In the subsequent action of France in China, however, there has been no trace of regard for any such principle of solidarity. Indeed, were the Powers ever so amicably disposed towards each other on other questions, they could not agree in this, the objects of their policy being absolutely irreconcilable.

"We cannot doubt," wrote Sir Rutherford Alcock, "that the missionary question is the main cause of disturbance in our relations with China, and of danger to the Chinese Government itself no less than to all foreigners resident in the country, missionaries and laymen alike." He recommended in 1868 that "the treaty Powers should, if possible, come to some understanding on the religious and missionary question as the necessary preliminary to any united action for the common benefit, the acquisition of increased facilities for trade, &c." And he says, "As regards Chinese converts, any attempt to extend a protectorate over them would of necessity either fail or be subversive of the whole government of China." But in the same paper he states that "France, with no trade in the East, is ambitious of a protectorate over Roman Catholic missions"; and that "with regard to converts protection has been partially extended to them under the ægis of the French Government, and that persistent efforts were being made to make that protection effectual." These efforts have been still more persistent during the generation that has since passed. With France the protectorate over native Christians is the great objective of her Chinese diplomacy—not the ultimate end, indeed, but the lever by which that end may be attained. To suggest to France, therefore, the abandonment of this policy would be about as hopeless as asking her to give up her colonies as the preliminary to an international conference. And while France protects the proselytising machinery of the Roman Catholic Church and its consequent usurpation of the Chinese authority, it would seem of little avail to place other missionaries under restriction.

The fruits of this war of the social elements began to be harvested in 1868, as Sir Rutherford Alcock observed; but that was only the beginning of a long series of conflicts which have marked the progress of missionary work in China up to the present day. Riot, outrage, and massacre are its regular landmarks. The outbreaks have so much in common that it would serve no useful purpose to trace them in detail, or attempt to apportion praise or blame to this or that individual or sect. The one which has left the reddest mark on history, and, being enacted in the presence of a foreign mercantile community, brought the several factors in the question into a clearer light than can ever be thrown upon outrages in remote parts of the interior, is the Tientsin massacre of 21st June 1870. This occurred six months after Sir Rutherford Alcock left China, while Mr Wade was chargé d'affaires for Great Britain, and Count Rochechouart for France, in Peking.

The massacre of sixteen French Sisters of Charity, including an Irish girl, Alice Sullivan, a French consul, and several French subjects, also—unwittingly, according to the imperial edict treating of the occurrence—a Russian merchant and his wife, was the work of an organised band, led by the city fire brigade, under the direction of the civic authorities. The crime had been planned for some time: it was preceded by the murder of an isolated English missionary, Mr Williamson, near Tientsin, and by an attempted anti-foreign rising in Nanking, which was promptly suppressed by the viceroy, Ma, who was soon after himself assassinated. (He was a Mohammedan.) The impending outrage in Tientsin was foreseen, and warning given, several days before. An Englishman was attacked on the 19th for no reason. The official highest in rank on the spot—not, however, a territorial authority—was Chunghou, a Manchu, holding the office of Imperial Commissioner for Trade, and very friendly to foreigners. Admiral Keppel says of him that he was the most finished Chinese gentleman he had ever met, with the exception of the viceroy of Canton (probably meaning Kiying). The governor of the province was Tsêng Kwo-fan, whose capital was Paoting-fu, some 100 miles in the interior; and his subordinates, the prefect and magistrate, were the authorities at Tientsin immediately responsible for the massacre. Chunghou had warned the Peking Government several weeks before of the progress of the agitation against the French mission.

The Imperial Government immediately on the occurrence issued an edict describing the massacre as "a quarrel between the people and the missionaries resulting in a fight," but were promptly driven from that position and pressed, not only by the French, but by all the foreign representatives, to investigate and do justice in the case, Count Rochechouart demanding the capital punishment of the three mandarins who had instigated the massacre. On this the Chinese Government remarked in a secret edict, "Rochechouart, with boundless arrogance, demands the execution of the Fu and Hsien, a demand ten thousand times to be rejected." Under pressure, however, the Government ordered the governor-general, Tsêng, to proceed to the spot and investigate. After a protracted journey he reached Tientsin and commenced to take evidence, not of the crime committed, but of the suspicions which had been excited against the Sisters of Mercy, whom, after ransacking their cemeteries for mutilated children, he eventually acquitted. He then suspended the magistrates pro formâ, and spoke of sending for troops to catch the rioters! On receiving the viceroy's report another imperial decree was issued repeating the original falsehoods, and causing much disappointment to the foreign Ministers. Renewed pressure from them, not without hints of stronger measures, resulted in the offer of fifteen of the mob to be executed, which, being unanimously rejected, the Chinese Government, apparently thinking it was the number that was inadequate, threw in five more, making twenty in all. Sixteen were actually beheaded, the remaining four being saved by the timely arrival of the Russian Minister, who protested against the execution of the men accused of murdering the Russians, because he did not believe in their guilt. Compensation was paid by the Chinese officials to the families of the executed men, which, with the honours done to their dead bodies, showed that they were sacrificed not for crime, but for reasons of State. Of course pecuniary compensation was made on account of the victims of the massacre, the Chinese Government being never hard to deal with where money is concerned. The prefect and the magistrate who had busied themselves after the tragedy in torturing Christians, in order to extort from them confessions which would justify the massacre, were nominally banished, though it was perfectly understood that this was a pure matter of form.

