Chinese authorities

“ As the Chinese Authorities stubbornly resisted these claims, and not only incited the Chinese residents of Macao to acts of treason, but commenced measures of hostility, many European and Chinese merchants, and even Portuguese families, removed from Macao and settled on the safer shores of Hongkong. ”

“ It was, however, from the subjects of non-treaty powers that China was destined to suffer most from her concession of extraterritoriality. Men of every clime and nation claimed exemption from her laws. Vagabonds, whose government had no consular authority to restrain them, boldly defied the local authorities, becoming a law unto themselves. Lawless adventurers from the gold regions of Australia and California personated those nationalities; and the bewildered Chinese often despaired of success in distinguishing even the names of the nationalities they were called to encounter. ”

“ That the Queen's representative, as superintendent of the trade, be allowed direct communication with the Emperor and his Ministers, as well as with the local authorities; and that he be permitted to reside at Peking, or at a given port, for the protection of British subjects and the regulation of the trade.
Sixth. That in the event of any infraction of the Chinese laws, the punishment for the same shall be confined to the offender; and British subjects shall not be considered responsible for the acts of each other, but each man for his own—the innocent not being confounded with the guilty. ”

“ Since the last days of the Tsings, the Japanese have been establishing police boxes in different parts of South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia always under protest of the local and Peking authorities. Since the treaty of 1915, a new reason has become available in the right of mixed residence given to Japanese in these regions. It is said that for the protection and control of their subjects, and indeed for the interest of the Chinese themselves, it is best that this measure should be taken. ”

“ He who is not in an office has no concern with plans for the administration of its duties." To our thought these significant words are partly the result, and to a very great degree the cause, of the constitutional unwillingness of the Chinese to interest themselves in matters for which they are in no way responsible. ”

“ Of course, there was no denying that, under the simplest principles of international law, China has the right at any moment to shut its doors against, or to expel, any people whatever whom it may consider dangerous or injurious—this power being constantly exercised by all the other nations of the earth, and by none more than by the American Government, as so many Chinese seeking entrance to our ports have discovered ”

“ China has been proceeding not from partial control to complete control, as are Italy,2 Germany,3 and the Soviets,4 but from complete control to something not far from universal license—freedom all-pervading, unwanted, and terrifying. The problem of modern Chinese government is the problem of re-creating government out of its raw materials: land, people, doctrine, force, and law. ”

“ From what has been said above, it is maintained that, so long as the Central Government of China isolates itself from the Chinese people by residing aloof at Pekin, so long will the Chinese people have to remain passive under the humiliations which come upon them through the non-progressive and destructive disposition of their Government. ”

“ Even discarding as idle the stories of a secret cabal with power over life and death, and authority to enforce its decrees, there is evidence enough that the Chinese consider themselves subject to the laws of the land only when submission is unavoidable, and that they are governed by a code of their own, the very essence of which is rejection of all other authority except under compulsion. ”

“ American Influence in the Far East—Officials and the Boycott—Interview with President Roosevelt—Riot in a British Concession—Ex-territoriality—Two Ways to an End—A Grave Mistake—The Nan-chang Tragedy—Dangers from Superstition
So far from being new, an anti-foreign spirit is the normal state of the Chinese mind. Yet during the year past it has taken on new forms, directed itself against new objects, and employed new methods. It deserves therefore a conspicuous place among the new developments in the China of the twentieth century. ”

“ These tribunals "levy taxes, command masses of men, intimidate interpreters and witnesses, enforce perjury, regulate trade, punish the refractory, remove witnesses beyond the reach of the courts, control liberty of action, and prevent the return of Chinese to their home in China without their consent." And this system grows out of the inherent quality of the Chinese mind. It is part and parcel of their natures to be their own masters, to acknowledge no law or rule of action not of their own making. ”

“ The force that brought foreigners to Peking must, either in esse or in posse, for an indefinite time keep them there and render them efficient. Force no doubt would have enabled the foreign Ministers to bring about even those structural changes in the Chinese system which were necessary to clear the ground for the operation of their diplomacy. But if there was one thing more than another of which Western Governments were determined to convince themselves, it was that the law of force was finally abrogated in China ”

“ There is so little regard for human life among the Chinese, so much venality at the tribunals of justice, that foreigners would be endangered in person and property, unless protected by some extraordinary safeguards, perhaps even to the extent secured by treaty. Assuming, then, as we do, this jurisdiction in China, we incur a grave responsibility. It is incumbent on us loyally to fulfil the obligations that we have assumed; to see that we do not, by a lax administration of justice, encourage unprincipled men in violating Chinese law. ”

“ In our relations with China we have been constantly offended by the air of superiority that is assumed towards us by the Chinese Government and by Chinese officials. They used to call us "barbarians" even in official documents, just as the street urchins of Canton still hail us as "foreign devils"; and we can never forget that Chinese officialdom used to do its best to humiliate us in our relations with the Court at Peking in a manner which was altogether intolerable. ”

“ In characterising the relations then subsisting between the Chinese and foreigners as lawless, it is not meant that China is a country governed without law, although it is true that even in the purely domestic administration of the State legality is systematically travestied. But in connection with foreign relations, and almost as a necessity of the case, every trace of legality was obliterated in practice, and the merchants were constantly entangled in a labyrinth of illusions and pitfalls. ”

