TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD CHARLES BERESFORD'S PLAN. LORD CHARLES BERESFORD has published in the rough his plan for the settlement of the Far East; and there are reasons, apart from his personality, which make it worth the while of politicians to consider that plan with some seriousness. Lord Charles when not discussing naval affairs is hardly entitled to be thought a statesman, but he knows the coast of China, he has taken great pains to ascertain the views of prominent Chinese Mandarins, and he is able to defend his opinion when formed with a breezy kind of eloquence which the English people like. He will, therefore, on his return be an influential speaker on Chinese affairs, and he has another claim to be heard which will make him still more important. His definite policy gives form and substance to the indefinite policy of large sections of those among our own people who are interested in the question. He proposes that England, America, Germany, and Japan should form a league in the Far East, should guarantee the "integrity and independence" of China, should organise for her an army of two hundred thousand men, and of course should, if invasion is attempted, drive back the invaders by force. In return China should open her ports, rivers, and railways, when they are made, to the commerce of all nations, and grant unlimited freedom of mining to the subjects of the guaranteeing Powers. That is a perfectly intelligible proposal, and expresses, as we believe, the inner desires of very powerful classes,—of all, or nearly all, the white men who deal with China, whether British, American, or German, of all whose first idea of modern international politics is that Russia must be driven back or she will conquer the world, and of all those old Tories and Whigs who think that Great Britain should never speak without an implied menace of enforcing her words with shot and steel. These classes taken together are very numerous, and about China they make so audible an outcry, that they have the support of a considerable section alike of the Press and of those who, without being representatives, are " influential."
We believe the plan to be as futile and needless as it is immoral. We have not the power, to begin with, to " guarantee " China against an attack by land. We can guarantee her coasts, if that is of any use, but we cannot guarantee her Western frontier after the Trans-Siberian Railway is completed. Supposing the Russians seriously to intend conquest by land, who is to defeat the great regular army and the hordes of brave barbarians whom she would urge forward upon Pekin ? The enter- prise would require at least a hundred thousand good troops, to be locked up in the interior of China for two years, and who is to provide them ? Is it Great Britain, which has not a. man to spare, and which would feel through all her veins that a Russian conquest of Northern China indefinitely increased the security of the Indian Empire, by at once absorbing Russian means and satisfying Russian ambition ? Is it Germany, which would thus for the vaguest and most distant of objects at once bring on the long-dreaded double attack on both her frontiers at once ? Is it America, which is seeking trade only, and has no army to throw away ? Or is it Japan, which has soldiers, no doubt some of them very good, but which has never encountered a European army in the field, which has an incurable dislike of China, and which in practice would try to obtain Corea instead of driving Russians out of Manchuria? The work would be left to China herself, and her new-made Army, which, however obedient it might be, would require half a century of victory to make it equal, man for man, to Russian troops. The Chinese are not the cowards •they are often called, but they dislike and despise the military life ; they have neither patriotism nor creed for which to die fighting ; and to suppose that they will equal Sikhs or Osmaulis is an assumption contradicted by their whole history. After enormous expenditure and loss of life, and perhaps a great war in Europe itself, China would be defeated, and would either throw herself into the arms of Russia--always the reserved policy of the Mandarins—or would surrender all the territory in dispute, as well as all that the Russian statesmen thought it would be expedient to possess. We will say nothing of the infinitely more complex difficulty, the guarantee which we must give to China against internal rebellion, and only ask for what we are to do all this. Simply that we may trade under laws made by yellow men, who love seclusion and hate inter- ference, instead of by white men, who in their own dominions at this moment allow trade, keep contracts, and buy and sell everything they can. The Russians have no more power, or will, to shut us out of a Russian Newchwang than out of Riga or Odessa. They are guided in such matters, like all other human beings, by their interest, and their interest is to make their vast Asiatic dominion pay, which it will not do until it can export freely to all the world. If it exports it must import, unless, indeed, Russians, unlike the remainder of man- kind, the generous English included, like to give their goods away. But stay, we are forgetting the big bribe ; we are to work the Chinese mines. That seems rather a poor reward for guaranteeing barbarians against foes external and internal, but we will let that pass. We will grant that Lord Charles Beresford has new evidence of amazing mineral wealth in China ; we will grant for an instant that England, America, and Germany have a right to sell their children's lives for hire; and still we may ask why we should not work the mines without a guarantee. The Mandarins want royalties as much as Mr. Kruger does, and if they can protect foreign mining captains against the wrath of their ignorant populace, angry that the earth spirits should be disturbed, what prevents their doing it now ? Indeed, unless somebody is forging telegrams with a view to company promotion, they are doing it now to an extent which, if the speculators in concessions are honest, will tax their brains, as well as their resources, to the very utmost. We shall not, in fact, gain a penny by fighting that we cannot gain by reasonably liberal diplomacy.
And finally we have called the project "immoral," and we repeat the epithet. Why, in the name of historic decency, are we to prop up this hideous Empire, with its endless cruelties and treacheries, which is governed by a bureaucracy so completely without conscience or capacity that no one is safe under their rule, and that they keep down incessant insurrections • by lavish executions ? Pashas are worse than Mandarins because they dare be worse, but for no other reason. We all admit that the Government of Chinais so bad, its personages so corrupt, its institutions so rotten that it deserves to perish, and yet we are to prohibit its dying by lending to its rulers the irresistible strength of our civilisation. If we cannot make a strong army in China the whole plan fails, while if we can the very first use to which that army ;ill be put is to put down resistance excited by tyranny and peculations. Who has given us the right to use our strength for such a purpose as that ? We shall be told that the Ambassadors of the guaranteeing Powers will prevent oppression, but how are they to do it ? The oppression is only fully visible when insurrection follows, and if we allow insurrection because it is just, what becomes of our guarantee ? Have we not had enough experience of what comes of bolstering up one evil despotism that we should undertake another and much more extensive one? We shall be told that we do the work in India successfully, and it is true ; but that is because we govern India, hold ourselves responsible for all that occurs there, and can, and do, make that respon- sibility real. Are we prepared to place China under the direct government of a condominium presided over by four Powers, one of which is pagan and three of which will be utterly inexperienced, while two at least will be jealous of each other's superiority ? They would quarrel in a week, and the result would be the very partition which the Chinese statesmen and Lord Charles Beresford are endeavouring to avert. It seems to us that a clear understanding with the Czar, based on the right of Russia to reach the sea, is a far better plan for our interests, and that the alternative is to wait and see if China, after some great internal convulsion, cannot revive. • She is not attacking us, the Russian railway is not built, and we can wait until we see a little more clearly what is going to happen. Any Government which China spon- taneously threw up, and especially any Government controlled by her own reformers, would be better for her, and therefore for the world, than the present Govern. ment propped up by external force, and just so far con- trolled that, as in the case of Turkey, the West would be responsible for its crimes, yet powerless to prevent them.
Previous page
