Though the attitude of China had been as unheroic as would have been Menelaus' had the latter declared neutrality in the Trojan war, the issue has done much to rouse the spirit of the Chinese people. Other wars made them feel their weakness: this one begot a belief in their latent strength. When they witnessed a series of victories on land and sea gained by the Japanese over one of the most formidable powers of the West, they exclaimed, "If our neighbour can do this, why may we not do the same? We certainly can if, like them, we break with the effete systems of the past. Let us take these island heroes for our schoolmasters."

[Page 194] That war was one of the most momentous in the annals of history. It unsettled the balance of power, and opened a vista of untold possibilities for the yellow race.

Not slow to act on their new convictions, the Chinese have sent a small army of ten thousand students to Japan—of whom over eight thousand are there now, while they have imported from the island a host of instructors whose numbers can only be conjectured. The earliest to come were in the military sphere, to rehabilitate army and navy. Then came professors of every sort, engaged by public or private institutions to help on educational reform. Even in agriculture, on which they have hitherto prided themselves, the Chinese have put themselves under the teaching of the Japanese, while with good reason they have taken them as teachers in forestry also. Crowds of Japanese artificers in every handicraft find ready employment in China. Nor will it be long before pupils and apprentices in these home schools will assume the role of teacher, while Chinese graduates returning from Japan will be welcomed as professors of a higher grade. This Japanning process, as it is derisively styled, may be somewhat superficial; but it has the recommendation of cheapness and rapidity in comparison with depending on teachers from the West. It has, moreover, the immense advantage of racial kinship and example. Of course the few students who go to the fountain-heads of science—in the West—must when they return home take rank as China's leading teachers.

All this inclines one to conclude that a rapid transformation in this ancient empire is to be counted on. [Page 195] The Chinese will soon do for themselves what they are now getting the Japanese to do for them. Japanese ideas will be permanent; but the direct agency of the Japanese people will certainly become less conspicuous than it now is.

To the honour of the Japanese Government, the world is bound to acknowledge that the island nation has not abused its victories to wring concessions from China. In fact to the eye of an unprejudiced observer it appears that in unreservedly restoring Manchuria Japan has allowed an interested neutral to reap a disproportionate share of the profits.



[Page 196] CHAPTER XXIX

REFORM IN CHINA

Reforms under the Empress Dowager—The Eclectic Commission—Recent Reforms—Naval Abortion—Merchant Marine—Army Reform—Mining Enterprises—Railways—The Telegraph—The Post Office—The Customs—Sir Robert Hart—Educational Reform—The Tung-Wen College—The Imperial University—Diplomatic Intercourse—Progressive Viceroys—New Tests for Honours—Legal Reform—Newspapers—Social Reforms—Reading Rooms—Reform in Writing—Anti-foot-binding Society—The Streets.

"When I returned from England," said Marquis Ito, "my chief, the Prince of Chosin, asked me if I thought anything needed to be changed in Japan. I answered, 'Everything.'" These words were addressed in my hearing, as I have elsewhere recorded, to three Chinese statesmen, of whom Li Hung Chang was one. The object of the speaker was to emphasise the importance of reform in China. He was unfortunate in the time of his visit—it was just after the coup d'etat, in 1898. His hearers were men of light and leading, in sympathy with his views; but reform was on the ebb; a ruinous recoil was to follow; and nothing came of his suggestions.

[Page 197] The Emperor had indeed shown himself inclined to "change everything," but at that moment his power was paralyzed. What vicissitudes he has passed through since that date! Should he come again to power, as now seems probable, may he not, sobered by years and prudent from experience, still carry into effect his grand scheme for the renovation of China. To him a golden dream, will it ever be a reality to his people?

Taught by the failure of a reaction on which she had staked her life and her throne, the Dowager became a convert to the policy of progress. She had, in fact, outstripped her nephew. "Long may she live!" "Late may he rule us!" During her lifetime she could be counted on to carry forward the cause she had so ardently espoused. She grasped the reins with a firm hand; and her courage was such that she did not hesitate to drive the chariot of state over many a new and untried road. She knew she could rely on the support of her viceroys—men of her own appointment. She knew too that the spirit of reform was abroad in the land, and that the heart of the people was with her.

The best embodiment of this new spirit was the High Commission sent out in 1905 to study the institutions of civilized countries east and west, and to report on the adoption of such as they deemed advisable. The mere sending forth of such an embassy was enough to make her reign illustrious. The only analogous mission in the history of China, is that which was despatched to India, in 66 A. D., in quest of a better faith, by Ming-ti, "The Luminous." The earlier embassy [Page 198] borrowed a few sparks to rekindle the altars of their country; the present embassy propose to introduce new elements in the way of political reform. Their first recommendation, if not their first report, reaches me while I write, and in itself is amply sufficient to prove that this High Commission is not a sham designed to dazzle or deceive. The Court Gazette, according to the China Times, gives the following on the subject:

"The five commissioners have sent in a joint memorial dealing with what they have seen in foreign countries during the last three months. They report that the wealthiest and strongest nations in the world to-day are governed by constitutional government. They mention the proclamation of constitutional government in Russia, and remark that China is the only great country that has not adopted that principle. As they have carefully studied the systems of England, the United States, Japan, etc., they earnestly request the Throne to issue a decree fixing on five years as the limit within which 'China will adopt a constitutional form of government.'

"A rescript submits this recommendation to a council of state to advise on the action to be taken."

If that venerable body, consisting of old men who hold office for life, does not take umbrage at the prospect of another tribunal infringing on their domain, we shall have at least the promise of a parliament. And five years hence, if the conge d'elire goes forth, it will rend the veil of ages. It implies the conferment on the people of power hitherto unknown in their history. What a commotion will the ballot-box excite! How suddenly will it arouse the dormant [Page 199] intellect of a brainy race! But it is premature to speculate.

In 1868 the Mikado granted his subjects a charter of rights, the first article of which guarantees freedom of discussion, and engages that he will be guided by the will of the people. In China does not the coming of a parliament involve the previous issue of a Magna Charta?

It is little more than eight years since the restoration, as the return of the Court in January, 1902, may be termed. In this period, it is safe te assert that more sweeping reforms have been decreed in China than were ever enacted in a half-century by any other country, if one except Japan, whose example the Chinese profess to follow, and France, in the Revolution, of which Macaulay remarks that "they changed everything—from the rites of religion to the fashion of a shoe-buckle."

Reference will here be made to a few of the more important innovations or ameliorations which, taken together, made the reign of the Empress Dowager the most brilliant in the history of the Empire. The last eight years have been uncommonly prolific of reforms; but the tide began to turn after the peace of Peking in 1860. Since that date every step in the adoption of modern methods was taken during the reign or regency of that remarkable woman, which dated from 1861 to 1908.

As late as 1863 the Chinese Government did not possess a single fighting ship propelled by steam. Steamers belonging to Chinese merchants were sometimes employed to chase pirates; but they were not [Page 200] the property of the state. The first state-owned steamers, at least the first owned by the Central Government, was a flotilla of gunboats purchased that year in England by Mr. Lay, Inspector-General of Maritime Customs. Dissatisfied with the terms he had made with the commander, whom he had bound not to act on any orders but such as the Inspector should approve, the Government dismissed the Inspector and sold the ships.

In the next thirty years a sufficient naval force was raised to justify the appointment of an admiral; but in 1895 the whole fleet was destroyed by the Japanese, and Admiral Ting committed suicide. At present there is a squadron under each viceroy; but all combined would hardly form the nucleus of a navy. That the Government intend to create a navy may be inferred from the establishment of a Naval Board. In view of the naval exploits of Japan, and under the guidance of Japanese, they are certain to develop this feeble plant and to make it formidable to somebody—perhaps to themselves.

Their merchant marine is more respectable. With a fleet of fifty or more good ships the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company are able by the aid of subsidies and special privileges to compete for a share in the coasting trade; but as yet they have no line trading to foreign ports.

In 1860 a wild horde with matchlocks, bows, and spears, the land army is now supplied in large part with repeating rifles, trained in Western drill, and dressed in uniform of the Western type. The manoeuvres that took place near Peking in 1905 made [Page 201] a gala day for the Imperial Court, which expressed itself as more than satisfied with the splendour of the spectacle. The contingent belonging to this province is 40,000, and the total thus drilled and armed is not less than five times that number. In 1907 the troops of five provinces met in Honan. Thanks to railways, something like concentration is coming within the range of possibility. Not deficient in courage, what these raw battalions require to make them effective is confidence in themselves and in their commanders. Lacking in the lively patriotism that makes heroes of the Japanese, these fine big fellows are not machines, but animals. To the mistaken efforts recently made to instil that sentiment at the expense of the foreigner, I shall refer in another chapter. A less objectionable phase of the sentiment is provincialism, which makes it easy for an invader to employ the troops of one province to conquer another. In history these provinces appear as kingdoms, and their mutual wars form the staple subject. What feeling of unity can exist so long as the people are divided by a babel of dialects? More than once have Tartars employed Chinese to conquer China; and in 1900 a fine regiment from Wei-hai-wei helped the British to storm Peking. It may be added they repaid themselves by treating the inhabitants as conquered foes. Everywhere they were conspicuous for acts of lawless violence.

Three great arsenals, not to speak of minor establishments, are kept busy turning out artillery and small arms for the national army, and the Board of Army Reform has the supervision of those forces, with [Page 202] the duty of making them not provincial, but national. Efforts of this kind, however, are no proof of a reform spirit. Are not the same to be seen all the way from Afghanistan to Dahomey? "To be weak is to be miserable"; and the Chinese are right in making military reorganisation the starting-point of a new policy. Yet the mere proposal of a parliament is a better indication of the spirit of reform than all these armaments.

