What part the Empress Mother had taken in this her first coup d'état, is left to conjecture. Penetrating and ambitious she was not content to be a tool in the hands of the Eight. The senior Empress yielded to the ascendency of a superior mind, as she continued to do for twenty years.
There was another actor whom it would be wrong to overlook, namely, Kweiliang, the good secretary, who had signed the treaties at Tientsin. His daughter was Prince Kung's principal wife, and though too old to take a leading part in the Court revolutions, it was he who prompted Prince Kung, who was young and inexperienced, to strike for his life.
The reigning title of the infant Emperor was changed from Kisiang, "good luck," to Tung-chi, "joint government"; and the Empire acquiesced in the new régime.
One person there was, however, who was not quite satisfied with the arrangement. This was the restless, ambitious young Dowager. The Empire was quiet; and things went on in their new course for years, Prince Kung all the time growing in power and dignity. His growing influence gave her umbrage; and one morning a decree from the two Dowagers stripped him of power, and confined him a prisoner in his palace. His alleged offence was want of respect to their Majesties; he threw himself at their feet and implored forgiveness.
The ladies were not implacable; he was restored to favour and clothed with all his former dignities, except one. The title of Icheng-wang, "joint regent," never reappeared.
In 1881 the death of the senior Dowager left the second Dowager alone in her glory. So harmoniously had they coöperated during their joint regency, and so submissive had the former been to the will of the latter, that there was no ground for suspicion of foul play, yet such suspicions are always on the wing, like bats in the twilight of an Oriental court.
On the death of Tung-chi, the adroit selection of a nephew of three summers to succeed to the throne as her adopted son, gave the Dowager the prospect of another long regency. Recalled to power by the reactionaries, in 1898, after a brief retirement, the Empress Dowager dethroned her puppet by a second coup-d'état.
During the ruinous recoil that followed she had the doubtful satisfaction of feeling herself sole aristocrat of the Chinese Empire. Was it not the satisfaction of a gladiator who seated himself on the throne of the Cæsars in a burning amphitheatre? Was she not made sensible that she, too, was a creature of circumstances, when her ill-judged policy compelled her a second time to seek safety in flight? A helpless fugitive, how could she conceive that fortune held in reserve for her brighter days than she had ever experienced?
Accepting the situation and returning with the Emperor, the Empire and the world accepted her, and, taught by experience, she engaged in the congenial task of renovating the Chinese people. Advancing years, consciousness of power, and willing conformity to the freer usages of European courts, all conspired to lead her to throw aside the veil and to appear openly as the chief actor on this imperial stage.
Six years ago her seventieth birthday was celebrated with great pomp, although she had forbidden her people to be too lavish in their loyalty. At Wuchang, Tuan Fang, who was acting viceroy, gave a banquet at which he asked me to make a speech in the Dowager's honor. The task was a delicate one for a man who had borne the hardships of a siege in 1900; but I accepted it, and excused the Dowager on the principle of British law, that "The king can do no wrong." Throwing the blame on her ministers, I pronounced a eulogy on her talents and her public services.
The question arises, did we know her in person and character? Have we not seen her in that splendid portrait executed by Miss Carl, and exhibited at St. Louis? If we suspect the artist of flattery, have we not a gallery of photographs, in which she shows herself in many a majestic pose? Is flattery possible to a sunbeam? We certainly see her as truly as we see ourselves in a mirror!
As to character, it is too soon to express an opinion. Varium et mutabile semper femina.
To pencil and sunbeam add word-pictures by men and women from whose critical eyes she did not conceal herself; and we may confidently affirm that we knew her personal appearance as well as we knew that of any lady who occupies or shares a European throne. A trifle under the average height of European ladies, so perfect were her proportions and so graceful her carriage that she seemed to need nothing to add to her majesty. Her features were vivacious and pleasing rather than beautiful; her complexion, not yellow, but subolive, and her face illuminated by orbs of jet, half-hidden by dark lashes, behind which lurked the smiles of favour or the lightning of anger. No one would take her to be over forty. She carried tablets on which, even during conversation, she jotted down memoranda. Her pencil was the support of her sceptre. With it she sent out her autograph commands; and with it, too, she inscribed those pictured characters which were worn as the proudest decorations of her ministers. I have seen them in gilded frames in the hall of a viceroy.
The elegance of her culture excited sincere admiration in a country where women are illiterate; and the breadth of her understanding was such as to take in the details of government. She chose her agents with rare judgment, and shifted them from pillar to post, so that they might not forget their dependence on her will. Without a parallel in her own country, she has been sometimes compared with Catherine II. of Russia. She had the advantage in the decency of her private life; for though she is said to have had favourites they have never dared to boast of her favours, nor was a curious public ever able to identify them.
Her full name, including honorific epithets added by the Academy, was Tse Hi Tuanyin Kangyi Chaoyu Chuangcheng Shoukung Chinhien Chunghi. A few hours before her death, which occurred on the day after the Emperor's, she named his nephew as successor, and the present ruler, Hsuan-Tung, who was born in 1903, began to reign November 14, 1908.
Let the Dowager be taken as a type of the Manchu woman. The late Emperor, though handsome and intelligent, was too small for a representative of a robust race. Tuan Fang, the High Commissioner, is a more favourable specimen. The Manchus are in general taller than the Chinese, and both in physical and intellectual qualities they prove that their branch of the family is far from effete.
