OUR POLICY IN CHINA.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your interesting article on the possible future of our rela- tions with China opens up a wide field for reflection and thought. Occupied as the public mind has been of late with one subject, there is something peculiarly refreshing in the recollection that there are other countries beside Turkey well worth thinking about. To Englishmen, the present state and future prospects of China are deeply interesting. It may seem to many of your readers the • very height of absurdity to affirm this, but it is nevertheless true. The majority of them connect China—politically, at least—with the much-abused and less-understood " opium" question,—a question which, because misunderstood, is generally ranked amongst those about which " the less said the better." But at this moment, when the struggle between capital and labour is reach- ing, as it is in the North of England, such portentous dimen- sions, our relations with China are of the utmost importance, and ought to excite far greater interest than they do. We have heard enough lately of respect for " Treaty stipulations" and of "British interests," but no country has ever so carelessly looked after either as England, when she has failed, as she has lately lamentably failed, as regards China, to insist upon the observance of the one or upon the protection of the other. We have allowed the Chinese to ride any amount of coaches and horses through our later Treaties with her, and we have shamefully, and to me unaccountably, neglected the interests of our manufacturers and merchants. Indeed, the language of diplomacy in regard to China has been most extra- ordinary, and in strange contradiction to that so lately held with reference to Russia and Turkey. When the Chinese Govern- ment has violated Treaty obligations—and it would be difficult to say when and where she has faithfully observed them—it has been said,—" How can you expect a country to observe a treaty that has been wrung from it at the point of the bayonet ?" And when British merchants have vainly urged that their trade was being ruined, the reply has invariably been that " diplomacy has something else to do than enable merchants to accumulate dollars." So easy is it to find excuses for not doing what we are careless about, and for doing other things that we very much care about. The fact is, Sir, that diplomacy adores triumphs which abound in what our American cousins call " bunkum," and takes very little heed of those which result in advantage to such vulgar mat- ters as "trade." I do not hesitate to say that if one tithe of the energy which has been wasted on that extremely clumsy piece of diplomacy, the "Treaty of Paris," and if one tithe of the noise made about "British interests" in the East had been made about "British interests" in China, the mills of Preston, Blackburn, and other towns in the North would have been working full time, and the operatives receiving full wages.
In your article you allude to the success attending Russian diplomatic efforts in China, and to the extension of Russian trade in that country. You are right ; while we are squabbling about a wretched point of etiquette, or seeking to excuse a treaty stipu,, lation about opium ; or worse still, allowing ourselves to be hoodwinked by Chinese mendacity or promises to observe treaties; or condoning poor Margary's murder, by receiving and writing sentimental despatches ; or making a convention by which we legalise infringements of treaty on the part of the Chinese Government, and in which we " swop " rights against wrongs, the Russians (as they acknowledge themselves) "stand no such nonsense," but by your leave, or without your leave, teach the Chinese Government the wisdom, or at least the expediency, of honesty. They do this also very effectively, by appro- priating provinces and establishing centres of commerce in the very heart of the Flowery Land, as a just punishment for the constant evasion of Treaty obligations, at which the Chinese are such adepts. Of course, my statements may be met by the answer that the statistics of imports and ex- ports from and to England show that our trade is on the increase. As I happen to know how such statistics are compiled, I do not place much faith in them, but I should like to know what " profit " the trade shows. British manufactures are sold at a dead loss in China, and tea and silk are sold under cost price in England, the loss in both cases falling on the English manufac- turer and merchant. Increase of a trade so carried on is only increase in loss, and if such increase is the result of anxiety about Treaty stipulations or care for " British interests," the less mani- fested for either the better. But the fault, in fact, lies deeper. Our whole policy as regards China is based on sentiment and ignorance. We have got it into our diplomatic heads that the Government of China must be maintained and supported, whether it promotes or seeks the ruin of " British in- terests ;" that treaty rights must not be insisted on, whether the not insisting on them ends in the ruin of British trade or not ; that bad as regards the people of China and faithless as regards foreigners that Government is, it is better than some other problematical government. What we did with Turkey after the Crimean war, we have been doing and are doing with China now,—we are listening to promises, condoning flagrant crimes and violations of treaty, and turning the other cheek to the hand of the miter ; and what we have reaped in Turkey, we shall shortly reap in China. We arc complacently suffering, nay, helping, our trade to get into the hands of the Chinese, as we suffered, nay, helped, our trade in Turkey to get into the hands of the Perote Greeks. We are strengthening the hands of the Chinese Government, teaching and aiding it to become a Power, not for good, but for evil, by arming its troops with breechloaders and filling its ports with gunboats. The effect will be that, having put down rebellion, the natural result of the grossest and most venal administration, next to that of the Turks, in the world, it will then be able to carry out its grand, traditional scheme of social, political, and commercial isolation with every one, except the too energetic friend on its western and northern frontier ; and however much the people of China—and they all do most sincerely desire to extend their trade with England—may complain,, the Chinese Government, like the Turkish Government, will have so improved the opportunity as to be strong enough to treat such complaints with contempt, or to meet them with " massacres," and the re- sult will be that whereas now our representations are met by promises, hereafter they will be met by distinct refusals.
There is no worse policy than the attempt to bolster up an effete dynasty or a degenerate government by such adventitious aids as loans, arms of precision, ironclads, military and naval instructors, &c. Disguise it as we may, we are in doing so but helping tyranny, assisting oppression, and indefinitely postponing the natural development of nations. We have seen the result of dry- nursing Turkey, and if we continue in our sentimental policy of petting China, we shall gain the same reward. For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that if, instead of pursuing the course we have pursued, we had rigorously insisted on the Chinese Government respecting and carrying out Treaty obligations, if we had found it in the interests of the millions cursed with its rule to develop the internal resources of the country, to have, in the interests of mankind, brought her institutions more in con- formity to the wants and necessities of the age in which her people as well as ourselves live, to build railways, make roads, and permit foreigners to travel into and reside in the interior, we should not have had strikes to contend with at home. It might have been necessary to have made some show of force,— nay, it might have been necessary to have used force. Well, and what then ? Will any one in his senses now say that if we had ,,_ alone and singly coerced, or joined Europe in coercing Turkey, it would not have resulted in unmixed good, or that it would not have spared a million of lives, millions of treasure, and an immense amount of bad blood, ill-feeling, foolish action and in- action, and a great deal of foolish talk? There is such a thing as carrying sentiment and weakness too far, and if we continue in our present course, and for vigorous, well-defined action, founded on a true conception of " British interests," rest satisfied with despatches, procrastination, lies, missions, abortive inquiries, con- ciliating and half-peccavi conventions, we shall kill British trade in China ; and in doing so, with an unlimited market staring us in the face, perpetuate the struggle now going on in our northern counties. We are playing the game of Russia in China as for the last fifty years we have played it in Turkey, and for no other reason than that we have got it into our wise heads that dynasties and governments are better allies than nations and peoples, and that it is our duty to support the former, if even in the process we have to eat any amount of dirt, and jeopardise the best in- terests of our own country. Vigour may lead now and then to short wars, but after our experience of the last two years, we must have learnt that weakness infallibly leads to long and disas- trous wars, the limits of which it is impossible to define or fore- cast ; and such wars imperil, not only the relations of one or two nations, but endanger the peace of the world, and by the armaments they render necessary keep mankind in a constant state of ferment, hindering development and obstructing civili-
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