I was told that the music played on this occasion was a modification of the classic strains which had from time immemorial been heard here. Perfect knowledge of this music seems no longer to exist. The music accompanying the ceremony was nevertheless attractive, produced with jade plaques, flutes, long-stringed instruments resembling small harps, but with strings of more uniform length, drums, and cymbals. A dominant note was struck on one of the jade plaques, whereupon all the instruments fell in with a humming sound, held for fully a minute, which resembled the murmur of forest trees or the surging of waves. There was no melody; only a succession of dominants, with the accompaniment of this flow of sound surging up, then ebbing and receding. One of the instruments is most curious, in the shape of a leopard-like animal, in whose back there areclosely set about twenty small boards. At certain stages of the music a stick is rapidly passed over these boards, giving a very peculiar punctuation to the strains that are being played.
The chief dignitaries officiating were Mr. Chu Chi-chien, the Minister of the Interior, and Mr. Sun Pao-chi, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, gorgeous in their newly devised ceremonial costumes. The splendid and dignified surroundings of the temple courts enhanced the ceremony, but it depended for its effect on the manner of chanting, the music, and the very dignified demeanour of all who participated. Quite apart from the question of the advisability of a state religion or the possible reactionary influences which such ceremonies might have, I could not but feel that the refusal to cast off entirely such traditions was inspired by sound instinct.
Moreover, this revival came during the adoption of new ways. Chinese ladies came out in general society for the first time on the night of the 5th of February, at the Foreign Office ball. Many representatives of the outlying dependencies of China were there in picturesque costumes, invariably exhibiting a natural self-confidence which made them seem entirely in place in these modern surroundings. The Foreign Office building, planned by an American architect, contains on the main floor an impressive suite of apartments so arranged as to give ample space for large entertainments, while it affords every opportunity for the more intimate gathering of smaller groups. Guests were promenading through the long rows of apartments from the ballroom, where the excellent Navy Band was playing for the dancers.
The Chinese women gave no hint of being unaccustomed to such general gatherings of society, but bore themselves with natural ease and dignity. Nor did they conceal their somewhat amused interest in the forms of the modern dance;for only a few of the younger Chinese ladies had at that time acquired this Western art. The number of votaries, however, increased rapidly during the next few years.
From among the Tartars of the outlying regions this occasion was graced by a Living Buddha from Mongolia, to whom the Chinese officials were most attentive. Surrounded by a large retinue, he overtopped them all, and his bodily girth seemed enormous. He found his way early in the evening to a room where refreshments were being offered, took possession of a table, and proceeded to divest himself of seven or eight layers of outer garments. Thus reduced, he became a man of more normal dimensions. Several of his servitors then went foraging among the various tables, bringing choice dishes to which the Living Buddha did all justice. Long after midnight reports still came to the ballroom: "The Living Buddha is still eating."
It seems remarkable that Chinese women should so readily adapt themselves to wholly new situations. They have shown themselves capable of leadership in social, political, and scientific matters; a great many develop wide intellectual interests and manifest keen mental powers. When I gave the Commencement address at the Women's Medical College of Peking, the 13th of February, I was curious to see what types of Chinese women would devote themselves to a medical education. In this field Dr. King Ya-mei and Dr. Mary Stone are the pioneers. With the advance of modern medicine in China many Chinese women have adopted the career of nurses and of physicians. On this occasion the women students of the middle school sang various selections, and I was impressed with the cello-like quality of their alto voices. As customary on such occasions my address was made through an interpreter. The delivery of these chopped-off paragraphs can scarcely be inspiring, yet Chinese audiences are so courteous and attentive that they never give the speaker any suggestion of impatience.
A luncheon at the Botanical Gardens was given the next day by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Chang Chien. This institution, to which a small and rather hungry-looking collection of animals is appended, occupies an extensive area outside of the northwest gate, and was formerly a park or pleasure garden of the Empress Dowager. A modern-style building, erected for her use and composed of large main apartments on each floor, with smaller side-chambers opening out from them, was used for our luncheon party. Its walls were still hung with pictures painted by the hand of the august lady, who loved to vary her busy life by painting flowers. The conversation here was mostly on Chinese art, there being among the guests an antiquarian expert, Chow, who exhibited some fine scrolls of paintings. I noted that the Chinese evinced the same interest in the writing appended to the paintings (colophon) as in the picture itself. They seemed to admire especially the ability, in some famous writers, of executing complicated strokes without hesitation and with perfect control. When we were looking at a page written by a famous Sung poet, Mr. Chow said: "He always finished a stroke lightly, like his poems, still leaving something unsaid."
Chinese handwriting has infinite power to express differences of character and cultivation. It is closely associated with personality. Some writing has the precision of a steel engraving; other examples, again, show the sweep and assurance of a brush wielded by a Franz Hals. It is the latter that the Chinese particularly admire; and even without any knowledge of Chinese script one cannot but be impressed with its artistic quality and its power to reveal personal characteristics. It is still the great ambition of educated Chinese to write well—that is, with force and individual expression. My host on this occasion was one of the most noted calligraphers in China. Many emulated him; among them a northern military governor who had risen from theranks, but spent laborious hours every day decorating huge scrolls with a few characters he had learned, with which to gladden the hearts of his friends.
The new things cropping out in Chinese life had their detractors. Mr. and Mrs. Rockhill had come to Peking for a visit. Relieved of official duties through a change in the administration, it was quite natural that Mr. Rockhill should return where his principal intellectual interests lay. Throughout our first conversation at dinner Mrs. Rockhill affected a very reactionary view of things in China, praising the Empire and making fun of all attempts at modernization. One would have thought her not only a monarchist, but a believer in absolutism of the old Czarist type. A woman so clever can make any point of view seem reasonable. Mr. Rockhill did not express himself so strongly, but he was evidently also filled with regret for the old days in China which had passed. While we were together receiving guests at a dinner I was giving Mr. Rockhill, some of the young Foreign Office counsellors appeared in the distance, wearing conventional evening clothes. "How horrible," Mr. Rockhill murmured, quite distressed. Not perceiving anything unusual to which his expression of horror could refer, I asked, "What?" "They ought to wear their native costume," he answered; "European dress is intolerable on them, and it is so with all these attempted imitations."
The talk at another dinner, a small gathering including Mr. Rockhill, Doctor Goodnow, and Dr. Henry C. Adams, revolved around conditions in China and took a rather pessimistic tone. Doctor Adams had been elaborating a system of unified accounting for the railways. "At every turn," he said, "we seem to get into a blind alley leading up to a place where some spider of corruption sits, the whole tribe manipulated by a powerful head spider."