Prince Kung, who for fifteen years presided over the imperial cabinet, was tall, handsome and urbane. Despite the disadvantages of an education in a narrow-minded court, he displayed a breadth and capacity of a high order. Prince Ching, who succeeded him in 1875, though less attractive in person, is not deficient in that sort of astuteness that passes for statesmanship. What better evidence than that he has kept himself on top of a rolling log for thirty years? To keep his position through the dethronement of the Emperor and the convulsions of the Boxer War required agility and adaptability of no mean order. Personally I have seen much of both princes. They are abler men than one would expect to find among the offshoots of an Oriental court.
Wensiang, who from the opening of Peking to his death in 1875 bore the leading part in the conduct of foreign affairs, showed great ability in piloting the state through rocks and breakers. His mental power greatly impressed all foreigners, while it secured him an easy ascendency among his countrymen. Such men are sure to be overloaded with official duties in a country like China. Physically he was not strong; and on one occasion when he came into the room wheezing with asthma he said to me: "You see I am like a small donkey, with a tight collar and a heavy load." The success of Prince Kung's administration was largely due to Wensiang. Paochuin, minister of finance, and member of the Inner Council, was distinguished as a literary genius. Prince Kung delighted on festive occasions to call him and Tungsuin to a contest in extempore verse. To enter the lists with a noted scholar and poet like Tung, showed how the Manchus have come to vie with the Chinese in the refinements of literary culture. I remember him as a dignified greybeard, genial and jocose. On the fall of the Kung ministry, he doffed his honours in three stanzas, which contain more truth than poetry:
"Through life, as in a pleasing dream,
Unconscious of my years,
In Fortune's smile to bask I seem;
Perennial, Spring appears.
"Alas! Leviathan to take
Defies the fisher's art;
From dreams of glory I awake,—
My youth and power depart.
"That loss is often gain's disguise
May us for loss console.
My fellow-sufferers, take advice
And keep your reason whole."
In more than one crisis, the heart of the nation has cleaved to the Manchu house as the embodiment of law and order. The people chose to adhere to a tolerably good government rather than take the chance of a better one emerging from the strife of factions.
Three things are required to confirm their loyalty: (1) the abolition of tonsure and pigtail, (2) the abandonment of all privileges in examinations and in the distribution of offices, (3) the removal of all impediments in the way of intermarriage.
This last has been recently authorised by proclamation. It is not so easy for those who are in possession of the loaves and fishes to admit others to an equal share. If to these were added the abolition of a degrading badge, the Manchu dynasty might hope to be perpetual, because the Manchus would cease to exist as a people.
CONCLUSIONS
1. More than once I have demanded the expulsion of the Manchus, and the partition of China. That they deserved it no one who knows the story of 1900 will venture to deny. It was not without reason that Mene tekel and Ichabod were engraved on the medal commemorating the siege in Peking. If I seem to recant, it is in view of the hopeful change that has come over the spirit of the Manchu Government. Under the leadership of Dowager Empress and Emperor, the people were more likely to make peaceful progress than under a new dynasty or under the Polish policy of division.
2. The prospect of admission to the full privileges of a member of the brotherhood of nations will act as an incentive to improvement. But the subjection of foreigners to Chinese jurisdiction ought not to be conceded without a probation as long and thorough as that through which Japan had to pass. In view of the treachery and barbarism so conspicuous in 1900—head-hunting and edicts to massacre foreigners—a probation of thirty years would not be too long. During that time the reforms in law and justice should be fully tested, and the Central Government should be held responsible for the repression of every tendency to anti-foreign riots.
A government that encourages Boxers and other rioters as patriots does not merit an equal place in the congress of nations. The alternative is the "gunboat policy," according to which foreign powers will administer local punishment. If the mother of the house will not chastise her unruly children, she must allow her neighbours to do it.
3. Prior to legal reform, and at the root of it, the adoption of a constitution ought to be insisted on. In such constitution a leading article ought to be not toleration, but freedom of conscience. As long as China looks on native Christians as people who have abjured their nationality, so long will they be objects of persecution; self-defence and reprisals will keep the populace in a ferment, and peace will be impossible. If China is sincere in her professions of reform, she will follow the example of Japan and make her people equal in the eye of the law without distinction of creed.
4. All kinds of reform are involved in the new education, and to that China is irrevocably committed. Reënforced by railroad, telegraph, and newspaper, the schoolmaster will dispel the stagnation of remote districts, giving to the whole people a horizon wider than their hamlet, and thoughts higher than their hearthstone. Animated by sound science and true religion, it will not be many generations before the Chinese people will take their place among the leading nations of the earth.
APPENDIX
I.
THE AGENCY OF MISSIONARIES IN THE DIFFUSION OF SECULAR KNOWLEDGE IN CHINA[*]
[Footnote *: This paper was originally written for Dr. Dennis's well-known work on The Secular Benefits of Christian Missions. As it now appears it is not a mere reprint, it having been much enlarged and brought down to date.]
While the primary motive of missionaries in going to China is, as in going to other countries, the hope of bringing the people to Christ, the incidental results of their labours in the diffusion of secular knowledge have been such as to confer inestimable benefit on the world at large and on the Chinese people in particular. This is admitted by the recent High Commission.[**]
[Footnote **: See page 263.]
It was in the character of apostles of science that Roman Catholic missionaries obtained a footing in Peking three centuries ago, and were enabled to plant their faith throughout the provinces. Armed with telescope and sextant they effected the reform of the Chinese calendar, and secured for their religion the respect and adherence of some of the highest minds in the Empire. So firmly was it rooted that churches of their planting were able to survive a century and a half of persecution. Their achievements, recorded in detail by Abbé Huc and others, fill some of the brightest pages in the history of missions. I shall not enlarge on them in this place, as my present task is to draw attention to the work of Protestant missions.
