BOOKS.

TWELVE YEARS IN. CHINA.* MR SCANTH has produced an interesting and even noticeable book on a country, a clear nnderstanding of whose people and civilization has become of paramount importance to us. " War with China, upon. a more extended scale than was ever before contemplated, appears inevitable," observes our author. How

is it that, with an improved morality, superior knowledge, with a vast augmentation of physical and intellectual resources, and a boundless zeal for progress, brotherhood, and universal peace and happiness,—the subjects of our incessant self-glorification,—En- ropeans never come into contact with Asiatics, but they find their philanthropy converted into hatred, their science available only

for destructive purposes instead o4hose of construction, and their visions of felicity and peace encliffg in the waking certainties of

wide-spread misery and sanguinary war ? Is there some mys- terious fate which compels a higher civilization violently to usurp the place of a lower one ? Does the fault lie with the unen- lightened barbarian of Asia, or with the cultivated citizen of Eu- rope ? Must the weakest, collectively as well as individually, always go to the wall, and in the general struggle for existence, is the extinction of supposed inferior nations by the sword's edge or the " whiff of grape shot" of alleged superior nations, but one illustration more of the origin of species by natural selection and the preservation of favoured races ? It was, we think, thepresent Emperor of the French who profoundly said that the history of man's wars was the history or interpretation. of human progress, or words to that effect. But the conditions which made war neces- sary as a path of preparation in the past, either no longer exist or tend rapidly to disappear, as commerce promises everywhere to displace pillage, science to supersede ignorance, and humanity and piety to succeed to ferocity and superstition. In this way, the " Old Mights" will give place to the "New Mights ; " for all right is based upon power, and with the most beneficent power lies ever virtually the sovereign right.

Surrendering, then, the Past, we still have the unexplored Future as a field of operation, in which wiser and better methods of cultivating inferior civilizations may be tried. There are, no doubt, in some cases, enormous difficulties to be overcome, but none, perhaps, in any instance, which are absolutely invincible, if we can prevail on ourselves to respect the conditions of success. The ignorance, the insolence, the contemptuous disregard of the feelings of Orientals, where those feelings are naturally most acute ; the misconception of old and hallowed usages ; the exorbitant requirements ; unreasoning antipathies and inflated consequentialism of Englishmen, among our Eastern dependents or allies, must be exchanged for real knowledge of the country and people, wise toleration, sympathetic and kindly intercourse, quiet dignity, and moderation in demand.

A preliminary condition of success is the provision of means for the promotion of a good understanding, and the avoidance of positive .misconstruction, in oral communication. Yet, according to Mr. Scarth, the bane of all our official intercourse with China is the ruinous scarcity of interpreters. Thus, in the famous Arrow Lorcha affair, he ascribes the serious results that followed its seizure to the inability of the Acting-Consul, to secure the services of a person competently versed in the Chinese language. Few foreign residents make any attempt to learn it ; " and most of those who do soon tire, owing to the difficulties attending it." Mr. Scarth contends that if the Government would offer sufficient pay, to " induce more young men to come to China to study the language, more justice would be done to the public service, as well as to the young men themselves." At present, it appears that inferior mercantile assistants receive alarger salary, with the addition of board and lodging, than the official supernumerary interpreters.

Another instance of English stupidity and prejudice is the systematic vilification of the religion of the natives, and the preposterous attempt to do good by the physical subversion of the sacred Images. If such is a recognized method of propagating the Gospel, no wonder the "number of Protestant missionaries in China probably exceeds the number of converts who are not actually in their pay." Then with regard to the Coolie emigration, "as it at present exists, it is little better than a legalized slave-trade ; on board ship, the men are kept in a species of imprisonment. Sentries with loaded fire-arms are placed over them, and if they attempt to escape shoot them. Hundreds have been basely inveigled away, to live in horrible misery while working the guano, or " end their intolerable sufferings by throwing themselves over precipices into the sea." No stipulation is made " for their return at the expiration of their time of contract service, and, if a pro- prietor chooses to get a labourer into his debt, the time of service only ends with the Coolie's life." For some years past, as is well known, a civil war has raged in China. There are so to speak an Imperialist party and an Insur- gent party. The avowed policy of the British (government was one of neutrality ; yet according to our present witness, the whole influence of the English authorities has been exerted in favour of the Mandarins and the maintenance of the Imperial power ; Sir John Bowring's judgment being determined by the belief that

Tioe/ce Tears in China. By a British Resident. Pubrtshed by Constable and

Co.

our commerce with China depends on the continuance of the pre- sent dynasty, and Lord Elgin's policy being. biassed by the one- sided view of his interpreters. On Lord Elgin's mission or rather on his mode of conducting it, Mr.