This inheritance of corruption from the easy-going past, when the larger portion of official incomes was made upof commissions and fees, was recognized to be a great evil by all the more enlightened Chinese officials. They attempted to combat it in behalf of efficient administration but they could not quite perform the heroic task of lifting the entire system bodily onto a new basis. Because the new methods would require greatly increased salaries, the ideal of strict accountability, honesty, and efficiency, could only be gradually approached. Doctor Goodnow for his part contributed to the conversation a sense of all the difficulties encountered by saying: "Here is a hitherto non-political society which had vegetated along through centuries held together by self-enforced social and moral bonds, without set tribunals or formal sanction. Now it suddenly determines to take over elections, legislatures, and other elements of our more abstract and artificial Western system. I incline to believe that it would be infinitely better if the institutional changes had been more gradual, if the system of representation had been based rather on existing social groupings and interests than on the abstract idea of universal suffrage. These political abstractions as yet mean nothing to the Chinese by way of actual experience."
He also did not approve of the persistent desire of the democratic party to establish something analogous to the English system of cabinet government. He felt that far more political experience was needed for working so delicate a system. "I am inclined to look to concentration of power and responsibility in the hands of the President for more satisfactory results," he said.
Mr. Rockhill's fundamental belief was that it would be far better for the world not to have meddled with China at all. "She should be allowed to continue under her social system," he urged, "a system which has stood the test of thousands of years; and to trust that the gradual influence of example would bring about necessary modifications." He had thorough confidence in the ability of Yuan Shih-kai, ifallowed a free hand, to govern China in accordance with her traditional ideas but with a sufficient application of modern methods. He even considered the strict press censorship applied by Yuan Shih-kai's government as proper under the circumstances.
Throughout this conversation, which dwelt mostly on difficulties, shortcomings and corruption, there was, nevertheless, a notable undercurrent of confidence in the Chinesepeople. These experienced men whose work brought them into contact with specific evils, looked at the Chinese, not from the ordinary viewpoint so usual with foreigners who assume the utter hopelessness of the whole China business, but much as they would consider the shortcomings of their own nation, with an underlying faith in the inherent strength and virtue of the national character. The idea of China being bankrupt was laughed to scorn by Mr. Rockhill. "There are its vast natural and human resources," he exclaimed. "The human resources are not just a quantity of crude physical man power, but there is a very highly trained industrial capacity in the handicrafts." But it is exactly when we realize the stupendous possibilities of the country, her resources of material wealth, her man power, her industrial skill, and her actual capital that the difficulties which obstruct her development seem so deplorable.
Mr. Liang Chi-chao gave a dinner at about this time, at which Doctor Adams, Doctor Goodnow, President Judson of Chicago, and the ladies were present. Mr. Liang had a cook who was a master in his art, able to produce all that infinite variety of savory distinction with which meat, vegetables, and pastry can be prepared by the Chinese. One usually speaks of Chinese dinners as having from one hundred fifty to two hundred courses. It would be more accurate, however, to speak of so many dishes, as at all times there are a great many different dishes on the table from which the guests make selection. The profusion of food supplied at such adinner is certainly astonishing. The guests will take a taste here and there; but the greater part of it is sent back to the household and retainers. It is a popular mistake to believe that Chinese food is composed of unusual dishes. There are indeed birdsnest soup, shark fins, and ducks' kidneys, but the real excellence of Chinese cooking lies in the ability to prepare one thing, such as chicken, or fish, in innumerable ways, with endless varieties of crispness, consistency, and flavour. It is notable to what extent meat predominates. Although there is always a variety of vegetables and of fruit, the amount of meat consumed by the Chinese is certainly astonishing to one who has classified them, as is usually done, as a vegetarian people.
The show of abundance at a Chinese banquet seems the fare of poverty compared with the cargoes of delicacies served at the Imperial table. It was a rule of the Imperial household that any dish which the Emperor had at any time called for, must be served him at the principal meal every day; as his reign lengthened the numbers of dishes at his table, naturally, constantly increased. It is related that the dinner of the Emperor Chen Lung required one hundred and twenty tables; and the Empress Dowager, at the time of her death, had worked up to about ninety-six tables. It is not to be wondered at that the Emperor's kitchen had an army of three hundred cooks! At one time when the Duke Tsai was discussing with me the financial situation of the Imperial family, he remarked, with a deep sigh: "The Emperor has had to reduce the number of his servants. For instance, at present he has only thirty cooks." Not knowing of the custom described above, I was inclined to consider that number quite adequate. I believe the little Emperor has at the time I write reached the quota of about fifteen tables.
At the hospitable board of Mr. Liang Chi-chao, while the dishes were served in Chinese style and the food eaten with chopsticks, some modifications of the usual dinner procedurehad been made. The etiquette of a Chinese meal requires that when a new set of dishes with food has been placed in the centre of the table, the host, hostess, and other members of the family survey what is there and pick out the choicest morsels to lay on the plates of their guests. The guests then reciprocate the courtesy, and the interchange of favours continues throughout the dinner, giving the whole affair a most sociable aspect. At Mr. Liang Chi-chao's table these courtesies were observed, but there were special chopsticks provided for taking the food from the central dishes and transferring it to a neighbour's or to one's own.
The conversation after dinner wandered toward Chinese ethics. Mr. Liang Chi-chao is one of the most competent authorities on this subject and on its relations to Western thought and life. I ventured this opinion: "While the high respect in which the elders are held by the younger generation in China is a remarkably strong social cement, it is discouraging to progress in that it gives the younger and more active little chance to carry out their own ideas."
"But the system does not," Mr. Liang rejoined, "necessarily work to retard change; because it is, after all, society rather than individuals which controls. With all proper respect for elders, the younger element has ample opportunity to bring forward and carry out ideas of social change."
He regarded the principle of respect for elders and of ancestor worship of fundamental importance; in addition to its direct social effects, it gave to Chinese society all that the Western peoples derive from the belief in immortality. The living individual feels a keen sense of permanence through the continuity of a long line of ancestors, whose influence perceptibly surrounds those actually living; moreover, their own actions are raised to a higher plane, as seen not from the narrow interests of the present, but in relation to the life of the generations that are to succeed, in whom the character and action of the individual now living will persist.
This evening's entertainment, with its intimate Chinese setting and its conversation dealing with the deeper relationships between different civilizations, has remained a memorable experience for those who attended it. Only recently it was thus recalled by one of the guests: "Think of going to a dinner with the 'Secretary of Justice' in Washington, and conversing about the immortality of the soul!"
Interested to see how, despite the new ways in China, the old Confucianism persisted, I determined upon a pilgrimage to the Confucian shrines. Dr. Henry C. Adams invited me in November, 1914, to join him on a trip to the sacred mountain, Taishan, in Shantung Province, and to Chüfu, the home of Confucius.
A small party was made up. I slipped away quietly in order to avoid official attentions and to spare the local authorities all the bother of formally entertaining a foreign representative. We arrived at Taianfu early in the morning, where with the help of missionaries chair-bearers had been secured to carry us up the mountain.
