TOPICS OF THE DAY.
• THE FINAL SETTLEMENT IN CHINA.
E cannot affect to be quite content with the " final " VV settlement of affairs in China, for we do not believe it to be final at all. Europe has gained none of the objects she set to herself when she agreed to her great international expedition. The reorganisation of China has not been so much as proposed, nor is the Empire "thrown open to European traffic." "Reparation for the past" has taken the form of a fine, which is in itself exorbitant, and which it is now fully admitted will fall on the wrong people ; and "security for the future" has, we greatly fear, been seriously diminished. The Manchu Court has discovered that outrages on the foreigner are extremely popular with its subjects, that the people approve resistance to all de- mands, just or unjust, and that it can always avoid personal consequences by a flight to the West, which, even if it re- turns to Pekin, will next time have been carefully arranged for. Its me'mbers have been shaken out of the dream of ages, and will, we may rely on it, devote much of the great ability at their disposal to the creation of forces which can maintain an effective guerilla war. They have learned how to found and to supply arsenals, they have millions of brave men at their disposal, and if they cannot turn them into Prussian soldiers, they can and will turn them into riflemen as good as the Boers. Although we think the levy of Chinese Volunteers (the "Boxers ") failed, the great Mandarins think that it succeeded, and already warnings are coming to Europe, and are believed in some well - informed quarters, that the movement will be repeated on a much greater scale. China is being honeycombed with village associations, which are in- tended to be rifle clubs, and which are filled with men whose motive power is savage vindictiveness against the barbarian, who, as they think, has insulted their civilisa- tion, desecrated their capital, and plundered themselves of untold amounts of treasure. The speech of the German , Emperor about Huns bore very evil fruit, and the people of Northern China, as all experienced observers testify, are filled with a rage which nothing but vengeance will completely satiate. This is the case all over the North, even in Manchuria, where the Russians are seriously alarmed by two.facts that have almost escaped European attention. One is an amazing and apparently irresistible swarming of Chinese peasantry into the whole of the vast province, and even into districts recognised as Russian, and the other is the immovable steadiness with which they look to their own Court, and their own officials, for guidance and protection. Manchuria, we are told, is more Chinese in consequence of the war than it ever was, and much of the Russian effort to con- ciliate Sian is dictated by an apprehension that unless the men round the Throne can be conciliated the expansion of Russia to the Pacific may involve a century of effort and expense. There axe, in fact, in all directions signs of an unrest which threatens the foreigner, and which, as the experienced believe, especially the will Catholic clergy, who were so well informed before, will not pass away without a cataclysm.
On the other hand, the resources of Europe with which to meet any new movement have rather diminished than increased. Her children have not succeeded in building up a party in China. Whether they could have succeeded by boldly supporting the Reformers, as many maintain, or by aggrandising the Viceroys, as is believed by a whole school of observers on the spot, is, to our mind, doubtful; but of the broad fact there is no doubt whatever. There is no section of the Chinese which can be relied on to assist the white men ; possibly no section which, if the circum- stances were moderately propitious, would not join in the attack on them. The whites can never be very many of themselves in China, and they will probably be fewer, for it may be taken as certain that an international combina- tion against China will not again be made. The jealousies revealed during the late war were too acute for a renewal of the Concert. America has seceded, Russia plays for her own hand, France will not move without her great ally, and the Japanese statesmen perceive with irritation that Europe will sacrifice nothing for their interests. A third indemnity is not to be looked for, and the Powers are sick of combined movements, which can only ann. mence after they have agreed to a self-denying ordinance. They seek rewards for effort, and failing money, which cannot again be levied in large sums, what are they to obtain if at the very first they pledge themselves not to take advantage of opportunities ? Without such a pledge they will not, as a corporation, move, and with it they have no heart, or their people have no heart, in moving. We venture to predict that the next invasion of China will be made by a single Power, and whichever Power makes it will provoke jealousies of a most dangerous kind, of which the Chinese are far too clever not to take advantage.
• What, then, ought to be done ? We do not know any more than the Ministers of Europe, who have just beia so conspicuously foiled ; but of what ought not to be don,e we are fairly sure. The Governments ought not to relax their watchfulness, or their efforts to safeguard points on the coast and in the rivers to which Europeans can retreat when imminent danger arrives. They ought not to leave themselves ignorant of changes in the Imperial Court, or of those signs that use and wont are giving way which throughout Asia, and in China especially, precede and presage any dangerous movements. England in par- ticular needs an Intelligence Department in the Far East, with men in it who are not all Englishmen. Japanese, Nepa,ulese, and Chinese from the Philippines can all give serious help in such a Department. Missionaries, converts, merchants, and. the wandering traders should all be encouraged to communicate what they hear, and the whole should be digested by men not so entirely within a groove as the Legations in China are apt to be. An insect in a rut does not see much of tin country, or of the course the fox is taking. Once accurately informed, we may rely upon the Government, its failures being almost invariably traceable, not to any defect either of purpose or of energy, but to sheer, sometimes almost inexplicable, ignorance. In the recent affair, just before the " Boxer " rising, for example, Sir Claude Macdonald, who is not stupid, thought that a little seasonable rain would put an end to all cause: of apprehension. Such ignorance is always dangerous, alio in China peculiarly so, because of the absence of any outside help. Very few of the Europeans with local experience an disinterested, and. at home it is only their representatives who keep the Governments alive to Chinese movements. Nothing is more extraordinary, but nothing is more true, than that except during the few days when a massacre of Ministers was expected the English people could not be brought to take any interest in China. They take none now. They await wearily the conclusion of negotiations, but if these lasted another twelve months they would wait wearily still, hardly caring enough to wonder or inquire why they were not brought to a, con- clusion. Amidst such apathy an overworked Government, however able, is sure to grow careless, and of that careless- ness we are seriously afraid. We do not believe that the Empress-Regent, or her advisers, or her people have either forgotten or forgiven the enormous insult which they com- pelled us to inflict on their country, and we fear that when the consequences of that insult begin to appear Europe will be as bewildered as it was in 1900, and far more help- less. This much at least is certain, that the diplomatists have obtained nothing which can in any way be considered a guarantee for future security.
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