A CENTURY OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS.
It is not too much to claim for these last that for a century past they have been active intermediaries, especially between the English-speaking nations and the Far East. On one hand, they have supplied such information in regard to China as was indispensable for commercial and national intercourse, while on the other they have brought the growing science of the Western world to bear on the mind of China. Not only did Dr. Morrison, who led the way in 1807, give the Chinese the first translation of our Holy Scriptures; he was the very first to compile a Chinese dictionary in the English language.
THE PIONEER OF AMERICAN MISSIONS
It was not until 1838 that America sent her pioneer missionary in the person of Dr. Bridgman. Besides coöperating with others in the revision of Morrison's Bible, or, more properly, in making a new version, Bridgman won immortality by originating and conducting the Chinese Repository, a monthly magazine which became a thesaurus of information in regard to the Chinese Empire.
THE PRESS—A MISSIONARY FRANKLIN
The American Board showed their enlightened policy by establishing a printing-press at Canton, and in sending S. Wells Williams to take charge of it, in 1833. John R. Morrison, son of the missionary, had, indeed, made a similar attempt; but from various causes he had felt compelled to relinquish the enterprise. From the arrival of Williams to the present day the printing-press has shown itself a growing power—a lever which, planted on a narrow fulcrum in the suburb of a single port, has succeeded in moving the Eastern world.
The art of printing was not new to the Chinese. They had discovered it before it was dreamed of in Europe; but with their hereditary tendency to run in ruts, they had continued to engrave their characters on wooden blocks in the form of stereotype plates. With divisible types (mostly on wood) they had indeed made some experiments; but that improved method never obtained currency among the people. It was reserved for Christian missions to confer on them the priceless boon of the power press and metallic types. What Williams began at Canton was perfected at Shanghai by Gamble of the Presbyterian Board, who multiplied the fonts and introduced the process of electrotyping.
Shut up in the purlieus of Canton, it is astonishing how much Dr. Williams was able to effect in the way of making China known to the Western world. His book on "The Middle Kingdom," first published in 1848, continues to be, after the lapse of half a century, the highest of a long list of authorities on the Chinese Empire. Beginning like Benjamin Franklin as a printer, like Franklin he came to perform a brilliant part in the diplomacy of our country, aiding in the negotiation of a new treaty and filling more than once the post of chargé d'affaires.
EXPANSION OF THE WORK
The next period of missionary activity dates from the treaty of Nanking, which put an end to the Opium War, in 1842. The opening of five great seaports to foreign residence was a vast enlargement in comparison with a small suburb of Canton; and the withdrawal of prohibitory interdicts, first obtained by the French minister Lagrené, invited the efforts of missionary societies in all lands. In this connection it is only fair to say that, in 1860, when the Peking expedition removed the remaining barriers, it was again to the French that our missionaries were indebted for access to the interior.
MEDICAL WORK
From the earliest dawn of our mission work it may be affirmed that no sooner did a chapel open its doors than a hospital was opened by its side for the relief of bodily ailments with which the rude quackery of the Chinese was incompetent to deal. Nor is there at this day a mission station in any part of China that does not in this way set forth the practical charity of the Good Samaritan. This glorious crusade against disease and death began, so far as Protestants are concerned, with the Ophthalmic Hospital opened by Dr. Peter Parker at Canton in 1834.
MEDICAL TEACHING
The training of native physicians began at the same date; and those who have gone forth to bless their people by their newly acquired medical skill may now be counted by hundreds. In strong contrast with the occult methods of native practitioners, neither they nor their foreign teachers have hidden their light under a bushel. Witness the Union Medical College, a noble institution recently opened in Peking under the sanction and patronage of the Imperial Government. A formal despatch of the Board of Education (in July, 1906) grants the power of conferring degrees, and guarantees their recognition by the state. For many years to come this great school is likely to be the leading source of a new faculty.
THE SEEDS OF A NEW EDUCATION
Not less imperative, though not so early, was the establishment of Christian schools. Those for girls have the merit of being the first to shed light on the shaded hemisphere of Chinese society. Those for boys were intended to reach all grades of life; but their prime object was to raise up a native ministry, not merely to coöperate with foreign missions, but eventually to take the place of the foreign missionary.
THE EARLIEST UNION COLLEGE
One of the earliest and most successful of these lighthouses was the Tengchow College founded by Dr. C. W. Mateer. It was there that young Chinese were most thoroughly instructed in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. So conspicuous was the success of that institution that when the Government opened a university in Peking, and more recently in Shantung, it was in each case to Tengchow that they had recourse for native teachers of science. From that school they obtained text-books, and from the same place they secured (in Dr. Hayes) a president for the first provincial university organised in China.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL UNIVERSITY IN PEKING
The missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church have of late taken up the cause of education and carried it forward with great vigour. Not to speak of high schools for both sexes in Fukien, they have a flourishing college in Shanghai, and a university in the imperial capital under the presidency of H. H. Lowry. Destroyed by the Boxers in 1900, that institution has now risen phœnix-like from its ashes with every prospect of a more brilliant future than its most sanguine friends ever ventured to anticipate.
AMERICAN BOARD COLLEGE AT TUNGCHOW
A fine college of the American Board at Tungchow, near the capital, met the same fate and rose again with similar expansion. Dr. Sheffield, its president, has made valuable contributions to the list of educational text-books.
