thanks to the energy and ability of Sir Claude MacDonald— a tribute to which we heartily subscribe. They tell us that, if the Franco-Belgian Company has got the line from Hankow to Peking, we have got the lines granted to the British and Chinese Corporation and the Peking Syndicate. If Russia has got Port Arthur, we have got Wei-hai-Wei. If Russia has secured Manchuria as a sphere of influence, we have ear-marked the Yangtze valley; and so on.

Now, if the object of other countries was, like our own, purely commercial, no great fault need be found with this policy. We have an undoubted right to participate in all commercial privileges granted to the most favoured nation, and the Government would be failing in their duty if they neglected to secure to British subjects what has been granted to others. But when the same principle is carried into the region of politics a new situation is set up altogether. If the concessions demanded by other Powers are intended to secure political influence or territorial dominion, a counter-demand on our part tends directly to disintegration. If Russia and France demand and obtain from the weakness of China some territorial advantage, a demand on our part for compensation elsewhere is simply to assist in the break-up. It is a race to be first in at the death. Our public profession all along has been that our interests in China are commercial, and not territorial. We have repeatedly made known our wish to see the integrity of China maintained, and the country kept open to the peaceful commerce of all nations. Our merchants have enormous pecuniary interests already embarked there which we desire to see safeguarded, and further openings are in prospect which it is our object to develope. In all this we are entirely at one with the Government; but is the action of the Government calculated to attain the objects which it professes to have in view?

The policy of the Government appears to us to be based on two assumptions, both of which are erroneous-firstly, that China is still mistress of her own actions, and is free to grant or refuse at pleasure; and secondly, that her territorial integrity is not seriously menaced by the actions of other Powers. If there were any prospect of China becoming within a fairly short time, through the application of judicious reforms, a vigorous and independent nation, and if there were any likelihood that other foreign Powers would give her breathing space, we might well be content with a policy of patience and watchfulness.' But neither the one prospect nor the other, as we read the signs of the times, is in the least degree probable. Let us first take a brief survey of the actual condition of

China as indicated by the best authorities.

Mr. Valentine

Chirol, who has devoted much time and care to the study of the Far-Eastern question, and who has had unusually good opportunities of forming a sound opinion, writing in 1896 soon after the close of the Japanese War, says :—

'When I called upon Li Hung Chang... on my way back from Peking his first question was why I had remained so much longer than I had originally intended in the Chinese capital. I replied that I had been looking for some sign of the awakening of China. “I hope," rejoined the Viceroy with a grim smile, " that your time has not been wasted." In one sense certainly, as I assured his Excellency, my time had not been wasted, for I had at least satisfied myself that the search upon which I had been engaged was a futile one. Nowhere in Peking could the faintest indication be detected of a desire to apply, or even of a capacity to understand, the lessons of the recent war. A more hopeless spectacle of fatuous imbecility, made up in equal parts of arrogance and helplessness, than the central Government of the Chinese Empire presented, after the actual pressure of war had been removed, it is almost impossible to conceive.'

The one object of the high officials, Mr. Chirol found, was to 'save face,' that is, to put such an appearance on things as would induce the people to believe that they had not really been beaten, or that, if they had lost, it was through unavoidable circumstances.

'An Imperial decree had explained that some defeats had happened because a great sea wave had destroyed the fortified positions of the Chinese all along the coast. A learned general had written a treatise to prove that China's reverses were due to her desertion of the sound principles and methods of war handed down by the ancients, and to her ill-advised adoption of European armaments. Accordingly the hammer and anvil were busy all over the Empire turning out an endless supply of jinghals, a mediæval sort of matchlock, and the militant youth of Peking could be seen practising every afternoon with the bow and arrow. The corruption and incompetency of certain high officials have indeed been openly admitted and censured, and in some cases even punished. But there is not a single Chinese official who will openly admit that the corruption and incompetency, and the disasters which they have involved, are the result and the inevitable result of a system of government rotten to the core.'†

Mr. Colquhoun, in his vivid presentment of 'China in Transformation,' speaks to the same effect:

'We have spoken of the reign of sham in the general administration; but it has its roots in the central Government. It may be laid

The Far-Eastern Question,' p. 9.

↑ Ibid., p. 14.

down as a general rule, obtaining throughout the public life of the Empire, that things are never what they seem. Whether there may or may not be a real patriotic spirit somewhere in China among officials and people, there has been no outward evidence of it in the inner circles of the capital. Instead of defending the Empire and the Dynasty, the natural defenders seem ready to sell both, and it is a problem how far even the Dynasty is true to itself. Each individual among the Ministers of State and the Princes of the Empire seems intent on saving his own skin by making friends of the strongest invader.' *

to

It is needless to multiply quotations. The fact is apparent everyone conversant, even in a moderate degree, with Chinese affairs, that China is reduced to the last degree of helplessness. The Ministers of the Tsungli Yamen stave off the evil day by yielding to all demands which they fear to refuse, while at the same time they keep up the semblance of independence by refusing everything, right or wrong, which they think they can venture to deny. Whether the governing classes comprehend the decrepitude to which they have reduced this ancient Empire, or are honestly blind to it, is perhaps a question. At all events, their pride and arrogance will not permit them to acknowledge it or to take the only means by which strength and vigour may yet be restored. Of all the public men of China there is not one who has the courage to come forward and say boldly that the Government has been a failure, and that China must borrow freely from the West both in men and measures if she is to hold her own. Some may talk vaguely of reform, but there is no more indication at this moment than there has been at any previous time of any serious intention of setting about it. On the contrary, all the evidence points the other way, and even as we write a Reuter's telegram informs us of a decidedly retrograde step that has just been taken, namely, the wholesale farming out of the likin taxes in the province of Canton. We cannot stop to point out the mischief which this involves, but it confirms our statement that of real reform there is as little immediate prospect as ever.

