susceptibilities of the Chinese, the success is due in no small degree to this modest American missionary.

De Quincey said if he were to live in China, he should go mad. No wonder. The free English spirit could not be so confined. There is something in this enormous population, weighed down with the conservatism of ages, that oppresses the intellect. It is a forced stagnation. China is a boundless and a motionless ocean. Its own people may not feel it, but one accustomed to the free life of Europe looks upon it as a vast Dead Sea, in whose leaden waters nothing can live.