These great schools, together with the Medical College of the London Mission, above referred to, and a high school of the United States Presbyterians, have formed a system of cöoperation which greatly augments the efficiency of each. Of this educational union the chief cornerstone is the Medical College.
A similar coöperative union between the English Baptists and American Presbyterians is doing a great work at Weihien, in Shantung. I speak of these because of that most notable feature—union international and interdenominational. Space would fail to enumerate a tithe of the flourishing schools that are aiding in the educational movement; but St. John's College, at Shanghai (U. S. Episcopal), though already mentioned, claims further notice because, as we now learn, it has been given by the Chinese Government the status of a university.
PREPARATION OF TEXT-BOOKS
Schools require text-books; and the utter absence of anything of the kind, except in the department of classical Chinese, gave rise to early and persistent efforts to supply the want. Manuals in geography and history were among the first produced. Those in mathematics and physics followed; and almanacs were sent forth yearly containing scientific information in a shape adapted to the taste of Chinese readers—alongside of religious truths. Such an annual issued by the late Dr. McCartee, was much sought for. A complete series of text-books in mathematics was translated by Mr. Wylie, of the London Mission; and text-books on other subjects, including geology, were prepared by Messrs. Muirhead, Edkins, and Williamson. At length the task of providing text-books was taken in hand by a special committee, and later on by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, now under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Richard.
So deeply was the want of text-books felt by some of the more progressive mandarins that a corps of translators was early formed in connection with one of the government arsenals—a work in which Dr. John Fryer has gained merited renown. Those translators naturally gave prominence to books on the art of war, and on the politics of Western nations, the one-sided tendency of their publications serving to emphasise the demand for such books as were prepared by missionaries.
Text-books on international law and political economy were made accessible to Chinese literature by Dr. W. A. P. Martin, who, having acted as interpreter to two of the American embassies, was deeply impressed by the ignorance of those vital subjects among Chinese mandarins.
On going to reside in Peking, in 1863, Dr. Martin carried with him a translation of Wheaton, and it was welcomed by the Chinese Foreign Office as a timely guide in their new situation. He followed this up by versions of Woolsey, Bluntschli and Hall. He also gave them a popular work on natural philosophy—not a translation—together with a more extended work on mathematical physics. Not only has the former appeared in many editions from the Chinese press, but it has been often reprinted in Japan; and to this day maintains its place in the favour of both empires. To this he has lately added a text-book on mental philosophy.
A book on the evidences of Christianity, by the same author, has been widely circulated both in China and in Japan. Though distinctly religious in aim, it appeals to the reader's taste for scientific knowledge, seeking to win the heathen from idolatry by exhibiting the unity and beauty of nature, while it attempts to show the reasonableness of our revealed religion.
THREE PRESIDENTS OF GOVERNMENT COLLEGES
It is not without significance that the Chinese have sought presidents for their highest schools among the ranks of Protestant missionaries. Dr. Ferguson of the Methodist Episcopal Mission was called to the presidency of the Nanyang College at Shanghai; Dr. Hayes, to be head of a new university in Shantung; and Dr. Martin, after serving for twenty-five years as head of the Diplomatic College in Peking, was, in 1898, made president of the new Imperial University. His appointment was by decree from the Throne, published in the Government Gazette; and mandarin rank next to the highest was conferred on him. On terminating his connection with that institution, after it was broken up by Boxers, he was recalled to China to take charge of a university for the two provinces of Hupeh and Hunan.
CREATORS OF CHINESE JOURNALISM
In the movement of modern society, no force is more conspicuous than journalism. In this our missionaries have from the first taken a leading part, as it was they who introduced it to China. At every central station for the last half-century periodicals have been issued by them in the Chinese language. The man who has done most in this line is Dr. Y. J. Allen, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. He has devoted a lifetime to it, besides translating numerous books.
Formerly the Chinese had only one newspaper in the empire—the Peking Gazette, the oldest journal in the world. They now have, in imitation of foreigners, some scores of dailies, in which they give foreign news, and which they print in foreign type. The highest mandarins wince under their stinging criticisms.
THEY LEAD A VERNACULAR REVOLUTION
It is one of the triumphs of Christianity to have given a written form to the language of modern Europe. It is doing the same for heathen nations in all parts of the earth. Nor does China offer an exception. The culture for which her learned classes are noted is wholly confined to a classic language that is read everywhere, and spoken nowhere, somewhat as Latin was in the West in the Middle Ages, save that Latin was really a tongue capable of being employed in speech, whereas the classical language of China is not addressed to the ear but to the eye, being, as Dr. Medhurst said, "an occulage, not a language."
The mandarin or spoken language of the north was, indeed, reduced to writing by the Chinese themselves; and a similar beginning was made with some of the southern dialects. In all these efforts the Chinese ideographs have been employed; but so numerous and disjointed are they that the labour of years is required to get a command of them even for reading in a vernacular dialect. In all parts of China our missionaries have rendered the Scriptures into the local dialects. so that they may be understood when read aloud, and that every man "may hear in his own tongue the wonderful works of God." In some places they have printed them in the vernacular by the use of Chinese characters. Yet those characters are clumsy instruments for the expression of sounds; and in several provinces our missionaries have tried to write Chinese with Roman letters.
The experiment has proved successful beyond a doubt. Old women and young children have in this way come to read the Scriptures and other books in a few days. This revolution must go forward with the spread of Christianity; nor is it too much to expect that in the lapse of ages, the hieroglyphs of the learned language will for popular use be superseded by the use of the Roman alphabet, or by a new alphabet recently invented and propagated by officials in Peking.