The trip to these sacred heights is of an unusual character. The ascent from the base is almost continuously over stair-ways. Up these steep and difficult grades two sturdy chairmen, with a third as alternate, will carry the traveller rapidly and with easy gait. The route is fascinating not only because of the singular natural beauty of the ravines through which it passes, and of the constantly broadening prospects over the fruitful plains of Shantung from every eminence, but because of the historic interest of the place; this is testified to by innumerable temples, monuments, tablets, and inscriptions sculptured in the living rock which line the path up the mountain. It must be remembered that in the time of Confucius this was already a place of pilgrimage of immemorial tradition; a place of special grandeur, wherein the mind might be freed of its narrow needs and find its place in the infinite. Many of its monuments refer to Confucius andrecord his sayings as he stopped by the way to rest or to behold the prospect. At one point, whence one looks off a steep precipice down to the plain thousands of feet below, his saying, as reported, was: "Seen from this height, man is indeed but a speck or insect." But not all of his remarks were of this obvious nature, which justifies itself in its appeal to the common mind, to be initiated into the truths of the spirit.
In these thousands of years many other sages, emperors, and statesmen have ascended the sacred hill, also leaving memorials in the shape of sculptured stones bearing their sentiments. It would be an agreeable task for a vacation to read these inscriptions and to let the imagination shadow forth again these unending pilgrimages extending back to the dawn of history.
The stairway leading up the mountain, which is about 6,000 feet high, is often so steep that we had to guard against being overcome by dizziness in looking down. Occasionally a stop is made at a wayside temple, where tea is served in the shady courts. In the summer heat these refuges must be especially grateful. We reached the temples that crown the summit after a journey of about six hours. In a temple court at the very top the servants who had preceded us had set up their kitchen, and an ample luncheon was awaiting us there.
At this altitude a cold and cutting wind was blowing. Yet we preferred to stay outside of the temple buildings in order to enjoy the view which is here unrolled, embracing a great portion of the whole province of Shantung. I noted that the coolies did not seem impressed with the sanctity of this majestic height, but used the temple courts as a caravanserai.
The descent is made rapidly, as the practised chair-bearers run down the stairs with quick, sure steps—which gives the passenger the sensation of skirting the mountainside in anaeroplane. When I inquired whether accidents did not occasionally happen, they told me: "Yes, but the last time when any one has fallen was about four hundred years ago." As in the early days chair-bearers who had fallen were killed, the tendency to fall was in the course of time eradicated. They descend with a gliding motion that reminds one of the flight of birds. The chair-bearers are united in a guild, and happen to be Mohammedans by religion.
The town of Taianfu, which lies at the foot of the mountain, is notable for a very ancient and stately temple dedicated to the god who represents the original nature worship which centres around Mount Taishan, and which forms the historic basis for all religion in China. The spacious temple courts, with their immemorial trees and their forests of tall stone tablets bearing inscriptions dedicated by emperors for thousands of years past, testify to the strength of the native faith. The streets of the town, set at frequent intervals with arches bearing sculptured animal forms, were lined with shops through whose trellised windows, now that night had come, lights were shining, revealing the activities within. These, with an occasional tall tower or temple shadowing the gathering darkness, made this old town appear full of romance and strange beauty.
Sleeping on our car, we were by night carried to the railway station of Chüfu; some seven miles farther on lies the town of the same name, the home of Confucius. We hired donkey carts at the station; also, as the ladies were anxious to have the experience of using the local passenger vehicle, the wheel-barrow, we engaged a few of these; whereupon our modest cavalcade proceeded first to the Confucian burial ground, to the north of the city. On the way thither we were met by chair-bearers who carried a portable throne and brought complimentary messages from the Holy Duke. As the chair had been sent for my use, there was nothing for it but to get in. Soon appeared, also, a string of mule carts drawn bysleek and well-fed animals, contrasting with the bony and dishevelled beasts we had hired.
It was plain that the incognito was ended, and that the Duke had been apprised of our coming. Then came the emissaries of the district magistrate, offering further courtesies, such as a guard of honour; and another delegation from the Duke brought a huge red envelope containing an invitation for luncheon. We tried to decline all these civilities and to stroll about quietly, in order to come entirely under the spell of this place. But there was no more rambling and strolling for us. We had to sit in our chairs and carts, and, after two polite declinations of the luncheon invitation, alleging the shortness of our time and our desire to see everything thoroughly, and asking leave to call on the Duke later in the afternoon—we accepted the customary third issue of the ducal invitation.
Our procession was quite imposing as we passed on to the inner gate of the cemetery. Covering about one and a half square miles, the enclosure has been the burial ground of the Confucian family for at least three thousand years, antedating Confucius himself. No other family in the world has such memorials of its continuity. The simple dignity of a huge marble slab set erect before the mound-covered grave marks the burial place of the sage. The adjoining site of the house where his disciples guarded his tomb for generations, but which ultimately disappeared some two thousand years ago, also bears monuments and inscriptions.
Leaving the cemetery, a large cavalry escort sent by the district magistrate joined our cavalcade of chairs, mule carts, and wheelbarrows, together with crowds of the curious who trudged along. The village streets were lined with people anxious to see the strangers; but their curiosity had nothing intrusive. They were friendly lookers-on, nodding a pleasant welcome should your eye catch theirs.
We passed through many gates of the ancient palace beforewe were finally received by the Duke himself at the main inner doorway. He was accompanied by the magistrate, and with these two we sat down to chat; nearly an hour elapsed before we were summoned to the table. The meal, which was made up of innumerable courses, lasted at least two hours, during which we kept up an animated conversation concerning the more recent history of the town and of the temple.
The Duke was agitated because missionaries from Taianfu were trying to acquire land in the town of Chüfu. He looked upon this intrusion as unwarranted, saying that as his town was devoted to the memory of the Chinese sage, it did not seem suitable that any foreign religion should try to introduce its worship, and it would certainly result in local ill-feeling.
I tried to quiet his apprehensions by speaking of the educational work of missionaries, of the fact that they, also, respected the great sage; but it was hard to allay his opposition.
The magistrate was jovial, laughing uproariously at the mildest joke. When we arose from the table, the Duke took us to the apartments of the Duchess, who was staying with the infant daughter recently born, their first child. The Duchess was his second wife, and he was considerably her senior. The little lady seemed to be particularly fond of cats, of which at least forty were playing about her; one of these she presented to Mrs. Adams.
The great Temple of Confucius immediately adjoins the palace. Although the afternoon was wearing on, we still had time to visit it and to wander about in its noble courts. The pillars in the main halls are adorned by marvellous sculpture, and the temple is remarkable for the refined beauty of the structures composing it and for the serene dignity of its aspect. Adjoining the main temple is an ancient well near which stood the original house of Confucius.Stone reliefs present in a long series the history of Confucius in pictures, and there is a great collection of instruments used in performing the classical music. But the chief charm of the temple lies in the vistas afforded by its courts, set with magnificent trees and with the monuments of the past seventy generations.
