REFORMS IN CHINA.
IT is some time since we heard anything enlightening about the progress of reforms in China, but this week the Peking and Shanghai correspondents of the Times give us material information. So far as we can judge, two things are necessary above all others to the salvation of the Manchu dynasty, the fusion of the ruling caste of the Manchus with the rest of the Chinese, and the settlement of the Royal succession. The central Government is notoriously weak, and if the dynasty were more firmly seated there might be some glimmer of hope for the reforms which are repeatedly promised. The Manchu caste, like all the Tartar victors who have ruled the Chinese people, is going downhill—if it be not already at the bottom—owing to the ignoble sloth in which it lives. Only its mingling with the ordinary Chinese can save it from being quite emasculated, and eventually overwhelmed. Only that, too, can confer avowedly on the ordinary Chinese some of the prestige which belongs exclusively to the Manchus by tradition and custom, but which already belongs to the rest of the nation, in its own belief, by right of might. If the Manchus do not give before it is too late, the ordinary Chinese will assuredly take, and that violently, before the chapter is ended. The Dowager- Empress enjoys a good deal of popularity, and even veneration, but no one can say whether those feelings would reappear in the people if a Monarch should succeed who appealed to them in a less personal way. If the Dowager-Empress and her advisers have chosen a successor, they have said nothing. In any case, the matter will have to be settled soon, and the Dowager-Empress will retire in favour of an Heir-Apparent, unless, of course, the Emperor should be brought from the anomalous position where he now bangs between heaven and earth, like Mohammed's coffin, and be restored to his honours.
About a year ago Edicts were issued which professed to make straight the path for Constitutional government. They proposed the reform of the administrative system at Peking, and later in the provinces. One may safely laugh the second half of the proposal out of court. Nothing good will ever happen in the provinces until something creditable is done at Peking ; and the first half of the condition is not within sight of achievement. As we have suggested, all these things depend, and indeed wait, upon fundamental changes in the relations of the races within the Empire. New blood might create a new enthusiasm. It is idle to abolish corruption by Edict while the privi- leges of the Manchus remain in their present form. Privilege means corruption. The Edicts of a year ago were thought by many to be the best and latest token of the Dowager-Empress's sincerity. Others doubted. After a year, what can be said for the Edicts ? The Shanghai correspondent of the Times remarks that a year is a very short time in China. This is true of a country where every proposal for reform is a blank cheque which can only be filled in by popular feeling. If popular feeling had continued, and the progressive officials who were dominant when the Edicts were launched had remained in power, something might have got itself done by this time. But the progressive officials were manceuvred out of office, and public opinion relaxed, perhaps because it knew agitation was useless for the time being, as its mouthpiece bad been smashed. " The execution of the Reform Edicts," we are told, " is as remote as that of the Mackay Treaty." And again : " At no time in recent history has the conflict of parties and the frank corruption of their politics been so marked at Peking as during the past twelvemonth." The Censors have never been so busy in their denunciations ; but these have been purchased first by this faction and then by that. So great is the unrest that a Censor has suggested that reforms should not be introduced yet into the provinces, as the provinces would be unable to bear so great a burden ! The impeachment of Prince Ching, who is still the highest official in Peking (President of the Grand Council), is a first-rate illustration of how China works under the impetus of reform. Prince Ching and his son were denounced, as the Shanghai correspondent of the Times tells us, by a Censor, and were accordingly impeached. In this case, if the Censor was "bought," he was apparently bought to tell the truth. Prince Ching was accused of accepting a large bribe, and his son of accepting the gift of a singing- girl, from Tuan, the Governor-Designate of Heilung Chiang. Prince Ching instantly began to figure before the public as an Aristides for righteousness. An inquiry was ordered,—it was carefully stated that Prince Ching himself had insisted on it. The terms of the Censor's accusation were published in the Peking Gazette,—it was given out that Prince Ching had himself valiantly ordered their publication. The inquiry was held, and the Prince and his son were absolved. The Censor, it seemed, had been too censorious ; had, in fact, spoken without evidence. His zeal, it was pronounced, had outrun discretion ; all was well with the world of Peking officials. The Censor was dismissed. But every mule-driver, we are told, knows that although Prince Ching asked for the publication of the accusation, he also asked that it should be withheld for ten days while the pieces de conviction. (including the singing-girl herself) were removed from Peking. The most important of the Edicts of a year ago created the Board of Communications to control steam navigation, the railways and posts and telegraphs. The progressive official who tried to make these services as efficient as he was exhorted to do was impeached and sent elsewhere. What the correspondent sardonically calls " the casualty list " of the other officials of the Board is an intimidation to all reformers, call it a strange series of accidents though you may. One President and one Vice-President are dead—the President was said to have died of "suppressed rage "—one Vice-President was impeached and transferred, one Vice-President was impeached and cashiered, while the present junior Vice-President was nearly drowned when coining from the South to take up his appointment. All the men who really understood their work have been got rid of, and the large staff of secretaries and clerks exist apparently for nothing but the enjoyment of their emoluments. The postal service alone is decently administered. It is a discouraging record.
The Peking correspondent of the Times takes up the tale a few days later than his colleague, and we ought to say that his view is more hopeful. New appointments had just been made to the Grand Council, on which there are now as many Chinese as Manchus, and he thinks that they unquestionably strengthen the central authority. If the central authority feels itself firmly established, the Edicts may become something more than a dead. letter. But how can a Government hope to make head- way when intrigues are the inevitable response to a display of confidence ? The correspondent, without venturing to be too sanguine, simply puts the question : Now will the Manchu pension fund be abolished ? We doubt it ourselves. The old customs are rooted very deep. But as we said at the beginning, it is absolutely necessary that the distinctions between the Manchus and the ordinary Chinese should disappear. Every Manchu is a " Banner- man " ; that is to say, he is registered under the name of a particular banner, and is in many respects placed above the law. About a, quarter of the Chinese revenues go to support in comparative idleness this soldiery of the ruling caste. The Chinese become continually more conscious of the intolerable burden, and it is not to be wondered at that there are ugly rumours, which. occasionally terrify the Dowager-Empress, that the Chinese are plotting the over- throw of the Manchu caste. The victors have become parasites. If the Manchus are to be saved from them- selves, they must be allowed to take part in commerce, and the recent sanction they received legally to marry Chinese wives ought probably to be extended to the Imperial house itself. A Manchu-Chinese Emperor might then one day be the symbol of perfectly united races. But as things are the Dowager-Empress has still the duty before her of choosing her successor. The Shanghai correspondent of the Times says that Pu-lun, who is eligible by birth, would be a good choice. He was sent as a Commissioner to the St. Louis Exhibition in America, and has presumably digested ideas outside his own country. At all events, it is to be hoped for the sake of China that a mature and competent Prince will be chosen. A long regency during the infancy of an Emperor would be an invitation to more intrigue than ever.
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