In conclusion: Our missionaries have made our merchants acquainted with China; and they have made foreign nations known to the Chinese. They have aided our envoys in their negotiations; and they have conferred on the Chinese the priceless boon of scientific text-books. Also along with schools for modern education, they have introduced hospitals for the relief of bodily suffering.
W. A. P. M.
PEKING,
Aug. 4. 1906.
II.
UNMENTIONED REFORMS[*]
[Footnote *: Written by the author for the North-China Daily News.]
The return of the Mission of Inquiry has quickened our curiosity as to its results in proposition and in enactment. All well-wishers of China are delighted to learn that the creation of a parliament and the substitution of constitutional for autocratic government are to have the first place in the making of a New China. The reports of the High Commissioners are not yet before the public, but it is understood that they made good use of their time in studying the institutions of the West, and that they have shown a wise discrimination in the selection of those which they recommend for adoption. There are, however, three reforms of vital importance, which have scarcely been mentioned at all, which China requires for full admission to the comity of nations.
1. A CHANGE OF COSTUME
During their tour no one suggested that the Chinese costume should be changed nor would it have been polite or politic to do so. But I do not admire either the taste or the wisdom of those orators who, in welcoming the distinguished visitors; applauded them for their graceful dress and stately carriage. If that indiscreet flattery had any effect it merely tended to postpone a change which is now in progress. All the soldiers of the Empire will ere long wear a Western uniform, and all the school children are rapidly adopting a similar uniform. To me few spectacles that I have witnessed are so full of hope for China as the display on an imperial birthday, when the military exhibit their skilful evolutions and their Occidental uniform, and when thousands of school children appear in a new costume, which is both becoming and convenient. But the Court and the mandarins cling to their antiquated attire. If the peacock wishes to soar with the eagle, he must first get rid of his cumbersome tail.
This subject, though it savours of the tailor shop, is not unworthy the attention of the grand council of China's statesmen. Has not Carlyle shown in his "Sartor Resartus" how the Philosophy of Clothes is fundamental to the history of civilisation? The Japanese with wonderful foresight settled that question at the very time when they adopted their new form of government.
When Mr. Low was U. S. Minister in Peking some thirty years ago, he said to the writer "Just look at this tomfoolery!" holding up the fashion plates representing the new dress for the diplomatic service of Japan. Time has proved that he was wrong, and that the Japanese were right in adopting a new uniform, when they wished to fall in line with nations of the West. With their old shuffling habiliments and the cringing manners inseparable from them, they never could have been admitted to intercourse on easy terms with Western society.
The mandarin costume of China, though more imposing, is not less barbaric than that of Japan; and the etiquette that accompanies it is wholly irreconcilable with the usages of the Western world. Imagine a mandarin doffing his gaudy cap, gay with tassels, feathers, and ruby button, on meeting a friend, or pushing back his long sleeves to shake hands! Such frippery we have learned to leave to the ladies; and etiquette does not require them to lay aside their hats.
Quakers, like the mandarins, keep their hats on in public meetings; and the oddity of their manners has kept them out of society and made their following very exiguous. Do our Chinese friends wish to be looked on as Quakers, or do they desire to fraternise freely with the people of the great West?
Their cap of ceremony hides a shaven pate and dangling cue, and here lies the chief obstacle in the way of the proposed reform in style and manners. Those badges of subjection will have to be dispensed with either formally or tacitly before the cap that conceals them can give way to the dress hat of European society. Neither graceful nor convenient, that dress hat is not to be recommended on its own merits, but as part of a costume common to all nations which conform to the usages of our modern civilisation.
It must have struck the High Commissioners that, wherever they went, they encountered in good society only one general type of costume. Nor would it be possible for them to advise the adoption of the costume of this or that nationality—a general conformity is all that seems feasible or desirable. Will the Chinese cling to their cap and robes with a death grip like that of the Korean who jumped from a railway train to save his high hat and lost his life? As they are taking passage on the great railway of the world's progress, will they not take pains to adapt themselves in every way to the requirements of a new era?
2. POLYGAMY
We have as yet no intimation what the Reform Government intends to do with this superannuated institution. Will they persist in burning incense before it to disguise its ill-odour, or will they bury it out of sight at once and for ever?
The Travelling Commissioners, whose breadth and acumen are equally conspicuous, surely did not fail to inquire for it in the countries which they visited. Of course, they did not find it there; but, as with the question of costume, the good breeding of their hosts would restrain them from offering any suggestion touching the domestic life of the Chinese.
The Commissioners had the honour of presentation to the Queen-Empress Alexandra. Fancy them asking how many subordinate wives she has to aid her in sustaining the dignity of the King-Emperor! They would learn with surprise that no European sovereign, however lax in morals, has ever had a palace full of concubines as a regular appendage to his regal menage; that for prince and people the ideal is monogamy; and that, although the conduct of the rich and great is often such as to make us blush for our Christian civilisation, it is true this day that the crowned heads of Europe are in general setting a worthy example of domestic morals. "Admirable!" respond the Commissioners; "our ancient sovereigns were like that, and our sages taught that there should be 'Ne Wu Yuen Nu, Wai wu Kwang-tu' (in the harem no pining beauty, outside no man without a mate). It is the luxury of later ages that keeps a multitude of women in seclusion for the pleasure of a few men, and leaves the common man without a wife. We heartily approve the practice of Europe, but what of Africa?"