As part of the reparation for the massacre the Imperial Commissioner for Northern Trade, Chunghou, was despatched in the early part of 1871 on a mission to France to express the regret of the Chinese Government for what had occurred. This official, the first man of rank who was ever sent out of China, received but an indifferent reception from the President of the French Republic. Being the highest authority in Tientsin at the time of the massacre, and having known of the preparations for an outbreak of some kind, Chunghou was severely blamed by Europeans on the coast of China, who alleged that the massacre could have been prevented had he put forth his authority. Meetings were even held on the subject in Shanghai, and remonstrances were sent to Europe against Chunghou's being received anywhere as an ambassador until he should exonerate himself from all share in the Tientsin atrocity. These representations, no doubt, had something to do with the attitude of the French Provisional Government, which, on other grounds also, was probably little disposed in that year to occupy itself with the affairs either of the Church or of China.

There is reason to believe, however, that Chunghou's conduct during the affair of Tientsin was not inconsistent with innocence; for although he was a man in authority, it was only as superintendent of trade, having no control whatever over the hierarchy of territorial officials, who were under the orders of the viceroy, Tsêng Kwo-fan. Beyond his personal attendants it is not probable that Chunghou could move a corporal's guard in Tientsin, and his position was such that the local authorities and their myrmidons looked with the keenest jealousy on any departure of the superintendent of trade from the strict line of his own functions. He dared not, in fact, move a finger against officers who owed allegiance to the viceroy, and in apprising the Peking Government of the rumours which were current, Chunghou probably considered that he had gone as far as public duty warranted. These somewhat anomalous relations between two high dignitaries of the empire were put an end to when Li Hung-chang succeeded Tsêng Kwo-fan as viceroy of Chihli; for he was appointed also the successor of Chunghou as superintendent of trade, and resided for the most part of his time in the commercial port, Tientsin. The two offices continue to be combined in one person.

Most of the typical features of a missionary outrage were in this case exemplified—ferocious placards and brochures, circulation of calumnies against the missionaries, guilt of the local authorities, their immunity from punishment, and the official publication of travestied versions of the occurrence. There was also, we may add, a lurking disposition on the part of foreign Governments to give credit to the Chinese charges against the missionaries. Finding themselves unable by pressure on the Chinese to obtain satisfaction for past or security against future outrages, they were seldom indisposed to cover their impotence by throwing the blame on their own people.

There was, consequently, readiness in certain foreign official quarters to dwell on undefined "indiscretions." It was too easily assumed in the beginning that the practice of the Sisters of Charity of purchasing destitute children reasonably excited the suspicions of the people. As a matter of fact, however, as was admitted afterwards, this alleged practice of the Sisters was entirely imaginary. It was also assumed that the massacre was a spontaneous act of the populace, who believed the stories of kidnapping. But in view of the fact that these agitations arose simultaneously in distant parts of the empire, this theory of sporadic action could not be sustained: besides, as Tsêng Kwo-fan himself shrewdly enough pointed out, no child had been missed from any family at Tientsin, and the idea of a disciplined fire brigade and a great city mob being suddenly roused to fury by the abstract idea that somewhere children had been kidnapped by somebody is too altruistic for ordinary belief. The mob needed an instigator, and the instigator was well known.

In the diplomatic correspondence which ensued, admitted on all hands to be most unsatisfactory, the British chargé d'affaires had occasion to complain to Prince Kung that in the communications that passed foreign Ministers and their Governments were spoken of as vassals, which, coming two years after Mr Wade's warm support of the Burlingame mission, was instructive as regards the progress in liberal ideas which had been claimed for the Chinese.

Another consequence of this affair may be noted. The instructions to British naval officers in China, which had been dictated by Mr Burlingame in 1869, were virtually reversed after the Tientsin massacre.

It was the general belief at the time that, literally by the fortune of war, the Chinese Government narrowly escaped a signal retribution for its continued guerilla warfare against foreigners as represented by the missionary vanguard. Information travelled slowly then. The nearest telegraph stations to Peking were Kiachta on the Russian frontier and Colombo, and there was only periodical communication with either, so that it happened that the official news of the massacre reached the British Foreign Office on July 25th. If we recall what was transpiring in the capitals of Europe during that month of July 1870, we may permit ourselves the speculation that events might have taken quite another turn had the news from China reached the Tuileries a month earlier than it did. The Chinese Government themselves were strongly imbued with this idea. In an interesting interview which Consul Adkins had with Li Hung-chang in October, after he had succeeded to the viceroyalty of Chihli, in which the incident was discussed, the viceroy could not conceal his anxiety. The pith of a Chinese interview usually lies, like that of a lady's letter, in the postscript, and as Mr Adkins was taking leave the governor-general asked him, "Do you think France will make war next year?" (It is worth noting that in his report of the interview Mr Adkins expressed himself "reassured by the governor-general's tone and manner." "I take for granted," he wrote, "that he will not tolerate any outrage on foreigners within his jurisdiction;" and this forecast of Mr Adkins has, we believe, been completely borne out by the event.)

But although the Chinese had escaped a great peril, they were somewhat shaken in their sense of security for the future. The attacks on missionaries had no doubt gone further than was altogether safe, since the indignation of the foreign Powers had been roused almost to the pitch of war. The provincial authorities having had their own way so long, threatened to be too strong for the Central Government, and were likely to embroil them with foreign nations; while in their turn the "literati and gentry," unemployed officials and the leaders of disorder in the great provincial cities, were also becoming too demonstrative for the provincial rulers. It was clear to the authorities that they were face to face with a dangerous situation, and, contrary to their traditional practice, they began to devise measures in order to meet it. The missionary, they now saw, was with them for good, the hope of expelling him by intimidation must be relegated to fanatics of the non-practical school, and it would be imbecile to shut their eyes any longer to facts. No doubt they had allowed things to go too far in the admission of foreigners into the interior, trusting to the resourcefulness of the provinces in insidious means of repression, but to retrace their steps was now impossible. They could no longer hope to expel the missionary, but they would contrive some means to mitigate the dangers of his presence. They would, in short, endeavour to supply, in concert with the treaty Powers, that culpable omission in the treaties by henceforth regulating the missions and defining their rights and obligations.

