THE FAR EASTERN QUESTION.*
Tan book before us is based upon a very interesting series of letters from China and Japan, contributed to the Times last
• The Far Eastern Qat:Hon. By Valentine (Iwo'. London Macmillan and Cc.
year by Mr. ChiroL Mr. Chirol's high reputation as a
journalist and foreign correspondent makes all he writes of interest. It is tree that he had no previous acquaintance with the Far East, but that was, after all, no great loss, for the problem of English policy requires for its solu- tion political judgment and discrimination rather than expert knowledge. Indeed, in the case of so sudden and cataclysmic a revolution as that which has taken place in the Far East, we are not sure that a fresh mind, provided it is coupled with coolness, is not an advantage.
That there is anything positively new in Mr. Chirol's book cannot be asserted. It provides, however, plenty of strong proof for the belief that the decadence of China is not superficial or temporary, but fundamental and permanent,—that the Empire is, in a word, in a condition of moral bankruptcy. One of the chief signs of this bankruptcy is, as Mr. Chirol points oat, the complete inability of China to produce a man at this the crisis of her fortunes. Out of
her millions not one emerges to serve and save the State. The only really commanding figure is that of the Dowager
Empress, and even her stature is only great by comparison. Here is Mr. Chirol's account of a lady who, had she lived in his day, Knox would most certainly have denounced in his attack on the " monstrous regiment, of women." No other woman in our days has held such absolute power, for the throne of Russia has not been filled by a woman since the death of Catherine II., and in the Turkish Empire no woman can act as Regent :-
"Until last year. notwithstanding her nominal retirement after the present Emperor's marriage in 1889, the Dowager Empress undoubtedly continual to exercise a paramount authority. That she possesses energy and ability of a high order is proved by the skill with which she grasped the reins of power, in concert first with the widow of the Emperor Hsien Feng after his death in 1861, and the tenacity with which she has held them more or less continuously ever since, boldly breast- ing or cunningly circumventing every obstacle that successively arose in her path. She has often been compared to Catherine the Great, and in everything but the broader aspects of statesman- ship the analogy is not infelicitous—most of all, however, in regard to the greed of power, extravagance, and sensuousness common to both. The anniversary of her sixtieth birthday was to have been celebrated last autumn on a scale of unusual mag- nificence. Large sums were sent up from every province, and still larger sums were levied by the provincial officials as the free gift of a grateful people. A splendid road, which at least gives some idea of what Chinese roads were like in the days of the Empire's prosperity, was built from Peking to the residence of the Empress Dowager near the Summer Palace for the Imperial procession to pass over. The city gate giving access to it was restored in all the pristine glory of quaintly carved and painted architecture, and every house and shop along the road blossomed out into a galaxy of newly-gilded signboards and many-coloured woodwork. But the disasters of the war shed a gloom over the outward celebration, and, it is believed, for a time at least, disturbed the filial piety of which it was intended to be the crowning illustration. How far the Empress Dowager's influence has been permanently shaken it is impossible to say, but there were undoubtedly stormy scenes within the palace of which an unmistakable echo reached the outside world in the publication of a memorial from one of the Censors vigorously denouncing the baneful effects of petticoat' government. The very mild punishment inflicted upon the author of this philippic showed the sentiments expressel in it to have been viewed, to say the least, with considerable leniency in the highest quarters."
But if the Emperor is in tutelage, and the Dowager Empress has lost power, who or what is the Government of China? We take it that, roughly, China is a Federal Empire, only that the Federal Princes are not hereditary rulers, but re- movable satraps. While, however, the Viceroy of a province keeps his place and pays his tribute, the province over which
he rules is virtually autonomous. In a word, China as an Empire is daily getting more decentralised, and is more and more assuming the position of the Mogul Empire just
before it finally broke up. The centrifugal forces out- balance the centripetal. The only difference is that the hereditary principle is not present to turn the provinces into kingdoms, and the Viceroys into Kings. So much for the provinces. The central Government also presents a curious spectacle of transition. It is undergoing a process of evolution very common in Eastern States, but with a difference. The tendency in the East is for the King or Emperor to become so august and so holy that he ceases to be able to rule. Etiquette emasculates his powers. By his side, however, grows up another dynasty, an heredi- tary Vizier or Prime Minister, who rules in his name. In the case of the Rajah of Satara the process was indeed almost twice