Nor is there anything to hope for under present circumstances from the so-called Reform Party. That there is a considerable number among the younger officials and literati who are prepared to be advocates of reform seems certain; but, inexperienced as most of them are, even for Chinamen, it is doubtful how far the measures they would take, if they had the power, would amount to reform in our sense of the term.

* China in Transformation,' p. 189.

At all events, at this juncture they are not in power. Scattered as they are, and disheartened by the execution or proscription of their leaders, they hardly count as a factor in the situation. They would be valuable auxiliaries, no doubt, if reforms were to be imposed from outside; but it is hopeless to expect that they can, without foreign support, accomplish anything against the weight of the reactionaries who now hold the reins of power. Of course, the death of the Empress-Dowager or another palace revolution might set the Emperor at liberty, and in that case there would be some prospect of a change. That the Emperor was sincere in his desire for reforms there seems to be no doubt; and his escape from captivity would rally round him the survivors of the party and encourage others to come forward. But in the intrigues of a corrupt and venal Court a thousand things may happen. The Emperor himself may disappear; the Manchu legionaries may set up a puppet of their own; or the Generalissimo Jung Lu, who seems to overshadow the Court, may make a bid for power on his own account. In short, confusion reigns supreme, and it is impossible to forecast what may happen.

Such being the internal state of affairs in China, let us see what changes have come over its relations with other Powers. Down to recent years the position of England as the dominant Power at Peking was unquestioned. We had been the first in the field, we possessed the bulk of the trade, and we held command of the sea, by which alone access to China could then be obtained. What was still more important, the colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore, and all the coaling stations en route, were in our hands, so that no hostile fleet could approach China except with our good will. But, with the approaching completion of the Siberian Railway and the massing of Russian troops on the borders of Manchuria, this situation has undergone a radical change. Russia has a frontier coterminous with China for some three thousand miles, and can exercise an influence on China against which our sea power, however unquestioned and since Russia seized Port Arthur it is no longer unquestioned—is of slight avail.

Now Russia is taking full advantage of her new position. However much we may regret it, it is impossible to ignore the fact for it is written large on every page of the Blue-books— that the battle which our Minister has had to fight in Peking for the last three years has been a battle, not against China, but against the influence of Russia. It is perhaps in the nature of things that Great Britain and Russia should sooner or later come into collision in China. Accidental circumstances

have precipitated the antagonism, and it may turn out to be to our advantage that it should be so. At all events, the situation has become well defined; we know what we may expect; and it will be our own fault if we do not take the necessary measures in time. At Constantinople and on the confines of Afghanistan we have in times past deemed it necessary to meet and check the southern expansion of Russia. Turned aside at these points by the barriers presented by this country, the overflow has been directed eastwards across Siberia, and now seeks an outlet southwards into the dominions of China, where so far Russia has met no resistance at all. Let us trace briefly the sequence of the events that have been happening since 1895, and see what lesson they teach us as to the future. The story is easily traced from the Blue-books.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki left Japan in possession of the peninsula of Liaotung, including the naval fortress of Port Arthur, and carrying with it the almost certain reversion of the kingdom of Corea, which was thus hemmed in on all sides by Japanese territory. For Russia to acquiesce in this was to cut herself off from all hope of an ice-free port except at the cost of a war with Japan. Wisely foreseeing this consequence, but under the plea that to permit Port Arthur to remain in Japanese hands was to reduce the independence of China to a mere shadow, she induced France and Germany to join with her in requiring Japan to relinquish her hold on the mainland of China. The Japanese forces were in no condition to make headway against such a combination, and Japan had perforce to give way. Port Arthur and Liaotung were restored to China, and her integrity and independence seemed for the time being to be secured.

Having thus laid China under obligation, Russia soon began to demand her reward. The first instalment was the permission to carry the Siberian Trunk Railway across Chinese territory from Stretensk to Vladivostock, thus avoiding the long detour which would be required if the line were to be constructed solely on Russian territory. The new route thus arranged for passes through about a thousand miles of Chinese territory, touching the purely Chinese towns of Kirin and Petuna, and carries with it implicitly, if not expressly, the right of placing Cossack guards along the line-the first step to territorial possession. The further intentions of Russia in drawing on Chinese gratitude were prematurely revealed by the publication at Shanghai, in the North China Daily News,' of the so-called Cassini Convention. Though it was officially denied at St. Petersburg that any such Convention had been concluded, it is