The result of these cogitations was an elaborate scheme for the control of missions which was published in the summer of 1871, and was addressed to the French Government, and by them communicated to the others. That the Chinese Ministers of themselves took so unprecedented an initiative it is not necessary to believe. The circular was attributed to that greatest of all Chinese statesmen, Wênsiang, but the unseen hand that has done so much to assist China out of her international difficulties may easily be traced in this notable State Paper. In the preamble the case is stated much as we have endeavoured to set it forth: "Trade has in no degree occasioned differences between China and the Powers. The same cannot be said of the missions, which engender ever-increasing abuses. Although in the first instance it may have been declared that the primary object of the missions was to exhort men to virtue, Catholicism, in causing vexation to the people, has produced a contrary effect in China." The circular submitted eight rules for the government of missionary relations with the people and officials in the provinces. The rules referred to (1) the management of orphanages, which it was proposed either to close altogether or to place under severe restrictions; (2) the mixed attendance of women and men at public worship, which, being contrary to Chinese propriety, scandalised the people; (3) the legal status of missionaries in the interior, and the evil consequences of the imperia in imperio which had resulted through the missionaries' separating themselves, and even their native converts, from the jurisdiction of the local authorities; (4) the restriction of proceedings in the case of riots to the persons actively participating in the same; (5) the clear definition of passports, so that missionaries should not be able to move about at will, leaving no trace; (6) the need of strict examination into the character and antecedents of converts; (7) the etiquette to be observed by missionaries in intercourse with officials, the missionaries not to arrogate official style; and (8) the reclamation of alleged sites of ancient churches to be stopped, great injustice having been done to Chinese through their being obliged to surrender properties which they had honestly bought and paid for.

Many things have happened since 1871, and each transaction with foreigners has involved greater and greater encroachment on the Chinese prerogatives. Thus the objection taken in 1871 to the missionaries' arrogating official style has now been so completely waived that the Chinese Government itself bestows official rank on missionaries, and has sanctioned a rule of etiquette for their intercourse with the high Chinese authorities. Thus "bishops are authorised to demand to see viceroys and governors of provinces; vicars-general and archdeacons are authorised to demand to see provincial treasurers, judges, and taotais; other priests are authorised to demand to see prefects of the first and second class, independent prefects, sub-prefects, and other functionaries. The various orders of ecclesiastics are to visit and write to the corresponding orders of Chinese officials on terms of equality, and these officials will naturally respond, according to their rank, with the same courtesies."[20]

This famous circular of 1871 unfortunately perished at its birth: it was roughly attacked in the foreign press, and met with a very cold reception by the Foreign Offices. The English and American Governments seemed satisfied with the reflection that the strictures on missionary practices applied specially to Catholics, and pleased to be able on that account to dismiss it from consideration. From that day to this the evils complained of have gone on increasing and accumulating year by year, outrages and massacres following each other without interruption, and the exacerbation of feeling between foreign missionaries and the Chinese population going on with accelerated speed. The political results to China have assumed in these later years the very concrete form of territorial spoliation, and the Chinese have had abundant experience of the religion which makes nations strong and the people virtuous. That is not to say, however, that there is not good seed already germinating under the snow, which may hereafter bear the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Meanwhile the naked unregulated forces are in open conflict, and he would be a bold prophet who should forecast the issue.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE EXPANSION OF INTERCOURSE.

I. RUSSIA AND FRANCE ADVANCING.

Up to this stage the foreign relations of China have been traced from what is practically a single point of view—the English—without sensible distortion of their true proportions. But the events of 1857-60, and the treaties by which they were crowned, introduced new factors and a wider ramification of international connections. The arms of England and France opened the door to an influx of Powers eager to reap where they had not sown; and though the full effect was not realised till many years later, the shifting of foreign intercourse from an essentially Anglo-Chinese to a Sino-cosmopolitan basis became a potential reality on the day that Peking surrendered to the Allies. Foreseeing such a result, the negotiators of the treaties of 1858 advisedly refrained from pressing the Chinese Government more than was essential to the freedom of commerce, on the ground that other Powers less restrained than the authors of the treaties by a sense of moral responsibility might take undue advantage of concessions extorted from the vanquished. This prevision has been borne out by events, for the original "three treaty Powers" soon became thirteen, and the old solicitude for the conservation of China was gradually discovered to be confined to the small minority who had a substantial commercial stake in the country. With the increase in their number there naturally also appeared diversity of interest, scarce perceptible in the beginning, but ever widening with the progress of events until at length a stage of violent antagonism in the policy of the Powers was reached. The division among their enemies, which Chinese statesmen have deplored their inability to compass, has thus been brought about without their aid; but so far from realising the Chinese dream of ruling the barbarians, the division has only exposed the empire to the ravages of rival spoilers.

It is impossible to do more than glance at the several channels into which the foreign relations of China have branched off since 1860. Yet they intersect each other at so many points as to form a network which can only be intelligently considered as a whole. The quasi-biographical form of the present work may be appropriately dropped, so far as China is concerned, with the beginning of 1870, when the more immediate subject of it disappears from the stage of action to reappear as a perspicacious critic surveying the scene from a distant but commanding standpoint.

