BOOKS.

RECENT EVENTS AND PRESENT POLICIES IN CHINA.*

Ka. J. 0. P. BLAND, joint author with Mr. E. Backhouse of that memorable book, China under the Empress Dowager, gives us here out of his full knowledge some reflections on the Chinese Revolution, on the Chinese character, and on the bearing of that character on the future. The book contains nothing so precious as the diary of the Chinese courtier who recorded all the emotions and agitated expedients of the Empress Dowager and her hangers-on during the siege of the Legations in the Boxer rising. But it is a book to be studied and pondered, whether the author's criticism of the motives of the revolutionists turns out to be justified or not. If it were safe to surrender oneself entirely to the voice of authority in judging of Chinese affairs to-day, we should be guided unhesitatingly by Mr. Bland. But just now authority speaks with a divided voice. There is Dr. Morrison, for instance, who is as confident about the future of China as Mr. Bland is doubtful. Professor Reinsch also inclines to the Bide of theoptimists. In these circumstances anxious observers outside China can only wait on events, doing their best to weigh all the opinions put before them. Among the evidence that counts, Mr. Bland's new book, of course, deserves a high place. There is a good deal of repetition in it, but as the author is conscious of this himself, hinting that he did not think it worth while wholly to recast articles which had appeared in various periodicals, we need not do more than mention the fact.

The conviction of the author which underlies all his argu- ment is that the cause of the Revolution was not a direct or

* Recent Erealt and Present Policies in China. By J. 0. P. Bland. Illuntrated. London : William Heinemann. [16s. net.]

burning desire to rid the country of the Manchu dynasty. The fall of the Manchus was almost an accident in a general movement of unrest of which the conditions were economic, moral, and educational, but mainly economic. We have never ourselves imagined that the blessed word "Republic" could change in a flash the immemorial traditions and mental habits of the Chinese, although we cannot help thinking that an

intellectual idea grasped by so highly intellectual a people as the Chinese may be held with more stability than is possible in countries which, though not so far east, are more truly

" oriental." Mr. Bland rightly ridicules the excessive optimism of those who believe in a magic transformation scene.

"Writers who take this point of view have no difficulty in persuading themselves that autocracy, opium and anti-militarism have been entirely abolished, 'the whole ancient system effectively wiped out,' and that the Chinese race has divested itself of these things as easily as it has cut off the queue—that it has assimilated European methods and ideas as readily as its bowler bats and frock-coats. To accept such an interpretation of the present situation in China it is necessary to assume, for the Chinese people as a whole, definite aspirations and fixed goals, an all-pervading instinct of patriotism, subordination of individual to national interests, and authoritative leaders. Of these, there has been no evidence. If history teaches that the man comes with the hour, it teaches also that the hour comes not by accident, but only after long years of preparation. In the China of to-day we seek in vain for signs of the Idea, universal in appeal, which makes for regeneration, the Idea that impels masses of mankind, at their appointed hour, to follow a Mahomet or a Peter the Hermit, a Garibaldi or a Bolivar. Of a Cromwell, nay, even of a Denton, there is as yet no sign; nor anything to convince us that, were he to appear, the masses of the people would have ears to hear him."

Of course political and economic motives overlap one another in the production of unrest. Among the political symptoms of unrest are the fear of foreign aggression, the movement towards local autonomy, the dislike of foreign loans, and the cleavage between north and south. Among the economic: symptoms are the acquisitive violence of Government troops, the dislocation of trade, fiscal chaos, widespread want through the steadily increasing pressure of population, and opposition to all direct taxation. The struggle for existence is as severe as ever it was, "grim and silent as the struggle for life in primeval forests." In all the myriads of humble existences

there is no time for amusements or sports. There are no public recreation grounds in China. There is no public interesa in art or music. The business of "man-making and man-

feeding" is all-absorbing. An immensely significant change, such as the establishment of a Republic, may sweep over such a people and leave them ignorant of its meaning and scarcely

aware of its advent. As there is no ruling caste of priests or warriors, and no energetic and staunch bourgeoisie to act as

moderator and guide, the teeming millions of China are hopelessly lost when circumstances require them to breathe life into a new and strange instrument of government. "Outside of the Southern Maritime provinces," says Mr.

Bland, "there exists no such thing as public opinion on political questions in China, and the 'elected representatives of the people' are nothing more than the self-constituted representatives of a small and ambitious class. In other words, the appearance of parliamentary institutions is just as deceptive and just as ineffective as the wording of Imperial edicts has been since the days of the T'ang dynasty." As for the Maritime Provinces themselves, Mr. Bland does not deny their political consciousness. The Cantonese, for example, understand the significance of the relations of their country with other Powers ; they appreciate the menace of foreign aggression and resent the anti-Asiatic laws of the United States and Australia. The leaders of Cantonese political thought are men who have been educated in Europe, and perhaps one is justified in saying that if China should split asunder, as the United States nearly split in the 'sixties of last century, the cause will be the intense disparity of political learning in the different provinces. The author finds another fissiparous tendency in the supersession in 1904 of the old system of competitive examinations in the ancient classics for the public service. "The value of the competitive examination system," be says, "as an enduring source of national cohesion and stability can scarcely be exaggerated?'

