THE 
 
 PROBLEM 
 
 OF 
 
 c wm 
 
 BERTRAND 
 
 RUSSELL 
 
//.fy .2.2., 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON. N. J. 
 
 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 Division 
 
 Section 
 
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 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/problemofchina00russ_0 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 
 
 BOLSHEVISM: PRACTICE AND THEORY 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY 
 
 OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD 
 
 POLITICAL IDEALS 
 
 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM 
 
 THE PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION 
 (in preparation) 
 
 WHY MEN FIGHT 
 
THE 
 
 PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 BY 
 
 V 
 
 BERTRAND RUSSELL 
 
 SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GOVERNMENT 
 UNIVERSITY OF PEKING 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 1922 
 
Copyright, 1922, by 
 
 The Century Co. 
 
 PRINTED IN T7. 8. A, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I. Questions 3 
 
 II. China Before the Nineteenth Century . . 15 
 
 III. China and the Western Powers .... 45 
 
 IV. Modern China 61 
 
 Y. Japan Before the Restoration 85 
 
 VI. Modern Japan 98 
 
 VII. Japan and China Before 1914 121 
 
 VIII. Japan and China During the War .... 135 
 
 IX. The Washington Conference 156 
 
 X. Present Forces and Tendencies in the Far 
 
 East 167 
 
 XI. Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted 195 
 
 XII. The Chinese Character 210 
 
 XIII. Higher Education in China ..... 226 
 
 XIV. Industrialism in China 239 
 
 XV. The Outlook for China 254 
 
 Appendix 267 
 
 Index > - 271 
 

THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 I 
 
The Ruler of the Southern Ocean was ShU (Heed- 
 less), the Ruler of the Northern Ocean was Hfl (Sud- 
 den ) , and the Ruler of the Center was Chaos. Shti 
 and Hu were continually meeting in the land of Chaos, 
 who treated them very well. They consulted together 
 how they might repay his kindness, and said, “Men 
 all have seven orifices for the purpose of seeing, 
 hearing, eating, and breathing, while this poor Ruler 
 alone has not one. Let us try and make them for him.” 
 Accordingly they dug one orifice in him every day; and 
 at the end of seven days Chaos died. — [ Ghu<mg Tze, 
 Legge’s translation.] 
 
The Problem of China 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 EUROPEAN lately arrived in China, if he is 
 
 of a receptive and reflective disposition, finds 
 himself confronted with a number of very puzzling 
 questions, for many of which the problems of western 
 Europe will not have prepared him. Russian prob- 
 lems, it is true, have important affinities with those of 
 China, but they have also important differences; more- 
 over they are decidedly less complex. Chinese prob- 
 lems, even if they affected no one outside China, would 
 be of vast importance, since the Chinese are estimated 
 to constitute about a quarter of the human race. In 
 fact, however, all the world will be vitally affected by 
 the development of Chinese affairs, which may well 
 prove a decisive factor, for good or evil, during the 
 next two centuries. This makes it important, to Eu- 
 rope and America almost as much as to Asia, that there 
 should be an intelligent understanding of the questions 
 raised by China, even if, as yet, definite answers are 
 difficult to give. 
 
 The questions raised by the present condition of 
 China fall naturally into three groups, economic, polit- 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 ical, and cultural. No one of these groups, however, 
 can be considered in isolation, because each is inti- 
 mately bound up with the other two. For my part, I 
 think the cultural questions are the most important, 
 both for China and for mankind; if these could be 
 solved, I would accept, with more or less equanimity, 
 any political or economic system which ministered to 
 that end. Unfortunately, however, cultural questions 
 have little interest for practical men, who regard money 
 and power as the proper ends for nations as for indi- 
 viduals. The helplessness of the artist in a hard- 
 headed business community has long been a common- 
 place of novelists and moralizers, and has made collec- 
 tors feel virtuous when they bought up the pictures of 
 painters who had died in penury. China may be re- 
 garded as an artist nation, with the virtues and vices 
 to be expected of the artist: virtues chiefly useful to 
 others, and vices chiefly harmful to oneself. Can Chi- 
 nese virtues be preserved? Or must China, in order 
 to survive, acquire, instead, the vices which make for 
 success and cause misery to others only? And if China 
 does copy the model set by all foreign nations with 
 which she has dealings, what will become of all of us? 
 