Two developments of far-reaching importance found their proximate starting-point, though not their origin, in the crisis which laid China prostrate in 1858 and 1860. These were the extension of the Russian empire to the Pacific Ocean, and the creation of that Asiatic empire which had been the dream of France for two centuries. China being by these vast territorial aggressions placed between the upper and the nether millstone, the anticipated advance of the two Powers has exerted an influence on her destiny scarcely less potent than the Japanese war itself, with which it so effectively co-operated. The soldier-statesmen of Russia foreseeing, what the war of 1854-55 was soon to demonstrate, that the sea route to their Pacific possessions was at the mercy of the maritime Powers, resolved to make a dash for a line of communication by land, and in pursuance of this adventurous conception forced their way down the Amur in spite of the feeble remonstrance of the Chinese wardens of the marches. What was thus taken by the strong hand in 1854 was formally ceded in 1858, when, first, the Amur province, with the free navigation of the river, and, next, an undefined condominium in the Usuri province, were granted by treaty to Russia. This was but a step towards the absolute cession, two years later, of that territory, including the whole Manchurian sea-coast, 600 miles in length. These extensive cessions, giving Russia the command of North-Eastern Asia, were extorted from China while in extremis as a direct result of the Anglo-French victories.

So with the French establishment in the south-eastern section of the Continent. The expedition sent to the Far East in conjunction with that of Great Britain was, on completion of its work in China, withdrawn to Cochin-China, and, in an alliance of brief duration with Spain, invaded that dependency of the empire of Annam—a vassal of China—and captured Saigon. The Spanish partnership being thereupon dissolved, the French empire of "Indo-China" was inaugurated with a free hand. Zeal for religion was the motive of the invasion: "The emperor wished to put a stop to the constantly recurring persecutions of Christians in Cochin-China, and to secure them the efficacious protection of France." The record of the phenomenal progress of the new French empire since the treaty of Saigon in 1862 has been related by many eloquent pens. M. F. Garnier, the heroic explorer; M. de Carné, his colleague; M. Lanier, M. Deschamps, M. de Lanessan, and a host of enthusiastic French writers, have depicted in glowing terms not only the process, but the motives and aspirations, of the French "empire-builders."[21]

The pressure, latent and active, of these two powerful neighbours has given its tone to the policy of China during thirty years, and in such a way that her relations with the commercial nations who did not menace her integrity have been relegated to a secondary place.

The new German influence in the Far East, which had its modest beginnings in the treaties so reluctantly concluded by the Japanese and Chinese in 1861, has grown in importance pari passu with the rapid development of the German empire itself, ably seconded, it must always be allowed, by the personal qualities of the Ministers who have been successively chosen to represent the Fatherland at Peking and Tokio. The first resident Minister to China was Baron Rehfues, who opened the Legation in Peking in 1866, under the treaty of 1861.

Another nation destined to play a leading rôle among the Powers in the Western Pacific was during the same period rising like the sun in the eastern sky. Nor was it very long before the nascent Power of Japan began to make its weight felt in the conflicts and concerts of the Far Eastern world.

It is obvious that under these various influences operating from without, and the reflex action set up within the State itself, the character of China as a political and diplomatic entity could not any longer be what it had been in the years before the war. What had been simple became complex; no international issue could be raised in an isolated form; nor could China make any move, whether voluntary or involuntary, without facing the critical observation of many interested parties. This multiple responsibility to Powers by no means at one in their aims, and each assuming over her a status of superiority, could have no other effect than to reduce to nullity any efforts China might make either to improve herself or please the Powers. It was impossible to please them all. Decades before the Japanese war, more than one of them had offered her armed assistance in thwarting the designs of a third,—which things Chinese statesmen pondered in silence.

II. JAPAN AGGRESSIVE.

The civil war in Japan had been fought with characteristic energy during three years, when a revolution, the like of which was never before seen, established the new empire on the double foundations of hereditary monarchy and popular suffrage. The effect of the revolution was to concentrate the whole strength of the State under the government of the Mikado, and thus enable it to give free play to the widest ambitions. With incredible rapidity the nation made itself efficient for every enterprise of peace or war. The best that the Western world had to teach was eagerly appropriated by a people just aroused from a long sleep, and anxious to make up lost time. They went so fast, indeed, that onlookers shook their heads, and their best friends would have applied the brake had it been possible. But the nation was self-reliant, and in its first adolescence it began to be aggressive.

Within six years of the revolution of 1868 an expedition was sent to invade the Chinese island of Formosa. Through the good offices of Sir Thomas Wade, British Minister in Peking, war between the two empires was averted, and the Japanese forces withdrawn. They were virtually bought off, a proceeding characterised by Sir H. Parkes as pusillanimous on the part of the empire of China. The transaction really sealed the fate of China, in advertising to the world that here was a rich empire which was ready to pay, but not ready to fight. The euphemisms under which the ransom was disguised deceived no one unless it were the Chinese themselves. The vast cessions to Russia, incredible as they appeared, had at least the palliation of a dire emergency, and verbal equivalents in the shape of promises of deliverance therefrom. The submission to Japan, on the other hand, was made in a time of comparative ease.

The incident had yet a further significance. The pretext of the Japanese invasion was injuries done to shipwrecked Liuchiuans, a people whom China till then and for some years later considered her own vassals, and who had for centuries paid her regular tribute. Such an episode was therefore a sure mark of imperial decadence;—a definite step, moreover, in the downward process, to be followed not long after by the Japanese boldly asserting a claim to the Liuchiu Islands, against which China could only interpose an inarticulate protest. The meaning of these indications was not likely to be lost either on the Japanese, who were more immediately concerned, or on other less interested onlookers. And what has the subsequent history of China been but a development of the symptoms?