It was dark when we had finished our visit to the temple. We bade the Duke farewell, and our cavalcade, starting back to the station, was now made picturesque by the flaring torches and the huge paper lanterns which were carried alongside each chair and cart. Slowly the procession wound its way back over the dark plains toward the lights of the station platform and the emblems of a mechanical civilization that contrasted at every point with the life we had seen. The Duke had regretted having objected so strongly to the proposal to bring the railway closer to the town, for it was of inconvenience to visitors; but he felt, after all, that the great sage himself would always prefer the peacefulness and quiet of the older civilization.
I revisited Chüfu three years later, this time with Mr. Charles R. Crane and Mrs. Reinsch, who had been unable to accompany me on the first visit. The officials were expecting us, and everywhere we were followed with attentions. Not satisfied with giving us two private cars, the railway officials insisted that we have a special engine, too. In the region of Chüfu we gathered an army of military escorts. Arriving at the palace, the Duke greeted us with a child on either arm. The little daughter was now over three, the son slightly over one year old. I have never seen any one who appeared more devoted to his children than the Duke. He always had them with him, carried them about, playing with them and fondling them. When he and the Duchess visited us in Peking he brought the two little ones, and they and my small children played long together joyfully and to the amusement of their elders. The Duke was tall, broad-shouldered, aristocratic looking. While not credited with great ability, he was undoubtedly a man of intelligence, although his education had been narrowly classical and had not given him contact with the world's affairs. He was seventy-third in line from the great sage. At that time he was engaged especially with plans to create in Chüfu a university wherein the Confucian tradition should be preserved in its purity, but which should also teach modern science.
Once during the revolution against the Manchus the Duke was considered a possible successor to the throne. If the country had had a Chinese family of great prominence in affairs, the transfer of the monarchy to a Chinese house might have been accomplished, but the Duke was by no means a man of action or a politician. Neither had the descendants of the Ming, Sung, and Chow emperors, or of other Imperial houses, sufficient prominence or genius for leadership to command national attention.
The title of the Holy Duke is the only one in China which remains permanently the same. Under the empire, titles were granted, but in each succeeding generation the rank was lowered by one grade until the status of a commoner had again been reached. By this arrangement, under which noble rank gradually "petered out," China escaped the creation of a class or caste of nobility.
CHAPTER IV
A GLIMPSE BEHIND THE POLITICAL SCENES
Modelling largely on American example, China is striving to create truly representative political institutions. Personal rule, imperial traditions, hamper the Chinese in their efforts, unguided as they are by experience; moreover, they meet with foreign skepticism and opposition. It is America's rôle not officiously to interfere in their endeavours, but in every proper way to help them.
The institutions a nation develops are largely its own business. Other nations should not interfere. But in China all liberal-minded, forward-looking men see in the United States a free government which they not only wish to emulate, but to which they look for interest, sympathy, and moral assistance. The results of their efforts are by no means indifferent to us. Should they fail, should militarist and absolutist elements gain the upper hand; particularly, should China become an appendage to a foreign militarist autocracy, grave dangers would arise. The ideals of the progressive Chinese are in keeping with the peaceful, industrious traditions of China. With these traditions Americans in China are closely allied. They do not seek, nor have they need to seek, to control by political means the choice of the Chinese people. On the other hand, it would be difficult for them to tolerate any attempt to prevent the Chinese from freely following the model of their choice, and from securing those mutually helpful relations with Americans which they themselves desire. In this sense only, then, have Americans a vital interest in Chinese politics. That personal rule and imperial traditions, as well as military despotism, are still powerful enough to hamper the will of the new Chinese democracy may be manifest from a few instances that early came to my attention.
The first case was that of Mr. C.T. Wang. When he related to me the history of the dissolution of his party—he was and still is one of the leaders of the democratic party (Kuo Min Tang)—he told me that he was in great personal danger. Mr. Wang had been marked for execution as a leader of the disbanded party and he was living in concealment as a refugee.
His call upon me, shortly after my arrival in Peking, was my first direct contact with Chinese internal or party politics. He had greeted me at the railway station upon my arrival, and now he told me the story of Yuan Shih-kai's successful attempt to break down the opposition of the parliament and to render that body entirely innocuous. Mr. Wang was the Vice-President of the Senate, and through his party was associated with Dr. Sun Yat-sen and General Huang Hsin, the men who had attempted the revolution during the summer just passed. But Mr. Wang represented the younger, more modern-minded elements in the party, who desired to adopt the best institutions and practices of the West, but who did not favour violent measures.
Yuan Shih-kai had divided the majority party, in order in the end to destroy its two sections. The most recent action in this fight was the dissolution of the Kuo Min Tang, which was decreed by the President on November 5th, on the ground that this body was implicated in, and responsible for, the revolutionary movement against the President. The President had approached the Tutuhs—or military governors, after the downfall of Yuan Shih-kai called Tuchuns—in the various provinces and had secured in advance an endorsement of his action. Of course, this appeal ignored the constitutional character which the state was supposed to have, and encouraged the military governors inthinking that they were semi-independent rulers. After the death of Yuan their sense of their own importance and independence grew apace. They imitated him in looking upon their armies as their personal property. Moreover, they seized control of the provincial taxes. From all this arose that pseudo-feudalism of military despots, which is the baneful heritage left by Yuan Shih-kai in China.
I had already received, through the Department of State, an inquiry from American friends concerning Mr. Wang's safety. He was graduated from Yale University, was first among the American-returned students, and favourably known among Americans in general. He had been the president of the Chinese Y.M.C.A. and bore the reputation of being an able, clean-handed, and conscientious man. I could not, of course, know in how serious danger Mr. Wang found himself, nor could I make any formal representations in a case where the facts were unknown. However, through making inquiry as to whether any unfavourable action, such as arrest, was contemplated, I hinted to the Government that any harsh action against Mr. Wang would be noted. The very fact that a well-disposed foreign nation is taking notice will tend to prevent rash or high-handed action, which is frequently forced by some individual hothead commander or official. When public attention has been directed to the unjust treatment of a man, rash vindictiveness may be restrained by wiser heads.
A further example of the working of Chinese internal politics which came under my observation at this time is shown in the method by which Yuan Shih-kai politely imprisoned the Vice-President.
From time to time Yuan Shih-kai had made efforts to induce the Vice-President, General Li Yuan-hung, to come to Peking from Wuchang, where he was stationed in command of troops. He had sent him messengers and letters, protesting the need he felt of having General Li closely byhis side in order to profit by his support and advice on important affairs. These polite invitations had been answered by General Li in a most self-deprecatory tone; he could not aspire to the merit and wisdom attributed to him by the President; he could be of but little assistance in important affairs of state; it was far better for him to stay in his position as commander at Wuchang, whence he could effectively support the authority of the President and all his beneficent works.