In the mind of China, wealth is the correlative of strength. The two ideas are combined in the word Fuchiang, which expresses national prosperity. Hence the treasures hidden in the earth could not be neglected, when they had given up the follies of geomancy and saw foreigners prospecting and applying for concessions to work mines. At first such applications were met by a puerile quibble as to the effect of boring on the "pulse of the Dragon"—in their eyes not the guardian of a precious deposit, but the personification of "good luck." To find lucky locations, and to decide what might help or harm, were the functions of a learned body of professors of Fungshui, a false science which held the people in bondage and kept the mines sealed up until our own day. Gradually the Chinese are shaking off the incubus and, reckless of the Dragon, are forming companies for the exploitation of all sorts of minerals. The Government has framed elaborate regulations limiting the shares of foreigners, and encouraging their own people to engage in mining enterprises.

"Give up your Fungshui; It keeps your wealth locked up,"

says a verse of Viceroy Chang.

[Page 203] A similar change has taken place in sentiment as regards railways. At first dreaded as an instrument of foreign aggression, they are now understood to be the best of auxiliaries for national defence. It has further dawned on the mind of a grasping mandarinate that they may be utilised as a source of revenue. If stocks pay well, why should not the Government hold them? "Your railways pay 10 per cent.—that's the sort of railway we want in China," said one of the commissioners at a banquet in England.

It would not be strange if the nationalisation of railways decided on this spring in Japan should lead to a similar movement in China. In a country like America, with 300,000 miles of track, the purchase would be ultra vires in more senses than one, but with only 1 per cent. of that mileage, the purchase would not be difficult, though it might not be so easy to secure an honest administration.

Trains from Peking now reach Hankow (600 miles) in thirty-six hours. When the grand trunk is completed, through trains from the capital will reach Canton in three days. Set this over against the three months' sea voyage of former times (a voyage made only once a year), or against the ten days now required for the trip by steamer! What a potent factor is the railroad in the progress of a great country!

The new enterprises in this field would be burdensome to enumerate. Shanghai is to be connected by rail with Tientsin (which means Peking), and with Nanking and Suchow. Lines to penetrate the western provinces are already mapped out; and even in Mongolia it is proposed to supersede the camel by the iron [Page 204] horse on the caravan route to Russia. "Alas! the age of golden leisure is gone—the iron age of hurry-skurry is upon us!" This is the lament of old slow-going China.

When China purchased the Shanghai-Woosung railway in 1876, she was thought to be going ahead. What did we think when she tore up the track and dumped it in the river? An aeon seems to have passed since that day of darkness.

The advent of railways has been slow in comparison with the telegraph. The provinces are covered with wires. Governors and captains consult with each other by wire, in preference to a tardy exchange of written correspondence. The people, too, appreciate the advantage of communicating by a flash with distant members of their families, and of settling questions of business at remote places without stirring from their own doors. To have their thunder god bottled up and brought down to be their courier was to them the wonder of wonders; yet they have now become so accustomed to this startling innovation, that they cease to marvel.

The wireless telegraph is also at work—a little manual, translated by a native Christian, tells people how to use it.

Over forty years ago, when I exhibited the Morse system to the astonished dignitaries of Peking, those old men, though heads of departments, chuckled like children when, touching a button, they heard a bell ring; or when wrapping a wire round their bodies, they saw the lightning leap from point to point. "It's wonderful," they exclaimed, "but we can't use it in [Page 205] our country. The people would steal the wires." Electric bells are now common appliances in the houses of Chinese who live in foreign settlements. Electric trolleys are soon to be running at Shanghai and Tientsin. Telephones, both private and public, are a convenience much appreciated. Accustomed as the Chinese are to the instantaneous transmission of thought and speech, they have yet to see the telodyne—electricity as a transmitter of force. But will they not see it when the trolleys run? The advent of electric power will mark an epoch.

China's weakness is not due wholly to backwardness in the arts and sciences. It is to be equally ascribed to defective connection of parts and to a lack of communication between places. Hence a sense of solidarity is wanting, and instead there is a predominance of local over national interests. For this disease the remedy is forthcoming—rail and wire are rapidly welding the disjointed members of the Empire into a solid unity. The post office contributes to the same result.

A postal system China has long possessed: mounted couriers for official despatches, and foot messengers for private parties, the Government providing the former, and merchant companies the latter. The modernised post office, now operating in every province, provides for both. To most of the large towns the mails are carried by steamboat or railroad—a marvellous gain in time, compared with horse or foot. The old method was slow and uncertain; the new is safe and expeditious.

That the people appreciate the change is shown by [Page 206] the following figures: In 1904 stamps to the amount of $400,000 (Mexican) were sold; in 1905 the sale rose to $600,000—an advance of 50 per cent. in one year. What may we not expect when the women learn to read, and when education becomes more general among men?

Sir Robert Hart, from whom I had this statement, is the father of China's postal system. Overcoming opposition with patience and prudence, he has given the post office a thorough organisation and has secured for it the confidence of princes and people. Already does the Government look to it as a prospective source of revenue.

To the maritime customs service, Sir Robert has been a foster-father. Provided for by treaty, it was in operation before he took charge, in 1863; but to him belongs the honour of having nursed the infant up to vigorous maturity by the unwearied exertions of nearly half a century. While the post office is a new development, the maritime customs have long been looked upon as the most reliable branch of the revenue service. China's debts to foreign countries, whether for loans or indemnities, are invariably paid from the customs revenue. The Government, though disinclined to have such large concerns administered by foreign agents, is reconciled to the arrangement in the case of the customs by finding it a source of growing income. The receipts for 1905 amounted to 35,111,000 taels = L5,281,000. In volume of trade this shows a gain of 11-1/2 per cent. on 1904; but, owing to a favouring gale from the happy isles of high finance, in sterling value the gain is actually 17 per cent.

[Page 207] To a thoughtful mind, native or foreign, the maritime customs are not to be estimated by a money standard. They rank high among the agencies working for the renovation of China. They furnish an object-lesson in official integrity, showing how men brought up under the influence of Christian morals can collect large sums and pay them over without a particle sticking to their fingers. While the local commissioners have carried liberal ideas into mandarin circles all along the seacoast and up the great rivers into the interior, the Inspector-General (the "I. G." as Sir Robert is usually called) has been the zealous advocate of every step in the way of reform at headquarters.

Another man in his position might have been contented to be a mere fiscal agent, but Sir Robert Hart's fertile brain has been unceasingly active for nearly half a century in devising schemes for the good of China. All the honours and wealth that China has heaped on her trusted adviser are far from being sufficient to cancel her obligations. It was he who prompted a timid, groping government to take the first steps in the way of diplomatic intercourse. It was he who led them to raise their school of interpreters to the rank of a diplomatic college. He it was who made peace in the war with France; and in 1900, after the flight of the Court, he it was who acted as intermediary between the foreign powers and Prince Ching. To some of these notable services I shall refer elsewhere. I speak of them here for the purpose of emphasising my disapproval of an intrigue designed to oust Sir Robert and to overturn [Page 208] the lofty structure which he has made into a light-house for China.

In May, 1906, two ministers were appointed by the Throne to take charge of the entire customs service, with plenary powers to reform or modify ad libitum. Sir Robert was not consulted, nor was he mentioned in the decree. He was not dismissed, but was virtually superseded. Britain, America, and other powers took alarm for the safety of interests involved, and united in a protest. The Government explained that it was merely substituting one tribunal for another, creating a dual headship for the customs service instead of leaving it under the Board of Foreign Affairs, a body already overburdened with responsibilities. They gave a solemn promise that while Sir Robert Hart remained there should be no change in his status or powers; and so the matter stands. The protest saved the situation for the present. Explanation and promise were accepted; but the Government (or rather the two men who got themselves appointed to a fat office) remain under the reproach of discourtesy and ingratitude. The two men are Tieliang, a Manchu, and Tang Shao-yi, a Chinese. The latter, I am told on good authority, is to have L30,000 per annum. The other will not have less. This enormous salary is paid to secure honesty.

In China every official has his salary paid in two parts: one called the "regular stipend," the other, a "solatium to encourage honesty." The former is counted by hundreds of taels; the latter, by thousands, especially where there is a temptation to peculate. What a rottenness at the core is here betrayed!

[Page 209] A new development worthy of all praise is the opening, by imperial command, of a school for the training of officials for the customs service. It is a measure which Sir Robert Hart with all his public spirit, never ventured to recommend, because it implies the speedy replacement of the foreign staff by trained natives.

Filling the sky with a glow of hope not unlike the approach of sunshine after an arctic winter, the reform in the field of education throws all others into the shade. By all parties is recognised its supremacy. Its beginning was feeble and unwelcome, implying on the part of China nothing but a few drops of oil to relieve the friction at a few points of contact with the outside world.

The new treaties found China unprovided with interpreters capable of translating documents in foreign languages. Foreign nations agreed to accompany their despatches with a Chinese version, until a competent staff of interpreters should be provided. With a view to meeting this initial want, a school was opened in 1862, in connection with the Foreign Office, and placed under the direction of the Inspector-General of Maritime Customs, by whom I was recommended for the presidency. Professors of English, French, and Russian were engaged; and later on German took a place alongside of the three leading languages of the Western world.