One of the most valuable features of the book is the analysis of the personalities of well-known Chinese. Mr. Bland says of Sun Yat-sen:

"There is a certain large vagueness, a splendid indefiniteness about Dr. Sun Yat-sen's reform schemes that, were it not for the naive sincerity of the man himself, would make them and him ridiculous. But he believes in himself, with the whole-souled and rapt belief of a child building sand. castles, and the valour of his ignorance is passing brave. He believes in universal suffrage and votes for Chinese women. He believes in Lloyd George and Henry George ; in the single tax and conscription ; in the nation- alization of railways ; and he promises the Chinese people (which hear him not) every kind of rare and refreshing fruit, to be pro- duced without the formality of planting trees. The secret of his success in leading Europeans to believe in his capacity to make his dreams come true lies, I think, in his dignified imperturbability and gift of reticence, remarkably manifested on more than one dramatic occasion, and notably when bidding farewell to the Nanking Assembly upon his resignation of the Presidency. His artless enthusiasm for ideals has by no means deprived hiss of the shrewd common sense of the Cantonese : his most fervent orations would be incomplete without taking up a collection far the good cause. Sincerely simple in his private life, he displays, neverthe- less, a very democratic weakness for uniforms, ceremonies, and processions ; a man of the people, yet he surrounds himself with suites and bodyguards and nests of parasitic admirers. Finally, he has learned in his travels abroad the gentle art of political advertising, together with a shrewd idea of the value of sensa- tionalism in connexion therewith."

Of T'ang Shao-yi he says :—

" Around him, the best-loved and the best-hated of China's notable men, tho faction fights wax fiercest. Judging from personal experience, I cannot but think that much of the criticism which has been directed against him in the matter of the "Pour Nations" loan negotiations, and his subsequent flight from Peking and the Premiership, has failed to take into account a peculiar trait in his character, for which his Chinese intimates had learned to make allowance. I mean a certain tendency to sudden dis- enchantment, a petulance of discouragement, which left him abruptly weary of the sordid ungrateful world of politics and all its intrigues. His buoyant enthusiasms, frequently born of utter sairet6 of vision, were apt to produce in his alert and ambitious nature sharp crises of reaction. Of the charges of venality that have been publicly brought against him by his own countrymen it is unnecessary to speak, for the simple reason that, in a country where peculation of public funds is the rule and not the exception, such charges denote merely an unusual fierceness in the parties' struggle for place and power. In his conduct of foreign loan negotiations in the past—and he has handled more than any other official in China—no definite charge of corruption had been made against him: which is more than can be said for his predecessors or successors in office. In the handling of negotiations, financial and political alike, T'an,g always displayed a decided tendency to Oriental 'slimness' which, by European standards, came very near to chicanery. Newly-arrived diplomats and financiers, much impressed by his American frankness of manner and apparent knowledge of affairs, were disposed to regard him and his work as constituting a radical departure from the traditions of the Waiwnpu ; but they learned before long to revise that opinion. T'ang's methods were constructed of purely Oriental material, with & workmanlike surface polish of Occidental origin."

If Mr. Bland's experience has not been so unfortunate as to be misleading, the naïf idealism of which he speaks does not exclude the toleration of a very unidealistic system of "squeeze "—corruption or " graf t"—in the public services. Mr. Bland says of the attitude of Cantonese Young China towards this question :—

"Frankly stated, the contention of the Cantonese amounts to saying : This is our country, and such squeezing as exists is our own business. Stay, if you like to accept us and our customs : if not, go your ways !' This is the idea which underlies the pathetic appeals of native journalists for 'national subscriptions' to pay off the national debt, and thus to deprive the foreigner of any excuse for further interference with the affairs of China—sub- scriptions which go little further than the pockets of the mandarins and patriots who collect them."

We may add that Mr. Bland charges Young China with insincerity in the attempted suppression of the cultivation of opium.

Mr. Bland thinks it still possible that a monarchy will be restored, though he admits that the Manchu house was thoroughly effete and deserved to go. He looks back upon the intervention of Europe in the Taiping rebellion as a miscalculation. If the Manchus had not been propped up they would perhaps quietly have faded away of inanition without the disadvantages of the present convulsive unrest.

We have no space to examine Mr. Bland's criticism of the policy of the Great Powers in China. Russo-Japanese policy he regards as simply cynical. The defect of the consortium of six Powers which are trying to evolve a common financial policy is that some of the members have no financial right to be in the group at all, but are simply there for what they can get. He holds that both the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Anglo-French Entente are useless in our relations with China, and he contends that as foreign authority in China is impossible without financial control, British interests

require that finance should be systematically planned by the British Foreign Office on a basis like that of "the scientifi- cally organized commercial Powers." This no doubt means that we should Germanize our financial policy, but we confess that we prefer our ancient method of keeping diplomacy and commerce apart. We may end with the following pessimistic summary of what has happened since Sun Yat-sen's manifesto of January 1912 :—

" The army, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, has already repudiated Young China ; the horde of hungry politicians remains absorbed in futile arguments and sordid intrigues ; the Govern- ment is without prestige, policy, or power ; three parties in the State, alike forgetful of their country's urgent needs, struggle for place and pelt; the Cabinet is distracted by the advice of amateur politicians at the capital and the threats and protests of the provinces."