This interchange of correspondence went on for some time. It was evident that General Li did not wish to come to Peking. It was surmised that the President did not like the prominence which the democratic party had given to the name of General Li Yuang-hung, whom they had heralded as a true republican and a man of popular sympathies. Probably Yuan feared that General Li might be placed at the head of a new political movement against the President's authority.
The President not only sent messengers and letters of cordial invitation, but he also rearranged the disposal of troops, with the result that bodies of troops upon which Yuan Shih-kai could rely were drawn around Wuchang with a constantly shortening radius. Finally in December General Li realized that he had no alternative. He therefore informed the latest messenger of Tuan that he could no longer resist the repeated cordial invitations, and that while he was sharply conscious of his shortcomings, he would endeavour to assist the chief magistrate to the limit of his powers.
He came to Peking in December, without troops of his own. The President received him with the greatest cordiality, embracing him and vowing that now the burden of responsibility was lightened for him; that he must have his great associate and friend always close at hand, where he could consult with him daily, in fact, any hour of the dayand night; he therefore invited General Li to make his home close to the palace of Yuan, namely, on the little island in the South Lake in whose many-coloured, gracefully formed halls, Emperor Kwang Hsu was for many years kept a prisoner by the Empress Dowager.
There General Li took his residence, knowing that his great friend the first magistrate could not spare his presence at any hour of day or night.
The question arose whether the foreign representatives should call on the newly arrived Vice-President. The Government tentatively suggested that as hosts it might be proper for them to make the first call. Whether or not this was done in the expectation that the suggestion would not be accepted, it certainly was not the desire of Yuan Shih-kai to encourage close relations between the Vice-President and any outsiders.
Although Yuan Shih-kai still allowed the rump parliament to exist, he had undoubtedly decided at this time to dispose of it entirely. A ready pretext was at hand, because, with the expulsion of the Kuo Min Tang, the parliament no longer could muster a quorum. On November 13th, it was announced that a central administrative conference would be created to act in an advisory capacity in matters of government. It was plain that this body was intended to displace parliament. The list of nominees was made up mostly of men of the old régime, literati and ex-officials—the kind known among the Chinese as "skeletons"; a group of high standing and very good reputation, but from which little constructive action could be expected. Among them was a very effective orator, Ma Liang, a member of the Roman Catholic Church. He was a dignified, elderly man, who came to see me to talk about reforestation and colonization of outlying regions. His contact with Western civilization had been through the Jesuit College at Zikawei. Another member was Dr. Yen Fu, who had won reputation by translating a large number of scientific works into Chinese and creating a modern scientific terminology in Chinese. Among other councillors with whom I became well acquainted was Hsu Shih-chang, later President of China, and Li Ching-hsi, a nephew of Li Hung-chang, who had been Viceroy of Yunnan under the Empire.
Dr. Frank J. Goodnow, the American Constitutional Advisor, often discussed Chinese political affairs with me. It was his impression that parliament had attempted to take over too much of Western political practice without sufficiently considering its adaptability to Chinese uses. He believed that the administrative power should not be subject to constant interference by parliament, and that China was not yet ready for the cabinet system. He therefore held a rather conservative view favouring gradual development in the direction of Western institutions, but not a wholesale adoption of the same. The Yuan Shih-kai government took advantage of this attitude of the American expert to give out, whenever it proposed a new arrangement for strengthening its hold, that the matter had the approval of Doctor Goodnow and other foreign advisers. However, these authorities were not really consulted; that is, they were not brought into the important conferences, nor given the chance to coöperate in the formulation of vital projects. As a matter of form they were, of course, "consulted"—but usually after the decisions had been made. They were informed of what had been agreed upon; and then it was announced that the approval of the advisers had been secured. Another example of the bland self-sufficiency of Yuan Shih-kai and his government. They believed in themselves; they considered that they were accountable only to themselves; they had fundamentally the monarchic point of view in all departments of public service.
CHAPTER V
WITH MEN WHO WATCH POLITICS
I found in Peking several good observers of political life, especially Dr. George Morrison, Mr. B. Lenox Simpson, and Mr. W.H. Donald. All three had the training in observation and judgment which comes from writing for responsible papers. Doctor Morrison was gifted with a memory for details. Thus, he would say: "When I first visited New York I lived in a little hall room on the third floor of 157 East Twenty-ninth Street, with a landlady whose name was Simkins, who had green eyes and a red nose and who charged me two dollars a week for my room." He delighted in detailing minutely his daily doings. His sense of infinite detail combined with his remarkable memory made Doctor Morrison an encyclopædia of information about Chinese public men. He knew their careers, their foibles and ambitions, and their personal relationships. Like most British in China he was animated with a sincere wish to see the Chinese get ahead, and was distressed by the obstacles which a change for the better encountered at every step. His own mind was of the analytical and critical type rather than the constructive, and his greatest services were rendered as interpreter of events and in giving to public men and the people a clear idea of the significance of complex Chinese situations. "I am annoyed," he would say, "because kindly old ladies persistently identify me with the missionary Morrison who died in 1857."
Mr. Donald's acquaintance with Chinese affairs had come through close contact with the leaders of new China, with whom he coöperated intimately in their military and political campaigns. He had a heart for the Chinese, as if they had been his own people. He worried about their troubles and fought their fights. Mr. Simpson, the noted writer who uses the pen name "Putnam Weale," began active life as a member of the Maritime Customs service, but he soon resigned, to devote himself wholly to literary work. His masterly works of political analysis were written in the period of the Russo-Japanese War, although his best-known book came a little earlier—a book which long earned him the ill-will and suspicion of many of the legations in Peking. He himself disavows giving in "Indiscreet Letters from Peking" a recital of actual facts. He told me: "I wished to give the psychology of a siege, selecting from the abundant material significant facts and expressions, but I was not in any sense attempting to chronicle events and personal actions."
Mr. Simpson has also written a series of novels dealing with Chinese life. The short stories are the best; the longer ones, while interesting in description and clever in dialogue, lack that intuitive power of characterization which is found in the greatest novels, though "Wang the Ninth" which has recently come from the press is an admirable study of Chinese psychology and an excellent story as well. Though his playful and cynical mind often led people to judge that he was working solely for literary effect, it seemed to me he had a deep appreciation of what China should mean to the world; he also had real sympathy for the Chinese, and desired in every way to help them to realize the great promise of their country and people. As a conversationalist Mr. Simpson resembled Macaulay, in that his interludes of silence were infrequent. Notwithstanding the brilliance of this conversation, luncheon parties of men occasionally seemed to become restive under a monologue which gave few others a chance to wedge in a word.
Aside from these three British writers, many other menwere following with intelligent interest the course of events. Bishop Bashford, gifted with a broad and statesmanlike mind, could always be trusted to give passing events significant interpretations. Dr. W.A.P. Martin had then reached an age at which the individual details of current affairs no longer interested him. His intimate friend, Dr. Arthur H. Smith—a rarely brilliant extemporaneous speaker—was full of witty and incisive observations, often deeply pessimistic, though tempered with a deep friendship for the Chinese people.
