CHINA AND THE CHINESE.
NO. II.
THE great Oriental revolution is nearly complete. The days of the Tar- tar dynasty are numbered. Step by step the representative of the old house is advancing to the palaces of his ancestors, and gradually the heir of the invading race retires at his advance. It is difficult to imagine the hopes and anxieties which such a catastrophe must naturally excite through the length and breadth of the greatest empire in the world. The scene can scarcely be represented: the bare contemplation of it carries back the mind to other days, to a similar catastrophe in a different hemi- sphere. Half a century has not passed since Europe looked on with mingled feelings of joy and astonishment at the perfection of a revolution to which for importance the revolution in China is not to be compared. It is not to be supposed that the same eager interest which attached itself to the one shall accompany the other. The time when one ex-Emperor took up his abode within the prison-walls of Longwood and a rightful King slept again in the halls of his sires is still green in our memory; and though the same interests are involved and the same prize is at stake now which was hazarded then, yet the very names of the contending princes at Peking shall have passed into oblivion while future generations shall still be dreaming of the Louvre and the Invalides. That such should be the case is as disheartening as it is strange : it is nevertheless true. It seems destined that the history of Oriental usurpation should be a science beyond the reach or the interest of European intelligence. What schoolboy knows anything above the be titles of Alboin, of Chos- roes, of Iduza, or of Haroun-al-Raschid ? Every one is conversant with the heroism of Guatemozin and the sufferings of Atahualpa, but few care to hear whether Hein-fang is a Tartar or a Chinese, or Tae-ping a de- scendant of Ming or a descendant of Koblai Khan : yet this much is cer- tain, with the success of Tae-ping and the defeat of Hein-fling is in- volved the extinction of a race the most historical in the world—of that race which sent forth its warriors to the destruction of the West, which laid tho city of Constantine in ruins, enslaved the land of Leonidas, and numbered among its sons a Zenghis, a Koblai, and a Tamerlane. The prestige of the Tartar name disappears with the last Tartar conquest.
The ancestors of Baber and of Arunzebe have no more noble representa- tives in Asia than the scattered hordes who rush from their tents to pil- lage the lonely pilgrim to Tibet. And here a singular coincidence arrests our attention. While the Tartar conquerors are being forced back into their native regions in Asia, Tartar dominion is being shaken to its foundation in Europe. It may be that the fall of the descendant of Kohlai Khan in one hemisphere shall be simultaneous with the fall of the descendant of Mahomed the Second in the other. The only wonder is, not that they should cease to exist now, but that they should not have ceased to exist before.
In one respect the superiority of the Asiatic branch over the European branch is eminent. While the empire of the Turks in Constantinople has experienced more shocks and undergone more revolutions than any other empire in Europe, the government of the Manchoo Tartars in China has always been comparatively firm. This stability is perhaps in some measure owing to the stationary character of the governed. But it is certainly remarkable, that while the duration of other Oriental mo- narchies has been ephemeral to a proverb, the duration of the Tartar dynasty at Peking has been the very reverse. For more than two hun- dred years a foreign race have wrung obedience from the native owners of the soil, experiencing little interruption, and no successful resistance until now. And yet the interval that has witnessed such continued tyranny on the one hand and such patient suffering on the other has wit- nessed the rise and extinction of three successive dynasties at Delhi ; has seen the white elephant instituted, banished, and restored at Ave; the English ensign supplant the French standard in the Climatic; France herself subject to three distinct rulers in Europe; and four insurrections succeed within the very heart of the fair Stamboul. It might have been expected after this that the Tartar dynasty was secure, and Chinese en- terprise unable to endanger it. And the expectation would doubtless have been realized, for any external agency that should have prevented it. There is no people to whom a revolution is so inimical, no people who have a stronger disinclination to disturb old associations than the Chinese, and there is no country that affords a more successful field for tyranny than China. If the Tartar dynasty falls, it has none to blame but its representatives. The cause of the success of Tae-ping lies in the history of the ancestors of Hein-fang. Their history, with but one or two exceptions, is the history of monarchs who from being brave and martial usurpers have gradually acquired the degenerate characteristics of second-rate Persian Kalipha. Hein-fung is as unlike the illustrious founder of his dynasty, the great Kang-hy, as a Roman senator of the Empire was unlike a senator of the days of Cincinnatus. The whole as- pect of the court has undergone a change. The old official boar-bunt beyond the great wall has long since been given up, and a drunken brawl in the theatre of the palace been substituted in its stead. The court of Peking now differs as much from the court of Peking two hundred years ago as the court of the latter part of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth differed from the court of the former part. The consequences are plain. Government became another name for a licentious anarchy among the governors. Popular dignity was shocked at the profligacy of the supreme ruler. The example set by the chief was quickly followed by the subordi- nates. The lieutenants of provinces employed their term in office in op- pressing the people and enriching themselves. The former had no re- dress, and the latter experienced no control. False intelligence was regularly transmitted to the Imperial bureau. Astonishment at the con- duct of the proconsular governors was at last changed into indignation at their injustice. A spirit of self-defence engendered an inclination to re- sist. This inclination was fostered, first casually, and then systema- tically. Popular songs became the vehicle of popular sentiments. The Triad society explained and insisted upon what the revolutionary verses barely hinted at. The time was ripe for revolt. A leader only was wanted, and this want was soon supplied. Chinese history relates how centuries back an obscure individual named Chu, a servant in a mo- nastery of Bonzes, being moved with an idea "that it was not fit that the Tartars should govern the Chinese, but rather that the Chinese should govern the Tartars," assembled his acquaintances, organized an insurrection, and expelled the Moguls from the Celestial empire for ever. This successful episode was not unknown to the secret club. They pon- dered on it and marked the coincidence. The result was, Tae-ping was announced as the heir of the house of Ming, and the competitor for the Chinese throne. And to all appearances it is probable that he will suc- ceed.