III. KOREA OPENED.

The expanding life of Japan was soon to overflow in another direction. The kingdom of Korea lay within twelve hours' steaming from the Japanese coast: it had a historic and a mythical interest for Japan; it had been the source of her culture as well as the scene of her conquests and ultimate defeat. With the exception of piratical raids on the coast towns of China, Korea was the only foreign field into which Japanese arms had been carried, and the prowess of their peninsular heroes was cherished as a sacred treasure by a people singularly tenacious of their heroic legends. After an interval of three centuries the new Japan directed its ambition to the scene of its medieval exploits; and the "hermit kingdom" was at last dragged from its seclusion and forced to play an unwilling part in the international game. The modern spirit had tempered the military passion, commerce and industry supplied the ballast to adventure, and instead of landing an army of 200,000 men, as they had done in 1592, the Japanese, in 1876, re-established themselves in the peninsula through the peaceable agency of a treaty of amity and commerce—a weapon newly borrowed from the armoury of Europe. This movement of the Japanese was by no means intended to "open" Korea—except to themselves. On the contrary, it appears that that very astute people ingratiated themselves with the king's Government by aiding, or professing to aid, them to keep the country closed to all other nations.

But, like every other attempt to isolate an international question, the exclusive effort of the Japanese not only failed, but resulted in opening Korea instead of closing it. They could not lock themselves in: the key was on the outside of the door. Although they disguised their feelings, the Chinese authorities had been gravely disturbed by the attacks of the French and the Americans on Korea in 1867 and 1871. The audacious advance of the Japanese aroused them to the extent of considering the merits of a counter-move; for Korea was the secular battle-ground between China and Japan, the historic stepping-stone between the two countries. And Korea was a vassal to China, if ever one State did occupy such a relation to another. By old tradition, by effective conquest, by solemn engagement, by regular tributary missions, by the prerogative of investiture, by the obeisance of the sovereign before the Chinese envoys sent on great occasions, by every kind of acknowledgment which the servant could render to the master, was the suzerainty of China established.

China's relations to her tributaries was perhaps the best feature in her imperial character. There was protection, nominal or real, but never a shadow of domination. The ceremonial once settled, the most complete independence was accorded to the vassal State, the imperial object being never oppression or exploitation, but the girdling of the empire with a cordon of contented States looking with filial eyes towards the Dragon throne. Of these filial States Korea was the most important, on account of its geographical position as commanding one of the main approaches to the Middle Kingdom, or, as the king himself once expressed it in a memorial to the emperor, as "the lips protecting the teeth." For China the Korean peninsula has been a strategical stronghold, but its importance was increased a hundredfold when the statesmen of Peking came to realise what they had done in giving away the whole Manchurian sea-coast, leaving them no outlet to the Sea of Japan excepting through Korea, which, moreover, was studded all round with excellent harbours, useful to friends and tempting to enemies.

The wise policy which the emperors had observed towards their tributaries had borne valuable fruit in Korea. For two hundred years the Peking Government had dealt so benignly with king and people as to have inspired feelings of genuine affection combined with deep reverence for the "big country." Whether collectively or individually, officially or privately, the Chinese were warmly welcomed everywhere without ever abusing the courtesy of their hosts—in marked contrast, it must be observed, to the Japanese, whose record in Korea has been one of unbroken brutality, producing a general feeling of aversion.

If anything, therefore, could excite the jealousy of Chinese statesmen, it would be to see this filial dependency being tampered with by strangers, more especially by their hereditary foes, the Japanese. Better all the world in Korea with Japan excluded, than Japan in with the rest of the world kept out. Slow of apprehension, and still slower of action, her unpractical conservatism in high places reducible only by sap and mine, China brooded over the Korean problem for some years before any result of the incubation appeared. The conclusion eventually arrived at was to neutralise the Japanese action by opening Korea to the whole world under treaty. The realisation of this scheme was as usual placed in the hands of Li Hung-chang, who on the one hand recommended the Korean king to conclude commercial treaties with foreign Powers, and on the other encouraged the latter to open negotiations. Hence the general opening of the country in 1882, with its train of tragic consequences.

The terms of the foreign treaties with Korea had not been thoroughly thought out, and the very ambiguity was perpetuated which it was the interest of China to clear away. The treaties purported to be made with an independent State, whereas Korea was a vassal, and the inconsistency was attempted to be remedied by a separate letter from the king to the Powers with whom he had concluded treaties, declaring, notwithstanding, that the Chinese emperor was his suzerain.

IV. THE FIRST IMPERIAL AUDIENCE—SUCCESSION OF KWANGHSU.

An event looked forward to for twelve long years with patient expectation, and with hope, lively at the beginning but fading away towards the end of the period, that it would prove the sovereign remedy for the defects of Chinese intercourse with the world, was the assumption of power by the young emperor, who attained his majority in 1873. The diplomatic body busied themselves greatly in preparations for their first audiences with the sovereign to whom they were accredited. The Chinese on their part were no less anxiously engaged in devising means of lightening the blow to their prestige in consenting to receive foreigners at all, while dispensing with the prescribed prostrations. Obliged to yield the main point, the Court officials minimised its significance by imposing sundry derogatory conditions as to the building in which the audience was to be granted, and by the terms in which it was referred to in the imperial decree, which represented the foreign Ministers as "imploring an audience," and by other like devices.

The first to be admitted to the presence was the representative of Japan, who held the rank of ambassador. Next came the resident Ministers of Russia, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Holland, in a body; and lastly, the French Minister separately, in order to convey the reply of his Government to the mission of Chunghou respecting the Tientsin massacre of 1870. The several letters of credence were placed on a table. The emperor "seemed to be speaking" to Prince Kung, though no sound was heard. The prince in his turn addressed a few words to the five Ministers, in Chinese, purporting to be what the emperor had spoken in Manchu, and the audience was at an end, the whole ceremony lasting about five minutes.

