How is the social edifice to be constructed out of crumbling ruins? To overthrow the existing dynasty of China may be easy enough; indeed, the difficulty, as with that of Turkey, is its maintenance and preservation: its very feebleness cries to us for pity and mercy. It may yet totter on for generations, if not harshly shaken; but if it—fall—fall amidst its wrecked institutions—China, inviting as it is to foreign ambition and the lust of conquest, may become the battle-field of contending interests. Russia, moving steadily and stealthily forward in its march of territorial aggression; France, charged with what she fancies herself specially called upon to represent—the missionary propagand, with the Catholic world behind her; England, with those vast concerns which involve about one-ninth of the imperial and Indian revenues, and an invested capital exceeding forty millions sterling; and the United States, whose commerce may be deemed about one-third of that of Great Britain, to say nothing of Holland and Spain, who are not a little concerned, through their eastern colonies, in the well-being of China;—will then be engaged in a struggle for power, if not territory, the result of which cannot be anticipated; indeed we scarcely venture to contemplate such portentous complications.
No thoughtful man will deny the necessity of teaching the Chinese that treaties must be respected, and perfidy punished. Duty and interest alike require this at our hands; but this is but one of many duties—one of many interests; and we would most emphatically say, Respice finem—look beyond—look to the end. The destruction of hundreds of thousands of Chinese, the ravaging of their great cities, may fail to accomplish the object we have in view. They have been but too much accustomed to such calamities, and their influences soon pass away from a nation so reckless of life. But it may be possible to exact penalties in a shape which will be more sensible to them, and more beneficial to us: for example, the administration of their custom-house revenues in Shanghae and Canton, and the payment out of these of all the expenses of the war.
But is there nothing to hope from the Taiping movement? Nothing. It has become little better than dacoity: its progress has been everywhere marked by wreck and ruin; it destroys cities, but builds none; consumes wealth, and produces none; supersedes one despotism by another more crushing and grievous; subverts a rude religion by the introduction of another full of the vilest frauds and the boldest blasphemies. It has cast off none of the proud, insolent, and ignorant formulas of imperial rule; but, claiming to be a divine revelation, exacts the same homage and demands the same tribute from Western nations, to which the government of Peking pretended in the days of its highest and most widely recognized authority.
We cannot afford to overthrow the government of China. Bad as it is, anarchy will track its downfall, and the few elements of order which yet remain will be whelmed in a convulsive desolation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Peiho, in Chinese, means a north or northern river, but no river in particular. No Chinaman applies the word to the locality which now bears the name on our charts. In Bristol, the Mersey would be deemed entitled to the name of the Peiho; in London, the Humber, the Tyne, or the Tweed.
[2] The matchlock is still used in China, where even the flint has not been introduced. The late emperor, Taou-Kwang, had heard of “improvements in musketry,” and specimens of “percussion locks” were sent to Peking, but they were rejected; and the military examinations to this hour consist of feats of individual strength, the exercise of the bow and arrow, the spear and the shield. In the use of artillery there have been some improvements. The Chinese have purchased cannon for their fortifications and war-junks, both in Hong Kong and Macao, and of late from the Russians, for their forts of Takoo.
[3] The emperor’s words are: “This was the only proper arrangement to be made (for the settlement of the treaties). We understand the whole question.” In 1854, when the foreign Ministers visited Tien-tsin, the imperial orders were conveyed to the mandarins in the following words:—“At your interview, you must snap short their deceit and arrogance, and foil their malicious sophistry.” Another imperial decree says:—“The barbarians study nothing but gain. Their hurrying backwards and forwards only means [more] trade and [lower] tariffs. When a trifle is granted on this score they naturally acquiesce and hold their tongues.”
[4] Nothing is less intelligible to a high-bred mandarin than the desire of foreign females to be introduced to him. At Hong Kong, when English ladies were brought to see the ex-commissioner Yeh, he turned away, and refused to look at them, and on their departure, expressed his annoyance and disgust. He was invited at Calcutta to a ball given by the Governor of Bengal. Inquiring what was meant, he was told by his Chinese secretary, that a ball was a sport in which “men turned themselves round, holding the waists and turning round the wives of other men;” on which, he asked whether the invitation was meant for an insult? There was an amusing scene at Canton, when Chinese ladies were for the first time introduced to some of our British fair. The Chinese kept for some minutes tremblingly in the distance, afraid to approach, when one was heard to say to another, “They do not look so very barbarous, after all;” and they moved a little forward to meet their guests; another whisper was heard, “Surely they have learnt how to behave themselves. Is it not wonderful?” and a third voice replied, “Yes! but you know they have been for some time in Canton!”
[5] Elgin Papers, p. 175.