Their effeminacy and misgovernment, however, are not the only origin of the downfall of the present reigning powers : the real cause is deeper and more latent.
When the Manchoo Tartars found themselves the successful conquerors of China, they determined on setting an everlasting mark of their con- quest on the conquered. Every Chinaman was ordered on pain of death to reduce his luxuriant hair to the present scanty standard. Force com- pelled what inclination resisted. The order was obeyed. To this act of political insanity another was added. An eternal disgrace was imposed on the unfortunate. Every Tartar, or every man of Tartar extraction, to this day takes precedence of an original Chinese. In the privy council, in the colleges and institutes, this rule is observed. The favourites of the Emperor are always Tartars, and the President of the Board of Trade at Canton (a most distinguished official) is always a favourite. The standing army is composed of Tartars, and the militia of Chinese com- manded by Tartar officers. The standard cf the one is of the Imperial colour, yellow; the ensign of the other is green. This policy of distinc- tion, at all times dangerous, amounts to positive suicide when it is em- ployed by the few conquerors against the many conquered. It was the policy which at first marked the conduct of England towards her Indian subjects, and it is that policy which she is now striving her best to mbdify or change. Unfortunately, where it is successful for a time it seldom fails to be lucrative, and where it is lucrative there are not wanting men too conservative to relinquish it. Not a single instance is there, however, on record where it has been attended with more than temporary advan- tage. William the Conqueror and his successors never displayed a more exquisite knowledge of human nature than when they resolved on con- ciliating their Saxon subjects by a system of affiliation rather than on estranging them by a course of unfraternizing distinction. And their suc- cess would have been greater than it was had they not been impeded by baronial jealousies from without. But besides this one prefiminent stimulant to revolt, there has existed in China another revolutionary element, still stronger and yet more irre- sistible. Between the provinces of Kuei-chow and Kuang-sy runs 'a vast and wooded mountain ridge, so beset, it is said, with ferocious wild cats and bears that the Tartar shepherd of the plain daily makes fast his latch- et at the approach of dark. To these dusk forests retired, two hundred years ago, a scanty band of native Chinese, whom valour and good fortune had rescued from the Tartar scimitar. And here their children dwell. Inheriting naught but untiring hatred for the conquering race, and com- passion for the conquered, this ancient remnant of the aboriginal stock re- mains an everlasting thorn in the side of the Imperial Government. So fierce is the nature of the Meaou-tse, and so deadly their animosity, that the Tartar mother hushes her child to sleep with wispered legends of the terrible "wolf men," whose hair is unshaved, who fits a heated iron slip- per to his infant's foot, and who wears a strange unearthly tail himself. The Chinese speculator who would purchase timber from the forests never ventures within their savage haunts. The bargain is made on the border land, and the streams from the hills bring down the purchase with com- mercial punctuality. To the seats of these primitive mountaineers retire all the rebellious and the disaffected in the kingdom. So sensible is the Imperial Government of their dangerous proximity, that viceroy after viceroy is despatched at the head of the choicest Tartar troops to exter- minate their race. Once their chief was taken, and the tribes broken and dispersed. But " triumphati, non vied." They still remain powerful as ever, to illustrate their independence and punish their captors. It is not difficult to see how such an element in such a country as China becomes dangerous in the extreme. The same phenomenon produced similar ca- tastrophes in the moors of Scotland, the hills of Wales, and the mountains of Spain. It was hence that the triumphs of the Edwards were more bloody than fruitful, and hence it was that the victories of Musa ended at last in the fatal siege of Granada. The Meaou-tse of China are likely to prove to the Tartars at Peking what the mountaineers of the Asturias proved to the Moors in Spain. Every telegraph brings fresh confirma- tion of their success. And it is to be remembered that these confirms. tions are not to be neglected. In the triumph of Tae-ping is involved the triumph of a new and important policy. The rebel chief may be to Cathay what Peel was to England. No distant day may see his statue enthroned in one of the squares of Canton, the future Manchester of his empire. With the old dynasty ceases the old excluiiveness. From the dynasty of Ming, a dynasty whose characteristics have always been more liberal, who permitted the labours of Schaal and of Verbiest, and did not resent the interference of Maigrot and of Clement XI., the inauguration of a less conservative code might be expected. One thing is certain, the empire of China is just awakening from the sleep of ages. With the vast territory it comprehends, and the vast resources it possesses, it is likely to take a place, and an important place, among the commercial kingdoms of the earth. It is the last existing specimen of an Oriental monarchy that is sound and unique in its way. While other nations have passed away with all the extravagance of their barbaric splendour, its simplicity and its intolerable conservatism have preserved this nation alone. It has outlived the triumphs of Mehemet and the glories of Akbar and Aurun- zebe, and we see no reason why it may not hope to see the end of the viceregal courts of Calcutta and Madras. No intruding company of mer- chant venturers, it is probable, will ever mark out its territories, levy its taxes, collect its revenue, and inhabit embryo palaces by the hot-springs of Je-ho. A legitimate sovereign will always hold his court at Peking. Let the English Government, then, beware. The first opportunity in these instances is always the best. Commercial treaties justly framed and ad- vantageously proposed endanger no interests and involve little risk. The merchant-fleets of England at present rule the seas. The fleets of Ame- rica are close in their wake. Let them whose business it is see that their proximity does not increase. Boasting is legitimate only where there is
just cause for the boast. • Our correspondent may send No. III. at his own convenience, and we will dispose of it at ours. " China and the Chinese" will not pass away in the interval.]
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