 China has an ancient civilization which is now under- 
 going a very rapid process of change. The tradi- 
 tional civilization of China had developed in almost 
 complete independence of Europe, and had merits and 
 demerits quite different from those of the West. It 
 would be futile to attempt to strike a balance; whether 
 our present culture is better or worse, on the whole, 
 than that which seventeenth-century missionaries found 
 
QUESTIONS 
 
 5 
 
 in the Celestial Empire is a question as to which no prud- 
 ent person would venture to pronounce. But it is easy 
 to point to certain respects in which we are better than 
 old China, and to other respects in which we are worse. 
 If intercourse between Western nations and China is to 
 be fruitful, we must cease to regard ourselves as mis- 
 sionaries of a superior civilization, or, worse still, as 
 men who have a right to exploit, oppress, and swindle 
 the Chinese because they are an “inferior” race. I do 
 not see any reason to believe that the Chinese are in- 
 ferior to ourselves; and I think most Europeans, who 
 have any intimate knowledge of China, would take the 
 same view. 
 
 In comparing an alien culture with one’s own, one is 
 forced to ask oneself questions more fundamental than 
 any that usually arise in regard to home affairs. One 
 is forced to ask: What are the things that I ultimately 
 value? What would make me judge one sort of society 
 more desirable than another sort? What sort of ends 
 should I most wish to see realized in the world? Dif- 
 ferent people will answer these questions differently, 
 and I do not know of any argument by which I could 
 persuade a man who gave an answer different from my 
 own. I must therefore be content merely to state the 
 answer which appeals to me, in the hope that the reader 
 may feel likewise. 
 
 The main things which seem to me important on their 
 own account, and not merely as means to other things, 
 are : knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations 
 of friendship or affection. When I speak of knowl- 
 edge, I do not mean all knowledge; there is much in 
 
6 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 the way of dry lists of facts that is merely useful, and 
 still more that has no appreciable value of any kind. 
 But the understanding of nature, incomplete as it is 
 which is to be derived from science, I hold to be a thing 
 which is good and delightful on its own account. The 
 same may be said, I think, of some biographies and 
 parts of history. To enlarge on this topic would, how- 
 ever, take me too far from my theme. When I speak 
 of art as one of the things that have value on their 
 own account, I do not mean only the deliberate produc- 
 tions of trained artists, though of course these, at 
 their best, deserve the highest place. I mean also the 
 almost unconscious effort after beauty which one finds 
 among Russian peasants and Chinese coolies, the sort 
 of impulse that creates folk-songs, that existed among 
 ourselves before the time of the Puritans, and survives 
 in cottage gardens. Instinctive happiness, or joy of 
 life, is one of the most important wide-spread popular 
 goods that we have lost through industrialism and the 
 high pressure at which most of us live; its common- 
 ness in China is a strong reason for thinking well of 
 Chinese civilization. 
 
 In judging of a community, we have to consider, not 
 only how much of good or evil there is within the com- 
 munity, but also what effects it has in promoting good 
 or evil in other communities, and how far the good 
 things which it enjoys depend upon evils elsewhere. 
 In this respect, also, China is better than we are. Our 
 prosperity, and most of what we endeavor to secure 
 for ourselves, can only be obtained by wide-spread 
 oppression and exploitation of weaker nations, while the 
 
QUESTIONS 
 
 7 
 
 Chinese are not strong enough to injure other countries, 
 and secure whatever they enjoy by means of their own 
 merits and exertions alone. 
 
 These general ethical considerations are by no means 
 irrelevant in considering the practical problems of 
 China. Our industrial and commercial civilization has 
 been both the effect and the cause of certain more or 
 less unconscious beliefs as to what is worth while; in 
 China one becomes conscious of these beliefs through 
 the spectacle of a society which challenges them by be- 
 ing built, just as unconsciously, upon a different stand- 
 ard of values. Progress and efficiency, for example, 
 make no appeal to the Chinese, except to those who 
 have come under Western influence. By valuing prog- 
 ress and efficiency, we have secured power and wealth; 
 by ignoring them, the Chinese, until we brought disturb- 
 ance, secured on the whole a peaceable existence and a 
 life full of enjoyment. It is difficult to compare these 
 opposite achievements unless we have some standard of 
 values in our minds ; and, unless it is a more or less con- 
 scious standard, we shall undervalue the less familiar 
 civilization, because evils to which we are not accustomed 
 always make a stronger impression than those that we 
 have learned to take as a matter of course. 
 