By long anticipation a superstitious halo had formed round the abstract question of audience: it grew into a kind of fetish. Mr Lay shrewdly observed that the object of the "resident Minister" clause in the treaties had been misunderstood by foreigners in being regarded by them as an end instead of only a means. Mr Wade, who was British Minister at the time, made no such mistake; for though he consistently laid stress on ceremonial, it was, as he has frequently explained, because with the Chinese form was more than substance, and included it. A proper regulation of official etiquette was in his estimation the principal key to the remedy of material wrongs. From this point of view a five minutes' audience of the Son of Heaven, even in dumb show and once a-year, was a step of real importance. "The empire," wrote Mr Wade, "has for the first time in its history broken with the tradition of isolated supremacy—not, it may be, with a good grace, but still past recall; and while I would anxiously deprecate a too sanguine estimate of its results, I am as little disposed to undervalue the change that has been effected."

But whatever hopes of a practical kind were raised by this ceremonial innovation were doomed to speedy extinction, for the emperor did not survive to grant a second reception. He died within the year, and was succeeded by another infant, involving a second minority much longer than the preceding one. Eighteen years, in fact, elapsed between the first imperial audience and the second.

The Emperor Tungchih, though but eighteen years of age, left a legend behind him. The gossip of the capital assigned to him considerable independence of character, and a certain audacity in breaking bounds without the discreet chaperonage enjoyed by the Prince Siddhârtha in his explorations beyond the palace precincts of King Suddhôdana. He was, if common report belied him not, a true son of his mother in certain respects, though of her masterful statecraft, and the qualities which become a great monarch, he was too young to have given proofs. Leaving no heir, the deficiency was promptly supplied by the resourcefulness of the empress-mother. As the widow of the Emperor Hsienfêng and co-regent, she adopted a posthumous heir to that monarch to replace his own son. Her choice fell on the infant son of Prince Ch'un, the youngest brother of Hsienfêng. The mother of the adopted child was the empress-regent's own sister, and by thus enthroning her nephew the regent assured herself another long lease of power. The proceeding was irregular, there being two older brothers of Prince Ch'un alive and having sons. The nearest heir was the infant grandson of Prince Tun, the fifth son of Tao-kuang, but though Prince Tun himself had thirty years before been given in adoption to an uncle, the claim of his descendants to the imperial inheritance being thereby weakened, he seems never to have renounced his rights. At the time of the decease of Tungchih there was so much apprehension of disturbances in Peking, both on account of the succession and the form of the regency, that the 'Times' (February 4, 1875) wrote, "A battle on this question would seem almost inevitable, and notwithstanding the proverbial slowness of the East in most things, in crises like the present aspirants to Eastern thrones are wont to display both energy and readiness when the moment arrives for a coup d'état."

The next in seniority of the sons of Tao-kuang was Prince Kung, whose title was uncompromised by alienation, and he had a son eligible. Whatever may have been the reasons for setting aside the claims of the two elder brothers to occupy the Dragon throne, they were considered to have been wrongfully set aside, and of this more will doubtless be heard in the fulness of time. Since, for reasons well understood, no natural heir to the present monarch can succeed him, there must be fresh recourse to adoption when or before the necessity arises, and what influences, native or alien, may then be concentrated on the imperial succession is a speculation on which it would be profitless to enter.

The empress-regent's coup d'état of January 1875, when on a bitterly cold night her infant nephew was taken out of his warm bed, conveyed into the palace, and proclaimed emperor the following morning, answered the scheming lady's expectations, for she has ruled the Chinese empire from that day to this. By the same stroke she was enabled to disembarrass herself of her original confederate, Prince Kung, to whose ambition she dealt a crushing blow in ousting his family from the succession. The two had come to hate each other with more than common virulence; and now that Prince Ch'un had been set on an unassailable pedestal as father of the reigning sovereign, the regent placed her trust and confidence in him, and shared with him the sweets of empire. Inasmuch, however, as the regent was a woman, and her imperial brother-in-law neither a man of affairs nor in a position to assume any outward share in the Government, it was necessary to bring in a practical statesman to stand between them and the outer world. This position of confidence was occupied for twenty years by the grand secretary, Li Hung-chang.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MURDER OF MR MARGARY, 1875—CHEFOO CONVENTION, 1876—RATIFICATION, 1885.

I. THE MURDER OF MR MARGARY, 1875.

Ever since the conquest of British Burma, and more especially since the treaty concluded with the King of Burma in 1862, political and commercial speculation had been busied with the mountainous country which divides it from the empire of China. The fact that next to nothing was known of that wild region, combined with the prospect of reopening the old caravan route which had been some time closed by disturbances among the frontier tribes and by Chinese insurgents, constituted a great stimulus to exploration. To this end projects were from time to time considered by the Indian Government—sometimes at the instance of enthusiastic officials, sometimes urged by the superior authority of the British Government under pressure from mercantile bodies in England. South-western China, however, was as jealously guarded from intrusion as the sea-coast had been, and no progress was made in penetrating its mystery.

After the failure of an exploring expedition under Colonel Edward B. Sladen in 1868, the Indian Government, in furtherance of the wishes of the Government at home, sanctioned yet another attempt six years later, though with decided misgivings as to any successful issue. Arrangements were made during 1874, and the expedition, under Colonel Horace Browne, was despatched from Burma viâ Bhamo in the beginning of 1875. The British Minister in China had been asked for his co-operation, and in particular he was requested to furnish Colonel Browne with a competent interpreter. It was arranged that this official, armed with a Chinese passport issued by the Government at Peking, should make his own way through China from the coast and join Colonel Browne at Bhamo.