"There the royal courts consider a multitude of wives essential to their grandeur, and the nobles reckon their wealth by the number of their wives and cows. The glory of a prince is that of a cock in a barn-yard or of a bull at the head of a herd. Such is their ideal from the King of Dahomey with his bodyguard of Amazons to the Sultan of Morocco and the Khedive of Egypt. Not only do the Mahommedans of Asia continue the practice—they have tried to transplant their ideal paradise into Europe. Turkey, decayed and rotten, with its black eunuchs and its Circassian slave girls, stands as an object-lesson to the whole world."
"We beg your pardon, we know enough about Asia; but what of America—does polygamy flourish there?"
"It did exist among the Peruvians and Aztecs before the Spanish conquest, but it is now under ban in every country from pole to pole. Witness the Mormons of Utah! They were refused admission into the American Union as long as they adhered to the Oriental type of plural marriage."
"Ah! We perceive you are pointing to the Mormons as a warning to us. You mean that we shall not be admitted into the society of the more civilised nations as long as we hold to polygamy. Well! Our own sages have condemned it. It has a long and shameful record; but its days are numbered. It will do doubt be suppressed by our new code of laws."
This imaginary conversation is so nearly a transcript of what must have taken place, that I feel tempted to throw the following paragraphs into the form of a dialogue. The dialogue, however, is unavoidably prolix, and I hasten to wind up the discussion.
With reference to the Mormons I may add that at the conference on International Arbitration held at Lake Mohonk last July, there were present Jews, Quakers, Protestants and Roman Catholics, but no Mormons and no Turks. Creeds were not required as credentials, but Turk and Mormon did not think it worth while to knock at the door. Both are objects of contempt, and no nation whose family life is formed on the same model can hope to be admitted to full fraternity with Western peoples.
The abominations associated with such a type of society are inconsistent with any but a low grade of civilisation—they are eunuchs, slavery, unnatural vice, and, more than all, a general debasement of the female sex. In Chinese society, woman occupies a shaded hemisphere—not inaptly represented by the dark portion in their national symbol the Yinyang-tse or Diagram of the Dual principles. So completely has she hitherto been excluded from the benefits of education that a young man in a native high school recently began an essay with the exclamation—"I am glad I am not a Chinese woman. Scarcely one in a thousand is able to read!"
If "Knowledge is power," as Bacon said, and Confucius before him, what a source of weakness has this neglect of woman been to China. Happily she is not excluded from the new system of national education, and there is reason to believe that with the reign of ignorance polygamy will also disappear as a state of things repugnant to the right feeling of an intelligent woman. But would it not hasten the enfranchisement of the sex, and rouse the fair daughters of the East to a nobler conception of human life if the rulers would issue a decree placing concubinage under the ban of law? Nothing would do more to secure for China the respect of the Western world.
3. DOMESTIC SLAVERY
Since writing the first part of this paper, I have learned that some of the Commissioners have expressed themselves in favour of a change of costume. I have also learned that the regulation of slavery is to have a place in the revised statutes, though not referred to by the Commissioners. Had this information reached me earlier, it might have led me to omit the word "unmentioned" from my general title, but it would not have altered a syllable in my treatment of the subject.
Cheering it is to the well-wishers of China to see that she has a government strong enough and bold enough to deal with social questions of this class. How urgent is the slave question may be seen from the daily items in your own columns. What, for example, was the lady from Szechuen doing but carrying on a customary form of the slave traffic? What was the case of those singing girls under the age of fifteen, of whom you spoke last week, but a form of slavery? Again, by way of climax, what will the Western world think of a country that permits a mistress to beat a slave girl to death for eating a piece of watermelon—as reported by your correspondent from Hankow? The triviality of the provocation reminds us of the divorce of a wife for offering her mother-in-law a dish of half-cooked pears. The latter, which is a classic instance, is excused on the ground of filial duty, but I have too much respect for the author of the "Hiaoking," to accept a tradition which does a grievous wrong to one of the best men of ancient times. The tradition, however unfounded, may serve as a guide to public opinion. It suggests another subject, which we might (but will not) reserve for another section, viz., the regulation of divorce and the limitation of marital power. It is indeed intimately connected with my present topic, for what is wife or concubine but a slave, as long as a husband has power to divorce or sell her at will—with or without provocation?
Last week an atrocious instance, not of divorce, but of wife-murder, occurred within bow-shot of my house. A man engaged in a coal-shop had left his wife with an aunt in the country. The aunt complained of her as being too stupid and clumsy to earn a living. Her brutal husband thereon took the poor girl to a lonely spot, where he killed her, and left her unburied. Returning to the coal-shop, he sent word to his aunt that he was ready to answer for what he had done, if called to account. "Has he been called to account?" I enquired this morning of one of his neighbours. "Oh no! was the reply; it's all settled; the woman is buried, and no inquiry is called for." Is not woman a slave, though called a wife, in a society where such things are allowed to go with impunity? Will not the new laws, from which so much is expected, limit the marriage relation to one woman, and make the man, to whom she is bound, a husband, not a master?
Confucius, we are told, resigned office in his native state when the prince accepted a bevy of singing girls sent from a neighbouring principality. The girls were slaves bought and trained for their shameful profession, and the traffic in girls for the same service constitutes the leading form of domestic slavery at this day—so little has been the progress in morals, so little advance toward a legislation that protects the life and virtue of the helpless!
