September 11th.—The establishment of schools of instruction in the preparation of tea and silk was approved.
September 12th.—The Tsung-li Yamen and Board of War were ordered to report on the suggestion that the Imperial Courier posts should be abolished in favour of the Imperial Customs post; and the establishment of newspapers was encouraged.
September 13th.—The general right to memorialise the Throne by closed memorials was granted; and on the same date Manchus who had no taste for civil or military office were allowed to take up trades or professions.
September 14th.—The two Presidents and four Vice-Presidents of the Board of Rites were dismissed for disobeying the Emperor's order that memorials should be sent to him unopened, whatever their source.
September 15th.—The system of budgets as in Western countries was approved.
It will be at once evident that the Emperor and his party had raised up many powerful enemies, and should—had they been wise—have secured the assistance of the army in the first instance. It was when they attempted to secure troops that the end came. It is also evident that several of the reforms were what every one would agree are absolutely necessary for China; and although they may have made too many at once, the exact rate at which reforms can be successfully carried has never been calculated. Nor is there any evidence even yet that they were going too fast for the country. They would always have moved too fast for the officials whose offices they abolished. At the same time there is a certain sort of doctrinaire flavour about this multiplicity of schools started at once, and encouragement given to newspaper writers.
Since then the Empress-Dowager has in her own name gone rather further in the opposite direction—and raised up a yet larger number of enemies—forbidding the establishment of societies of any sort, and ordering the officials to arrest the members and punish them according to their responsibilities. The chiefs are to be executed summarily, and the less responsible banished into perpetual exile. This affects the Patriotic Association, as also the new societies that were formed for the engaging of teachers and purchase of scientific books after the Emperor's decree doing away with the five-chapter essay, and ordering that mathematics should be an essential subject in examination. The Empress has also suppressed all newspapers, and summarily sentenced their editors to death. She has also ordered that no further steps should be taken to drill or arm the soldiery according to Western methods, but that they should revert to bows and arrows, and to the contests in running and lifting heavy weights of ancient usage. The Emperor had signified his intention of presiding at the next military examinations, which were to have been in target-shooting with modern weapons of precision. The Empress has now announced that, instead of this, not even the candidates need present themselves at Court. And all the promising schemes for opening lower and middle schools of Western learning are nipped in the bud—those for girls, as before mentioned, in Shanghai, having for safety been put under foreign management.
The most powerful man in China for the moment seems to be Jung Lu, a Manchu who has spent most of his life in military offices at Peking, but was at one time general in Shensi, and as Viceroy of Chihli—the office so long held by Li Hung-chang—was much liked by foreigners at Tientsin. He is reported, however, not to have slept for two nights with anxiety as to what the British fleet was doing at Pehtaiho just before the coup d'état; and if that is the case, he is not a man of that iron stuff that his mistress will long be able to lean upon. The real power behind the Throne, according to Kang, is a sham eunuch, Li Luen-yên, the man whom every one who wants an audience has for years past had to bribe heavily. Li Hung-chang, the Empress's firm adherent during all her long tenure of power, is beginning to be known in England. Of Shêng, once his creature, but who managed during Li's absence in Europe to attain such lucrative posts as to look down upon his former patron, the following story is told. His health never being very good, Shêng had been accustomed to get leave of absence from Tientsin in winter, and go to enjoy himself in his native city of Soochow, the Paris of China, and with also a much softer climate. During the Japanese War it was felt impossible to give a man in such high place leave of absence. But he was dispensed from regular official work, and allowed therefore to close the public offices under his control. This was done, and they were reopened by him as gambling-houses, where every man of business in Tientsin must lose his money if he hoped to put through a job or a contract under the corrupt administration of Shêng. It may be remembered the British Government demanded the latter's head a few years ago; but, as in the case of Chou Han, who disseminated the vile anti-Christian publications from Hunan, their demands were put off by being told he was either not to be found, or mad, or something or other. It is men like this that must corrupt any nation in which they hold high power. It is men like this who are always ready to receive high bribes from foreign powers. The countries that wish to see China decadent, feeble, torn by internal divisions, and under their control, have a direct interest in supporting the late Dowager, now usurping Empress, Tze Hsi, and the men who rally round her.
But those who do not wish to appropriate Chinese territory, but rather that both the Chinese and themselves should enjoy tranquillity, so as to develop each their own territories to their highest capacity, must wish to see in power men like Chang-chih-tung, the one Viceroy never even accused of peculation, and who never visits Peking, and other men of high aims and upright conduct—making mistakes possibly, but at least trying their best to elevate and guide the most peace-loving and law abiding people that ever existed. The Chinese may, as Lord Wolseley has predicted, make good soldiers some day. But from time immemorial they have despised war. And as in our men-of-war I have heard that in battles in old days mattresses would be hung over the ships' sides to protect them, so we might do worse than interpose between fiery, mysterious India and the other nations of Asia the impenetrable, apparently yielding, but never really yielding, big feather-bed of vigorous, healthy China, relieved from her corrupt and disastrous Mandarin system, with her men's minds freed from the cramping influence of a too ancient system of education, and her women set upon their feet so as to be once more able to bear noble sons. With all the nations of the West contending who is to have its bones to pick, it is necessary that some nation or nations should in the first instance stand by China. But once let some great Western nation make it plain to the world that he who attacks China attacks her, and there will be no attack. And let China's feet but once be set firmly in the ways of progress, and there will be no going back.
I conclude with the words of the man whom I believe to be the wisest statesman of the day, although to my mind he too often lacks the decision to act in accordance with his own judgment. Lord Salisbury in June, 1898, said: "If I am asked what our policy in China is, my answer is very simple. It is to maintain the Chinese Empire, to prevent it from falling into ruins, to invite it into paths of reform, and to give it every assistance which we are able to give it, to perfect its defence or to increase its commercial prosperity. By so doing we shall be aiding its cause and our own." Excepting through the Victoria College, years ago established in Hongkong, where and when, may I ask, has the British Government acted on this policy laid down by the Prime Minister with the strongest following of any Minister of modern times?