“ We saw in a former chapter that to charge the Chinese, as a people, with a proclivity to untruthfulness, or at any rate to assign such untruthfulness, if it exists, to Confucianism, is erroneous and unjust. But let it be admitted at once that the charge of insincerity in politics is one that can without unfairness be brought against the Chinese Government—as, indeed, it can be brought against some other states that have had less excuse for their conduct than China. ”

“ But the urbane manners of the mandarins did not mislead the foreign ministers, who left them with the declaration that they were insuring for their country days of future sorrow. On the subject of their reports to the court of Peking, Mr. Reed says: “They illustrate the habitual faithlessness of Chinese officials.... They were certainly the most painful revelations of the mendacity and treacherous habits of the high officials of this empire ever given to the world. They cannot be read without contemptuous resentment.” ”

“ The only movements which need be here considered are constituent ones. It has been noted that the real basis for the stability and operation of the old Chinese society lay not in the power of an organized body of law-makers, law-enforcers, and law-interpreters but in the constitutionalism of common sense, in the deep harmony of agreement which the Confucian outlook on fact and value had created. ”

“ We have here a very curious system: a foreign municipality established on Chinese soil and governing itself, subject only to the control of the foreign Consuls and the Ministers at Peking. It is responsible for a few thousand Europeans and over half a million Chinese. At Hongkong we are supreme in everything; but at Shanghai, though the citizens of foreign nations are subject to their own laws, the city is still legally part of China, so that the natives are under the jurisdiction of Chinese officials. ”

“ If the present dynasty is to be preserved and China to remain independent, they must be brought about quickly, for the moment is critical. Nothing can be more rotten and corrupt than every branch of the administration, nothing can be more faithless than the conduct of the Chinese towards foreigners. With misery and discontent at home, and angry reclamations for breaches of treaty from abroad, the Government are beginning to tremble for their existence. ”

“ The German government, especially, was disposed to insist upon stern and strenuous measures in dealing with that of China, and it addressed the following circular note, on the 18th of September, to all the Powers: "The Government of the Emperor holds as preliminary to entering upon diplomatic relations with the Chinese Government that those persons must be delivered up who have been proved to be the original and real instigators of the outrages against international law which have occurred at Peking. The number of those who were merely instruments in carrying out the outrages is too great. ”

“ And here, too, I must differ from those who have such high notions of the Chinese in these respects. I think no country can be well governed where the government is powerless, and has not the means of punishing those who break the laws. China is very weak in this respect, compared with European nations, and the only thing [Pg 8] which keeps the country together is the quiet and inoffensive character of the people. Everybody, who has travelled in China, knows that, wherever the natives are enterprising and bold, they set the government at defiance whenever it suits their purpose to do so. ”

“ In the other the men are treated worse than dogs, robbed of their small pay, deserted, discarded, or grossly neglected by their leaders whenever they can be dispensed with and their monthly pay saved. Attachment between men and officers in China is a rare, though not an unknown thing, for the Chinese are, after all, human at heart, if one can but penetrate the pile of hereditary corruption which has covered up the divine spark.
The foregoing are but examples which might be multiplied indefinitely, of the antitheses of Chinese and Japanese character and mode of action. ”

“ Apart from this proneness to club together for defensive purposes, and which may be ascribed to governmental maladministration, rather than to any impatience of restraint inherent in the Chinese character, there is every evidence to show that the Chinaman, in his own country and in his normal condition, is willingly submissive to constituted authority, and gladly accepts its obligations and restraints, so long as his rights as a man and a citizen are not unreasonably entrenched upon. ”

“ If she by her good government and readiness to reform can show that she is able to maintain {55} order in her own land, and to give to foreigners an equal security to that they have in any other country, her empire may endure for many hundred years; but if she be found wanting at the present time and the corruption of her officials renders her unable to maintain order in her country or to fulfil her financial obligations, a new phase in Chinese history will be reached, which will, I believe, be of extraordinary danger to Europe ”

“ What are the duties of our Government and people with regard to the Chinese, in view of the position in which those people are placed? We hold that it is not our duty to abandon the concession, which thus imperils the existence of the Chinese empire. It is not clear that if all nations, having intercourse with China, were to agree to renounce the privilege they have extorted, it would be best to suffer their people to trust wholly to Chinese tribunals for protection. Cases could not fail to arise demanding foreign interference, if foreigners were permitted to go to China at all. ”

“ Great Britain having not only the preponderating interest, but being still the leading Power in the Far East, it was obviously a great advantage for the Chinese that it should be that Power which came particularly under the influence of the inspector-general. To tie the hands of the British Government for a whole generation was, indeed, an achievement worthy of a master of policy; but it was by no means the only service which might be rendered to China even by an Inspector-General of Customs. ”

“ Through various political ineptitudes our country has, we will suppose, fallen under the rule of the Chinese. They administer it, we will further assume, with an efficiency and honesty unparalleled in the bad old times of our lawyer politicians. They do not admit us to the higher branches of the administration; they go about our country wearing a strange costume, professing a strange religion--which implies that ours is wrong--speaking an unfamiliar tongue. They control our financial system and our economic development--on Chinese lines of the highest merit. ”