But the slave traffic is not confined to women; any man may sell his son; and classes of both sexes are found in all the houses of the rich. Prædial servitude was practised in ancient times, as it was in Europe in the Middle Ages, and in Russia till a recent day. We read of lands and labourers being conferred on court favourites. How the system came to disappear we need not pause to inquire. It is certain, however, that no grand act of emancipation ever took place in China like that which cost Lincoln his life, or that for which the good Czar Alexander II. had to pay the same forfeit. Russia is to-day eating the bitter fruits of ages of serfdom; and the greatest peril ever encountered by the United States was a war brought on by negro slavery.
The form of slavery prevailing in China is not one that threatens war or revolutions; but in its social aspects it is worse than negro slavery. It depraves morals and corrupts the family, and as long as it exists, it carries the brand of barbarism. China has great men, who for the honour of their country would not be afraid to take the matter in hand. They would, if necessary, imitate Lincoln and the Czar Alexander to effect the removal of such a blot.
It is proposed, we are told, to limit slavery to minors—freedom ensuing on the attainment of majority. This would greatly ameliorate the evil, but the evil is so crying that it demands not amelioration, but extinction. Let the legislators of China take for their model the provisions of British law, which make it possible to boast that "as soon as a slave touches British soil his fetters fall." Let them also follow that lofty legislation which defines the rights and provides for the well-being of the humblest subject. Let the old system be uprooted before a new one is inaugurated, otherwise there is danger that the limiting of slavery to minors will leave those helpless creatures exposed to most of the wrongs that accompany a lifelong servitude.
The number and extent of the reforms decreed or effected are such as to make the present reign the most illustrious in the history of the Empire. May we not hope that in dealing with polygamy and domestic slavery, the action of China will be such as to lift her out of the class of Turkey and Morocco into full companionship with the most enlightened nations of Europe and America.
III.
A NEW OPIUM WAR
The fiat has gone forth—war is declared against an insidious enemy that has long been exhausting the resources of China and sapping the strength of her people. She has resolved to rid herself at once and forever of the curse of opium. The home production of the drug, and all the ramifications of the vice stand condemned by a decree from the throne, followed by a code of regulations designed not to limit, but to extirpate the monster evil.
In this bold stroke for social reform there can be no doubt that the Government is supported by the best sentiment of the whole country. Most Chinese look upon opium as the beginning of their national sorrows. In 1839 it involved them in their first war with the West; and that opened the way for a series of wars which issued in their capital being twice occupied by foreign forces.
Their first effort to shake off the incubus was accompanied by such displays of pride, ignorance and unlawful violence that Great Britain was forced to make war—not to protect an illegal traffic, but to redress an outrage and to humble a haughty empire. In this renewed onslaught the Chinese have exhibited so much good sense and moderation as to show that they have learned much from foreign intercourse during the sixty-seven years that have intervened.
Without making any appeal to the foreigner, they courageously resolved to deal with the evil in its domestic aspects. Most of the mandarins are infected by it; and the licensed culture of the poppy has made the drug so cheap that even the poor are tempted to indulge.
The prohibitory edict asserts that of the adult population 30 or 40 per cent. are under the influence of the seductive poison. This, by the way, gives an enormous total, far beyond any of the estimates of foreign writers.
Appalled by the signs of social decadence the more patriotic of China's statesmen were not slow to perceive that all attempts at reform in education, army, and laws must prove abortive if opium were allowed to sap the vigour of the nation. "You can't carve a piece of rotten wood," says Confucius. Every scheme for national renovation must have for its basis a sound and energetic people. It was this depraved taste that first made a market for the drug; if that taste can be eradicated the trade and the vice must disappear together, with or without the concurrence of Great Britain.
Great Britain was not, however, to be ignored. Besides her overshadowing influence and her commercial interests vast and varied, is she not mistress of India, whose poppy-fields formerly supplied China and are still sending to the Chinese market fifty thousand chests per annum? No longer an illegal traffic, this importation is regulated by treaty. Concerted action might prevent complications and tend to insure success. The new British Government was approached on the subject. Fortunately, the Liberals being in power, it was not bound by old traditions.
A general resolution passed the House of Commons without a dissentient voice, expressing sympathy with China and a willingness to adopt similar measures in India. "When asked in the House what steps had been taken to carry out the resolution for the abolition of the opium traffic between India and China, Mr. Morley replied, that he understood that China was contemplating the issue of regulations restricting the importation, cultivation, and consumption of opium. He had received no communication from China; but as soon as proposals were submitted he was prepared to consider them in a sympathetic spirit. H. B. M.'s minister in Peking had been instructed to communicate with the Chinese Government to that effect."
The telegram containing these words is dated London, October 30. The imperial edict, which initiated what many call "the new crusade," was issued barely forty days before that date (viz., on September 20). Let it also be noted that near the end of August a memorial of the Anti-Opium League, suggesting action on the part of the Government, was sent up through the Nanking viceroy. It was signed by 1,200 missionaries of different nations and churches. Is it not probable that their representations, backed by the viceroy, moved the hand that sways the sceptre?
The decree runs as follows:
"Since the first prohibition of opium, almost the whole of China has been flooded with the poison. Smokers of opium have wasted their time, neglected their employment, ruined their constitutions, and impoverished their households. Thus for several decades China has presented a spectacle of increasing poverty and weakness. It rouses our indignation to speak of the matter. The Court is now determined to make China powerful; and it is our duty to urge our people to reformation in this respect.
"We decree, therefore, that within a limit of ten years this harmful muck be fully and entirely wiped away. We further command the Council of State to consider means for the strict prohibition both of opium-smoking and of poppy-growing."
Among the regulations drawn up by the Council of State are these:
That all smokers of opium be required to report themselves and to take out licenses.