 The culture of China is changing rapidly, and un- 
 doubtedly rapid change is needed. The change that has 
 hitherto taken place is traceable untimately to the mili- 
 tary superiority of the West; but in future our eco- 
 nomic superiority is likely to be quite as potent. I be- 
 lieve that, if the Chinese are left free to assimilate what 
 they want of our civilization, and to -reject what strikes 
 
8 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 them as bad; they will be able to achieve an organic 
 growth from their own tradition, and to produce a very 
 splendid result, combining our merits with theirs. There 
 are, however, two opposite dangers to be avoided if this 
 is to happen. The first danger is that they may become 
 completely westernized, retaining nothing of what has 
 hitherto distinguished them, adding merely one more to 
 the restless, intelligent, industrious, and militaristic 
 nations which now afflict this unfortunate planet. The 
 second danger is that they may be driven, in the course 
 of resistance to foreign aggression, into an intense anti- 
 foreign conservatism as regards everything except arma- 
 ments. This has happened in Japan, and it may easily 
 happen in China. The future of Chinese culture is in- 
 timately bound up with political and economic questions ; 
 and it is through their influence that dangers arise. 
 
 China is confronted with two very different groups 
 of foreign powers, on the one hand the white nations, 
 on the other hand Japan. In considering the effect of 
 the white races on the Far East as a whole, modern 
 Japan must count as a Western product; therefore the 
 responsibility for Japan’s doings in China rests ul- 
 timately with her white teachers. Nevertheless, Japan 
 remains very unlike Europe and America, and has am- 
 bitions different from theirs as regards China. We 
 must therefore distinguish three possibilities: (1) 
 
 China may become enslaved to one or more white 
 nations; (2) China may become enslaved to Japan; (3) 
 China may recover and retain her liberty. Temporarily 
 there is a fourth possibility, namely that a consortium 
 of Japan and the white powers may control China; but 
 
QUESTIONS 
 
 9 
 
 I do not believe that, in the long run, the Japanese will 
 be able to cooperate with England and America. In the 
 long run, I believe that Japan must dominate the Far 
 East or go under. If the Japanese had a different 
 character this would not be the case ; but the nature of 
 their ambitions makes them exclusive and unneighborly. 
 I shall give the reasons for this view when I come to 
 deal with the relations of China and Japan. 
 
 To understand the problem of China, we must first 
 know something of Chinese history and culture before 
 the irruption of the white man, then something of 
 modern Chinese culture and its inherent tendencies; 
 next, it is necessary to deal in outline with the military 
 and diplomatic relations of the Western powers with 
 China, beginning with our war of 1840 and ending with 
 the treaty concluded after the Boxer rising of 1900. Al- 
 though the Sino- Japanese War comes in this period, it 
 is possible to separate, more or less, the actions of Japan 
 in that war, and to see what system the white powers 
 would have established if Japan had not existed. Since 
 that time, however, J apan has been the dominant foreign 
 influence in Chinese affairs. It is therefore necessary 
 to understand how the J apanese became what they are : 
 what sort of nation they were before the West destroyed 
 their isolation, and what influence the West has had up- 
 on them. Lack of understanding of Japan has made 
 people in England blind to Japan’s aims in China, and 
 unable to apprehend the meaning of what Japan has 
 done. 
 
 Political considerations alone, however, will not suf- 
 fice to explain what is going on in relation to China; 
 
10 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 economic questions are almost more important. China 
 is as yet hardly industrialized, and is certainly the most 
 important undeveloped area left in the world. Whether 
 the resources of China are to be developed by China, by 
 Japan, or by the white races, is a question of enormous 
 importance, affecting not only the whole development nf 
 Chinese civilization, but the balance of power in the 
 world, the prospects of peace, the destiny of Russia, 
 and the chances of development toward a better eco- 
 nomic system in the advanced nations. 
 