At first no science was taught or expected, but gradually we succeeded in obtaining the consent of the Chinese ministers to enlarge our faculty so as to include chairs of astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, and physics. International law was taught by the [Page 210] president; and by him also the Chinese were supplied with their first text-books on the law of nations. What use had they for books on that subject, so long as they held no intercourse on equal terms with foreign countries? The students trained in that school of diplomacy had to shiver in the cold for many a year before the Government recognised their merits and rewarded them with official appointments. The minister recently returned from London, the ministers now in Germany and Japan, and a minister formerly in France, not to speak of secretaries of legation and consuls, were all graduates of our earlier classes.

In 1898 the young Emperor, taught by defeat at the hands of the Japanese, resolved on a thorough reform in the system of national education. It would never do to confine the knowledge of Western science to a handful of interpreters and attaches. The highest scholars of the Empire must be allowed access to the fountain of national strength. A university was created with a capital of five million taels, and the writer was made president by an imperial decree which conferred on him the highest but one of the nine grades of the mandarinate.

Two or three hundred students were enrolled, among whom were bachelors, masters, and doctors of the civil service examinations. It was launched with a favouring breeze; but the wind changed with the coup d'etat of the Empress Dowager, and two years later the university went down in the Boxer cyclone. A professor, a tutor, and a student lost their lives. How the cause of educational reform rose stronger after the storm, I relate in a special [Page 211] chapter. It is a far cry from a university for the elite to that elaborate system of national education which is destined to plant its schools in every town and hamlet in the Empire. The new education was in fact still regarded with suspicion by the honour men of the old system. They looked on it, as they did on the railway, as a source of danger, a perilous experiment.

As yet the intercourse was one-sided: envoys came; but none were sent. Embassies were no novelty; but they had always moved on an inclined plane, either coming up laden with tribute, or going down bearing commands. Where there was no tribute and no command, why send them? Why send to the very people who had robbed China of her supremacy! It was a bitter pill, and she long refused to swallow it. Hart gilded the dose and she took it. Obtaining leave to go home to get married, he proposed that he should be accompanied by his teacher, Pinchun, a learned Manchu, as unofficial envoy—with the agreeable duty to see and report. It was a travelling commission, not like that of 1905-06, to seek light, but to ascertain whether the representative of a power so humbled and insulted would be treated with common decency.

The old pundit was a poet. All Chinese pundits are poets; but Pinchun had real gifts, and the flow of champagne kindled his inspiration. Everywhere wined and dined, though accredited to no court, he was in raptures at the magnificence of the nations of the West. He lauded their wealth, culture, and scenery in faultless verse; and if he indulged in satire, [Page 212] it was not for the public eye. He was attended by several of our students, to whom the travelling commission was an education. They were destined, after long waiting as I have said, to revisit the Western world, clothed with higher powers.

The impression made on both sides was favourable, and the way was prepared for a genuine embassy. The United States minister, Anson Burlingame, a man of keen penetration and broad sympathies, had made himself exceedingly acceptable to the Foreign Office at Peking. When he was taking leave to return home, in 1867, the Chinese ministers begged his good offices with the United States Government and with other governments as occasion might offer—"In short, you will be our ambassador," they said, with hearty good-will.

Burlingame, who grasped the possibilities of the situation, called at the Customs on his way to the Legation. Hart seized the psychological moment, and, hastening to the Yamen, induced the ministers to turn a pleasantry into a reality. The Dowagers (for there were two) assented to the proposal of Prince Kung, to invest Burlingame with a roving commission to all the Treaty powers, and to associate with him a Manchu and a Chinese with the rank of minister. An "oecumenical embassy" was the result. Some of our students were again attached to the suite; reciprocal intercourse had begun; and Burlingame has the glory of initiating it".

In the work of reform three viceroys stand pre-eminent, viz., Li Hung Chang, Yuen Shi Kai and Chang Chitung. Li, besides organising an army and [Page 213] a navy (both demolished by the Japanese in 1895), founded a university at Tienstin, and placed Dr. Tenney at the head of it. Yuen, coming to the same viceroyalty with the lesson of the Boxer War before his eyes, has made the army and education objects of special care. In the latter field he had had the able assistance of Dr. Tenney, and succeeded in making the schools of the province of Chihli an example for the Empire.

Viceroy Chang has the distinction of being the first man (with the exception of Kang Yuwei) to start the emperor on the path of reform. Holding that, to be rich, China must have the industrial arts of the West, and to be strong she must have the sciences of the West, he has taken the lead in advocating and introducing both. Having been called, after the suspension of the Imperial University, to assist this enlightened satrap in his great enterprise, I cannot better illustrate the progress of reform than by devoting a separate chapter to him and to my observations during three years in Central China.

Tests of scholarship and qualifications for office have undergone a complete change. The regulation essay, for centuries supreme in the examinations for the civil service, is abolished; and more solid acquirements have taken its place. It takes time to adjust such an ancient system to new conditions. That this will be accomplished is sufficiently indicated by the fact that in May, 1906, degrees answering to A. M. and Ph. D. were conferred on quite a number of students who had completed their studies at universities in foreign countries. As a result there is certain [Page 214] to be a rush of students to Europe and America, the fountain-heads of science. Forty young men selected by Viceroy Yuen from the advanced classes of his schools were in 1906 despatched under the superintendence of Dr. Tenney to pursue professional studies in the United States. That promising mission was partly due to the relaxation of the rigour of the exclusion laws.

The Chinese assessor of the Mixed Court in Shanghai was dismissed the same year because he had condemned criminals to be beaten with rods—a favourite punishment, in which there is a way to alleviate the blows. Slicing, branding, and other horrible punishments with torture to extort confessions have been forbidden by imperial decree. Conscious of the contempt excited by such barbarities, and desirous of removing an obstacle to admission to the comity of nations, the Government has undertaken to revise its penal code. Wu-ting-fang, so well known as minister at Washington, has borne a chief part in this honourable task. The code is not yet published; but magistrates are required to act on its general principles. When completed it will no doubt provide for a jury, a thing hitherto unknown in China. The commissioners on legal reform have already sent up a memorial, explaining the functions of a jury; and, to render its adoption palatable, they declare that it is an ancient institution, having been in use in China three thousand years ago. They leave the Throne to infer that Westerners borrowed it from China.

The fact is that each magistrate is a petty tyrant, embodying in his person the functions of local governor, [Page 215] judge, and jury, though there are limits to his discretion and room for appeal or complaint. It is to be hoped that lawyers and legal education will find a place in the administration of justice.

Formerly clinging to a foreign flagstaff, the editor of a Chinese journal cautiously hinted the need for some kinds of reform. Within this lustrum mirabile the daily press has taken the Empire by storm. Some twenty or more journals have sprung up under the shadow of the throne, and they are not gagged. They go to the length of their tether in discussing affairs of state—notwithstanding cautionary hints. Refraining from open attack, they indulge in covert criticism of the Government and its agents.

Social reforms open to ambitious editors a wide field and make amends for exclusion from the political arena. One of the most influential recently deplored the want of vitality in the old religions of the country, and, regarding their reformation as hopeless, openly advocated the adoption of Christianity. To be independent of the foreigner it must, he said, be made a state church, with one of the princes for a figurehead, if not for pilot.

Another deals with the subject of marriage. Many improvements, he says, are to be made in the legal status of woman. The total abolition of polygamy might be premature; but that is to be kept in view. In another issue he expresses a regret that the Western usage of personal courtship cannot safely be introduced. Those who are to be companions for life cannot as yet be allowed to see each other, as disorders might result from excess of freedom. Such liberty [Page 216] in social relations is impracticable "except in a highly refined and well-ordered state of society." The same or another writer proposes, by way of enlarging woman's world, that she shall not be confined to the house, but be allowed to circulate as freely as Western women but she must hide her charms behind a veil.

Reporting an altercation between a policeman and the driver of one of Prince Ching's carts, who insisted on driving on tracks forbidden to common people, an editor suggests with mild sarcasm that a notice be posted in such cases stating that only "noblemen's carts are allowed to pass." Do not these specimens show a laudable attempt to simulate a free press? Free it is by sufferance, though not by law.

Reading-rooms are a new institution full of promise. They are not libraries, but places for reading and expounding newspapers for the benefit of those who are unable to read for themselves. Numerous rooms may be seen at the street corners, where men are reciting the contents of a paper to an eager crowd. They have the air of wayside chapels; and this mode of enlightening the ignorant was confessedly borrowed from the missionary. How urgent the need, where among the men only one in twenty can read; and among women not one in a hundred!

Reform in writing is a genuine novelty, Chinese writing being a development of hieroglyphics, in which the sound is no index to the sense, and in which each pictorial form must be separately made familiar to the eye. Dr. Medhurst wittily calls it "an occulage, not a language." Without the introduction of alphabetic [Page 217] writing, the art of reading can never become general. To meet this want a new alphabet of fifty letters has been invented, and a society organised to push the system, so that the common people, also women, may soon be able to read the papers for themselves. The author of the system is Wang Chao, mentioned above as having given occasion for the coup d'etat by which the Dowager Empress was restored to power in 1898.

I close this formidable list of reforms with a few words on a society for the abolition of a usage which makes Chinese women the laughing-stock of the world, namely, the binding of their feet. With the minds of her daughters cramped by ignorance, and their feet crippled by the tyranny of an absurd fashion, China suffers an immense loss, social and economic. Happily there are now indications that the proposed enfranchisement will meet with general favour. Lately I heard mandarins of high rank advocate this cause in the hearing of a large concourse at Shanghai. They have given a pledge that there shall be no more foot-binding in their families; and the Dowager Empress came to the support of the cause with a hortatory edict. As in this matter she dared not prohibit, she was limited to persuasion and example. Tartar women have their powers of locomotion unimpaired. Viceroy Chang denounced the fashion as tending to sap the vigour of China's mothers; and he is reported to have suggested a tax on small feet—in inverse proportion to their size, of course. The leader in this movement, which bids fair to become national, is Mrs. Archibald Little.