Among the members of the diplomatic corps it was chiefly the Chinese secretaries who busied themselves, out of professional interest with the details of Chinese affairs, although they did not in all cases exhibit a broad grasp of the situation.
Mr. Willys R. Peck, Chinese secretary of the American Legation, born in China, had a complete mastery of the difficult language of the country. He could use it with a colloquial ease that contrasted most pleasantly with the stilted and stiff enunciation of the ordinary foreigner speaking Chinese. His tact in intercourse with the Chinese and his judgment on character and political affairs could be relied on. Mr. Peck took the place of Mr. E.T. Williams, who was called to Washington as chief of the Far Eastern Division in the State Department. I considered it great good fortune that there should be at the Department a man so experienced and so familiar with Chinese affairs.
It was my good fortune to have as first secretary of the legation a man exceptionally qualified to cope with the difficulties and intricacies of Chinese affairs. Not only are these affairs infinitely complex in themselves, but they have been overlaid through many decades with a web of foreign treaty provisions, which makes them still more baffling to the stranger who tackles them. But Mr. J.V.A. MacMurray, the secretary, was possessed of a keenly analytical, legallytrained mind which was able to cut through the most hopelessly tangled snarl of local custom, national law, international agreement, and general equity. Also his interest in things Chinese was so deep and genuine that his researches were never perfunctory. The son of a soldier, he had an almost religious devotion to the idea of public service.
Among the ministers themselves, Sir John Jordan, actual Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, was through long experience and careful attention to affairs most fitted to speak with authority on things Chinese. I was immediately greatly attracted to him and formed with him a close acquaintanceship. This led to constant coöperation throughout the difficult years that lay ahead. Sir John was a man of unusually long and varied experience in China. He came first to the consular service, then became minister resident in Korea, and his forty years of official work had given him complete intimacy with Chinese affairs. Although he speaks Chinese with fluency, in official interviews and conversations he was always accompanied by his Chinese secretary and expressed himself formally in English. As a matter of fact, few diplomats ever use the Chinese language in official conversation. Because of its infinite shades of meaning it is a complex and rather unprecise medium, therefore misunderstandings are more readily avoided through the concurrent use of another language. While Sir John understood Chinese character and affairs and was sympathetic with the country in which his life work had been spent, yet there dwelt in him no spirit of easy compliance. When he considered it necessary, he could insist so strongly and so emphatically upon the action he desired taken that the Chinese often thought of him as harsh and unrelenting: yet they always respected his essentially English spirit of fairness and straightforwardness.
Other colleagues with whom close relationships grew up were Don Luis Pastor, the Spanish minister, a gentlemanthoroughly American in his ways and familiar through long residence in Washington with our affairs; and Count Sforza, the Italian minister. To the latter China seemed more or less a place of exile; he appeared bored and only moderately interested in the affairs about him. But his legation—with Countess Sforza, Madame Varè, whose Lombard beauty did not suggest her Scotch origin; the Marquise Denti, with her quizzical, Mona Lisa-like haunting smile, concealing great ennui; and the entirely girlish and playful Countess Zavagli, a figure which might have stepped out of a Watteau—was a most charming social centre. M. Beelaerts van Blokland, the Netherlands minister, a man of clear-thinking, keen mind, and great reasonableness, and the Austrian minister, M. von Rosthorn, a profound Chinese scholar, who was then working on a Chinese history, were men of whom I saw much during these years.
There were few sinologists in Peking at this time. The successive Chinese secretaries of the American Legation ranked high in this respect. Of resident sinologists the most noted, Mr. (later Sir) Edward Backhouse was a recluse, who never allowed himself to be seen in the company of other people of a Western race. At the only period when I had long conversations with him I found him much disturbed by wild rumours current in the Chinese quarter to which I could not attach any weight. Others whose knowledge of Chinese was exceptional were Mr. Sidney Mayers, representative of the British China Corporation, who had formerly been in the consular service; Doctor Gattrell, who had acted as secretary of the American Group; Mr. W.B. Pettus, the director of the Peking Language School; Mr. Simpson, already mentioned; and several missionaries and professors at Peking University.
Of the Chinese there were, of course, many with whom I could profitably discuss the events of the day and gather suggestions and interpretations of value. With all thesemen I conversed upon events, relying for my information not on rumours or reports, but on the facts which I could learn through the men directly concerned; or through others well informed. The opinion which I formed from such various sources about the political condition of China at this time, the spring of 1914, may be stated as follows:
The political authority of the Central Government in China rested upon military organization. Other sources of authority, such as customary submission on the one hand, and the support based upon the intelligent coöperation of all classes of citizens in the achievement of the purposes of government in accordance with public opinion on the other, were only of secondary influence. It was therefore important to inquire whether the military power was so organized as to afford a stabilizing support to public authority. This did not seem to be the case.
In the first place, the existence of a large army of doubtful efficiency was in itself an evil, considering the then limited resources of the Chinese State, and the fact that any attempt to reduce the military forces to more reasonable dimensions met with stubborn opposition. Whenever troops were disbanded they showed no tendency to return to useful occupations: the ex-soldiers desired only to continue to live upon the country, and, no longer serving the established authority, they joined bandit gangs, rendering the interior of the majority of the provinces insecure.
The weakness of the army was strikingly demonstrated whenever an attempt was made to use it to defend the country against either external or internal enemies. In the campaign against the Mongols, the Chinese troops had failed entirely; even within the country itself, this huge army was not able to insure the fulfilment of that first duty of a government—the protection of the lives and property of its citizens.
In the provinces of Honan and Hupei brigands, led by aperson known as "White Wolf," had for months been terrifying the population; ravaging the countryside; sacking walled cities; murdering and outraging the population; and in a number of instances had killed foreigners. Thus far the army had been powerless to suppress these brigands; in fact, evidence was at hand that the troops had repeatedly been so lax and remiss that the only explanation of their conduct would seem to lie in a secret connivance at the brigandage, and lack of coöperation among the commanders of the troops.
As the authority of the Central Government was commensurate with its control over the tutuhs (tuchuns), or military governors, the attitude of the latter toward the President had to be carefully watched; and it was causing no small uneasiness that there did not seem to be perfect agreement among these pillars of authority in the various provinces; thus, friction had recently been reported between General Tuan Chi-jui, the Minister of War, who was the acting tutuh of Hupei, and General Feng Kuo-chang, the tutuh of Kiangsu, two of the most powerful supporters of the President.
None of the provinces of China, during the preceding three months, had been free from brigandage, attempted rebellion, troubles resulting from the disbanding of troops, and local riots. Conditions were worst in the provinces of Honan and Hupei, in which the bands of "White Wolf" are operating.
