By this time even the mafoos (horse boys) at the Shanghai Race Club were on strike. A run on the Bank of Communications was started because Tsao Ju-lin was associated with it. More and more serious grew the situation, but the demand on the Government remained unchanged: "When the three traitors are dismissed, the strike will be called off; otherwise, still more people will strike."
The Government finally yielded on the 11th of June. The insistent demand had come from all parts of China that the three unpopular officials go in disgrace. The Peking Government complied. But the great public in Shanghai was not content until the British minister and I gave confirmation of the report that the mandate of dismissal had been issued. Then the strike was off.
However, the boycott against Japanese goods continued unabated. Yet it must not be supposed that the movement, which at the beginning was distinctly turned against Japan, was either essentially anti-Japanese or purely oppositional and negative. Quite early, its true, positive, national Chinese character stood revealed. The Japanese had stung the Chinese national pride to the quick. It turned against them, not in a spirit of blind hostility, but only in so far as the Japanese stood in the way of the national Chinese regeneration.
Out of this unprecedented popular uprising several momentous facts emerged. First, public opinion must be so awakened that it would be a continuing force, so organized that it would at all times have the means of expressing its will, so that it would be able to compel the Government to resist further encroachments on China's rights. That would take time; but it could be done, the strike and boycott proved that. For the first time in her history China had roused herself and wrung from her government a specific surrender. That lesson sank deep. The leaders realized that this single act was merely a very small beginning. But the important thing was that it did constitute a beginning.
The second important result was the sudden focussing of attention on the means by which native Chinese industry might be built up. The boycott of Japanese goods had had a positive as well as a negative side. Indeed it had been stated positively all along. The people were not told to refrain from buying Japanese goods; they were advised to avoid buying goods of an inferior quality—which would be interpreted to mean Japanese products, of course—and they were pointedly urged to patronize home industries. The people responded with a will. They did buy the wares produced by their own factories. It gave great impetus to the development of Chinese industry, and gave both the manufacturers and the Government a clue as to what a definite campaign for the stimulation of the home industries might accomplish.
While we were talking together informally at a meeting of the diplomatic corps, the French minister, M. Boppe, remarked: "We are in the presence of the most astounding and important thing that has ever happened—the organization of a national public opinion in China for positive action."
Thus out of the evil of the Paris decision came an inspiring national awakening of the Chinese people, a welding together for joint thought and joint action. All ranks of the population were affected. When to avoid foreign complications student delegates went among the workers of a factory in Shanghai to persuade them not to strike, the workers asked: "Do you think we have no feeling for our country, nor indignation against the traitors?"
About the evil of the Shantung decision the foreign communities were unanimous, nor did they feel that they ought to be silent. They were on the ground; they knew the inevitable consequences that would follow the rigid application of the decision. They spoke out. Sir Edward Walker, chairman of the Commercial Bank of Canada, gave an address on June 6th before the Anglo-American Association of Peking, dealing particularly with the needs of transportation. What the completion of two or three trunk lines would mean to China he fully realized. After his address the British minister and I, who were honorary members, took our leave, as it had been intimated that the Association would discuss the Shantung matter. The meeting then adopted a resolution which expressed the conviction of Americans and British in China in this wise:
We express our solemn conviction that this decision will create conditions that must inevitably bring about extreme discord between the Chinese people and Japan, and raise a most serious hindrance to the development of the economic interests of China and other countries. A settlement which perpetuates the conditions created by Germany's aggression in Shantung in 1898, conditions that led to similar action on the part of other states, that were contributing causes to the disorders in North China in 1900, and that made inevitable the Russo-Japanese war, cannot make for peace in the Far East, for political stability in China itself, or for development of trade and commerce equally open to all.
Further, the evil consequences of conditions which are not only subversive of the principle of national self-determination, but also a denial of the policy of the open door and of the principle of equality of opportunity, will be greatly accentuated if Japan, a near neighbour, be now substituted for Germany, whose centre of political and economic activities was on the other side of the globe.
Therefore we, the members of the Peking Anglo-American Association, resolve that representations be made to the British and American Governments urging that the states taking part in the Peace Conference devise and carry through a just settlement which will not endanger the safety of China and the peace of the world.