THE TIENTSIN MASSACRE.* WE commend this book to the serious

attention of all who wish to gain clear ideas on the origin and character of the outrages by which Tientsin has been recently disgraced ; and on the question connected with it, a question affecting alike our interests as a great manufacturing and trading people,—our prestige as the dominant European power in the East,—and our character as a nation which desires to take the lead in philanthropic enterprise, —the question, how are we to "secure a permanent peace with China ?"

1Vithout committing ourselves to endorse all the views of Dr. Thin, we commend his book, because it is short, clear, full of valuable information, written generally in a temperate spirit, and proceeds from the pen of a gentleman long resident at Shanghae, where he was well known as a leading physician, personally dis- interested in the matters which have occasioned the difference of view, manifested of late years, between the merchants resident in China and the Government at home, upon the course of policy to be pursued there ; yet who has studied, with every advantage of local knowledge, the causes of this difference, and the consequences of the course actually adopted ; and who writes under a deep sense of the magnitude of the interests at stake, and with a definite idea of the plan which should be adopted for their pro- tection. We proceed to state, for the most part in Dr. Thiu's own words, what that plan is and on what grounds it is based :—

" Our footing in China," says Dr. Thin, "has been sacrificed to a desire to act towards the Chinese as if they wore civilized, and to treat only with the Government at Pekin, as if it represented China as the Czar does Russia ; whereas the Chinese are not civilized in the true sense of the word, and their Central Government exists only as a figment of the imagination." (p. 61). "The Chinese made the first step out of utter savagery to civilization more than 2,000 years ago, but they have never got any further ; and the idea of dealing with China as with any other civilized state is founded upon an entire misapprehension of its present condition." (p. 66). Individually, "the Chinese are industrious, sober, and enterprising. They are excellent merchants, but there is a negative quality for which they are very remarkable, and that is their ignorance ; absolute ignorance of everything that takes place beyond their immediate place of residence, is the condition of the whole population of China." "There is not," we shudder at the thought, "a newspaper in the Empire (thePelein Gazette is only a catalogue of appointments). The birth or death of an Emperor, or a groat rebellion, is almost the only kind of informa- tion that conld spread over the country. Pestilence, a famine, or flood, destroys several millions of people, and nothing is known of it very far from where it happened. They get so little intelligence, that wWm it does reach them they cannot weigh it. Hence the words, 'the rebels are. coming' will make half a province leave their homes panic-stricken, or a goblin story will frighten a hundred thousand people out of their wits."

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For not only are the Chinese very ignorant, but very supersti- tious. "They believe themselves surrounded by spiritual beings of evil disposition, whose designs it is necessary to frustrate," a belief of which Dr. Thin gives several instances of amusing absurdity, and which appears to affect persons whose social posi- tion ought, one would suppose, to raise them above the reach of such influences.

Now, from this union of ignorance and superstition, the Chinese population are the easy dupes of any rumour, however ridiculous, which those in authority may choose to spread for their own purposes ; and if by this means they have been moved to acts of violence, a characteristic "shared by them with other Asiatic tribes," comes in to complete the evil, namely, "their astonishing cruelty when their passions are excited to assault and bloodshed, though associated with a great reluctance to resort to personal violence." (p. 25). And, unfortunately for those who have to deal with the Chinese, the men in authority, the local Mandarins, instead of enlightening the ignorance and calming the fears of the population, have shown themselves ready to work on this ignorance and these fears, in order to promote hostility to the foreigner :- "The Chinese people," says Dr. Thin" are not naturally hostile to foreigners. This has, indeed, been asserted by the paid agents of the Chinese Government ; and they have, unfortunately, been believed to such an extent, that I suppose those badly informed about China will be astonished to find it denied. It has been denied, however, by the whole of the Europeans who have travelled in China, and by nearly all who reside there," —a statement which Dr. Thin confirms by numerous references to particular cases, including his own experience, "which," he says, "is sufficient to give me the most perfect confidence in the kindness to be met with from the Chinese, both in districts where foreigners occasionally go, and where I should be the first foreign visitor." (p. 21).

* he Causes of the Late DisturLanees in China, and How to Secure Permanent Peace. By George Thin, MD. Vice-President of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Edinburgh and London W. Blackwood and Sons. 1870.

