THE DANGER IN CHINA.
AIL telegrams from China are apt to be sensational, those who compile them sharing both the nervous apprehension of attack and the latent hope of excitement which permanently influence Europeans resident in the East. They all believe they may be massacred, and are all a little doubtful whether they would not like being massacred, for the sake of the re- tribution which would follow. It is quite possible, therefore, that the views attributed recently to Mr. Wade may have been coloured in transmission ; but, nevertheless, the situation in China is not a pleasant one. No attack may be made on Europeans, and no insult offered to the British Minister, but for months, perhaps years to come, there must be risk of war, and therefore a permanent attitude of watchfulness, which may degenerate at any moment into one of panic. We need not accept the story of Mr. Wade having been kept waiting by the Chinese Governor-General Li, the virtual Premier —though the affront, being public, was, if offered, not ex- piated by a private apology—for the broad facts are sufficient of themselves to justify uneasiness. There can be no doubt that the Chinese Government has for years past been intent on arming itself, has purchased modern rifles, has imported good artillery, and has fortified the great river-approach to the interior. There can be no doubt either that it has been greatly inspirited by the success of its arms against the Panthays or Chinese Mohammedans ; by the consequent sub- mission of the King of Burmah, who in a letter to the Em- peror, recently published in Pekin, acknowledges his vassalage in the most submissive and explicit terms ; and by the cessation of all revolutionary attempts within the Empire itself. And finally, there is no doubt that the control of these new forces has fallen into the hands of a party which regards Europeans, if not with hostility, at least with acute dislike and apprehension, feelings not altogether so unreasonable as we fancy. Englishmen are accustomed to think of themselves as China's most profitable customers, and wonder why the Mandarins hate them so, innocent traders as they are ; but they forget that China, unlike Turkey, has not been mesmerised by the West, that the Mandarins still think their civilisation good, if only it were let alone, and that they hold this civilisation in danger from Western aggressiveness. We all think that unreasonable, but Englishmen would not be content if they saw Russians, after dictating peace at Calcutta, settled at Bombay, claiming jurisdiction over the island of Colabah, keeping irresistible squadrons in the harbour, insisting on their own fiscal ideas, drawing ten millions sterling of money from the sale of samshoo—the native spirit of China— to a teetotal population, criticising every act of the British Government in a jeering spirit, and above all, circulating ideas of a semi-religious, semi-social kind, which, though not accepted by the natives, still greatly weakened the ancient spirit of submission. The Chinese Cabinet has not for- gotten the Taepings, or the extent to which those murderous sectaries declared themselves influenced by the ideas of the Old
Testament. Englishmen would get very angry at such a posi- tion of affairs, and may, if they try, understand how tempting a prospect getting rid of foreign influence must be to the official classes of China, and more especially to its greatest man, Li, who being a Chinese, can depend on his Chinese countrymen, and could he only conciliate the Tartars by some immense exploit, might even hope to supersede the worn-out family on the throne.