[Page 218] The streets are patrolled by a well-dressed and well-armed police force, in strong contrast with the ragged, negligent watchmen of yore. The Chinese, it seems, are in earnest about mending their ways. Their streets, in Peking and other cities, are undergoing thorough repair—so that broughams and rickshaws are beginning to take the place of carts and palanquins. A foreign style of building is winning favour; and the adoption of foreign dress is talked of. When these changes come, what will be left of this queer antique?



[Page 219] CHAPTER XXX

VICEROY CHANG-A LEADER OF REFORM

His Origin—Course as a Student—In the Censorate—He Floors a Magnate—The First to Wake Up—As a Leader of Reform—The Awakening of the Giant

If I were writing of Chang, the Chinese giant, who overtopped the tallest of his fellow-men by head and shoulders, I should be sure of readers. Physical phenomena attract attention more than mental or moral grandeur. Is it not because greatness in these higher realms requires patient thought for due appreciation?

Chang, the viceroy of Hukwang, a giant in intellect and a hero in achievement, is not a commonplace character. If my readers will follow me, while I trace his rise and progress, not only will they discover that he stands head and shoulders above most officials of his rank, but they will gain important side-lights on great events in recent history.

During my forty years' residence in the capital I had become well acquainted with Chang's brilliant career; but it is only within the last three or four years that I have had an opportunity to study him in personal intercourse, having been called to preside over his university and to aid him in other educational enterprises.

[Page 220] Whatever may be thought of the rank and file of China's mandarins, her viceroys are nearly always men of exceptional ability. They are never novices, but as a rule old in years and veterans in experience. Promoted for executive talent or for signal services, their office is too high to be in the market; nor is it probable that money can do much to recommend a candidate. A governor of Kwangsi was recently dismissed for incompetence, or for ill-success against a body of rebels. Being a rich man, he made a free use of that argument which commonly proves effective at Peking. But, so far from being advanced to the viceroyalty, he was not even reinstated in his original rank. The most he was able to obtain by a lavish expenditure was the inspectorship of a college at Wuchang, to put his foot on one of the lower rounds of the official ladder.

Chang was never rich enough to buy official honours, even in the lower grades; and it is one of his chief glories that, after a score of years in the exercise of viceregal power, he continues to be relatively poor.

His name in full is Chang Chi-tung, meaning "Longbow of the Cavern," an allusion to a tradition that one of his ancestors was born in a cave and famed for archery. This was far back in the age of the troglodytes. Now, for many generations, the family has been devoted to the peaceful pursuit of letters. As for Chang himself, it will be seen with what deadly effect he has been able to use the pen, in his hands a more formidable weapon than the longbow of his ancestor.

Chang was born at Nanpi, in the metropolitan [Page 221] province of Chihli, not quite seventy years ago; and that circumstance debarred him from holding the highest viceroyalty in the Empire, as no man is permitted to hold office in his native place. He has climbed to his present eminence without the extraneous aids of wealth and family influence. This implies talents of no ordinary grade; but how could those talents have found a fit arena without that admirable system of literary competition which for so many centuries has served the double purpose of extending patronage to letters and of securing the fittest men for the service of the state.

Crowned with the laurel of A. B., or budding genius, before he was out of his teens, three years later he won the honour of A. M., or, as the Chinese say, he plucked a sprig of the olea fragrans in a contest with his fellow-provincials in which only one in a hundred gained a prize. Proceeding to the imperial capital he entered the lists against the picked scholars of all the provinces. The prizes were 3 per cent. of the whole number of competitors, and he gained the doctorate in letters, which, as the Chinese title indicates, assures its possessor of an official appointment. Had he been content to wait for some obscure position he might have gone home to sleep on his laurels. But his restless spirit saw fresh battle-fields beckoning him to fresh triumphs. The three hundred new-made doctors were summoned to the palace to write on themes assigned by the Emperor, that His Majesty might select a score of them for places in the Hanlin Academy. Here again fortune favoured young Chang; the elegance of his penmanship and his skill in composing [Page 222] mechanical verse were so remarkable that he secured a seat on the literary Olympus of the Empire.

His conflicts were not yet ended. A conspicuous advantage of his high position was that it qualified him as a candidate for membership of the Board of Censors. Nor did fortune desert her favourite in this instance. After writing several papers to show his knowledge of law, history, and politics, he came forth clothed with powers that made him formidable to the highest officers of the state—powers somewhat analogous to the combined functions of censor and tribune in ancient Rome.

Before I proceed to show how our "knight of the longbow" employed his new authority, a few words on the constitution of that august tribunal, the Board of Censors, may prove interesting to the reader. Its members are not judges, but prosecuting attorneys for the state. They are accorded a freedom of speech which extends even to pointing out the shortcomings of majesty. How important such a tribunal for a country in which a newspaper press with its argus eyes has as yet no existence! There is indeed a court Gazette, which has been called the oldest newspaper in the world; but its contents are strictly limited to decrees, memorials, and appointments. Free discussion and general news have no place in its columns; so that in the modern sense it is not a newspaper.

The court—even the occupant of the Dragon Throne—needs watch-dogs. Such is the theory; but as a matter of fact these guardians of official morals find it safer to occupy themselves with the aberrations of satellites than to discover spots on the sun. About [Page 223] thirty years ago one of them, Wukotu, resolved to denounce the Empress Dowager for having adopted the late emperor as her son instead of making him her grandson. He accordingly immolated himself at the tomb of the late emperor by way of protesting against the impropriety of leaving him without a direct heir to worship his manes. It is doubtful whether the Western mind is capable of following Wukotu's subtle reasoning; but is it not plain that he felt that he was provoking an ignominious death, and chose rather to die as a hero—the champion of his deceased master?

If a censor succeeds in convicting a single high functionary of gross misconduct his fortune is made. He is rewarded by appointment to some respectable post, possibly the same from which his victim has been evicted. Practical advantage carries the day against abstract notions of aesthetic fitness. Sublime it might be to see the guardians of the common weal striking down the unworthy, with a public spirit untainted by self-interest; but in China (and in some other countries) such machinery requires self-interest for its motive force. Wanting that, it would be like a windmill without wind, merely a fine object in the landscape.

As an illustration of the actual procedure take the case in which Chang first achieved a national reputation. Chunghau, a Manchu of noble family and high in favour at court, had been sent to Russia in 1880 to demand the restoration of Ili, a province of Chinese Turkestan, which the Russians had occupied on pretext of quelling its chronic disorders. Scarcely had he reported the success of his mission, which had [Page 224] resulted in recovering two-thirds of the disputed territory, when Chang came forward and denounced it as worse than a failure. He had, as Chang proved, permitted the Russians to retain certain strategic points, and had given them fertile districts in exchange for rugged mountains or arid plains. To such a settlement no envoy could be induced to consent, unless chargeable with corruption or incompetence.

The unlucky envoy was thrown into prison and condemned to death (but reprieved), and his accuser rose in the official scale as rapidly as if he had won a great battle on land or sea. His victory was not unlike that of those British orators who made a reputation out of the impeachment of Lord Clive or Warren Hastings, save that with him a trenchant pen took the place of an eloquent tongue. I knew Chunghau both before and after his disgrace. In 1859, when an American embassy for the first time entered the gates of Peking, it was Chunghau who was appointed to escort the minister to the capital and back again to the seacoast—a pretty long journey in those days when there was neither steamboat nor railway. During that time, acting as interpreter, I had occasion to see him every day, and I felt strongly attracted by his generous and gentlemanly bearing. The poor fellow came out of prison stripped of all his honours, and with his prospects blighted forever. In a few months he died of sheer chagrin.

The war with Japan in 1894-1895 found Chang established in the viceroyalty of Hukwang, two provinces in Central China, with a prosperous population of over fifty millions, on a great highway of internal [Page 225] traffic rivalling the Mississippi, and with Hankow, the hub of the Empire, for its commercial centre. When he saw the Chinese forces scattered like chaff by the battalions of those despised islanders he was not slow to grasp the explanation. Kang Yuwei, a Canton man, also grasped it, and urged on the Emperor the necessity for reform with such vigour as to prompt him to issue a meteoric shower of reformatory edicts, filling one party with hope and the other with dismay.

Chang had held office at Canton; and his keen intellect had taken in the changed relations of West and East. He perceived that a new sort of sunshine shed its beams on the Western world. He did not fully apprehend the spiritual elements of our civilisation; but he saw that it was clothed with a power unknown to the sages of his country, the forces of nature being brought into subjection through science and popular education. He felt that China must conform to the new order of things, or perish—even if that new order was in contradiction to her ancient traditions as much as the change of sunrise to the west. He saw and felt that knowledge is power, a maxim laid down by Confucius before the days of Bacon; and he set about inculcating his new ideas by issuing a series of lectures for the instruction of his subordinates. Collected into a volume under the title of "Exhortations to Learn,"[*] they were put into the hands of the young Emperor and by his command distributed among the viceroys and governors of the Empire.

[Footnote *: Translated by Dr. Woodbridge as "China's Only Hope." Kelly & Walsh, Shanghai.]

[Page 226] What a harvest might have sprung from the sowing of such seed in such soil by an imperial husbandman! But there were some who viewed it as the sowing of dragons' teeth. Those reactionaries induced the Dowager Empress to come out from her retirement and to reassume her abdicated power in order to save the Empire from a threatening conflagration. It was the fable of Phaeton enacted in real life. The young charioteer was struck down and the sun brought back to his proper course instead of rising in the west. The progressive legislation of the two previous years 1897-98 was repealed and then followed two years of a narrow, benighted policy, controlled by the reactionaries under the lead of Prince Tuan, father of the heir-apparent, with a junta of Manchu princes as blind and corrupt as Russian grand dukes. That disastrous recoil resulted in war, not against a single power, but against the whole civilised world, as has been set forth in the account of the Boxer War (see page 172).

