The Awakening of China

by W. A. P. Martin

"A rescript submits this recommendation to a council of state to advise on the action to be taken."

If that venerable body, consisting of old men who hold office for life, does not take umbrage at the prospect of another tribunal infringing on their domain, we shall have at least the promise of a parliament. And five years hence, if the congé d'elire goes forth, it will rend the veil of ages. It implies the conferment on the people of power hitherto unknown in their history. What a commotion will the ballot-box excite! How suddenly will it arouse the dormant intellect of a brainy race! But it is premature to speculate.

In 1868 the Mikado granted his subjects a charter of rights, the first article of which guarantees freedom of discussion, and engages that he will be guided by the will of the people. In China does not the coming of a parliament involve the previous issue of a Magna Charta?

It is little more than eight years since the restoration, as the return of the Court in January, 1902, may be termed. In this period, it is safe te assert that more sweeping reforms have been decreed in China than were ever enacted in a half-century by any other country, if one except Japan, whose example the Chinese profess to follow, and France, in the Revolution, of which Macaulay remarks that "they changed everything—from the rites of religion to the fashion of a shoe-buckle."

Reference will here be made to a few of the more important innovations or ameliorations which, taken together, made the reign of the Empress Dowager the most brilliant in the history of the Empire. The last eight years have been uncommonly prolific of reforms; but the tide began to turn after the peace of Peking in 1860. Since that date every step in the adoption of modern methods was taken during the reign or regency of that remarkable woman, which dated from 1861 to 1908.

As late as 1863 the Chinese Government did not possess a single fighting ship propelled by steam. Steamers belonging to Chinese merchants were sometimes employed to chase pirates; but they were not the property of the state. The first state-owned steamers, at least the first owned by the Central Government, was a flotilla of gunboats purchased that year in England by Mr. Lay, Inspector-General of Maritime Customs. Dissatisfied with the terms he had made with the commander, whom he had bound not to act on any orders but such as the Inspector should approve, the Government dismissed the Inspector and sold the ships.

In the next thirty years a sufficient naval force was raised to justify the appointment of an admiral; but in 1895 the whole fleet was destroyed by the Japanese, and Admiral Ting committed suicide. At present there is a squadron under each viceroy; but all combined would hardly form the nucleus of a navy. That the Government intend to create a navy may be inferred from the establishment of a Naval Board. In view of the naval exploits of Japan, and under the guidance of Japanese, they are certain to develop this feeble plant and to make it formidable to somebody—perhaps to themselves.

Their merchant marine is more respectable. With a fleet of fifty or more good ships the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company are able by the aid of subsidies and special privileges to compete for a share in the coasting trade; but as yet they have no line trading to foreign ports.

In 1860 a wild horde with matchlocks, bows, and spears, the land army is now supplied in large part with repeating rifles, trained in Western drill, and dressed in uniform of the Western type. The manœuvres that took place near Peking in 1905 made a gala day for the Imperial Court, which expressed itself as more than satisfied with the splendour of the spectacle. The contingent belonging to this province is 40,000, and the total thus drilled and armed is not less than five times that number. In 1907 the troops of five provinces met in Honan. Thanks to railways, something like concentration is coming within the range of possibility. Not deficient in courage, what these raw battalions require to make them effective is confidence in themselves and in their commanders. Lacking in the lively patriotism that makes heroes of the Japanese, these fine big fellows are not machines, but animals. To the mistaken efforts recently made to instil that sentiment at the expense of the foreigner, I shall refer in another chapter. A less objectionable phase of the sentiment is provincialism, which makes it easy for an invader to employ the troops of one province to conquer another. In history these provinces appear as kingdoms, and their mutual wars form the staple subject. What feeling of unity can exist so long as the people are divided by a babel of dialects? More than once have Tartars employed Chinese to conquer China; and in 1900 a fine regiment from Wei-hai-wei helped the British to storm Peking. It may be added they repaid themselves by treating the inhabitants as conquered foes. Everywhere they were conspicuous for acts of lawless violence.

Three great arsenals, not to speak of minor establishments, are kept busy turning out artillery and small arms for the national army, and the Board of Army Reform has the supervision of those forces, with the duty of making them not provincial, but national. Efforts of this kind, however, are no proof of a reform spirit. Are not the same to be seen all the way from Afghanistan to Dahomey? "To be weak is to be miserable"; and the Chinese are right in making military reorganisation the starting-point of a new policy. Yet the mere proposal of a parliament is a better indication of the spirit of reform than all these armaments.