The choice of her Majesty's Minister fell upon one of the most promising officers in the consular service, Mr Augustus Raymond Margary, who proceeded from Shanghai by way of the Yangtze to the province of Yunnan, and in five months accomplished his perilous pioneering journey with perfect success, arriving on the 17th of January at the rendezvous, where he was received with the warmest feelings by Colonel Browne and his party, and with surprise and admiration by the Burmese.

On being joined by Mr Margary, the mission prepared to start from Bhamo towards China. Everything seemed auspicious for the expedition. On arriving at the Burmese frontier, however, the party were met by sinister rumours of armed opposition to their passage through the Kakhyen hills. Margary, having just come safely through these districts, volunteered to proceed alone to ascertain the truth of the reports which they had heard. How he was treacherously assassinated at Manwyne, the first city within the Chinese border, and how Colonel Browne's mission was assailed and driven back by armed bands, has been told by Dr John Anderson in 'A Narrative of the two Expeditions to Western China' of 1868 and 1875, and by Sir Rutherford Alcock, the sympathetic editor of Mr Margary's 'Letters and Journals,' as well as in numerous Government publications.

It became then a question of the gravest import to fix the guilt of this treachery, and to consider what means could be adopted for avenging the death of a young Englishman within Chinese territory, and bearing a passport from the Government of Peking. "Whether it be Burmese, Kakhyens, Shan tribes, or Chinese that are in question, it is impossible we can accept a defeat of this nature, brought on, too, by our own spontaneous acts," was the conclusion of Sir Rutherford Alcock. Governments which resorted to the assassination of individuals under their own safe conduct must be deterred, by persuasion or by force, from the use of such tactics. The demand for redress which was made direct to the Tsungli-Yamên was followed by a wrangling and evasive discussion as to the conditions on which the passport had been granted. These, it must be admitted, had not been so definitely stated as they might have been. Passports, as Mr Wade, then Minister in Peking, explained, were granted in two forms—for "business," meaning trade, or for "pleasure," rendered in Chinese "tour or travel." It was in the latter form that the passport for Colonel Browne was applied for, and the Chinese made a plausible defence of their position on this narrow ground, asserting that the subsequent declaration that the mission was intended to open a trade route through Chinese provinces, where they alleged no trading rights for foreigners existed, could not be covered by a passport granted for pleasure.

The voluminous discussion on international rights which followed, although academical in form and irrelevant to the question at issue, betrayed the animus of the Chinese Government in regard to commercial concessions in the interior; but it is possible that the true motive for the repulse of Colonel Browne's expedition, of which Mr Margary's murder was but an incident, lay deeper. Europeans are accustomed to make light of oriental suspicions, and the idea that Colonel Browne's party was the vanguard of a hostile force to be treacherously introduced into Chinese territory under passport may seem too fantastic to have been entertained in good faith. Yet if we consider on what trivial grounds even the civilised Powers of Europe will at times suspect each other of the most grandiose designs, and how often the suspicion is justified, we need not dismiss as incredible the fact that, in a frontier province which had recently been the scene of a formidable rebellion, an armed escort accompanying a foreign tourist party should have caused sincere misgivings in the minds of the authorities. Nor do the facts of the case exclude the possibility of such suspicions being suggested from without, even if they did not arise spontaneously within. Apart from these special considerations, the chances of success would probably have been greater if the mission had started from the Chinese side, where the right of travel and exploration had already been established.

The verbal polemic over the conditions of the passport did not, however, touch the matter in hand, which was the murder of a British official for whom the Chinese Government, both imperial and provincial, were expressly responsible. It is not necessary at this day to pronounce judgment on the identity of the actual criminal. The murder was the result of a conspiracy in which Chinese and Burmese were both implicated. They were alike interested in preventing the passage of the mission, and the strong opposition of the Burma Government was not unknown to Mr Margary, for he had noted it in his Journal.

The King of Burma, the father of the well-known Theebaw, was a learned pandit and a devout Buddhist, as severe in regard to heretics as the crowned heads of Europe were in the days of the Inquisition. The Court of Ava, in its claims to obeisance from foreigners, was almost as exacting as the Son of Heaven himself, and the priests lorded it over the community with the arrogance of a pampered caste. Thus foreign intercourse was heavily hampered, and a good understanding rendered almost impossible. Fears for their prerogatives must have inspired the royal and priestly coterie with aversion to that restless element which was always trying to "open up" other people's country and to explore trade routes. Hence the motive for obstructing the passage of a foreign expedition between Burma and China was as strong on the Burmese as on the Chinese side.

Tsên Yü-ying, the Chinese governor, held an exceptionally strong position in his province, and the officials stood very much in awe of him. Though not a pure Chinese, having been born in the mountains of Kwangsi, of aboriginal parentage on one side, his personal prestige was very great. A fighting man from his youth, he had acquired an immense reputation in suppressing the Mohammedan rebellion in Yunnan. This he did in oriental style, extirpating the rebels so far as he could, root and branch. To save the trouble of burying many thousands of old people and children, he had them drowned in the Tali Lake. The military commander who was told off for this pleasing duty palliated the massacre, when in after years narrating these occurrences, by saying there were not really 10,000 but only 3000 thrown into the lake. This official had remonstrated with the governor against the sentence, saying that such severity was not in accordance with Tao li (principle); but Tsên replied, "You have nothing to do with Tao li; you must conform to the Leu li" (Penal Code).