Sc on strictures are very severe. He blames that nobleman for declining to communicate with the Mandarins when they offered to receive him at a place only eight miles distant from Takoo ; he contends that " the Takeo disaster would never have occurred had Tien Tian been opened as a port when the treaty was signed ; " and regrets the "golden opportunity" which Lord Elgin was ill advised enough

to throw away. The treaty neeotiated, when, in Chinese dialect, " weapons of war were constraining and there was a state of

crackling fire and rushing water," Mr. Searth regards as a mere makeshift, never intended to be carried out ; while the capture of Canton has not, he affirms, been attended with any appreciable benefit. In fact, " Lord Elgin left China without having brought any point to a definite conclusion."

We do not assert Mr. Scarth's evidence to be unimpeachable, but we accept it, as embodying the opinions of an intelligent man, who for twelve years resided in China, not in an official but commercial capacity ; and whose authorship has thus a distinctive character impressed on it. If his allegations are well-founded, our ill-success in China can be readily explained. Not, indeed, that the most exemplary conduct on our part would at once surmount all obstacles ; as long, at least, as we have to deal with stupid, stubborn, and treacherous Chinese offi- cials. According to our author, the arrogance, injustice, cruelty, and mendacity of the mandarins, are notorious. To Seu may be attributed nearly all the trouble of the empire ; he reported the rebellion quelled just as it was getting to its height ; he " pre- vented the entrance of foreigners into the city of Canton when

by treaty the English had the right of access" ; he was accessary to the murder of Governor Amaral, of Macao. Seu, in short, is a fair representative of this atrocious, extortionate, lying, and incapable class.

It is not, then, surprising that Mr. Scarth's sympathies are with the insurgents rather than the Imperialists ? As far back as 1834, Lord Napier drew attention to the extreme imbecility and moral degradation of the Tartar government. To subvert this government has long been an object of the secret societies of the Triads, the Dagger, the White Lily; the terror of the mandarins. The leaders of those societies preside over one of the two insur- rectionary movements ; for the rebellion is biform. The other movement, headed either actually or mythically by Teen-teh or Tai-ping-wang, has a moral as well as political reformation for its basis. The real or mystical Tai-ping was succeeded by Hung- sin-tsuen, as Emperor, supported by four or perhaps five assist- ant Kings. Hung-siu-tsuen was a young man of Canton, who, in conjunction with another Cantonese religionist, had converted some families in a small hamlet to that system of Christian doc- trine which they had themselves adopted ; and eo far as the doc- trine taught is concerned, there was nothing in the rebel publica- tions, thinks our author, that could be cavilled at by any liberal- minded Christian. Idolatry was discarded ; a belief in the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as the Saviour and Elder Brother was enjoined ; the Ten Commandments were enforced ; and the Protestant version of the Holy Scriptures was dissemi- nated by these religious insurgents. The rebellion became popu- lar. At one time, there was scarcely a city in the Canton province that was not in the occupation of the Revolutionists. A great defeat, however, was at last sustained at Whampoa ; to which Mr. Scarth is of opinion that the movements of H. M. S. S. Styx and the river steamer Sir Charles Forbes were unfortunately in- strumental. With this defeat " commenced the downfall of the

prestige of the insurgents in the province of Canton, and with it the most bloodthirsty acts of the mandarins." It is estimated

that more than a million perished in the province within a year after the revolution began : upwards of 100,000 must have been beheaded in the Canton field of blood, which, strange to say, is a potter's field."

Of the rise and progress of the insurrection, Mr. Searth gives a sufficiently ample account. It is evident that his sympathies lie with the Revolutionists, whom he regards as reformers and pa- triots, and that his hopes of a noble future for China are not with the Imperialists. It should be stated, however, that he allows

that the chiefs had lost much of their original enthusiasm and simple-hearted goodness ; admits " the strange mixture of good

maxims and dangerous errors introduced by the self-taught pro- pagators of a religion they scarcely understand ; " and leaves it un- decided whether we are to impute to Hung.-sin-tsuen "a haughty ambition or a conviction of his divine mission."