Smokers holding office are divided into two classes. Those of the junior class are to cleanse themselves in six months. For the seniors no limit of time is fixed. Both classes while under medical treatment are to pay for approved deputies, by whom their duties shall be discharged.
All opium dens are to be closed after six months. These are places where smokers dream away the night in company with the idle and the vicious.
No opium lamps or pipes are to be made or sold after six months. Shops for the sale of the drug are not to be closed until the tenth year.
The Government provides medicines for the cure of the habit.
The formation of anti-opium societies is encouraged; but the members are cautioned not to discuss political questions.
The question no doubt arises in the mind of the reader, Will China succeed in freeing herself from bondage to this hateful vice? It is easy for an autocrat to issue a decree, but not easy to secure obedience. It is encouraging to know that this decisive action is favoured by all the viceroys—Yuan, the youngest and most powerful, has already taken steps to put the new law in force in the metropolitan province. A flutter of excitement has also shown itself in the ranks of Indian traders—Parsees, Jews, and Mohammedans—who have presented a claim for damages to their respectable traffic.
On the whole we are inclined to believe in the good faith of the Chinese Government in adopting this measure, and to augur well for its success. Next after the change of basis in education, this brave effort to suppress a national vice ranks as the most brilliant in a long series of reformatory movements.
W. A. P. M.
PEKING, January, 1907.
INDEX
Adams, John Quincy, on the Opium War, 153
Albazin, Cossack garrison captured at, 57
Alphabet, a new, invented by Wang Chao, 217
Amherst, Lord, declines to kneel to Emperor, 168
Amoy, seaport in Fukien province, 14
its grass cloth and peculiar sort of black tea,
15
Anhwei, province of, home of Li Hung Chang, 49
Anti-foot-binding Society, supported by Dowager Empress in an edict, 217
Anti-foreign Agitation, 244-266
American influence in the Far East and,
245-251
"Appeal from the Lion's Den," 176
Army, the Chinese, 200-202
Arrow War, the, 162-169
allied troops at Peking, 168
Canton occupied by British troops, 164
China abandons her long seclusion, 169
crew of the Arrow executed without trial,
163
negotiations of the four powers with China,
165
seizure of the lorcha Arrow, 162
Bamboo tablets, writings of Confucius engraved on, 106
Battle of the Sea of Japan, 191-192
Bell-tower, boy's soul supposed to be hovering in, 21
Black-haired race, Chinese style themselves the, 151
Bowring, Sir John, Governor of Hong Kong, and the Arrow case,
162-163
Boxer War, the, 172-180
a Boxer manifesto, 175
Boycott, the, 247, 252, 253, 259
Bridgman, Dr., pioneer missionary to China, 282
founds the Chinese Repository, 282
Buddhism, introduction of, into China, 95
"Apotheosis of Mercy," a legend of Northern Buddhism,
108
number of Buddhist monasteries, 108
rooted in the minds of the illiterate, 108
Burden, Bishop, of the English Church Mission. Hang-chow, 23
Burlingame, Hon. Anson, U. S. Minister to China, 212
Cambalu, Mongol name for Peking, 59
Camöens, tomb of, at Macao, 9
Canton, the most populous city of the Empire, 9-12
American trade suffers most in Canton from boycott of
1905, 13
averts bombardment by payment of $6,000,000 ransom,
154
Christian college, 10
cock-fighting the popular amusement, 10
crowds of beggars, 12
excellence of tea and silk produced in the vicinity,
13
"flower-boats," 9
historical enigma contests, 11
narrowness of streets, 12
passion for gambling, 11
Canton (Kwangtung), province of, 7-13
Viceroy of, has also Kwangsi under his jurisdiction,
13
Caravan Song, 61
Chang Chien, legend of, 63
Chang-fi, rescues son of Liu Pi from burning palace, 114
Chang Tien-shi, arch-magician of Taoism, 109
Chang Chi-tung, Viceroy of Hukwang, his life and public career,
219-241
first to start the Emperor on the path of reform
213
case of Chunghau, 223-224
his commercial developments at Wuchang, 231
official interviews with, 238-241
Chang Yee, an able diplomatist of the Chou period, 99
Chao, Prince of, is offered fifteen cities for a Kohinoor belonging to him, 98
Chau-siang subjugates Tung-chou-Kiun, last monarch of the Chou dynasty, 99
Chefoo (Chifu), port in Shantung province, 32
Chéhkiang, province of, smallest of the eighteen provinces, 17-24
Cheng-wang, "the completer," a ruler of the Chou dynasty,
86-87
his successors, 87-88
Chentung, Liang, Sir, interview with Dr. Martin with reference to the
Exclusion Laws and the boycott, 252
Chin, one of the Nan-peh Chao, 117
China, probable derivation of name, 101
agency of missionaries in diffusing secular knowledge in,
281-291
American exclusion laws, 253
anti-opium edict, 304-305
boycott, 247, 252,
253, 259
condition after five wars, 181
displays of barbarity during the Boxer War,
180
effect of her defeat by Japan, 171
effects of Russo-Japanese War, 193
eighteen provinces, 6
five grand divisions, 3
Grand Canal, 31
Great Wall, 4, 31,
32, 101
interference in Tongking, 62
interference in Korea, 62
physiographical features, 4
reforms in, 196-218
rivers, 19, 15,
18, 25,
41, 52
sincerity of reformatory movements, 306
China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company, 200
Chingtu-fu, capital of the state of Shuh, 113
Chinhai, city at the mouth of the Ningpo, 18