Lies as Usual
By BERNARD LEVIN IT is always a nasty sight when a powerful country makes war upon a weak country for reasons other than those it gives, and somehow it always seems nastier than usual when Britain does it. And, by the accidents of history, Britain does seem to have done it rather more often than most Bismarck, surely, never claimed that he was protecting Prussian lives and property, Frederick the Great that he wanted to put out a forest fire, Napoleon that it was necessary to separate the combatants? Sometimes, of course, British hypocrisy becomes a kind of virtue by compari- son with the moral cynicism of these frightful foreigners; it is true, for instance, that many of those who founded the British colonial empire really believed it was their duty to bring the pax liritannica to the heathen, and the fact that many of the heathen were dead by the time the opera- tion was over only made the pax more profound. Still, the fact remains that the average French Politician will tell you that the French are deter- mined to stay in Algeria because Algeria has Sot to be kept part of France, whereas the average British politician will assure you that our troops are in Cyprus because we cannot knuckle under to terrorism, because we need it as a base, because we have a duty to keep the Greek and Turkish inhabitants from massacring each other and because the people are only pretending that they wish us to leave from fear of EOKA. What is more, I have no doubt that a good half of the Cabinet actually believes all this to be per- fectly true.
As I say, the accidents of history have con- tributed largely to the aura of hypocrisy that hangs like smog over Great Britain. A good deal of Britain's aggression was committed in an age When the complete cynicism of a Frederick was hardly possible to a nation that professed Chris- tianity. In the nineteenth century, the British Were practically bound to be labelled hypocrites Whenever they made war on .anybody. At this remove, one can smile, and even sympathise; the War of Jenkins' Ear becomes rather amusing.
But people died in it; some of them in great pain, and wondering why. And surely not even from Olympus, and not even today, do the Opium Wars seem anything but bloody murder. In these A .11' THE OPIUM WAR THROUGH CHINESE Ems. By Arthur Waley. (Allen and Unwin, 21s.)
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merry Palmerstonian episodes, the Chinese were compelled to rescind their orders prohibiting the import of opium, and to permit British merchants to bring it into the country (from India) and there sell it for silver, thus debasing at a blow both the currency and the population. The Chinese were persuaded to allow this trade by the simplest of arguments; Chinamen were shot and killed, and Chinese buildings shelled and burnt, until, the superiority of occidental fire- power having been demonstrated, the superiority of occidental commerce could be assumed. 'Good God, what will history say?' says the major in The Devil's Disciple when he hears that the British forces are cut off and America lost. 'History, sir,' replies General Burgoyne, 'will tell lies as usual:' Not eVe'n this well-known-device will work in the case of the Opium War; I cannot remember learning a word about the subject at school, and I should be very surprised to learn that any standard history textbook today con- tains h mention of it. The fact is, the Opium War was indefensible. But admit it, and would we not have to admit the same of Jenkins' Ear?' Of the Boer War? Of the quelling of the Indian Mutiny? Of—but it is all too easy (Particularly for the politicians, with eyes in the backs of their heads) to see where this kind of reasoning might lead; to Palestine, and Cyprus, and beyond. Better admit nothing than admit everything.
But there are certain cantankerous fellows that will not let the sleeping lion lie. One of them is Mr. Arthur Waley, whose latest book* not only tells the story of the Opium War, but tells it from the Chinese point of view. And high time too.
The central figure is Commissioner Lin, who is sent to Canton by the Emperor to suppress the opium trade. Commissioner Lin is an astonishing, an almost unique, figure. He builds a modern, Western (there are more ironies than one in this story) knowledge on an oriental super- structure of fantasy, so that on the one hand we find him devising and operating complicated equipment for liquefying the confiscated opium and running it off into the sea, and on the other we find him composing a gigantic Ode of Apology to the sea for thus defiling its pure waters. Sensible and practical measures for bringing the British merchants to heel are mixed with declara- tions that the sale of rhubarb to these foreigners must be stopped, thus ensuring that they all die of constipation. Various kinds of troops must be enrolled to fight the British; how about getting hold of some of those men who walk about on the bottom of the sea to help sink the British ships? So it goes on; superstition and sense join hands at Canton, while back at Peking the whisperers are busy, the Emperor is wondering why the invaders have not been driven away, and Commissioner Lin is nearing his fall. (As for the British, they go on gaily steaming up and down the coast, blowing the bejasus out of all and sundry, sensible or superstitious.) Yet Lin, through his diaries and Mr. Waley's sensitive, gentle interpretation, comes alive for us, as an upright and honourable official and a gracious and cultured man. When things are going ill for the Chinese, he calms himself with prayer and meditation, by practising calligraphy and painting fans (one of his hobbies). Back in Queen Vic- toria's Britain, Lin was being turned into a turnip- ghost by the Dr. Hills of the day, but he shines through Mr. Waley's pages, an epitome of all the things that Victoria's Britain was not— modest, gentle, tolerant, civilised, quiet.
And more. This is how he wrote to Victoria herself, asking her to stop her subjects' trafficking in opium, and as a communication between dis- puting States I must say it is to be preferred to the kind of stuff they send nowadays.
The Way of Heaven is fairness to all; it does not suffer us to harm others in order to benefit ourselves. Men are alike in this the world over; that they cherish life and hate what endangers life. Your country lies twenty thousand leagues away; but for all that the Way of Heaven holds good for you as for us, and your instincts are not different from ours: for nowhere are there men so blind as not to distinguish between what brings life and what brings death, between what brings profit and what does harm. . . . I am told that in your own country opium smoking is forbidden under severe penalties. This means that you are aware of how harmful it is. . . . So long as you do not take it yourselves, but continue to make it and tempt the people of China to buy it, you will be showing yourselves careful of your own lives, but careless of the Jives of other people, indifferent in your greed for gain to the harm you do to others; such conduct is repugnant to human feeling and at variance with the Way of Heaven. '
Commissioner Lin, it seems, was something of a philosopher, too. And a fat lot of good it did him when the Royal Navy opened up. But must we always get a hundred years away from this kind of escapade before it falls into the right per- spective? Are there no present-day Mr. Waleys —for one of the charms of this book is that Mr. Waley and his Lin are birds of a feather, two upright judges joining hands across the years— to show us what the Egyptians thought of Suez, what the Icelanders think of the British Trawlers' Federation? Are blood and iron the only argu- ments that can ever be accepted as current coin, and must reason and morality always be nothing more than exhibits in a numismatist's collection?
Probably; but meanwhile let us be thankful that Mr. Waley writes even about the last century, and read his book, and learn.
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