But if the Chinese, as a people, are not averse to foreign inter- course, the Mandarins are

"From the first they have shown the greatest jealousy' of foreigners, and everything foreign. Whenever they come in contact with them they feel their own inferiority, and the consciousness of it galls them. Their hatred has not been lessened by the fact of the merchants who deal with foreigners having acquired wealth, and a dis- position to resent extortion ; and a strength of character of which they stand in awe. Their hatred, always blind, has of late become active ; and there is evidence to show that for some years back there have beets some attempts at political combination (an unusual thing among the Chinese) to drive foreigners out of the country." (p. 35.)

Now these Mandarins are the true governors of China. "Though nominally under the Pekin Government, they are really independ- ent in their own spheres. If they can send part of the revenue tax to the capital once a year, and can prevent open rebellion, they are practically uncontrolled, especially in the distant provinces, scarcely recognizing even in name the authority of the Emperor,' whose proclamations against the cultivation of the poppy they will issue, while "they levy regular duties on it, and grant licences to establishments for the control of the trade." (p. 36.)

"The prestige of tho Emperor's name is now almost useless for the practical purposes of government. It is openly defied in many parts of the country by the Mohammedans, and ignored (except theoretically) nearly everywhere. ... Where government exists at all, it is due to the firmness, wealth, and popularity of the governor of the province. The word of the Emperor is powerless over a great extent of the disorganized) territory, composed of the eighteen provinces." (p. 39.) To this state of things—a central authority practically power- less, with which we have entered into diplomatic relations, and from which we claim security for the exercise of rights secured to- ns by treaties, as if it could enforce obedience to its orders—local governors, practically irresponsible, averse to the observance of these treaties, and unscrupulous in the means which they employ to frustrate them—and a population, excitable from their ignorance and superstition to acts of violence, and brutally cruel when once excited, Dr. Thin traces a succession of outrages, which he enumerates, increasing in magnitude with the impunity found to attend them, till they have culminated in one so atrocious as to force upon the public the conviction that "something must be done" to secure a guarantee against their recurrence. What shall this " something " be ? Dr. Thin does not hesitate to say it should be the revival of that system of local and instant action which makes the Mandarin in each district responsible for the safety of the foreigner, who, by the general laws of the Empire, has the- right to live, and trade there ; and forces him to feel that crimes of which he is the secret instigator will meet with speedy punishment. (p. 66). "An intelligent Chinaman at Tientsin, speaking of the massacre to an Euglishman, said, 'A few years ago no one dare touch the dog of a foreigner. Now foreigners themselves are killed with impunity.' The former times must be brought back. It is useless for us to attempt to fathom the labyrinth of plot and falsehood which conceals the clue to these demonstrations against foreigners ; because we can never get at the truth. But we know that the Mandarins can prevent their occur- ing if they choose, and they will choose if their own safety is in- volved. (p. 64.) This course of action must seem arbitrary ;" but, "it is in strict accordance with Chinese customs and ideas of justice. In China a Mandarin is held by his superiors to be re- sponsible for the good conduct of the people of the district under- his charge. His power is absolute so long as it exists, and while he is in power he should be held responsible for Europeans as well as for Chinamen." (p. 67.)

But how is this responsibility to be enforced ? Dr. Thin replies, by forming a "fleet of gunboats, which might be built, and equipped in China, and manned by Chinamen under European, officers, with a small number of experienced seamen and gunners. The men, if regularly paid, would fight against their own country- men as readily as against those of any other nation ; and that China- men, when led by Europeans, can fight well, was shown by the- successes of Colonel Gordon." (p. 68). The cost of maintaining this flotilla Dr. Thin would throw on the Chinese, whom he pro- poses to compensate by charging it with the "suppression of the swarms of pirates that infest the islands on the Chinese coast," which "would pay the expense ten times over in saving to native commerce." (p. 70).

It may be objected to this proposal that it is a scheme for pre- serving peace by perpetually sowing the seeds of war. But to this objection Dr. Thin replies, "From the time the Chinese know that the blood of foreigners will bring down instant vengeance, there will be no more bloodshed, and no more Chinese wars." (p. 67). "The Mandarins, though they do not fear Pekin, fear a I gunboat." (p.-65), and if such a fleet were equipped and ready, and permitted to act when necessary, it is very unlikely that it. would ever be required to fire a gun." (p. 69.)

