The undesirability of exposing foreign merchants to the arbitrary and corrupt methods of Chinese Custom-house officials led to the formation of an international staff of officers, which works perfectly and gives universal satisfaction. On the other hand, the great native firms are most scrupulously honest in all their transactions, having discovered from experience that ‘honesty is the best policy,’ and European merchants can only praise their way of transacting business. It is, therefore, neither on entering nor leaving China that difficulties occur, whether for importation or exportation. The trouble arises in the transport between the open ports and the places of consignment or expedition; the principal grievance arises through the system of likin, or of inland Customs, whereby an arbitrary and variable scale of taxation is exacted on goods passing through towns or over the frontiers of the various provinces, or even at certain determined places on the highroads and rivers. This pernicious system is a great drawback to the expansion of European trade, and gives rise to endless bother and expense.
‘Let us suppose,’ said a gentleman, thoroughly acquainted with commerce in the Far East, at a meeting of the London Chamber of Commerce in 1898, ‘that a train going from London to Newcastle had to be stopped three or four times on the way, so that goods might be overhauled and examined by officials whose main object is to extort as much as they can in their own interests, and who value goods arbitrarily at sight. Imagine, for instance, a consignment of skins getting damaged by the rain through careless packing, and on being weighed found heavier than declared in the invoice: the result is, that the luckless owner is charged, not according to the increased weight, but fined according to his personal property, say £50 or; £100 on £1,000! Or, finally, what would become of British trade if we had to put up with likin officials, one of whom examines goods once in every three days, and another announces his intention of only doing so when ten trains have arrived?’
There is a remedy for the likin system, and that is a ‘transit pass’; but more often than not, as with most things in China, this is merely a theoretical improvement. On payment of a sum equal to half the original entry duty, all imported goods should be considered free of inland duty. But this regulation does not work, and no one avails himself of it, since the Chinese very ingenuously manage to evade it by charging ‘a duty on arrival at destination,’ which comes to the same thing.
It is not therefore surprising that, with all these drawbacks, in addition to a very rudimentary monetary system, Chinese commerce only attains £50,000,000, of which £27,200,000 represents imports, which is very small when one considers the enormous size of the country and its great wealth. The half of this commerce is divided up between four articles: £8,000,000 cotton and £4,800,000 opium (imported), and £8,000,000 silk, and £5,000,000 tea (exported). The last figures are inferior to what they formerly were, Indian tea having greatly affected Chinese tea as far as England is concerned. Its preparation still follows the old system, and its lasting quality is distinctly inferior to Ceylon and other teas grown in India. This is another example of the vast importance of introducing into China better and more scientific methods.
The export trade of China must inevitably remain very limited so long as foreigners are prevented from penetrating into the country and directing the exploitation of its resources. Whilst it was a mere matter of opening a few ports, the Chinese Government made no very serious opposition; but only the realization of its incapacity to resist pressure induced it to permit the introduction into the Celestial Empire of foreign capital, machinery, and industrial methods. Well may we ask, Can the Sick Man of Peking endure such violent treatment? Will he not succumb to the very powerful remedies that are being administered to him, and thereby fulfil the secret wishes of those who are anxious for his legacy?
CHAPTER VIII
CHINA AND THE POWERS
The Question of the Far East unexpectedly brought to an issue by the defeat of China—Foreign misconception of Chinese power, and the amazement of European diplomacy at its collapse—The new state of affairs created by Japanese victories—The aims of the various Powers in the Far East and their policy—England seeks an ally against Russia—Her sudden change of policy in 1895—She abandons China for Japan—Russia covets the whole of Northern China—Japan’s wish to conquer the Celestial Empire—The treaty of Shimonosaki—Opposition of Russia to Japanese policy—Russia becomes the interested protectress of China—The convention between the three Powers, France, Germany, and Russia—Attempt to bring about a reconciliation between China and Japan—Substitution of a powerful Russian influence for that of England.
The Chinese Question presents many difficulties, not only because the details are extremely complicated and the rival pretensions which it has created difficult to reconcile, but because of the unexpected manner in which it was thrust on the attention of Europe, at a time when diplomacy had no ready remedy.
The present position in the Far East is not the result of a gradual chain of events, but of the absolute surprise created by the unexpected results of the Chino-Japanese War. No doubt the collapse of China in 1894 was only the last act in a long drama of decadence, but it revealed to astonished Europe the utter incapacity of China either to reform or to defend herself, a fact for which we were quite unprepared. Japan alone knew the truth, and profited by her knowledge of her colossal neighbour’s almost incredible weakness. Russia had suspected it, but was not sufficiently convinced to venture on carrying her conviction into effect. Thanks to the astuteness of the Chinese and their remarkable aptitude in all arts of deception, and the effect mentally created by the prodigious multitude of her population—between three and four hundred million souls—China had systematically fooled both Governments and public alike, who shared the same illusion as to her power. Certain events had, it must be confessed, conspired to maintain this illusion, notably the bold resistance which the French army had met in Tongking, under, no doubt, peculiar circumstances, but, nevertheless, such as induced people to forget, at least for the time, the facile victories of the Allies in 1860. Certain far-seeing writers—Mr. Henry Norman and Mr. Curzon, the latter one of the most brilliant young statesmen of the United Kingdom—had indeed realized that under a smooth surface there existed in China amazing weakness and corruption. But they preached in the desert. The war had only just broken out, when one of the best-informed organs of the English press, the Spectator, stated: ‘We think the weight of opinion is with those who believe, as we do, that, if necessary, China could organize a most formidable army.’ This was the illusion universally entertained in Europe, and, strange to relate, shared by the majority of foreigners living in the Far East.
By dissipating these illusions and exhibiting to the world the truth concerning China’s decrepitude, the Japanese victories produced almost the effect of an earthquake. European diplomacy had foreseen that the war was likely to give rise to trouble, and Lord Rosebery even proposed to the Powers at the beginning of the conflict to come to an understanding with a view of stopping hostilities; but if the Queen’s Prime Minister feared that complications in Korea might lead to Russian intervention, the other Powers were not less unfavourably disposed to see a naval demonstration in Chinese waters in which England should take the lead. It was therefore resolved that European diplomacy should remain inactive and watch proceedings, everyone believing that Japan would soon be expelled from Korea, and that both the Japanese and Chinese fleets, weakened in one or two naval battles, would collapse altogether from sheer lack of combatants. When, however, the Chinese forces were annihilated in the autumn of 1894, Europe was taken aback with amazement, so great was her surprise, not to say consternation. By the spring of 1895 the Powers had recovered from the shock they had received, but their policy had consequently to be changed with respect to a Power which they had believed to be formidable, but whose weakness was now revealed.