• A FORECAST FOR CHINA.
.So far events have justified the anticipations ofthe • Speetoier in respect to Chintc, and we venture, there- fore, to put forward in some detail a forecast.of the future -which in all probability most of our readers will reject, and which we ourselves regard with invincible apprehen- sion and dislike. The whole progress of events, the trend of all circumstances, points, in our judgment, to the solu- tion which all Europe, through its official mouthpieces, angrily rejects, namely, a partition of China among the civilised Powers. We do not believe that the Chinese Empire can be conquered, as a whole, or governed as a whole, even by Europe acting as a Syndicate, whether the effort is made through an International Council or through a nominal emperor whom aCouncil of Ambassadors is to guide. That Europe after an effort, the magnitude of which is just beginning to dawn upon her statesmen, will with Japanese assistance wade through seas of blood to Pekin we have little or no doubt. Water always yields to the swimmer if he is only strong enough, but when Pekin is taken the conquest of the swarming empire is only just begun. Pekin is not Paris, nor has it any such influence that its occupation or even destruction should signify to China that all is lost. Chinamen are not Europeans to forget that Pekin is of yesterday. The bloodstained rulers who have passed on Europe so terrible an insult will not re- main in the capital to receive their sentences. They will fly, carrying with them their troops, and wherever they settle there will be for all political purposes the effective capital of China, the power to which four hundred millions of people without nerves will look for impulse and direction. Every province will arm, irregular armies as good as that which defended Tientsin will arise by the dozen—the absurd illusion, that a race of cowards built the most durable Empire in Asia, is gone already—and Europe will find that to hold China securely, and trade with it in peace, she must provide a garrison of four hundred thousand men. The cost of such an effort will lie ruinous to every Treasury except that of Great Britain—or,.if she joins in it, America—and the profit of it will be absolutely nil. The Powers, if they work through a Council, cannot raise more than enough revenue to pay, and supply, and feed their armies, and no native emperor, if they work through him, will consent to such a waste of his revenues ; while if they leave him to govern Fishes can with his own forces they simply enable him to strengthen himself until he can throw off the mask and once more set Europe at defiance, an enterprise which to the ruler of China can never seem simply mad. Why should it, when he knows that he can hurl a fourth of. mankind, not upon Europe, but upon that small section of her population which Europe can afford to send over fourteen thousand miles of ocean to be consumed in an endless battle for an object Which when attained is worthless? We do not believe Europe will make -the effort Each Power Will insist upon limiting her sacrifices and obtaining a reward for them, and will, therefore, insist upon a localisation of her efforts, which will involve, in fact, territorial partition. Russia will operate in Manchuria, Mongolia, and Pechili, Germany in Shantung and Hunan, Great Britain in Thibet and Central China, and France in the south; and eacliwill raise for its own relief Chinese eepoy armies, to be paid out of the taxation of its peculium. Even when thus divided the effort will be an exhausting one, but still it is reduced within the bounds of possibility, and if persisted in for years, and each dominion ruled on principles endurable by the people, it may partially succeed. Certainly, :if the only other alternatives are to conquer China as a whole without pay for that awful effort, Or to abandon intercourse with China, partition will at any risk. be tried. Each continental country will obtain its great desire, a grand transmarine possession, and each will be confident that if let alone it can keep its share and make it, either as an estate or as a colony, profitable to its possessors. To us who believe Great Britain already overstrained 'the plan is utterly obnoxious, but we know the self confidence of our people, we perceive their inability to 'lint up with exclusion from "their share," and we are hopeless of seeing them retire content with a trade which everybody would, in their judgment, be perpetually endeavouring to take away. One grand group of motives will therefore force Europe towards partition, and there is another group the force of which will be speedily perceived. Apart from the furious jealousies, saspicions, and bickerings sure to arise; during an international conquest—each army for instance believing, as the Bavarians began to believe during the German invasion of France, that it. is wetted in order to spare the others—the statesmen of Europe will soon weary of being paralysed by the great combination. They will feel that the separate interests of each State. which are the interests they care about, are all being postponed to the combined interest which, as they are not philanthropists, hardly attracts them at el. Russia, for example, will feel debarred from action in the Balkans lest Austria leave the Syndicate ; France must cease to plot in Morocco lost offence should be given to Great Britain ; Germany will be afraid of offending France ; Great Britain will be restricted in Africa at every tarn ; while Austria, which in Europe, we may remind our readers is a great Power with two millions of soldiers, will fret under an isolation which leaves her fettered from all action, but with no glory, no "compensation," and no future share in the world's trade. The desire to break up the Syndicate and thus release themselves from bondage to avoid occasions of 'European quarrel, and yet not to give up all connection with China, will speedily become imperative with all who rule, more especially if Turkey breaks up. and to the fulfilment of Allis purpose there is only one road, namely, partition. To each Power there will be assigned its "field of action in China," and an independent territorial field of action involves sovereignty within that territory. Not only must the armies be separate lest they collide, but the revenue collectors, and the Power which has right of taxation within given limits has within those limits sovereignty. "Influence" is nonsense when it must be maintained by an expenditure only to be paid for out of taxes, the raising of which involves direct, permanent, and searching dominion. It is the direct rule of its " share " which will be thrown upon each Power, and by which each Power—till it has learned by experience what governing Chinamen means—will, at heart, be gratified. Russia is attacked like the rest, and is prepar- ing for the military conquest of Manchuria. We ourselves shall have to defend the Yangtse and enter Thibet. France will spring at Yunnan, and Germany at Shantung, and, with each, ambition will grow with every success. Even our own people will be pleased, for their vast experience will delude them, and they will fancy because they can govern Indians and negroes easily that they can also govern Chinese, though Lord Dalhousie, most suc- cessful of expansionists, declared that they could not. "I will not have Chinamen in Pegu." be said. "No Christian Power can govern Chinamen, for they provoke a massacre every five years."
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