TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE MUDDLE IN CHINA.
WE ought, we fear, to apologise to our readers for returning to the subject of China; but our situa- tion there is far more dangerous as well as embarrassing than is yet fully recognised by our people. The Tientsin incident, for example, passed apparently without results, but there is grave reason to believe that it may coat us twenty millions, the mere possibility of conflict between Great Britain and Russia having encouraged the Boers to continue their guerilla war. It must not be foegotten that although no Power in Europe will intervene in favour of the Boers, every Power except Austria is re- joiced at any incident which by protracting the war diminishes, even in appearance, the effective energy of this country, and that " incidents " are in China almbst in- evitable. Five bodies of armed men—Russian, German, Anglo-Indian, French, and Japanese—are standing on the same ground, with little to do, with no enemy whom they all fear, with no fully acknowledged Commander-in-Chief, and with internal jealousies, arising from differences of nationality, of discipline, and of pay, of the most pro- nounced description. Two of the groups belong to Armies which reject the duel ; while with three the duel on any provocation is an obligation of honour. One of the groups includes a penal regiment ; while in all there is a tendency to license, natural in a conquered district where no one understands the language of the people whose services he is, nevertheless, compelled to use. Under such circurn- stauces quarrels may break out anyday, quarrelling soldiers on service use arms, they are broken-hearted if their officers do not support them, and to many officers caution seems to approach much too nearly to fear. If the civilians around were all friendly the situation would be most dangerous. for even a cigarette will fire a powder-barrel ; and the civilians are not friendly, but watching each other with the jealous suspicion of rival actors or competing tradesmen. All not under military discipline are inclined to put fuel on the fire, the German-Chinese from trade rivalry, the Anglo-Chinese from an incurable dislike of Russia and wish to frustrate her hopes,•the French from annoyance at what they feel to be a secondary position, and the Russians from a rooted idea that in all Asiatic matters they ought to be supreme, or at least acknow- ledged as the first. The pecuniary question, which has now -attained such evil importance in all international enterprises, mixes itself up with every quarreL•whether it be about a railway siding, or a concession of building land, or a mine, or trading facilities, and evokes such bitterness that a majority of telegrams are entirely untrustworthy, and that the Governments are absolutely compelled to tie the hands of their own best agents lest they should do some- thing or other which may render war inevitable. And all around both troops and European-Chinese stand the native Chinese, cool, treacherous, well-informed, and with an intense, and we must confess, a natural, desire to see the invading barbarians at each other's throats. Think how delighted a traveller, threatened in the forest by apes and baboons, would be to see them turn on each other, and you may comprehend the secret feeling of every bland Chinese.
It would all be bad enough if the Governments to which appeal must be made in the last resort' were all friendly ; but they are not, for their interests and traditions as to policy in China are not the same. It is pure hypocrisy, or, if you will, mere diplomatic etiquette, to talk of "the Concert" as a reality. It is no more a working combina- tion than a " happy family" in a cage is a theatrical syndicate. The Americans, who seemed .inclined at first to take a leading part, have almost openly seceded, and content themselves, it may be for good reasons, with emitting pious opinions on each new event as it occurs, opinions, often shrewd and generally philanthropic, but still opinions only, to be accepted or rejected as convenient. The Russians, obeying, as we think, an imperative impulse towards the Pacific, keep talking of unity and making secret agreements with China, each one of which will be a spade to facilitate future digging. The English want nothing but trade, but cannot make up their minds to see their rivals acquire more territory, which they may one : day, if they are fools, wall against British goods. The French desire to checkmate England and assist Russia, if it may be done without actually fighting England, or quarrelling à outrance with the Papacy,; and the. Germans want something big, be it indemnity, territory, or trading privileges, which they may feel to be compensation for an unusual and a costly enterprise. Finally, the Japanese desire to drive every-. body away who can interfere with their sole market or destroy their safety in Korea, but at the same time feel that one of their rivals or foes must be conciliated, and do not yet know which. They will side with England, or Germany, or Russia, or the Devil,, rather than finally lose Korea. In face of them all stands the Chinese Court, afraid that it must buy some Power or other, and hesitating between Russia and Japan ; deter- mined to waste all the time postale, in order that their enemies may quarrel ; exasperated to the last degree by a demand for sixty millions, which they regard as pure plunder ; and nearly determined to abandon Pekin, and by making Sian, or another of the Western cities, the permanent capital, to reduce the International Treaty extorted from them to a mere concession of money, all the remaining arrangements becoming waste-paper. The struggle over the indemnities, though it has hardly begun, will be of the fiercest nature, and will leave behind it in every Power, except perhaps one, a sense of having been "done," while it is by no means certain that when it is over the money can be raised without an inter- national control for twenty years, in which lie the seeds of half-a-dozen wars. The position is in truth nearly in- tolerable, and is only made worse by the fact that the Powers have a genuine and a big grievance to avenge ; that all of them believe Chinese trade to be of .vital importance to their future prosperity ; and that all are in a way honest, even Russia only obeying a drift as strong as that which compelled our Viceroys, in spite of peremp- tory written orders, to subjugate all India.
What is the way out ? It is Lord Salisbury's business to tell us that, and he evidently does not know, or he would take it, with, we fully believe, the most delightful sense of relief. For ourselves, we would state frankly the lowest amount of indemnity we could accept, and retire to the coast, there to enforce, with the aid of America and Japan, the complete equality of all nations as regards trading privileges. What is the use to their trade of fortified Legations in the capital which will some day commence firing on each other, and which in any case will, if the Chinese Court abandons Pekin, only compel us in any future quarrel to send expeditions to a place to which we had much rather not go ? What do the Powers imagine will be the use of fortresses in Pekin if the Court is to reside always seven hundred miles away ? We might as well build one in Toulouse to facilitate negotiations with M. Loubet. We would leave Europe to break up China or preserve China, as it pleased, subject only to this proviso, that commercial entrance to all ports and rivers must be as free to us as the Port of London is to all mankind. What, however, we want our country- men to see is that in China their object should be a way out, and not a way deeper in. How to secure that object may be doubtful, but it is the one to be sought, and at present they are not seeking it, but are growling over vague plans for some new adventure, which is apparently to begin with a war with Russia, and end with a warning to the German Emperor that he must depart. Truly, the political sense which so often enables our people to solve the most perplexing problems is in China, for once, wholly wanting.
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