THE PARTITION OF CHINA

THE exposure of the weakness of China during her war with Japan turned the attention of Europe to the probable early partition of China between European Powers. In September 1894 the Russian journal the Novosti, in a remarkable article on the war, advised Russia, Great Britain, and France to come to an understanding with a view to the partition of China by joint occupation, and urged that such an undertaking would be comparable to the conquest of America or the division of Africa, and would render an immense service to civilisation at large. It further contended that it was unworthy of Europe to tolerate further the pillage of the dwellings of Europeans, the massacre of missionaries, and the violation of commercial interests. The German press at once took up the cudgels, and in the following month Prince Bismarck's organ in the capital, the Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, contended that, in the final settlement, Germany must be reckoned with, because her interests in China were of all European Powers second only to those of England. France, Russia, and England were competing for preponderance, and it was Germany's duty not to lag behind. The journal went on to declare

that

the German empire must be either a world empire or a second-class Power. But to assert itself as a world empire it must resolutely act upon this fundamental principle, that no further distribution of territory among European Powers can be allowed to take place anywhere without such compensation for Germany as shall maintain the existing balance of power.

The following year an opportunity arose similar to that of which Germany is now taking advantage. After the close of the ChinoJapanese war numerous attacks were made in various parts of China upon foreign missions, their stations were burnt, and the missionaries were massacred and ill-treated. England, France, Germany, and the United States all took separate action, demanding redress and the punishment of the rioters and of the provincial and district officials. A British fleet was sent into the Yangtsi, and German ships were despatched to Swatau to enforce the demands made by their Government. China, as usual, at once gave in to fear of reprisals. In the meantime the German press and commercial community were in a

ferment, and insisted that the opportunity for territorial acquisition by Germany should not be lost. The Altdeutsche Association addressed a memorandum to Prince Hohenlohe, the German Imperial Chancellor, requesting him to take steps to obtain in Chinese waters either a harbour or a group of islands, and suggested the Chusan Islands, which China has bound herself to part with to no Power but us. This course was to be taken without any consideration for the ill-will of other Powers;' and they pointed out that a Bremen merchant settled in Shanghai had recently urged that, if Germany does not take Shanghai, German trade in Eastern Asia has no future.'

The storm passed over, through China conceding the demand of the Powers in full. So matters stood until about a year ago, when German writers and German firms interested in the trade of the Far East once more took up the question and adumbrated Germany's share of the spoil as the slice of China lying between the two great rivers of China, the Hwang Ho and the Yangtsi Kiang. The subsequent concessions made by China to Russia in Manchuria, and Russia's growing power in Corea, kept the mouth of Germany watering, while they afforded grounds for the conviction that the Russian policy in Asia, if ever carried to fulfilment, would leave no room for Germany in that quarter of the world. Prince Oukhtomsky, the personal friend of the Tsar, had laid stress upon the inherent union and gradual confluence of Russia with the East;' and about the same time the Russian General Komaroff declared, in the Sviet, that'the East, with all its countries, as China, Beloochistan, and even India, are, by the will of Providence, destined for the Russian people.' Whatever the will of Providence may be, Germany considered she had no time to lose. Russia was negotiating with China for the concession of Kiao-chau Bay, a harbour in the very territory that Germany desired to annex. Possession would be nine-tenths of the law-hence the present situation. As to the Russian fleet wintering at Port Arthur-unless that port is ceded to Russia by China, I fail to see that its doing so would be any grievance to us; for under Article 52 of the Anglo-Chinese Treaty of 1858, our ships of war have the right to visit all ports in China and to receive every facility for the purchase of provisions, procuring water, and, if occasion require, for making repairs.' Port Arthur would thus be as open to our men-of-war as to the Russian fleet.

The question now is, what should the policy of the Government of the United Kingdom be? Are we to take warning from the past, take time by the forelock, and safeguard our interests, or shut our eyes to the probabilities of the future as foreshadowed by the press and indicated by the action of those rival manufacturing nations who would oust us from the great markets of the East? Any thinking man who has studied the question must be struck with the resemblance between the present situation in China and that of our

hinterland on the West Coast of Africa before it was lost to us by the action of Germany and France. Let us consider what the Duke of Devonshire had to say on the latter subject when addressing the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and the Colonial Premiers last June. In the course of his address he lamented over the disastrous effects to our interests on the West Coast of Africa of the shortsighted policy instituted by a parliamentary Committee, of which he was a member, in 1865. The resolutions passed by that Committee were to the effect that all extension of territory by this country in that part of the world was inexpedient, and that the object of our policy should be to encourage the natives in the exercise of the qualities which should render it possible to transfer to them the administration of the Government of those districts, with a view of our ultimate withdrawal from all of them. Ever since then the policy of our Colonial Office had been actuated by the spirit of those resolutions. The Duke of Devonshire confessed that,

Optimists as we were who sat upon that Committee, we imagined that the only alternatives were British or native self-government. It did not occur to ourselves that there were other nations in the field who-with no sentimental zeal for the elevation of the black races, or for promoting self-government amongst the natives of West Africa, but with a very strong zeal and desire to shut out our commerce and to keep the commerce of large portions of that country in their own hands-might take the place which we were so ready to abandon. And now, and perhaps too late, we have discovered the possible future value of the trade, and we find ourselves on every side shut in, hemmed in, by the encroachments of other nations, and exposed, if not to attack, at all events to interference, if we seek to develop our trade in those regions.