Affairs were drifting into this desperate predicament when Chang of the Cavern became in a sense the saviour of his country. This he effected by two actions which called for uncommon intelligence and moral force: (1) By assuring the British Government that he would at all costs maintain peace in Central China; (2) by refusing to obey an inhuman decree from Peking, commanding the viceroys to massacre all foreigners within their jurisdiction—a decree which would be incredible were it not known that at the same moment the walls of the capital were placarded with proclamations offering rewards of 50, 30 and 20 [Page 227] taels respectively for the heads of foreign men, women, and children.

It is barely possible that Chang was helped to a decision by a friendly visit from a British man-of-war, whose captain, in answer to a question about his artillery, informed Chang that he had the bearings of his official residence, and could drop a shell into it with unerring precision at a distance of three miles. He was also aided by the influence of Mr. Fraser, a wide-awake British consul. Fraser modestly disclaims any special merit in the matter, but British missionaries at Hankow give him the credit. They say that, learning from them the state of feeling among the people, he induced the viceroy to take prompt measures to prevent an outbreak. At one time a Boxer army from the south was about to cross the river and destroy the foreign settlement. Chang, when appealed to, frankly confessed that his troops were in sympathy with the Boxers, and that being in arrears of pay they were on the verge of revolt. Fraser found him the money by the help of the Hong Kong Bank; the troops were paid; and the Boxers dispersed.

The same problem confronted Liu, the viceroy of Nanking; and it was solved by him in the same way. Both viceroys acted in concert; but to which belongs the honour of that wise initiative can never be decided with certainty. The foreign consuls at Nanking claim it for Liu. Mr. Sundius, now British consul at Wuhu, assures me that as Liu read the barbarous decree he exclaimed, "I shall repudiate this as a forgery," adding "I shall not obey, if I have to die for it." His words have a heroic ring; and [Page 228] suggest that his policy was not taken at second-hand.

A similar claim has been put forward for Li Hung Chang, who was at that time viceroy at Canton. Is it not probable that the same view of the situation flashed on the minds of all three simultaneously? They were not, like the Peking princes, ignorant Tartars, but Chinese scholars of the highest type. They could not fail to see that compliance with that bloody edict would seal their own doom as well as that of the Empire.

Speaking of Chang, Mr. Fraser says: "He had the wit to see that any other course meant ruin." Chang certainly does not hesitate to blow his own trumpet; but I do not suspect him of "drawing the longbow." Having the advantage of being an expert rhymer, he has put his own pretensions into verses which all the school-children in a population of fifty millions are obliged to commit to memory. They run somewhat like this:

"In Kengtse (1900) the Boxer robbers went mad, And Peking became for the third time the prey of fire and sword; But the banks of the Great River and the province of Hupei Remained in tranquillity."

He adds in a tone of exultation:

"The province of Hupei was accordingly exempted From the payment of an indemnity tax, And allowed to spend the amount thus saved In the erection of schoolhouses."

In these lines there is not much poetry; but the fact which they commemorate adds one more wreath to [Page 229] a brow already crowned with many laurels, showing how much the viceroy's heart was set on the education of his people.

In the interest of the educational movement, I was called to Chang's assistance in 1902. The Imperial University was destroyed in the Boxer War, and, seeing no prospect of its reestablishment I was on the way to my home in America when, on reaching Vancouver, I found a telegram from Viceroy Chang, asking me to be president of a university which he proposed to open, and to instruct his junior officials in international law. I engaged for three years; and I now look back on my recent campaign in Central China as one of the most interesting passages in a life of over half a century in the Far East.

Besides instructing his mandarins in the law of nations, I had to give them some notion of geography and history, the two cooerdinates of time and place, without which they might, like some of their writers, mistake Rhode Island for the Island of Rhodes, and Rome, New York, for the City of the Seven Hills. A book on the Intercourse of Nations and a translation of Dudley Field's "International Code," remain as tangible results of those lectures. But the university failed to materialise.

Within a month after my arrival the viceroy was ordered to remove to Nanking to take up a post rendered vacant by the death of his eminent colleague, Liu. Calling at my house on the eve of embarking he said, "I asked you to come here to be president of a university for two provinces. If you will go with me to Nanking, I will make you president of a university [Page 230] for five provinces," meaning that he would combine the educational interests of the two viceroyalties, and showing how the university scheme had expanded in his fertile brain.

Before he had been a month at that higher post he learned to his intense disappointment that he was only to hold the place for another appointee. After nearly a year at Nanking, he was summoned to Peking, where he spent another year in complete uncertainty as to his future destination. In the meantime the university existed only on paper. In justice to the viceroy I ought to say that nothing could exceed the courtesy and punctuality with which he discharged his obligations to me. The despatch which once a month brought me my stipend was always addressed to me as president of the Wuchang University, though as a matter of fact I might as well have been styled president of the University of Weissnichtwo. In one point he went beyond his agreement, viz., in giving me free of charge a furnished house of two stories, with ten rooms and a garden. It was on the bank of the "Great River" with the picturesque hills of Hanyang nearly opposite, a site which I preferred to any other in the city. I there enjoyed the purest air with a minimum of inconvenience from narrow, dirty streets. To these exceptional advantages it is doubtless due that my health held out, notwithstanding the heat of the climate, which, the locality being far inland and in lat. 30 deg. 30', was that of a fiery furnace. On the night of the autumnal equinox, my first in Wuchang, the mercury stood in my bedroom at 102 deg.. I was the guest of the Rev. Arnold Foster of the London Missionary [Page 231] Society, whose hospitality was warm in more ways than one.

The viceroy returned from Peking, broken in health; the little strength he had left was given to military preparation for the contingencies of the Russo-Japanese War; and his university was consigned to the limbo of forgotten dreams.

Viceroy Chang has been derided, not quite justly, as possessing a superabundance of initiative along with a rather scant measure of finality, taking up and throwing down his new schemes as a child does its playthings. In these enterprises the paucity of results was due to the shortcomings of the agents to whom he entrusted their management. The same reproach and the same apology might be made for the Empress Dowager who, like the Roman Sybil, committed her progressive decrees to the mercy of the winds without seeming to care what became of them.

Next after the education of his people the development of their material resources has been with Chang a leading object. To this end he has opened cotton-mills, silk-filatures, glass-works and iron-works, all on an extensive scale, with foreign machinery and foreign experts. For miles outside of the gates of Wuchang the banks of the river are lined with these vast establishments. Do they not announce more clearly than the batteries which command the waterway the coming of a new China? Some of them he has kept going at an annual loss. The cotton-mill, for example, was standing idle when I arrived, because in the hands of his mandarins he could not make it pay expenses. A Canton merchant leased it on easy terms, and made it [Page 232] such a conspicuous success that he is now growing rich. It is an axiom in China that no manufacturing or mercantile enterprise can be profitably conducted by a deputation of mandarins.

Chang is rapidly changing the aspect of his capital by erecting in all parts of it handsome school-buildings in foreign style, literally proclaiming from the house-tops his gospel of education. The youth in these schools are mostly clad in foreign dress; his street police and the soldiers in his barracks are all in foreign uniform; and many of the latter have cut off their cues as a sign of breaking with the old regime. In talking with their officers I applauded the prudence of the measure as making them less liable to be captured while running away.

Chang's soldiers are taught to march to the cadence of his own war-songs—which, though lacking the fire of Tyrtaeus or Koerner, are not ill-suited to arouse patriotic sentiment. Take these lines as a sample:

"Foreigners laugh at our impotence, And talk of dividing our country like a watermelon, But are we not 400 million strong? If we of the Yellow Race only stand together, What foreign power will dare to molest us? Just look at India, great in extent But sunk in hopeless bondage. Look, too, at the Jews, famous in ancient times, Now scattered on the face of the earth. Then look at Japan with her three small islands, Think how she got the better of this great nation, And won the admiration of the world. What I admire in the Japanese Is not their skill in using ship or gun But their single-hearted love of country."

[Page 233] Viceroy Chang's mode of dealing with his own malady might be taken as a picture of the shifting policy of a half-enlightened country.

The first doctor he consulted was a Chinese of the old school. Besides administering pills composed of

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,"

the doctor suggested that one thing was still required to put the patient in harmony with the course of Nature. Pointing to a fine chain of hills that stretches in a waving line across the wide city, he said: "The root of your trouble lies there. That carriage-road that you have opened has wounded the spinal column of the serpent. Restore the hill to its former condition and you will soon get well."

The viceroy filled the gap incontinently, but found himself no better. He then sent for English and American doctors—dismissing them in turn to make way for a Japanese who had him in charge when I left Wuchang. For a paragon of intelligence and courage, how pitiful this relapse into superstition! Did not China after a trial of European methods also relapse during the Boxer craze into her old superstitions? And is she not at this moment taking the medicine of Japan? To Japan she looks for guidance in the conduct of her public schools as well as for the training of her army and navy. To Japan she is sending her sons and daughters in growing numbers. No fewer than eight thousand of her young men, and, what is more significant, one or two hundred of her young women from the best families are now in those islands inhaling the breath of a new life.