 The Washington conference has partly exhibited and 
 partly concealed the conflict for the possession of China 
 between nations all of which have guaranteed China’s 
 independence and integrity. Its outcome has made it 
 far more difficult than before to give a hopeful answer as 
 regards Far Eastern problems, and in particular as re- 
 gards the question: Can China preserve any shadow of 
 independence without a great development of nation- 
 alism and militarism? I cannot bring myself to ad- 
 vocate nationalism and militarism, yet it is difficult to 
 know what to say to patriotic Chinese who ask how they 
 can be avoided. So far, I have found only one answer. 
 The Chinese nation is the most patient in the world; it 
 thinks of centuries as other nations think of decades. 
 It is essentially indestructible, and can afford to wait. 
 The “ civilized” nations of the world, with their block- 
 ades their poison gases, their bombs submarines and 
 negro armies, will probably destroy each other within 
 the next three hundred years, leaving the stage to those 
 whose pacifism has kept them alive, though poor and 
 powerless. If China can avoid being goaded into war, 
 
QUESTIONS 
 
 11 
 
 her oppressors may wear themselves out in the end, and 
 leave the Chinese free to pursue humane ends, instead of 
 war and rapine and destruction which all white nations 
 love. It is perhaps a slender hope for China, and for 
 ourselves it is little better than despair. But unless the 
 great powers learn some moderation and some tolerance, 
 I do not see any better possibility, though I see many 
 that are worse. 
 
 Our Western civilization is built upon assumptions 
 which, to a psychologist, are rationalizings of excessive 
 energy. Our industrialism, our militarism, our love of 
 progress, our missionary zeal, our imperialism, our pas- 
 sion for dominating and organizing, all spring from a 
 superflux of the itch for activity. The creed of ef- 
 ficiency for its own sake, without regard for the ends to 
 which it is directed, has become somewhat discredited in 
 Europe since the war, which would have never taken 
 place if the Western nations had been slightly more in- 
 dolent. But in America this creed is still almost uni- 
 versally accepted; so it is in Japan, and so it is by the 
 Bolsheviks, who have been aiming fundamentaHy at the 
 Americanization of Russia. Russia, like China, may be 
 described as an artist nation; but unlike China it has 
 been governed, since the time of Peter the Great, by men 
 who wished to introduce all the good and evil of the 
 West. In former days, I might have had no doubt that 
 such men were in the right. Some (though not many) 
 of the Chinese returned students resemble them in the 
 belief that Western push and hustle are the most desir- 
 able things on earth. I cannot now take this view. The 
 evils produced in China by indolence seem to me far less 
 
12 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 disastrous, from the point of view of mankind at large, 
 than those produced throughout the world by the domi- 
 neering cocksureness of Europe and America. The 
 Great War showed that something is wrong with our 
 civilization; experience of Russia and China has made 
 me believe that those countries can help to show us what 
 it is that is wrong. The Chinese have discovered, and 
 have practised for many centuries, a way of life which, 
 if it could be adopted by all the world, would make all 
 the world happy. We Europeans have not. Our way 
 of life demands strife, exploitation, restless change, dis- 
 content, and destruction. Efficiency directed to des- 
 truction can only end in annihilation, and it is to this 
 consummation that our civilization is tending, if it can- 
 not learn some of that wisdom for which it despises the 
 East. 
 
 It was on the Volga, in the summer of 1920, that I 
 first realized how profound is the disease in our West- 
 ern mentality, which the Bolsheviks are attempting to 
 force upon an essentially Asiatic population, just as 
 Japan and the West are doing in China. Our boat 
 traveled on, day after day, through an unknown and 
 mysterious land. Our company were noisy, gay, 
 quarrelsome, full of facile theories, with glib explana- 
 tions of everything, persuaded that there is nothing 
 they could not understand and no human destiny out- 
 side the purview of their system. One of us lay at 
 death’s door, fighting a grim battle with weakness and 
 terror and the indifference of the strong, assailed day 
 and night by the sounds of loud-voiced love-making and 
 trivial laughter. And all around us lay a great silence, 
 
QUESTIONS 
 
 13 
 
 strong as death, unfathomable as the heavens. It seemed 
 that none had leisure to hear the silence, yet it called 
 to me so insistently that I grew deaf to the harangues 
 of propagandists and the endless information of the 
 well-informed. 
 