repeated. The Rajah was secluded by the Peishwa, and the Peishwa, unless we are mistaken, would have himself fallen victim to an hereditary Vizier had not his rule succumbed to the British. The best instance, however, is of course the Mikado and the Shogun in Japan. The Emperor of China is apparently just entering into the position which the Mikado occupied before his emancipation, only, strangely enough, the Chinese Shogun is not a man but a committee, for here, again, the situation is modified by the weakness of the hereditary principle, or possibly by the strength of the official corporation. The committee, which is the Chinese equivalent for the Shogun, is the Tsungli-Yamen. Nominally this body is a Board of Foreign Affairs, but since it is almost identical in personnel with the Privy Council, it may fairly be regarded as the body which rules China. The account given of it by Mr. Chirol is most curious :- " Of the ten members of that Board Chang Yin.Hsian has alone ever been outside of China. Yung-Lu, the Governor of the city of Peking, who acted for some time as Tartar General at Hsian-Fu, is the only other member who has served during his official career outside of the walls of Peking. That is to say that the vast majority of the officials entrusted with the foreign rela- tions of China have spent their lives in a city and amidst sur- roundings for which no sort of parallel could be found in Europe outside, perhaps, of the darkest period of the Middle Ages, and even then the analogy would be in many respects lame and in- adequate. I was granted during my stay at Peking the favour of an interview with the Tsungli-Yamen—a favour, I believe, never before granted to a foreigner enjoying no official position— and during a couple of hours I had the honour of discussing with their Excellencies some of the burning questions of the day. The strongest impression which I carried away with me was that the whole world of thought in which the Western mind is trained and lives seems to be as alien to the Chinese mind as the language which we speak The wisdom of their sages, which is the Alpha and Omega of their vaunted education, consists of unexceptionable aphorisms, which have about as much influence on their actions as the excellent commonplaces which in the days of our youth we have all copied out to improve our caligraphy had in moulding our own characters. History, geography, the achievements of modern science, the lessons of political economy, the conditions which govern the policy of Western States, the influence of public opinion, of the press, of parliamentary institutions, are words which convey no real meaning to their ears. It is useless to appeal to feelings of honour or of patriotism, which, if they exist at all, take an entirely different and to us inexplicable shape, and it is equally vain to quote the teachings of political history, for out- side of their own immediate experience it is a sealed book to them. Their Excellencies talk glibly of the balance of power in Europe, but Austria still seems to be hopelessly mixed up in their minds with Holland, and of the two the latter apparently still occupies as a colonial Power by far the higher position. An inci- dental reference to Tunis elicited the fact that they had never realised the existence of such a State, or of an African Empire of France, though they had acquired some information with regard to the position of Egypt, presumably from French sources. Nor is it easy to treat questions even of material development with ministers, one of whom deliberately maintained that China's immunity from railways had been the salvation of Peking during the recent war."
We should like, had we space, to quote a great deal more from Mr. Chirol's interesting account of the Tsungli-Yamen. Instead, however, we must find room for his curious account of the way in which the Emperor contrived to save his "face," even though so completely beaten by the Japanese, and of the essential insincerity of the Chinese polity :— " Nothing could be more characteristic in this respect than the terms of the Imperial edict announcing the conclusion of peace. The Son of Heaven declares, indeed, that he has spent sleepless nights shedding tears over the disasters which have befallen his armies and his fleets, over the incompetency and corruption of their leaders, and over the great sea-wave which has swept away the coast defences. But, if he has decided to abandon all attempt to restore the fortunes of war, it is not, apparently, that he shrinks from exposing his defenceless country to the horrors of invasion, or from sending forth his wretched subjects to be butchered in an unequal struggle. No, the paramount consideration upon which the Imperial decision is based is his duty to the Dowager Empress, `the venerable lady who, if hostilities were renewed and Peking threatened by the Japanese, would have to seek refuge in flight and be exposed once more to the hardships of a long and arduous journey.' And, as far as public opinion may be said to exist, this touching exhibition of filial piety produces doubtless the desired effect and saves the Emperor's 'face.' In the same way the bullet of a Japanese desperado went far to save Li Hung Chang's face' and to invest with the redeeming touch of dramatic effect a part which, however patriotic from a Western point of view, must have otherwise involved, from the Chinese point of view, an irre- parable loss of credit. Life, according to the Chinese classics, is a stage, and on this stage the Chinaman must above all contrive to perform his part in strict accordance with the rules of histrionic art, i.e. with the traditional canon of Chinese pro prieties. To ask that he should win battles because he happens to have been cast for the part of a general, or that he should be an upright judge because he discourses elcquently on the abstract beauty of justice, would be an offence against that same canon of proprieties which his audience, the Chinese public, would never dream of committing. Foreigners are always committing this offence, and it explains in a great measure the hatred entertained, especially amongst the upper classes, towards them, and most of all towards the missionaries. Not only do these barbarians refuse to accept the Chinese canon of proprieties, but they actually set the scandalous example of men and women trying to live up to the standards which they profess !"
We have confined ourselves to Mr. Chirol's account of the Chinese. His descriptions of Japan after the war are, how-
ever, quite as interesting. They show, like all other reports from Japan, that the Japanese did not win by luck or merely because of the weakness of their enemy, but because on the material side of war they have become extremely efficient, and because they possess in a high degree the great civic virtues of patriotism, courage, and chivalry. They won because they deserved to win, both morally and physically.
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