[Page 234] Some writers have sounded a note of alarm in consequence of this wholesale surrender on the part of China. But for my part I have no fear of any sinister tendency in the teachings of Japan, whether political or educational. On a memorable occasion twelve years ago, when Marquis Ito was entertained at a banquet in Peking by the governor of the city and the chancellor of the Imperial University, I congratulated him on the fact that "Japan exerts a stronger influence on China than any Western power—just as the moon raises a higher tide than the more distant sun"—implying, what the Japanese are ready enough to admit, that their country shines by borrowed light.

After all, the renovating effect, for which I look to them, will not come so much from their teaching as from their example. "What is to hinder us from doing what those islanders have done?" is an argument oft reiterated by Viceroy Chang in his appeals to his drowsy countrymen. It was, as I have said, largely under his influence that the Emperor was led to adopt a new educational programme twelve years ago. Nor can there be a doubt that by his influence more than that of any other man, the Empress Dowager was induced to reenact and to enlarge that programme.

To show what is going on in this very decade: On September 3, 1905, an edict was issued "abolishing the literary competitive examinations of the old style," and ordering that "hereafter exclusive attention shall be given to the establishment of schools of modern learning throughout the Empire in lieu thereof." The next day a supplementary decree ordained that [Page 235] the provincial chancellors or examiners who, like Othello, found their occupation gone, should have the duty of examining and inspecting the schools in their several provinces; and, to give the new arrangement greater weight, it was required that they "discharge this duty in conjunction with the viceroy or governor of the province."

An item of news that came along with these decrees seemed to indicate that a hitherto frivolous court has at length become thoroughly in earnest on the subject of education. A sum of 300,000 taels appeared in the national budget as the annual expense of a theatrical troupe in attendance on the Court. At the instance of two ministers (Viceroy Yuan and General Tieliang) Her Majesty reduced this to one-third of that amount, ordering that theatricals should be performed twice a week instead of daily; and that the 200,000 taels thus economised shall be set apart for the use of schools. How much this resembles the policy of Viceroy Chang who, exempted from raising a war indemnity, set apart an equal amount for the building of schoolhouses! An empire that builds schoolhouses is more certain to make a figure in the world than one that spends its money on batteries and forts.

In addition to adopting the new education there are three items which Chang proclaims as essential to a renovation of Chinese society. In the little book, already cited, he says:

[Page 236] The crippling of women makes their offspring weak; The superstition of Fungshui prevents the opening of mines, And keeps China poor."

How could the man who wrote this fall back into the folly of Fungshui? Is it not possible that he closed that new road in deference to the superstitions of his people? In either case it would be a deplorable weakness; but his country, thanks to his efforts, is now fully committed to progress. She moves, however, in that direction much as her noble rivers move toward the sea—with many a backward bend, many a refluent eddy.

POSTSCRIPT NO. I

In taking leave of this eminent man, who represents the best class of his countrymen, there are two or three incidents, which I mention by way of supplement. In his telegram to Vancouver, besides engaging me to assume the office of president of the proposed university, he asked me to act as his legal and political adviser. In the agreement formally made through the consul in New York, in place of these last-named functions was substituted the duty of instructing his junior mandarins in international law. The reason assigned for the change was that the Peking Government declined to allow any foreigner to hold the post of adviser. The objection was represented as resting on general policy, not on personal grounds. If, however, the Peking officials had read my book on the Siege, in which I denounce the treachery of Manchu government and favour the [Page 237] position of China, it is quite conceivable that their objection might have a tinge of personality.

When Viceroy Chang was starting for Peking, I called to see him on board his steamer. He held in his hand a printed report of my opening lecture at the beginning of a new term, and expressed regret that in the hurry of departure he had been unable to find time to attend in person. On that occasion (the previous day) several of his higher officials, including the treasurer, judge, and prefect, after giving me tiffin at the Mandarin Institute, brought sixty junior officials to make their salaam to their instructor. This ceremony performed, I bowed to Their Excellencies, and requested them to leave me with my students. "No," they replied, "we too are desirous of hearing you"; and they took seats in front of the platform.

Viceroy Chang seems to have manifested some jealousy of Sir Robert Hart, in criticising the Inspector-General's proposal for a single tax. He likewise criticised unfavourably the scheme of Professor Jenckes for unifying the currency of the Empire—influenced, perhaps, by the fear that such an innovation might impair the usefulness of a costly plant which he has recently erected for minting both silver and copper coin. For the same reason perhaps he objects, as I hear he does, to the proposed engagement of a Cornell professor by the Board of Revenue in the capacity of financial adviser.

With all his foibles, however, he is a true patriot; and his influence has done much to move China in the right direction. O for more men like Chang, the "Longbow of the Cavern!"

[Page 238] I append a weighty document that is not the less interesting for being somewhat veiled in mystery. I regret that I am not at liberty to disclose its authorship. The report is to be taken as anonymous, being an unpublished document of the secret service. To the reader it is left to divine the nationality and personality of its author. Valuable for the light it throws on a great character in a trying situation, the report gains piquancy and interest from the fact that the veil of official secrecy has to be treated with due respect. My unnamed friend has my thanks and deserves those of my readers.

OFFICIAL INTERVIEWS WITH VICEROY CHANG DURING THE CRISIS OF 1900

"At our interview of 17th June, described at length in my despatch to you of 18th June, the Viceroy explained his determination to maintain order and to afford the protection due under treaty; he also emphasised his desire to be on friendly terms with England.

"Early in June, the three cities of Wuchang, Hanyang and Hankow had been full of rumours of the kidnapping of children and even grown persons by means of hypnotism; and though a concise notification by the Viceroy, that persons spreading such tales would be executed, checked its prevalence here, the scare spread to the country districts and inflamed the minds of the people against foreigners and, in consequence, against converts and missions.

"On the 25th June, the Viceroy, as reported in a separate despatch of 28th June, to Lord Salisbury, sent a special envoy to assure me that H. E. would not accept or act upon any anti-foreign decrees from Peking. At the same time he communicated copy of a telegraphic memorial from himself and seven other high provincial officers insisting on the suppression of the [Page 239] Boxers and the maintenance of peace. This advice H. E. gave me to understand led to the recall of Li Hung Chang to the north as negotiator.

"Distorted accounts of the capture of the Taku forts and the hostilities of the north caused some excitement, but the Viceroy's proclamation of 2nd July, copy of which was forwarded in my despatch of 3rd July to the Foreign Office, and the vigorous police measures taken by His Excellency soon restored calm which, despite occasional rumours, continued until the recent plot and scare reported in my despatch to you of 23rd of August. In the same despatch I described how, in compliance with my wish, H. E. took the unprecedented step of tearing down his proclamation embodying an Imperial Decree which had been taken to imply license to harry converts. To foreigners during the past two months the question of interest has been whether the Viceroy could and would keep his troops in order. The Viceroy himself seemed to be in some doubt until the return of his trusted officers, who were attending the Japanese manoeuvres when the northern troubles began. Every now and then reports of disaffection have been industriously circulated, but the drilled troops have never shown any sign of disloyalty.

"A point of H. E.'s policy which has caused considerable suspicion is the despatch of troops northward, At the end of June some 2,000 or 3,000 men passed through Hankow bound for Nyanking where the Governor was said to want a body-guard. They were unarmed and did no mischief beyond invading the Customs and China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company's premises. During July some 5,000 troops, of whom perhaps half were drilled men, went from Hukeang provinces overland to Honan and on to Chihli. They were led by the anti-foreign Treasurer of Hunan; and their despatch was explained by the constitutional duty of succouring the Emperor. Since July I have not heard of any further detachments leaving, though it was said that the total would reach 10,000. Possibly the Viceroy sent the men because he did not feel strong enough to defy Peking altogether, because failure to help the court would [Page 240] have excited popular reprobation, and also in order to get rid of a considerable part of the dangerous 'loafer' class.

"About the 20th July there was a persistent report that the Viceroy was secretly placing guns on the opposite banks of the river. The German military instructors assured me that the report was baseless; and Lieutenant Brandon, H. M. S. Pique, thoroughly searched the bank for a distance of three miles in length and breadth, without discovering a trace of a cannon. The only guns in position are the two 5-inch Armstrong M. L. within the walls of Wuchang, and they have been there for a long time and are used 'merely for training purposes.'

"So early as our interview of June 17th, the Viceroy expressed anxiety as to missionaries at remote points in the interior; and I had about that time suggested to the various missions that women and children would be better at a treaty port. The missions themselves preferred to recall all their members, and at the Viceroy's request supplied lists of the stations thus left to the care of the local authorities. Since then, even in Hupeh, there have been a few cases of plundering, especially in the large district of Sin Chan on the Hunan border, while at Hangchow-fu, in Hunan, the London Mission premises were wrecked early in July and for a time throughout the whole province it appeared probable that the Missions would be destroyed. The chief cause of this, as of the riots in Hupeh, was the dissemination of an alleged decree of 26th June praising the Boxers and ordering the authorities to imitate the north in exterminating foreigners. This decree seems to have reached local authorities direct; and those hostile to foreigners acted upon it or let its existence be known to the gentry and people. The chapels in Hunan were all sealed up; and it was understood that all mission and convert property would be confiscated. Towards the end of July, however, the Viceroy and the Hunan Governor issued a satisfactory proclamation, and I have heard no more complaints from that province, the western part of which seems tranquil.