Ever since the close of the second Anglo-Chinese war, in 1860, we have been intent upon imbuing China with Western notions and Western civilisation, and endeavouring to teach her 'to stand upon her feet and play the game,' but all in vain. She has repaid us by trampling upon our treaties and doing her utmost to kill our trade. Lord Elgin, who negotiated the Anglo-Chinese treaties of 1858 and 1860, has put it on record that the Chinese Government 'yielded nothing to reason, but everything to fear.' Such has been the subsequent experience of every one of our Ministers at Pekin. We have been ploughing the sand in China as we did on the West Coast of Africa. Foreign nations have gathered around that empire with the intent to prey upon it, as they have preyed upon our African hinterland. It is not too late to learn a lesson from our former mishaps. With Russia, Germany, and France as her creditors, the bankruptcy of China must lead to disruption, and we have been warned by our Consul at Shanghai, in his Report for 1895, that if China is tempted by her monetary difficulties 'to tighten the existing fetters on trade, it can but lead to bankruptcy.' China has given way to that temptation in every part of the empire. If we wish to save her from bankruptcy and consequent disruption, we should give up

parleying with her Government and insist that the whole country shall be thrown open to trade, and its rivers to steam navigation, and that no taxes or squeezes shall be levied upon trade except at the ports of entrance to and exit from the country, and then only such as are sanctioned by our treaties. Trade would then rapidly increase, and the increased revenue derived from it would enable her to meet her obligations, develop her resources, and provide for her defence by land and by sea.

At the best, however, it would be a difficult affair to bolster up such a rotten and stupid Government as that of China. In collision with a European Power, China, thus governed, would be as an earthen pot to one of iron. If it had the honesty, foresight, and go-aheadness of that of Japan, which has absorbed and applied Western knowledge and ideas with extraordinary rapidity and practical success, matters would be more hopeful. China, moreover, is rotten at the core, permeated through and through by secret societies, bent upon overturning the Manchu dynasty. With this object in view, these societies are constantly fomenting rebellions both in the interior and on the coast. A few months before the outbreak of the war with Japan, the Ko Lao Hui raised an insurrection in Hunan and circulated a bogus prophecy of the approaching fall of the Manchu dynasty and the division of China into three kingdoms. The prophecy was handed from hand to hand and copied as it went. Some particulars were given of this and other secret societies in China by Mr. F. H. Balfour in his address to the Manchester Geographical Society in 1891.

From his account it appears that the Ko Lao Hui, or Society of the Elder Brother-which is a resuscitation of the Hung League which overthrew the Mongol dynasty in the fourteenth century-is the most aggressively anti-foreign confederation in the empire. It consists to a great extent of malcontents, rowdies, persons hopelessly in debt, and desperadoes generally, and flourishes most strongly in the provinces of Hunan, Honan, and Anhui, where all the braves belong to it. It is said to have numbered at least one Viceroy and two provincial Governors in its ranks. It binds its members together against all foreign usurpers, including the reigning family. Their watchword is China for the Chinese,' or, as they themselves express it, 'The Glories of the Tang dynasty,' a dynasty that ruled in China A.D. 620-907. All strangers, of whatever nationality or sect, be they Tartars, Southerners, or Western Chinamen, alike are the objects of their hate. They represent the old exclusive pure-blood race of the Hans, and look upon the inhabitants of the more distant provinces, such as Kuangtung, with jealousy almost as fierce as that with which they regard the Manchu dynasty itself. Owing to the small pay of the Chinese soldiery, they are recruited from the dregs of the population, and it is a disturbing fact that the bulk of

this confederacy consists of soldiers and disbanded braves and their families.

Another celebrated secret society is known as the San Ho Hui or Triad Society, and as the Tien Ti Hui, or Heaven-and-Earth Society, seemingly a branch of the Freemasons that has assumed a political character with the intention of upsetting the Manchu dynasty. It was this society which associated themselves with the Tai-pings, and it is probable that the word 'Tai-ping' originated from that of their lodges, which were called 'Tai-ping Ti' or 'Land where all are equal.' Anyhow, it was the Triad Society which stormed Shanghai during the Tai-ping rebellion, and it is the same society which is now terrorising south-eastern China, as can be seen from the following passage of our consul at Pakhoi's report on the trade of that port for 1896:

The four lower prefectures-viz. those of Lienchou, Kaochou, Leichou, and the island of Hainan-are proverbial in this province for their lawlessness and turbulence. I do not know with what justice this applies to Hainan, but on the 'marches' of the Kaochou and Leichou prefectures small so-called rebellions would seem to be endemic. They are generally ascribed by the Chinese here to the presence of large numbers of the Triad Society, which is probably true in the main, but I believe that the said society in this region is purely an association of dacoits, living by blackmail enforced by occasional outrages-termed rebellions when, as usually happens, the soldiers sent to suppress them are routed or killed— and devoid of any political aims.

Even the local guild of gentry' at Pakhoi, which is supposed to keep order among the Chinese, had lately distinguished itself by annexing in the streets of the town camphor sent down by a respectable native dealer, and holding it to ransom. Piracy is said to be in the blood of the race, and a glance through the consul's diary shows a monotonous record of petty coast raids, hoverings of pirate junks—which still terrorise the neighbouring coastline-and robberies of every degree of dignity, from the sacking of the large pawnshops to the plunder of a returned emigrant from the Straits or Sumatra.' Not only are quietly disposed people robbed of their money and goods, but their children are kidnapped to feed the slave trade which is carried on between Pakhoi and Hongkong,' the point of transhipment for Canton. If the Manchu dynasty cannot defend its subjects from such outrages, it has no claim to the loyalty of its subjects, and has no right to exist. Moreover, to allow the region directly neighbouring Tongking to be infested by pirates and brigands is to invite remonstrance, and, failing substantial and probably extortionate redress, ultimately annexation.

In another report, that on the trade of Canton for 1895, we find that part of China in much the same condition. According to our consul at that treaty port

The utter collapse of China in the war with Japan came home slowly to the southern Chinese, but the pressure on the people necessitated by war expenses and