Just at this very moment, when the warlike or patriotic party is in power, and is inflated with new successes, and is anxious to build up its reputation, it becomes necessary for England to make the Pekin Cabinet submit to a visible and most humiliating defeat. It is necessary, and it is evident from the Queen's Speech that it has been resolved, to demand from China public redress for the murder of Mr. Margary at Manwine. That seems to England most expedient, and is un- doubtedly both just and necessary, but the way in which it strikes a Chinese Cabinet is a very different one. " Here," they say, " are these intruders, who already, under pretext of trade, have become so dangerous on our East Coast, entering on the same pretext within our Western frontier, hitherto sealed up. They have been checked, very properly, but without our orders, by a brigand leader, whom we have just adopted, who is naturally anxious to prove his energy and his zeal, and who has per- formed important services in the West. Now we are called upon publicly to disavow all connection with this act ; to issue a public Commission of Inquiry, as into a crime ; to offer a deep affront to the King of Burmah, just as he has submitted ; to degrade and perhaps execute the brigand, who is a valuable instrument ; to open our Western gate for ever—for if Euro- pean life is safe there, it will stand open—and above all, to show to the people of the Western provinces, where we are supposed to be divine, that we cannot resist orders from the Europeans. Every Chinaman in the Empire knows that but for pressure, we should do nothing. Is there no way out of such a necessity l"
We are no alarmists in Chinese matters, for we recognise in Pekin, as in Constantinople, though not in the same degree, the spell which the West has laid upon the East—the dread of de- feat, which even the most resolute cannot always shake off—and know therefore that at the eleventh hour or the twelfth hour the ruling minds in Pekin may decide to begin temporising again, but certainly here are sufficient materials for an explosion, ready stored. And we do not feel certain that the materials for extinguishing it are ready stored also. It is true that our power to act on China after an interval is very considerable indeed. The fleet in Chinese waters is very strong, and we might rely in a dangerous emergency on that of France, and not improbably on those of Germany and Holland also. The Viceroy of India, after an interval, could spare 10,000 Queen's troops, 20,000 Sikhs and Madrassees, and adequate artillery, and could replace them by drafts on Malta, Gibraltar, and England, where we are not quite so badly off for men as Lord Echo's "Man in the Street" is accustomed to believe. There are, too, about 1,000 soldiers in Hong Kong or afloat, and possibly as many Marines, who could be used to prevent a massacre, if the Chinese commenced hostilities in their usual way with a mob-riot. But it must not be forgotten that India and China, though Englishmen habitually lump them together, are more distant from each other than America from England ; that the Indian Viceroy, head though he be of a military monarchy, does not own a ship ; and that the Chinese can always, if they please, reduce us to a land march on Pekin. They can block the rivers. Any serious expedition must in- volve a great loss of time, much and sudden expense, and a movement of troops for which we always seem unprepared. Time and distance are against us, make everything ex- pensive, and compel us to run risks which, with all we now know of Chinese force, deserve most serious considera- tion. We could not provide against a reverse—and it is vain to say a reverse is impossible—without an effort which, in expenditure at least, would be felt even in this country, where it should not be forgotten that a serious war with China taxes every household, and is felt in the amounts of every Poor-house. We are deprived of half our natural strength in China by a geographical embarrassment which does not affect Russia—the Czar owning Manchooria- and the absence of which makes Japan, a tenth-rate power, more formidable to China than ourselves. We
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have no base of action sufficiently near, no Malta in the China seas, and it is this defect which, as we conceive the situation, our Foreign Office should try to remedy. It is an odd fact that had the contingency which made the Pall Mall Gazette so gloomy actually occurred, and England been com- pelled to fight Spain and China at the same time, we might have struck a terrible blow against both at once by seizing the Philippines, the natural base for a European Power compelled to be formidable in Eastern Asia. That chance, however, did not occur, and as neither Spain nor Great Britain would consent to the exchange of Gibraltar for the islands, the Foreign Office mast look elsewhere for the necessary foothold. Lord Derby knows and we do not whether the moat attractive of all plans is feasible,—whether, that is, it is possible to form such an alliance with Yeddo as would virtually make of the Japanese " samurai," or feudal retainers, a British sepoy reserve, and give us the power of summoning ten thousand fairly good troops to meet any emergency in Asia. We could have no base equal to the Inland Sea, if only we had the consent of the Japanese, who may yet need help both against external enemies and against the internal difficulties created by an unscientific finance. The possibility of such an arrangement, desirable as it might be, depends, however, upon circumstances and opinions scarcely known in Europe ; and failing that—and failing Mr. Forster's. still more attractive dream of the alliance which would make of San Francisco a British port—the only plan is, when the next struggle commences, to occupy Formosa, and by just government attract to it the Japanese, who seem so desirous just now to find occupation abroad. The island is equal in size to about five Suffoiks, and could easily support a population of 3,000,000, is richly fertile, and on the broad range which traverses it from north to south offers good sites for European or Sikh cantonments. It could be made by a tobacco monopoly in a few years self-supporting, and would give us a point d'appui in the Chinese Seas, which would speedily make our Minister the most important foreigner in Pekin. It would be a second Singapore, placed three thousand miles further east- ward and nearer to Shanghae, which is, and must remain, the pivot of our interests in Further Asia.
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