"Besides safeguarding foreign life and property in his own province the Viceroy has frequently been asked to aid missionaries retiring from Kansuh, Shensi, Shansi, and Honan. In [Page 241] every case H. E. has readily consented. Detailed telegrams have been sent again and again not only to his frontier officers, but to the governors of other provinces with whom H. E. has expostulated, when necessary, in strong terms. Thus, when Honan seemed likely to turn against us, the Viceroy insisted on the publication of favourable decrees, and even went so far as to send his men to establish a permanent escort depot at Ching Tzu Kuan, an important post in Honan where travellers from the north and northwest have to change from cart to boat. Happily the acting Governor of Shensi has cooeperated nobly. But the refugees who testify invariably to the marvellous feeling of security engendered by reaching Hupeh, will, I doubt not, agree that they owe their lives to Chang Chi-tung's efforts; for simple inaction on his part would have encouraged the many hostile officers to treat them as Shansi has treated its missionaries.

"At times during the past two anxious months the Viceroy's action in sending troops north, the occurrence of riots at various points, H. E.'s communication of decrees in which the Peking Government sought to gloss over the northern uprising, and his eagerness to make out that the Empress Dowager had not incited the outbreak and had no hostile feeling against foreigners have inevitably made one uneasy. But on looking back one appreciates the skill and constancy with which H. E. has met a most serious crisis and done his duty to Chinese and foreigners alike. It is no small thing for a Chinese statesman and scholar to risk popularity, position, and even life in a far-seeing resistance to the apparent decrees of a court to which his whole training enforces blind loyalty and obedience. His desire to secure the personal safety of the Empress Dowager on account of her long services to the Empire is natural enough; nor need he be blamed for supplying some military aid to his sovereign, even though he may have guessed that it would be used against those foreign nations with whom he himself steadfastly maintains friendship and against whose possible attack he has not mounted an extra gun."

[Page 242] POSTSCRIPT NO.2

TUAN FANG OF THE HIGH COMMISSION

During Chang's long absence, Tuan Fang, Governor of Hupeh, held the seals and exercised the functions of viceroy. He was a Manchu—one of those specimens, admirable but not rare, who, in acquiring the refinement of Chinese culture, lose nothing of the vigour of their own race. "Of their own race," I say, because in language and habits the Manchus are strongly differentiated from their Chinese subjects.

In the Boxer War Governor Tuan established an excellent record. Acting as governor in Shensi, instead of killing missionaries, as did the Manchu governor of the next province, he protected them effectually and sent them safely to Hankow. One day when I was at his house a missionary came to thank him for kindness shown on that occasion.

Mentioning one of my books I once asked him if he had read it. "You never wrote a book that I have not read," was his emphatic reply. He was a pretty frequent visitor at my house, punctually returning all my calls; and when he was transferred to the governorship of Hunan he appeared pleased to have the Yale Mission commended to his patronage. He has a son at school in the United States; and his wife and daughters have taken lessons in English from ladies of the American Episcopal Mission.

Governor Tuan (now viceroy) is a leading member of a commission recently sent abroad to study and report on the institutions of the Western world. Its [Page 243] departure was delayed by the explosion of a bomb in one of the carriages just as the commission was leaving Peking. The would-be assassin was "hoist with his own petard," leaving the public mystified as to the motive of the outrage.



[Page 244] CHAPTER XXXI

ANTI-FOREIGN AGITATION

American Influence in the Far East—Officials and the Boycott—Interview with President Roosevelt—Riot in a British Concession—Ex-territoriality—Two Ways to an End—A Grave Mistake—The Nan-chang Tragedy—Dangers from Superstition

So far from being new, an anti-foreign spirit is the normal state of the Chinese mind. Yet during the year past it has taken on new forms, directed itself against new objects, and employed new methods. It deserves therefore a conspicuous place among the new developments in the China of the twentieth century.

Where everything is changing, the temper of the people has undergone a change. They have become restless as the sea and fickle as a weather-vane, The friends of yesterday are the enemies of to-day; and a slight or petty annoyance is enough to make them transfer man or country from one to the other category. Murderous outbreaks, rare in the past, have now become alarmingly frequent, so much so that the last year might be described as a year of anti-foreign riots. The past nine months have witnessed four such outbreaks, In four widely separated provinces, venting their fury pretty impartially on people of four nationalities and of all professions, they were actuated by a [Page 245] common hate and indicated a common purpose. That purpose—if they had a purpose—was to compel a readjustment of treaty relations.

America has the distinction of being the target for the first assaults. In treating the subject I accordingly begin with America and the boycott, as set forth in a long extract from an address before the Publishers' League of New York, November 8, 1905, on

AMERICAN INFLUENCE IN THE FAR EAST

"Mr. President and Gentlemen:

"If I were asked to find a pou sto, a fulcrum, on which to erect a machine to move the world, I should choose this league of publishers; and the machine would be no other than the power press! I have accepted your invitation not merely from pleasant recollections of your former hospitality, but because new occurrences have taken place which appeal to the patriotism of every good citizen. They are issues that rise above party; they involve our national character and the well-being of another people whom we owe the sacred duties of justice and humanity.

"When I agreed to speak to you of American influence in the Far East, I was not aware that we should have with us a representative of Japan, and I expected to spread myself thinly over two empires. Happy I am to resign one of these empires to Mr. Stevens.

"I shall accordingly say no more about Japan than to advert to the fact that the wise forbearance of Commodore Perry, which, in 1854, induced the Shogun to open his ports without firing a gun, has won the gratitude of the Japanese people; so that in many ways they testify a preference for us and our country. For instance, they call the English language 'Americano,' etc. They were disappointed that their claims against Russia were not backed up by the United States. That, however, caused only a momentary cloud. Beyond this, nothing has ever occurred to mar the harmony of the two peoples who [Page 246] face each other on the shores of the Pacific. Perry's wise initiative was followed by the equal wisdom of Townsend Harris, who, before any other consul or minister had arrived, was invited to Yedda to give advice to the government of the Shogun.

"American influence thus inaugurated has been fostered by a noble army of ministers, consuls, and missionaries. The total absence of massacres and murders[*] makes the history of our intercourse with Japan tame in contrast with the tragic story from China. It speaks the reign of law.

[Footnote *: The only missionary killed in the last fifty years was stabbed while grappling with a burglar.]

"My acquaintance with Japan dates back forty-six years; and in the meantime I have had pleasant relations with most of the ministers she has sent to China. One of her officials recently gave me a beautiful scarf-pin that speaks volumes for American influence, showing as it does the two flags in friendly union on one flagstaff. I gave him in return the following lines:

"'To sun and stars divided sway! Remote but kindred suns are they, In friendly concord here they twine To form a new celestial sign.

"'Thou, Orient sun, still higher rise To fill with light the Eastern skies! And you, ye stars and stripes, unfurled Shed glory on the Western world!

"'Our starry flag first woke the dawn In the empire of the Rising Sun. May no ill chance e'er break the tie, And so we shout our loud banzai!'

"I now turn to the less cheering theme of American influence in China. It reminds me of the naturalist who took for the [Page 247] heading of a chapter 'Snakes in Iceland,' and whose entire chapter consisted of the words 'There are no snakes in Iceland.' Though formerly blazing like a constellation in the Milky Way, American influence has vanished so completely that you can hardly see it with a microscope. What influence can we presume on when our commodities are shut out, not by legislative action but as a result of popular resentment?

THE BOYCOTT

"True, the latest advices are to the effect that the boycott has broken down. I foresaw and foretold more than two months ago that it could not in the nature of the case be of long duration, that it was a mere ballon d'essai—an encouraging proof that Orientals are learning to apply our methods. But is there not a deplorable difference between the conditions under which it is used in the two countries? In one the people all read, and the newspaper is in everybody's hand. The moment a strike or boycott is declared off all hands fall into their places and things go on as usual. In the other the readers are less than one in twenty. Newspapers, away from the open ports, are scarcely known, or if they exist they are subject to the tyranny of the mandarins or the terrorism of the mob. Hence a war may be waged in one province and people in another may scarcely hear of it. Chevaux-de-frise may bar out goods from one port, while they are more or less openly admitted in other ports. Not only so, the hostile feeling engendered by such conflict of interest is not dissipated by sunshine, but rankles and spreads like an epidemic over vast regions unenlightened by newspapers or by contact with foreign commerce.

"Witness the massacre of American missionaries at Lienchow in the Canton province. I am not going to enter into the details of that shocking atrocity, nor to dwell on it further than to point out that although the boycott was ended on September 14, the people in that district were in such a state of exasperation that the missionaries felt themselves in danger fourteen days after that date. In the New York Sun of November 5 I find part of a letter from one of the victims, the Reverend Mr. [Page 248] Peale, written exactly one month before the tragedy. Allow me to read it along with an introductory paragraph.

"'PRINCETON, N. J., Nov. 4.—A. Lee Wilson, a student in the Princeton Theological Seminary, received a letter a few days ago from John R. Peale, the missionary who, with his wife, was killed in Lienchow, China, on October 28. The letter was dated September 28, and reached America at the time that Peale and his wife were murdered. It gives a clue to the troubles which led to the death of Peale. The letter says in part:

"'"The interest in the boycott is vital to the missionaries. Heretofore the Americans always enjoyed special favour, and to fly the American flag meant protection; but it is different now. No personal violence has been attempted, but the people are less cordial and more suspicious. People in China are not asking that their coolies be allowed entrance into the States, but they only ask that the Americans cease treating the Chinese with contempt and allow their merchants and students the same privileges that other foreigners receive."

"'Peale graduated from the Princeton Theological Seminary last May.

"Is it not evident that whatever spark caused the explosion, the nitro-glycerin that made it possible came from the boycott?

"Not only do they boycott ponderables such as figure at the custom-house, but they extend the taboo to things of the head and heart. The leader of the whole movement was formerly an active supporter of the International Institute, an institution which proposes to open gratuitous courses of lectures and to place Chinese men of intelligence on common ground with scholars of the West, He now opposes the International Institute because, forsooth, it is originated and conducted by Dr. Reid, a large-minded American.