Tsên Yü-ying was therefore something greater than an ordinary provincial governor, and wielded something more than the authority belonging to his office. Not only was he responsible, as all governors are, for what was done within his government, but it is difficult to conceive of any important incident occurring there without his personal sanction. But which was the leader in the plot, whether the acting-governor Tsên Yü-ying or the King of Burma, is comparatively unimportant; suffice it that her Majesty's Minister fixed, on grounds which satisfied himself, though of course on inferential evidence only, the instigation of the crime on the governor-general Tsên Yü-ying; and whether the direct guilt were brought home to him or not, there could be no question about his responsibility under the Chinese principle of administration. "From the governor-general downwards they are each and all individually and collectively held responsible for all that may happen in the limits of their jurisdiction." Accordingly, after much preliminary discussion, Mr Wade demanded that that high official should be censured for neglect of duty, and, on later information, that he should be brought for trial to Peking. To this demand the Peking Government refused to listen, and after feigning for many months to have no knowledge of what had taken place, they produced a report from the governor-general himself inculpating certain subordinates, of whom he seemed willing to make a nominal sacrifice. This report was so openly mendacious that Sir Thomas Wade threatened to haul down his flag if it were published.

Unluckily for the successful prosecution of the demand for the arraignment of the viceroy, the British Minister became entangled in a cat's-cradle of negotiations for the revision of the treaty of Tientsin, with which the Yunnan outrage got so mixed up that the different questions never could be, or at any rate never were, separated again. Throwing the net is the tactical device in which the Chinese excel. The demand for reparation for the murder was alternately put forward, modified, and withdrawn according as the general propositions were shuffled about, and thus the effect of a concentrated attack on the essential point was lost. The minister on his own showing found himself in a succession of dilemmas, while the Chinese defensive position was clear throughout: it was to refuse everything, evade when direct refusal was dangerous, and in short to baffle all attempts of the British Minister to get to close quarters with the question. Sir Thomas Wade was several times brought by these elusive tactics to the point of threatening withdrawal of the Legation, which in itself the Chinese would have welcomed as a householder might the "positively last visit" of a tax-collector, but for the ulterior consequences to be apprehended.

After many months of fruitless labour Sir Thomas Wade resolved to send a commission of his own to Yunnan to collect evidence as to Margary's murder. His right to do so was at first contested by the Chinese; but after considering the matter, and getting the best advice at their command, they assented, and named High Commissioners to meet the British officials. The Hon. T. G. Grosvenor, secretary of Legation, was detached for this duty, assisted by two of the most competent men in the consular service—Mr Colborn Baber and Mr Arthur Davenport. On the Chinese side were appointed the viceroy of the Hu Kwang, Li Han-chang, elder brother of Li Hung-chang, another official to whom Sir Thomas Wade objected strongly, but in vain, and Tsên Yü-ying himself, the inculpated party. The promises made to the British Minister before he would allow the mission to set out were broken as soon as it was fairly on its way, and Sir Thomas Wade had serious thoughts of recalling it, foreseeing that it was destined merely to waste time. What possible hope, indeed, could there be of isolated foreigners collecting evidence in a distant city against the high provincial officials? No evidence was taken. The British Commissioner was simply presented with the original report, to which was added the so-called "confession" of thirteen savages "kidnapped to do duty as prisoners at the bar." These savages could not speak Chinese, nor was their language understood by any one in the viceregal court; it was evident that they had never been near the scene of the crime, nor did they look in the least like men who were pleading guilty to a capital charge.

The motive of the Chinese in yielding to the appointment of the British commission, after refusing their assent to it, only occurred to Sir Thomas Wade when they recommended that Mr Grosvenor should remain in Yunnan until the case was closed. No coercive measures, they calculated, would be taken against them while these hostages remained in their hands. From first to last the only question that occupied the mind of the Chinese Government was whether force would be applied or not. And if they read—as of course they did—the English newspapers of the day they would see that the contingency of war was dwelt upon throughout the year 1875 as the sole alternative to the condign punishment of the Governor-General of Yunnan-Kweichow. This was, indeed, from time to time directly threatened by Sir Thomas Wade, and he had applied for the Flying Squadron to come on from India to support his demands. When at last, after eighteen months' struggle, he abandoned the negotiations, and "abruptly left Peking" for Shanghai in order to be in direct telegraphic communication with the Home Government, he wrote, "I had, in the last fortnight, again and again threatened either to remove the Legation or to recommend to her Majesty's Government the extremest measure of coercion unless I had secured a very moderate form of reparation."

When Prince Kung realised the fact that the British Minister had actually left the capital he became suddenly serious, and sent after him to say there had been a misunderstanding, which would have been cleared away if he had only waited. At the same time the prince had recourse to his foreign adviser, the Inspector-General of Customs, who stood to the Government somewhat in the relation of a "medicine-man." The inspector-general had taken an active part, both direct and indirect, in the comedy of the preceding eighteen months—whether as an ally or an opponent of the British Minister seems not to have been quite clear to the comprehension of the latter.

An imperial decree was immediately despatched to the Grand Secretary, Li Hung-chang, instructing him to detain the British Minister on his way through Tientsin, in order to confer with him on the Margary case. This proposal Sir Thomas Wade declined on several grounds: among others, that at a previous stage of the negotiations the promises made by Li Hung-chang had been repudiated by the Peking Government. This effort to stop him at Tientsin having failed, Mr Hart was despatched in hot haste after Sir Thomas Wade to Shanghai, ostensibly to discuss the "commercial question," but really to induce the British Minister to re-enter the arena of negotiation,[22] in which the Chinese felt themselves safe. Sir Thomas, therefore, consented to meet a special commissioner, but without committing himself as to the scope of the intended conference. The High Commissioner was Li Hung-chang, and the place of meeting Chefoo, the locality being selected by Sir Thomas Wade himself. There was concluded the famous Chefoo Convention.

II. CHEFOO CONVENTION, 1876.