TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE UPHEAVAL OF CHINA. THE upheaval of China—for it is an upheaval, and not a mere riot against the foreigner—is becoming week by week a more formidable event. The cowardly murder of the German Ambassador while actually on his way from his own Legation to the Foreign Office of Pekin, probably in accordance with a summons, is now officially admitted, and there can hardly be a doubt that all the remaining Embassies have been destroyed and their inmates slaughtered out. They were being shelled on June 25th, and their brave resistance would raise Chinese cruelty to fever-heat. It is twelve days since the troops began firing on them from the walls of the Tartar city, and whence were they to get food ? Moreover, having killed the Ambassador of a Great Power, those who hold power in Pekin have no longer a motive for caution, indeed are probably disposed to commit their followers with Europe beyond all hope of compromise or pardon. They cannot then sell their chiefs. The effect, of course, is to compel the European Powers to act, if only to pre- serve their own self-respect, and to act in such a way as to reveal even to Chinamen that they have insolently defied irresistible force. They have all, it is clear, con- sented to the occupation of Pekin, and have all at the same time recognised that to occupy Pekin by a march from the coast is a most serious enterprise. The news- papers are talking nonsense about "rushes," and "instant vengeance," and " mandates to Japan," but the Powers are aware that they could not now save their agents even if their march were unopposed, and the oppo- sition, if it be only a retreating battle behind earthworks, will be of a most formidable kind. They have to break through an army of at least seventy thousand men, half of them experienced soldiers armed with Mausers, in a country swarming with hostile ruffians, where a defeat of the invading force would place millions of men at the disposal of the defenders. All Manchuria is "up," as well as Chi-li and Shantung. The Europeans have no general, insufficient munitions, and practically no transport at all, besides being deficient in cavalry. The Admirals have there- fore decided, most wisely, not to move with inadequate forces, and are collecting at Taku the troops, the munitions, and the supplies necessary for the largest European force which has ever invaded China. When the preparations are complete thirty thousand Europeans—Russian, British, German, and French — supported by ten thousand Japanese, all under some picked general, will move upon Pekin, and, let us hope, will in a few days scatter the opposing army to the winds, and reduce the Chinese capital to subjection without a siege. If they do not there will be for Europeans no living in China. At the same time the Powers have become aware that this is only the beginning of their work. They know that the construction of a Government for China is an almost hopeless task, they are bewildered with the dread lest there should be no Government from which to exact reparation, and they are hoping rather wildly to find an excuse for recognising some one as not too guilty to be treated with. They deny that they are at war, they listen eagerly to tales about the legal Emperor and the Empress-Regent, both of whom are probably dead or imprisoned, and even about individuals like Li Hung Chang, and in fact display an acute fear of anarchy in China. They are, in truth, aware that they are face to face with an event so big that they can hardly grasp all the possibilities it may involve.
Meanwhile, those who direct, and who probably insti- gated, the upheaval are gaining in strength and in co- herence. It is admitted on all bands that a member of the Imperial house, Prince Tuan, has placed himself at the head of the anti-foreign movement, is obeyed by all the troops, and is, on some pretext or another, exercising the powers of a Dictator. According to one account he is the agent of the Empress, according to another he has arrested or expelled her, and according to a third he has pro- claimed his son Emperor. For ourselves we think it very probable that he is at this moment the legal, or as we should say, the constitutional, Regent of the Empire. If the Emperor Kwang-au, the wretched lad in whom the Reformers trusted, is dead or has abdicated—and nu one in Pekin mentions him—the son of Prince Tuan, the child who was regularly and formally, with the full consent of the Mancha nobles, declared the heir to the throne, is now legitimate Emperor of China. By a custom it is impossible for Chinamen to disregard he is still under his father's authority, and Prince Tuan alone has the right to issue orders in his name. If this supposition is correct, and it tallies with much evidence, the head of the reactionaries, the deadly foe of all foreigners, is legitimate master of China, armed with rights which, like those of the Czar, are anchored at once in legality and in superstition. At all events, Prince Tuan is master in Pekin and Northern China, has issued an Imperial decree ordering all " Boxers " and soldiers to " stamp out " foreigners, and intends, seeing no loophole of retreat after the attack on the Legations, to carry on the war, if he can, to the bitter end. It may be that he will be crushed at once by the Allied Powers, it may be that he may succeed in dividing them, it may be that he can sustain, as the Boers are doing, a running fight through half the Empire ; in any case, his ascendency makes of the " riotous movement," as the Americans call it, a coherent and most formidable struggle with all Europe. The first necessity of Asiatics is to have a man at their head who will punish disobedience with death, and the Chinese have him in Prince Tuan.
Another element of danger, moreover, has since we last wrote been added to those which previously existed. Hitherto the anti-foreign agitation has been confined to Northern China, but it is now spreading fast to the centre and South. At Shanghai and in Canton the placards which in China herald insurrection are appearing on every wall. The ruffian classes are stirring, respectable Chinese households are flying, and, worst sign of all, the Viceroys are rapidly enlisting troops. Naturally, for their provinces touch the coast and their ports may be shelled, they promise the foreigner protection. Naturally, also, till matters are clearer in Pekin, they profess to be paying no obedience to the capital. And most naturally of all, they keep in their own hands any revenue which ought to be forwarded to the Imperial Treasury. But it is to be noted that they do not proscribe the " Boxers " ; that they keep Chinese cruisers as near them as they can ; and that in all negotiations with the foreigners they insist, "as a measure of precaution," that no foreign troops shall be landed. As they all at heart detest foreigners, as they all dread Pekin, as they are all at the mercy of troops usually anti-foreign, above all as they are all Chinese, it is difficult to doubt that they are all playing for their own hands ; that they are waiting to see who will be Emperor ; and that, if it' is virtually Prince Tuan, they will let the South rise on his behalf. That will make a terrible situation for the foreigner, who, indeed, will be badly placed even, if they are sincere. For that would mean civil war in China, the dissolution of the Empire as an organisation, and the long period of anarchy which must follow before the new pro- vincial Kings, even if strengthened by foreign help, can acquire such a hold that ordinary commerce, and travelling, and the teaching of missionaries are again safe pursuits. There has been no such explosion in the South as there has been in the North, but the danger of one is not ended because the Viceroys are saying smooth things. Very few of them can be trusted, and least of all Li Hung Chang, who, like Azimoollah Khan, the prompter of the massacre of Cawnpore, has visited Europe, and whose most important saying is that one foreigner is as bad as another, and all intend the partition of the Empire. Europe, we greatly fear, must depend on herself in this struggle with China without internal help, and, powerful as she is, the struggle with a, fourth of the human race may tax all her energies.
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