"After this, will you be surprised to hear that your own publications, the best text-books for the schools of the Far East, have been put on the index expurgatorius? A number of such books were lately returned with the excuse that they were forbidden because they bore the stamp of an American press.

[Page 249] "If I should go on to say that government officials, high and low, look with satisfaction on this assertion of something like national feeling, you might reply, 'National feeling! Yes, it is a duty to cultivate that.' But do we not know how it has been fostered in China? Has not hatred of the foreigner been mistaken for patriotism, and been secretly instigated as a safeguard against foreign aggression? In this instance, however, there is no room to suspect such a motive. The movement is purely a result of provocation on our part; and it is fostered with a view to coercing our government into modifying or repealing our offensive exclusion laws. The Viceroy of Central China, with whom I have spent the last three years, is known as a pioneer of reform—a man who has done more than any other to instruct his people in their duties as well as their rights. When, on the expiration of my engagement, I was about to leave for home, the prefect of Wuchang, a Canton man, addressed me a letter begging me to plead the cause of his people with the President of the United States. That letter was referred to in an interview by the viceroy, and the request which it contained reiterated by him. He gave me a parting banquet, attended by many of his mandarins, and on that occasion the subject came up again and the same request was renewed and pressed on me from all sides. While I promised to exert myself on their behalf, let me give you a specimen of the kind of oil which I poured on their wounded feelings.

"Said I, 'Under the exasperating effect of these petty grievances your people forget what they owe to the United States. They lose sight of the danger of alienating their best friend. In the Boxer War, when Peking was captured by a combined force of eight foreign powers, who but America was the first to introduce a self-denying ordinance forbidding any power to take any portion of the Chinese territory? In this she was backed up by Great Britain; the other powers fell into line and the integrity of the Empire was assured. Again, when China was in danger of being drawn into the vortex of the Russo-Japanese war, who but America secured for her the privileges of neutrality—thus a second time protecting her national life? And now you turn [Page 250] against us! Is not such conduct condemned by your ancient poet who says:

"'Ki wo siao yuen, wang wo ta teh', etc.

(How many acts of kindness done One small offence wipes out, As motes obscure the shining sun And shut his lustre out.')

"If the cause of offence be taken away there is reason to hope that the beneficent action of our country, on those two occasions so big with destiny, will be remembered, and will lead China to look to our flag as an aegis under which she may find protection in time of need. Not till then will our influence, now reduced to the vanishing-point, be integrated to its full value.

PROVOCATIONS TO A BOYCOTT

"The injuries inflicted, though trifling in comparison with the benefits conferred, are such as no self-respecting people should either perpetrate or endure. Take one example, where I could give you twenty. Two young men, both Christians, one rich, the other poor, came to the United States for education. They were detained in a prison-shed for three months, One of them, falling sick, was removed to a hospital; the other obtaining permission to visit him, they made their escape to Canada and thence back to China.

"What wonder no more students come to us and that over 8,000 are now pursuing their studies in Japan![*]

[Footnote *: The conciliatory policy of President Roosevelt is bearing fruit Forty students are about to start to the United States (May, 1906).]

"The present irritation is, we are assured by the agitators, provoked by the outrageous treatment of the privileged classes (merchants, travellers, and students) and not by the exclusion of labourers, to which their government has given its assent. Yet in the growing intelligence of the Chinese a time has come when their rulers feel such discrimination as a stigma. It is not merely [Page 251] a just application of existing laws that Viceroy Chang and his mandarins demand. They call for the rescinding of those disgraceful prohibitions and the right to compete on equal terms with immigrants from Europe. If we show a disposition to treat the Chinese fairly, their country and their hearts will be open to us as never before. Our commerce with China will expand to vast proportions; and our flag will stand highest among those that overarch and protect the integrity of that empire."

On November 16, I was received by President Roosevelt. Running his eye over the documents (see below) which I placed in his hands he expressed himself on each point. The grievances arising from the Exclusion Laws he acknowledged to be real. He promised that they should be mitigated or removed by improvements in the mode of administration; but he held out no hope of their repeal. "We have one race problem on our hands and we don't want another," he said with emphasis. The boycott which the Chinese have resorted to as a mode of coercion he condemned as an aggravation of existing difficulties. The interruption of trade and the killing of American missionaries to which it had led made it impossible, he said, to turn over to China the surplus indemnity, as he had intended.

This response is what I expected; but it will by no means satisfy the ruling classes in China, who aim at nothing short of repeal. When I assured him the newspapers were wrong in representing the agitation as confined to labourers and merchants, adding that the highest mandarins, while formally condemning it, really give it countenance, he replied that he believed that to be the case, and reiterated the declaration that [Page 252] nothing is to be gained by such violent measures on the part of China.

From the Executive Mansion, I proceeded to the Chinese Legation, where I talked over the matter with the minister, Sir Chentung Liang. He was not surprised at the attitude of the President. He said the state of feeling towards China in Congress and in the entire country is improving, but that, in his opinion, it will require ten years to bring about the repeal of the Exclusion Laws.

The present hitch in negotiations comes in part from Peking, but he hoped a temporary settlement would soon be arrived at.

The papers referred to above are here appended.

LETTERS REQUESTING GOOD OFFICES (Translation)

"To the Hon. Dr. Martin.

"Sir:

"During the last three years we have often exchanged views on the subject of education and other topics of the day; and to me it is a joy to reflect that no discordant note has ever marred our intercourse.

"In view of your learning and your long residence of forty years at our capital, besides fifteen years in other parts of China, you are regarded by us with profound respect. When we hear your words we ponder them and treasure them up as things not to be forgotten. It is by your scholarship and by your personal character that you have been able to associate with the officers and scholars of the Central Empire in harmony like this.

"Now, sir, there is a matter which we wish to bring to your attention—a matter that calls for the efforts of wise men like yourself. I refer to the exclusion of Chinese labourers. It affects our mercantile as well as our labouring population very deeply.

[Page 253] "We beg you to bear in mind your fifty-five years' sojourn in China and to speak a good word on our behalf to the President of the United States so as to secure the welfare of both classes.

"If through your persuasion the prohibitory regulations should be withdrawn the gratitude of our Chinese people will know no bounds; your fifty-five years of devotion to the good of China will have a fitting consummation in one day's achievement; and your name will be handed down to coming generations.

"Being old friends, I write as frankly as if we were speaking face to face.

"(Signed) LIANG TING FEN, "Director of the Normal College for the Two Lake "Provinces, Intendant of Circuit (Taotai), etc. etc. "Wuchang, July 8, 1905."

The foregoing translation was made by me, and the original is attached to the copy presented to the President, for the satisfaction of any official interpreter who may desire to see it.

This letter may be regarded as expressing the sentiments of the higher officials of the Chinese Empire. It was written on the eve of my embarkation for home by a man who more than any other has a right to be looked on as spokesman for Viceroy Chang; and the following day the request was repeated by the viceroy himself. These circumstances make it a document of more than ordinary importance.

The outrageous treatment to which the privileged classes (merchants, students, and travellers) have been subjected, under cover of enforcing the Exclusion Laws, has caused a deep-rooted resentment, of which the boycott is only a superficial manifestation. That movement may not be of long duration, but it has already lasted long enough to do us no little damage.

[Page 254] Besides occasioning embarrassment to our trade, it has excited a feeling of hostility which it will require years of conciliatory policy to eradicate.

The letter makes no direct reference to the boycott, neither does it allude to coming negotiations; yet there can be little doubt that, in making this appeal, the writer had both in view. The viceroy and his officials are right in regarding the present as a grave crisis in the intercourse of the two countries.

Their amicable relations have never been interrupted except during a fanatical outbreak known as the "Boxer Troubles," which aimed at the expulsion of all foreigners. The leading part taken by our country in the subsequent settlement, especially in warding off the threatened dismemberment of China, added immensely to our influence. Again, on the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese conflict, which was waged mainly on Chinese territory, it was American diplomacy that secured for China the advantage of neutrality, and once more warded off a danger that menaced her existence.

Yet every spark of gratitude for these transcendent services is liable to be extinguished by the irritation caused by discrimination against her labourers and the consequent ill-treatment of other classes of her people. No argument is required to show how important it is to remove all grounds of complaint in the interest of our growing commerce.

That any sweeping alteration will be made in our existing laws, I have given my mandarin friends no reason to expect. Self-preservation stands on a higher plane than the amenities of intercourse. For many years these laws served as a bulwark without which the [Page 255] sparse population of our Western States would have been swamped by the influx of Asiatics. In early days it was easier for the Chinese to cross the ocean than for the people of our Eastern States to cross the Continent. Now, however, the completion of railroads has reduced the continental transit to five or six days, in lieu of many months; and the population of our Pacific Coast is so considerable that there is no longer any danger of its being overrun by immigrants from the Far East. Is it not therefore a fair question whether the maintenance of these old restrictions is desirable or politic? Swaddling bands, necessary for the protection of an infant, are an impediment to a growing boy. That question can perhaps be best decided by ascertaining the general sentiment of our Pacific States. My impression is that, with the exception of the fruit-growers of California and some others, they are strongly opposed to what they call "letting down the bars."

The most feasible way of meeting the difficulty would be, as it appears to me, the enactment of regulations to provide against abuses in the enforcement of our Exclusion Laws. The President has already spoken forcibly in condemnation of such abuses. The "privileged classes" might be construed in a more liberal sense. Provision might be made to mitigate the hardships of detention and repatriation; and a better class of inspectors might be appointed with a general superintendent, whose duty it should be to see that the laws are enforced humanely as well as faithfully.