These bands had assumed a distinctly anti-foreign attitude. In Kansu there were constant Mohammedan uprisings, related to the open rebellion in Tibet and Mongolia. Bandit movements had also occurred in the provinces of Shansi, Shensi, Szechuan (super-added to revolts of the troops), Anhui, Kiangsi, Hunan, Fukien, Kweichow, Yunnan, and Kwangtung. Chekiang, Kwangsi, Shantung, and Chihli had been the least molested.
While the Government had been unable to fulfil its duty of protecting the lives and property of its citizens, it was also unable to exercise the elementary power of providing, through taxation, the means for its own support. The maintenance of the army had eaten up the available means and it had not been possible to secure sufficient money from the provinces to meet the ordinary running expenses of the Central Government. The remarkable resisting power of China is illustrated by the fact that, notwithstanding the conditions of rebellion and political unrest which characterized the year 1913, general commerce remained so active that the collections of the Customs and of the Salt Gabelle exceeded those of any previous year. These two sources of revenue were sufficient to provide for the interest payments and amortization of the long-term foreign loans then contracted; their administration, under foreign control, had secured to the Central Government the funds to meet these obligations and to avoid open bankruptcy.
All other forms of taxation were disorganized. The collection of the land tax was in many places discontinued; records had been destroyed, or the population took an attitude hostile to its collection. The proceeds of thelikin, as far as collected, were retained for provincial use. Altogether, the Central Government received from the provinces not more than 10 per cent. of the estimated income from these sources under the last Imperial Budget for 1912.
Meanwhile, the Central Government had been living from hand to mouth, using the proceeds of foreign loans for administrative purposes, and was kept going by taking cash advances upon foreign loan contracts made for furnishing materials and for various concessions. In this way the future had been discounted to a dangerous extent.
The weakness of the financial administration of the Government was found in all other branches of its activities. There was little evidence of constructive capacity.
In the ministries and departments of the Central Government the greatest disorganization was apparent. In dealing with technical questions the officials were often entirely at sea, not being trained themselves in these matters, nor willing to make real use of the many advisers who were engaged by the Government; there was no adequate system of accounting; the departmental records were not well kept; frequently the existence of a transaction was not known to the officials most nearly concerned; past transactions, fully consummated, had been forgotten; there was no centralization of governmental knowledge; so a great deal of the public business was transacted in a haphazard way, leading to a helpless opportunism of doing the things most strongly urged and of grasping at small immediate advantages at the cost of engagements long to be regretted.
Ambitious schemes of general policy had been brought up, and elaborate regulations promulgated, to all of which little attention was subsequently paid. On the other hand, there had scarcely been one single concrete result obtained in constructive work.
The metropolitan Province of Chihli had been quiet and peaceful since the outbreak of 1912. The Government here certainly had sufficient authority to introduce constructive reforms, and the general conditions for such action in this province had been relatively most favourable. But not even in the case of Chihli Province had the taxation system been rendered efficient; no efficient auditing methods had been introduced in practice, although systems of auditing control had been promulgated; educational institutions had been allowed to run down: in short, under the most favourable conditions, no constructive work had been accomplished.
Nearly all attempts to do something of a constructive nature had been immediately associated with foreign loans, often involving a cash advance to the Government. It might, of course, be said that the great difficulty of theChinese Government was exactly that it lacked the funds for carrying out constructive work; and that, therefore, only such lines of improvement could be followed for which it had been possible to secure foreign loans.
This, however, was only partly true. A great many reforms could have been accomplished without the increase of expenditure; indeed, they would have resulted in a reduction of outlay. The fact seemed to be that the Central Government, realizing how important foreign financial support had been to it during the Revolution of 1913, was anxious to secure more and more funds from abroad without counting the ultimate cost.
An opportunity for obtaining from abroad large sums of money, far beyond any amount ever before dealt with by Chinese officials and merchants, in itself had an unsettling effect upon methods of public business. The old caution and economy, which kept the public debt within narrow limits, had given way to a readiness to obtain funds from abroad in enormous amounts, without apparently the realization of the burden imposed upon China by way of the necessity of return in the future through the results of labour and sacrifice of millions of people.
Nor had the old system, under which the inadequate salaries of officials had ordinarily to be supplemented by extraneous illicit gains, given way to a more efficient and business-like organization of the public service under which officials would be able to devote their undivided attention to the accomplishment of their regular allotted tasks without spending their energy in contriving additional means of obtaining income.
In the case of certain classes of officials, the Government had endeavoured to place their salaries at a figure sufficient to render them independent of these practices; but the resources of the Government were not adequate to enable it at once to place the entire public service upon a basis ofindividual independence. It was also true that certain among the closest advisers of the President were commonly believed to have used their positions for the purpose of accumulating vast private fortunes—a belief which, whether justified or not, must be counted with in determining the standing of the Government as enjoyed throughout the country.
Thus the old hostility and lack of confidence, which formerly characterized the relations between merchants and officials, continued under the new system.
Through the dissolution of the Parliament, the Government had destroyed an organ which might, in the course of time, have established relations of confidence between the great middle class of China and the Government.
As a statesman, the President emphasized in the first place the requirements of order and of authority. To him it seemed that Parliament, with its free discussion, with its opportunity for forming political factions, opposing the men in authority, stood in the way of the establishment of a lasting system of legal order. He, therefore, dissolved first the national parliament, then the assemblies of the provinces, and finally the local self-governing bodies.
In each case inefficiency was justly complained of. The men in the parliamentary bodies had often been self-seeking, factional, and unpractical. But the President seemed to have no perception of the true value of parliamentary action as a basis of public authority; he considered opposition to the Government synonymous with opposition to lawful authority. And in his ideas upon the reconstitution of Parliament, as far as they had been announced, two main principles dominated: first, that only men of mature experience and of conservative ideas should be selected; and secondly, that the activities of Parliament should be confined to discussing and giving advice upon policies already determined upon by the Administration.
CHAPTER VI
CHINA OF MERCHANT-ADVENTURERS
The past may become in the human present more alive than ever. John Richard Green finds in the old records of the guilds of Berwick an enactment "that where many bodies are found side by side in one place they may become one, and have one will, and in the dealings of one with another have a strong and hearty love." In the history of the Saxons, Edwin of Northumbria "caused stakes to be fixed in the highways where he had seen a clear spring," and "brazen dishes were chained to them, to refresh the weary sojourner, whose fatigues Edwin had himself experienced." These things shine with the sun, and enlighten our work to-day. The Maine woodsman sits on a stump whose rings number centuries of growth. When Chinese children came to play with our children at the Legation, I was always impressed by their dignity of demeanour and their observance of the courtesies while their elders were present. On the faces of these little heirs of the Holy Duke the composure of eighty generations of culture and traditions sat freshly; and it by no means alloyed their delight, which was unstinted, in American toys and dolls.