Such is Dr. Thin's plan. It seems to us to deserve serious con- sideration, but to its successful action, two conditions, on which Dr. Thin does not insist, appear to us indispensable. 1. That the establishment of this armed force should be accompanied by the formation of a tribunal, which would guard against its abuse. 2. That the establishment of this jurisdiction should supersede dip- lomatic intercourse with Pekin. Dr. Thin, indeed, is so far from contemplating such a change, that he proposes compelling the Chinese to place Pekin in telegraphic communication with all the treaty ports and with Kiatcha, on the borders of Mongolia and Siberia, in order that the ambassadors, in cases of emer- gency, might communicate with the authorities at home, and obtain advice without a fatal delay. (p. 69). But, to say nothing of the hindrance which such reference must probably interpose to that instant punishment on which the Doctor, as we have seen, insists, the combination of diplomatic intercourse with the assump- tion of such a right to self-redress as he advocates, appears to us as impracticable as that of oil and vinegar. The claim to make the Mandarins responsible to a power by which they are not appointed, for offences committed against persons who are not the -subjects of the power by whom they are appointed, is rested by Dr. Thin on the ground, and could be justified, only upon the ground that the central authority is too weak to make itself obeyed ; and that the Mandarins must therefore be dealt with as if they were the persons from whom redress must be looked for in the last resort. But then why keep up the farce of representation at the Court of a power, which is powerless to restrain the ill-doings of its nominal subjects? If we are driven to take the task of redressing our wrongs into -our own hands, why vex the Majesty of Pekin with the presence of our " barbarian " Envoys? Better far to leave him to the un- disturbed satisfaction of refusing, as he has just done, to receive as kis equal the son of the Empress of India, while for the protec- tion of her subjects we exercise over his the authority which he is too feeble to assert.

Bat if we thus disregard the theoretical duties of political justice, let us the more carefully provide for their substantial ful- filment. That an action such as Dr. Thin urges may not degener- ate into an arbitrary dictation, it should be exercised for the _protection of foreigners generally, and through the intervention of some Court, constituted in China, where all the foreign nations whose subjects were resident there should be represented, and whose decisions would, therefore, be free from the suspicion of partiality towards the subjects of any one nation. The material for constituting such a tribunal exists, we apprehend, in the consuls of these nations, who might deliberate, as a sort of jury, tinder the presidency of some able civilian, whom England, as the power most largely interested, might properly nominate. The massacre at Tientsin furnishes a reasonable ground for demanding from the nominal government of China the recognition of the authority of such a tribunal, and the consent to the establishment -of the force required to give weight to its decisions ; and might thus inaugurate an era of peaceful intercourse with that country, to the great benefit of the Chinese, as well as of ourselves.

In regard to the massacre itself, one thing appears perfectly clear,—if Dr. Thin's facts are as worthy of trust as we believe them to be,—that this outrage did not arise from any popular hatred of missionary enterprise, Catholic or Protestant. Dr. Thin is obviously no zealous partizan of missionary effort ; but after a careful consideration of the position of the missionaries, which forms an interesting part of his work, he comes to the conclusion that the charges against the missionaries are simply pretexts used by the Mandarins to carry out their object of getting rid of foreigners altogether. To-day it has suited them to call forth the latent cruelty of the Chinese mob, by hounding them on against the French Sisters of Charity, with whom they probably thought that the English and Americans would feel little sympathy, from their religious differences. But "what is their fate to-day may be ours to-morrow,"—the blow now directed against the French missionary, if left unpunished, may soon fall on the British mer- chant, and annihilate an export trade which has risen from 1524,198 in 1840, to 16,574,400, on the average of the five years 1865-1869, and which, if not hampered by the hindrances thrown in its way by the Mandarins, would probably soon attain much larger proportions.

It becomes England, as the greatest civilized power in the East, to take the lead in asserting, for the general benefit of the whole civilized world, that protection of life and property to foreign residents in China, from which her own subjects would derive the most conspicuous benefit, but which would confer on the Chinese themselves benefits even more important; for if there is an equality of exchange between us in things material, in things spiritual we have undoubtedly much more to give than to receive. Dr. Thin truly says that the interests of England in China "far exceed those of all the other powers put together." Her position in the East calls on her to be foremost in a cause which will conduce to the benefit of her Eastern Empire, as well as to that of her people at home. We trust, and the attitude recently taken by our Government appears to indicate, that England, "who expects every man to do his duty," will not, on this occasion, be wanting in her own.