 One night, very late, our boat stopped in a desolate 
 spot where there were no houses, but only a great sand- 
 bank, and beyond it a row of poplars with the rising 
 moon behind them. In silence I went ashore, and found 
 on the sand a strange assemblage of human beings, half- 
 nomads, wandering from some remote region of famine, 
 each family huddled together surrounded by all its be- 
 longings, some sleeping, others silently making small 
 fires of twigs. The flickering flames lighted up gnarled, 
 bearded faces of wild men, strong, patient, primitive 
 women, and children as sedate and slow as their parents. 
 Human beings they undoubtedly were, and yet it would 
 have been far easier for me to grow intimate with a dog 
 or a cat or a horse than with one of them. I knew that 
 they would wait there day after day, perhaps for weeks, 
 until a boat came in which they could go to some distant 
 place in which they had heard — falsely perhaps — that 
 the earth was more generous than in the country they 
 had left. Some would die by the way, all would suffer 
 hunger and thirst and the scorching midday sun, but 
 their sufferings would be dumb. To me they seemed to 
 typify the very soul of Russia, unexpressive, inactive 
 from despair, unheeded by the little set of westernizers 
 who make up all the parties of progress or reaction. 
 Russia is so vast that the articulate few are lost in it as 
 man and his planet are lost in interstellar space. It is 
 
14 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 possible, I thought, that the theorists may increase the 
 misery of the many by trying to force them into actions 
 contrary to their primeval instincts, but I could not be- 
 lieve that happiness was to be brought to them by a 
 gospel of industrialism and forced labor. 
 
 Nevertheless, when morning came I resumed the in- 
 terminable discussions of the materialistic conception 
 of history and the merits of a truly popular government. 
 Those with whom I discussed had not seen the sleeping 
 wanderers, and would not have been interested if they 
 had seen them, since they were not material for propa- 
 ganda. But something of that patient silence had com- 
 municated itself to me, something lonely and unspoken 
 remained in my heart throughout all the comfortable 
 familiar intellectual talk. And at last I began to feel 
 that all politics are inspired by a grinning devil, teach- 
 ing the energetic and quick-witted to torture submissive 
 populations for the profit of pocket or power or theory. 
 As we journeyed on, fed by food extracted from the 
 peasants, protected by an army recruited from among 
 their sons, I wondered what we had to give them in re- 
 turn. But I found no answer. From time to time I 
 heard their sad songs or the haunting music of the bala- 
 laika; but the sound mingled with the great silence of 
 the steppes, and left me with a terrible questioning pain 
 in which Occidental hopefulness grew pale. 
 
 It was in this mood that I set out for China to seek 
 a new hope. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CHINA BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 HERE the Chinese came from is a matter of con- 
 
 jecture. Their early history is known only from 
 their own annals, which throw no light upon the ques- 
 tion. The ‘ ‘ Shu-King, ’ ’ one of the Confucian classics 
 (edited, not composed, by Confucius), begins, like Livy, 
 with legendary accounts of princes whose virtues and 
 vices are intended to supply edification or warning to 
 subsequent rulers. Yao and Shun were two model em- 
 perors, whose date (if any) was somewhere in the third 
 millennium b. c. “The age of Yao and Shun,” in 
 Chinese literature, means what “the golden age” means 
 with us. It seems certain that, when Chinese history 
 begins, the Chinese occupied only a small part of what 
 is now China, along the banks of the Yellow River. 
 They were agricultural, and had already reached a fairly 
 high level of civilization — much higher than that of any 
 other part of Eastern Asia. The Yellow River is a 
 fierce and terrible stream, too swift for navigation, tur- 
 gid, and full of mud, depositing silt upon its bed until 
 it rises above the surrounding country, when it suddenly 
 alters its course, sweeping away villages and towns in a 
 destructive torrent. Among most early agricultural 
 
 15 
 
16 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 nations such a river would have inspired superstitious 
 awe, and floods would have been averted by human sacri- 
 fice; in the “Shu-King,” however, there is little trace of 
 superstition. Yao and Shun, and Yii (the latter’s suc- 
 cessor), were all occupied in combating the inundations, 
 but their methods were those of the engineer, not of the 
 miracle-worker. This shows, at least, the state of belief 
 in the time of Confucius. The character ascribed to Yao 
 shows what was expected of an emperor : 
 