This transmutation of the old into new life is seen everywhere in China. The day comes every morning fresh as a flower. But we know it is old; it is an ancient day, white-clad and beautiful as the stars. The Chinese peasant thrusts his stick of a plough many eons deep into his ancestral soil. In north China it is loess soil, the most fertile on the globe, brought down from the mountains for millenniums and deposited to depths of from twenty to thirty feet. Whenthere are no floods the rain sinks deeply into this porous soil, meets the moisture retained below, and draws up therefrom the inorganic salts that are held dissolved. So its fertility is inexhaustible.
But floods do come, as they have come unchecked for ages. In the Hwai River region, with all this natural richness underfoot, the people are poor, weak, famine-stricken, living in aggregations of shabby hovels that are periodically swept away. Its crops, which should normally be six in three years, average but two and three. This region is only one example of several prodigious and extensive valleys choked with fertility, yet with famine and pestilence raging through them, cursed as they are by inundations that might be completely checked at little engineering cost. With these regions reclaimed and the border provinces colonized, China's crops alone would support double her present population. The people of the Hwai region, secure and affluent, might be easily increased by twenty million living heirs of a fifty-centuries-old civilization. Indeed, a little vision and scientific application would transform China.
With what the ages have produced for the West—the old guild spirit reviving, if you please, in the modern trust—the West can meet the East. The true ministers and ambassadors to China are the merchant-adventurers of the Western nations, bearing their goods, their steel and tools, their unique engineering skill and works. It was not for what theentrepreneurs"could get out of" China, nor yet for what China could get out of us, that my policy as American minister was directed to this complementary meeting of two civilizations. It was because I saw millions perishing wretchedly whose birthright in the higher arts and amenities of living is at least as rich as our own—perishing for lack of an organizing skill which it is the province of the Western peoples to supply. It was because I knew, with their admirable family life and local democratic institutions, itneeded only trunk-line railways to link together these close-set communities, comprising one quarter of the earth's population, into as admirable a central democracy.
But how the West was then meeting the East came home to me on the second morning of my stay in Peking. I entered the breakfast room, where I found Doctor Hornbeck in a state of annoyance. He handed me the morning copy of theJournal de Peking, a sheet published in French and known to be subservient to Russian and French political interests from which it got subventions. The article in question was a scurrilous attack on me personally, and on American action in China generally.
A Chinese journal in Shanghai had published a laudatory article in which had been cited extracts from my published books. One of these, taken from "World Politics," had happened to speak of French subserviency to Russian policy in the Far East. The French journal repeated these expressions as if they had been given out by me in an interview upon arriving in China. As they were in fact taken from books published more than ten years before, which had run the gauntlet of French critical journals without ever having been taken as hostile to France, I did not have any reason to worry, and the fume and fury of the local journal rather amused me than otherwise. I could, however, not help noting the temper of these attacks, their bitterness and the utter rashness and lack of inquiry with which the charges were made. It gave me early warning, considering its gross lack of courtesy to a newcomer, who had entered the field in a spirit friendly to all, as to what might be expected from some of our friendly rivals. When several years later one of the ministers whose legation stood sponsor for this sheet approached me with a request to use my influence to suppress a Chinese paper which had attacked him, I regretted that it was not in my power to be of assistance.
The significance of the article lay of course in its attackupon American policy, which was characterized as one of "bluff", and which charged the United States with assuming a tone of superior virtue in criticising others, and, while loudly professing friendship for the Chinese, failing to shoulder any part of the responsibility in actual affairs. The Y.M.C.A. and the Standard Oil Company were coupled together as twin instruments of a nefarious and hypocritical policy.
TheChina Press, the American newspaper of Shanghai, pointed out that the attack of the French paper indicated what the American minister would have to face, and observed that the success or failure of his diplomatic mission must depend upon the readiness of the American Government to take an active part in the rehabilitation of China. Should America play the rôle of an altruistic but impotent friend, and of a captious critic of the other powers, it could gain neither sympathy nor respect.
The American Government was at this time severely criticised for its failure to endorse the Six-Power Consortium; it was urged that the Administration had sacrificed the best opportunity for bringing American goodwill to bear on Chinese public affairs, by exercising a moderating and friendly influence in the council of the great powers. On the other hand, it ought to be considered that a new administration, when confronted with the sudden proposal that it giveexclusivesupport to one special group of banks, might well hesitate, particularly in view of the fact that the group in this case consisted of only four New York houses. An earlier administration had answered such an inquiry in a similar way. Considering the merits of the question from the point of view of China, the action might present itself in the light of a refusal to join with others in placing upon the young republic the fetters of foreign financial control. Moreover, the proceeds of the Reorganization Loan were actually not used for the benefit of the Chinese people, but on the contrary this financial support fastened the personalauthority of Yuan Shih-kai on the country and enabled him to carry on a successful fight against parliament. That body never gave its approval to the loan.
From my conversations with President Wilson before departing for my post I had formed the conclusion that the President realized that as America had withdrawn from a coöperative effort to assist in the development of China, it was incumbent upon her to do her share independently and to give specific moral and financial assistance; in fact, I received the President's assurance of active support for constructive work in China. In his conversation he dwelt, however, more on the educational side and on political example and moral encouragement, than on the matter of finance and commerce.
It cannot be doubted that in China the withdrawal of the United States from the Consortium was interpreted as an act of friendship by all groups with the exception of that which was in control of the Government at the time, which would have preferred to have the United States at the council table of the Consortium Powers. Those opposed to the Government were particularly strong in their commendation of our refusal to join in an agreement which to them seemed far from beneficial to China. But all parties without exception drew the conclusion that the friendly action of the United States, which had now rejected the method of international coöperation, would continue independently of the others. In view of the power and resources of the United States, it was hoped that there would be a greater participation by the United States in Chinese industrial and commercial affairs, as well as in administrative loans, than had hitherto existed.
It is apparent from all this that the American position in China was not free from difficulties. The covert antagonism of the five Consortium Powers was continuous. We were isolated, and would be judged by what we could do by ourselves. Should it turn out that we had nothing to offer butsage advice, the strictures of our rivals might in time come to carry a certain amount of conviction.
So far as the Americans themselves were concerned, they were thoroughly discouraged, and everywhere talked as if it were all up with American enterprise in China. When I said: "No, it is only just beginning," polite incredulity was the best I could expect. It is very probable that the Americans who were so downcast saw in the appointment of a literary and university man as minister to China an additional indication that there was to be no special encouragement given to American economic enterprise. Having long been familiar with the underlying facts of the Far Eastern situation, I had entirely made up my mind on the primary importance of American participation in the industrial and economic development of China. No one could have appreciated more highly than I did the important work done by American missionaries, teachers, and medical men, in bringing to China a conception of Western learning and life. But if China should have to rely entirely on other nations for active support in the modern development of her industries and resources, then our position in the eyes of the Chinese nation could never come up to the opportunities which Nature had given us through our geographic position and our industrial strength.