Mr. Searth's panacea for the suffering Chinese is the diffusion of Protestant Christianity. His view of what a sound English policy would require, comprises we believe, neutrality and such action on the part of the British Government as will lead to the withdrawal of restrictions and open up China both to our com- merce and our religion. The liberation, thus desired, is indeed of very high moment. The silk-trade alone, "from the produce of mere worms, now equals in its annual export to Europe the

value of the yearly produce of the Northumberland and Durham coal mines." The opium trade not only gives a large revenue to India but provides the Canton merchants with capital for Chinese investments. Mr. Searth denies that the import of opium has lately been a smuggling trade ; asserts that the drug is taken more as a sedative than as a narcotic, and that its general effects among the Chinese are very similar to those of wine or spirits in

England. His final decision, however, is that the trade should either be legalized or prohibited. If Mr. Scarth has little to say in favour of the Chinese Govern- ment, he has much to say in favour of the Chinese people. They have all the elements he avers calculated to make them one of the finest nations on the earth. " Their institutions are good, their maxims and moral code unobjectionable, though' the whole is neutralized by the deceit, the cupidity and cowardice of their rulers." The majority of intelligent Chinese our author affirms to be monotheists, some of whom, with a lingering super- stition, regard idols only as auxiliaries to a higher worship. Though a licentious people, they make no attempt to sanctify vice. They are remarkable for their regard of filial duty, and if mothers sell they do not often destroy their children. " Much has been said of infanticide in China, bat it appears to be exag- gerated." If they cheat, they cheat honestly, according to the rules of a recognized system of commission ; otherwise, they are rigorously upright and honourable. In the daily avocations of life, they are models of propriety and quietness : disturbances rarely occur; and drunkenness is almost unknown. They have moreover many of the qualities of good workmen. They would supply us with first-rate ship carpenters, capital pilots, deputy engi- neers and stokers ; admirable boat-builders, and gardeners, while " Chinese Sepoys," if their country ever be brought under the rule of the Anglo-Saxon, " would astonish the world if well led." Mr. Scarth, particularizing other employments, for which they are suited, includes that of assistants to medical men in hospitals, and conjectures that in their therapeutic practice we might find many useful remedies. " The Chinese have long administered arsenic as a cure for fever and ague, and European doctors now find that it is almost the only certain remedy." In Europe, too, it is becoming the practice not to bleed in cases of fever. The Chinese have always opposed it. On the other hand, that in- valuable prescription " boiled monkey soup " for rickety infants, indisposes us to an indiscriminate adoption of the Chinese pharmacopteia. In his "Journeys through the Country," Mr. Scarth saw much of the people, the men, women, and children of China. He saw the quiet old priests, contented and happy, with their camelias, strawberries, and oranges, their fan-tail pigeons and pet white mice ; he saw splendid men ; precocious children; one pretty girl nestled up in a group of flowers ; he saw a gentleman falconer with a beautiful hawk ; he saw sedate merchants flying their bird- shaped kites, which by expert guidance of the string, were made 4o imitate the movements of birds, and when he was told on one occasion that it was a kite at which he was gazing, he replied (having already got down his rifle), "To be sure it is, why not have a shot at it?" He saw, moreover, women "with the folds in their little white aprons carefully puckered out and with a fine healthy bloom on their faces." In Canton, he saw many large feet, few little ones ; for it is only " Chinese ladies by right, ladies by courtesy and oourtezan ladies, that have the real small feet and wear the diminutive shoes that are wondered at in England" ; in Foochow, he saw a good many Tartars, gentlemen who appear to be very suitably mated, for their wives " wear unmentionables," and so it is but reasonable to suppose that in catching them every man caught what was caught by his unfortunate prototype in the proverb. Among the enlightened Chinese, Mr. Scarth found a sceptical logician, who reasoning with him on the subject of religion, ob- served " I think many men are fools ; suppose one is a good man ; what is the use of his praying to God ? suppose he is a bad man God won't care for him." There are still some, however, who are not only credulous enough to pray to their gods, but carry their faith in them so far as to believe in the efficacy of punishing them when they misbehave. Thus, in a time of continued rain when the magistrates had vainly " implored the gods to be more sparing of their watery bounties," ' the priests, availing themselves of one of those moments which priests, it is said, have ever found to be most propitious (the weather looked as if it were about to clear), recommended an unfailing remedy, to put the gods out in the rum and see how 'they liked it ! This was accordingly done and fair weather followed !

Mr. Scarth informs us, in his introductory notice, that the ob- ject which he has had in view in publishing these experiences of a twelve years' residence in the Celestial Empire, is to " lead some to think better of the Chinese as a people and less highly of the mandarins and officials than they did before." We have thought it right that he should be heard in favour of his clients ; he re- presents the " Audi alteram partem " principle, which should never be forgotten ; and in the present relations of Great Britain with China, patient inquiry should at least accompany if it can- not precede energetic action.