NEW CHINA FOR OLD. T HE Peking correspondent of the Times
stands alone among English journalists in his intimate acquaint- ance with Chinese character and Chinese policy. The long telegram from him which appeared on Tuesday is more than an ordinary example of the qualities with which we are familiar. He has been absent from China for nine months, and it is almost a commonplace that the knowledge which a foreign observer gains by long residence in a country needs to be tested from time to time by distance, and by the new sense of proportion which distance brings with it. In this case the correspondent's return was hastened to some extent by the pictures drawn of the Chinese situation in some American and European journals. It is not wonderful that these pictures should give an alarmist view of the situation. in the matter of China Europe is in the position of the burnt child. She remem- bers the " Boxer " outbreak and the siege of the Legations, and she remembers also how unprepared such warnings as she had had of these things found, and left, her. In that vast Empire some dissatisfaction with the foreigner is always smouldering, and the ordinary purveyor of news- paper telegrams is hardly the man to discriminate what is deep-seated from what is superficial. It is the interval which divides the correspondent of the Times from the ordinary practitioner in the art of special correspondence that makes his reappearance at Peking so welcome. English interest in Chinese affairs is too keen for the reopening of the supply of sane and sober information to be other than a matter of genuine satisfaction.
The first instalment of news that reaches us from this source is decidedly encouraging. China has for some time past been an object of much uneasiness, but we are assured that for these exaggerated fears there is no real foundation. It is true that this assurance might with advantage have been somewhat differently worded. The position of foreigners in China, we learn, "is not more in- secure than at any time during the past fifty years." But there have been moments in the past fifty years when the position of foreigners in China was very insecure indeed. We take the meaning, however, to be that it is not more insecure than it has normally been during that period. Absolute security depends upon conditions which are but imperfectly satisfied in China. It will not be realised until the inhabitants, native as well as foreign, can depend upon the due administration of justice and police. But the recent outbreaks have been purely local, and for the most part they have been properly dealt with either by the local or the Imperial authorities. Trade improves, the Custom revenue of last year being by far the largest on record, and an accelerated postal service is carried on with- out interruption throughout the Empire. Moreover, this improvement goes on in face of much that might well irritate the Chinese against the foreigner. The action of some of the Powers in 1900 showed them no further removed from barbarism than the Chinese themselves, and to this day China is paying indemnity claims which the Times correspondent calls grossly unjust. These things, however, count for little in view of the changed temper of the Chinese Government. We are already far from the days when the Dowager-Empress sympathised with the " Boxer " movement, and waited only for its success to give it full recognition. At that time the hostility of the Government to foreigners was only kept in check by the fear of consequences. They were confronted by the standing uncertainty whether the European Powers were more dangerous in war or in peace. In the one case they exacted indemnities ; in the other they annexed territory under the name of concessions. The latter process is now at an end, and all that the Chinese Government have to fear is the charge of complicity in some anti-foreign out- break, with the money payments which might be exacted if the charge were made good. So long as they give no occa- sion for this they are safe. The Japanese victories - have made "China for the Chinese" a reasonable, because a possible, policy. Japan will be as ready as China herself to forbid any extension of European influence over specific portions of Chinese territory, but even Japan might find it difficult to interfere on behalf of an ally who had placed herself unmistakably in the wrong. When China "has everything to gain by keeping at peace with foreigners," we can well believe that the slightest disturbance causes her profound uneasiness. Slight disturbances, however, do, and will, occur, and there is a natural disposition to make too much of them. "Before the Boxer trouble the tendency was to disregard evidence and to minimise insecurity; now the tendency, quite natural, is to exaggerate suspicion." Do what the Chinese Government will, they cannot wholly lay these fears to rest. They have their duties to their own subjects to consider as well as those they owe to foreign residents, and if they allow themselves to put the first of these too much into the background, they may, by exciting native fears, make the discharge of, the second more difficult. It is of great importance that those Colonial Governments which have anything to do with Chinese immigrants should bear this fact in mind. Hitherto they have regarded them as an element in the population that might safely be passed over. If they were discontented, the Colonial Government might find themselves compelled to take exceptional precautions against acts of violence, whether isolated or concerted, but there was no need to look beyond the actual area, of unrest. To-day the situation has greatly changed. China has become a Power to be reckoned with. The Times correspondent says that the republication in the native papers of certain election cartoons "has had a deplorable effect." We have no doubt that this is true. Exaggerations are a form of curses which even more than others come home to roost. But the cartoons have another lesson, and that is the wisdom of avoiding the causes of exaggeration. The Chinese coolie may have his commercial value, but he has also the power of becoming a political nuisance. The less we have to do with him on our own territory, the less likely we are to be embroiled with the Chinese Government.
The Times correspondent mentions three elements in the present situation which he thinks specially unsatisfactory, —the attitude of the native Press, the holding of inflamma- tory meetings, and the interference of Roman Catholic missionaries in native lawsuits. The first of these is a new feature in China, and, badly as it may work at this moment, it is not wholly one to be regretted. Misstatements about the "foreign devils" are awkward things to deal with when they are largely circulated among an ignorant multitude. But it is the ignorance which is the real origin of the mischief, and in these days that is only likely to be dispelled by means of newspapers. Already, it seems, there are some good native journals, and the object of all who undertake to advise the Chinese authorities should be to induce them to prefer regulation to suppression. The worst offenders, it appears, are either Japanese or students educated in Japan, and the Times correspondent suggests that England should "concert with Japan to assist China to draft and enforce Press laws." The prohibition of inflammatory meetings is so far easier that it is already carried out in some provinces, and could probably be carried out in all by bringing Imperial pressure to bear on the local authorities. As the Central Government grow stronger—and that this improvement has begun appears to be beyond doubt—they will be more and more disposed to reassert their authority over their own subordinates. There is more reason, perhaps, to fear that this revision will eventually be carried too far than that it will be too soon arrested. More interesting, because more unexpected, is the remedy which the correspondent suggests for the third difficulty, the interference of Roman Catholic missionaries in lawsuits. How this difficulty arises is obvious enough. A lawsuit is a natural weapon against a convert. It is easy to manufacture an occasion for beginning it, and, left to himself, the Judge is not likely to decide in favour of an unpopular defendant, who he no doubt thinks, deserves to lose his cause for his change of religion, if for nothing else. When the missionary happens to be a person of influence, as he often is, it is difficult to convince him that he ought not to intervene to redress the balance in favour of his own disciple. Unfortunately, he cannot always be trusted to distinguish between the cases in which his disciple is in the right, and the cases in which his disciple is in the wrong. His intervention tends to become automatic, and then it is simply mischievous. The Times correspondent is more clear-sighted than some European Powers. He realises that when you have to deal with the Roman Catholic clergy, you have really to deal with the Pope, and that the Pope is so far like other people that he is best dealt with directly. "Surely," he says, "the psychological moment has come when the Vatican should place itself in direct relations with the Chinese Government The present position is unsatisfactory and anomalous, and leads to constant trouble, much of which could be avoided by the appointment of a Legate or Nuncio at Peking." We have no doubt that this is excellent advice. The missionaries pay very, little attention to any remonstrances addressed to them by the Provincial Governors ; but they would be obliged to listen to the Pope's immediate representative. If the Chinese Government listen to the suggestion, they will show themselves wiser than the French Government, who broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican just when they were entering upon a piece of work which affected the ownership of every church in France, and the status and income of every Bishop and priest.
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