 He was reverential, intelligent, accomplished, and thought- 
 ful — naturally and without effort. He was sincerely cour- 
 teous, and capable of all complaisance. The display of these 
 qualities reached to the four extremities of the empire, and 
 extended from earth to heaven. He was able to make the 
 able and virtuous distinguished, and thence proceeded to the 
 love of the nine classes of his kindred, who all became har- 
 monious. He also regulated and polished the people of his 
 domain, who all became brightly intelligent. Finally, he 
 united and harmonized the myriad states of the empire; and 
 lo! the black-haired people were transformed. The result 
 was universal concord. 1 
 
 The first date which can be assigned with precision in 
 Chinese history is that of an eclipse of the sun in 776 
 B. c. 2 There is no reason to doubt the general correct- 
 ness of the records for considerably earlier times, but 
 their exact chronology cannot be fixed. At this period, 
 
 1 Legge’s “Shu -King,” p. 15. Quoted in Hirth, “Ancient His- 
 tory of China,” Columbia University Press, 1911 — a book which 
 gives much useful critical information about early China. 
 
 2 Hirth, op. cit.f p. 174, 775 often wrongly given. 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 17 
 
 the Chou dynasty, which fell in 249 b. c. and is supposed 
 to have begun in 1122 b. c., was already declining in 
 power as compared with a number Of nominally sub- 
 ordinate feudal states. The position of the emperor at 
 this time, and for the next five hundred years, was simi- 
 lar to that of the king of France during those parts of 
 the middle ages when his authority was at its lowest 
 ebb. Chinese history consists of a series of dynasties, 
 each strong at first and weak afterward, each gradually 
 losing control over subordinates, each followed by a 
 period of anarchy (sometimes lasting for centuries), 
 and ultimately succeeded by a new dynasty which 
 temporarily reestablishes a strong central government. 
 Historians always attribute the fall of a dynasty to the 
 excessive power of eunuchs, but perhaps this is, in part, 
 a literary convention. 
 
 What distinguishes the emperor is not so much his 
 political power, which fluctuates with the strength of 
 his personality, as certain religious prerogatives. The 
 emperor is the Son of Heaven; he sacrifices to Heaven 
 at the winter solstice. The early Chinese used ‘ ‘ Heaven” 
 as synonymous with “The Supreme Ruler,” a mono- 
 theistic God; 3 indeed Professor Giles maintains, by 
 arguments which seem conclusive, that the correct trans- 
 lation of the emperor’s title would be “Son of God.” 
 The word “Tien,” in Chinese, is used both for the sky 
 and for God, though the latter sense has become rare. 
 The expression “Shang Ti,” which means “Supreme 
 Ruler,” belongs in the main to pre-Confucian times, 
 
 3 See Hirth, op. cit., p. 100 ff. 
 
18 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 but both terms originally represented a God as definitely 
 anthropomorphic as the God of the Old Testament. 4 
 
 As time went by the Supreme Ruler became more 
 shadowy, while “Heaven” remained, on account of the 
 imperial rites connected with it. The emperor alone had 
 the privilege of worshipping “Heaven,” and the rites 
 continued practically unchanged until the fall of the 
 Manchu dynasty in 1911. In modern times they were 
 performed in the Temple of Heaven in Peking, one of 
 the most beautiful places in the world. The animal 
 sacrifice in the Temple of Heaven represented almost 
 the sole official survival of pre-Confucian religion, or in- 
 deed of anything that could be called religion in the 
 strict sense; for Buddhism and Taoism have never had 
 any connection with the state. 
 
 The history of China is known in some detail from 
 the year 772 b. c., because with this year begins Con- 
 fucius ’ 1 1 Springs and Autumns, ’ ’ which is a chronicle of 
 the state of Lu, in which Confucius was an official. 
 
 One of the odd things about the history of China is 
 that after the emperors have been succeeding each other 
 for more than two thousand years, one comes to a ruler 
 who is known as the “First Emperor,” Shih Huang Ti. 
 He acquired control over the whole empire, after a series 
 of wars, in 221 b. c., and died in 210 b. c. Apart from 
 his conquests, he is remarkable for three achievements: 
 the building of the Great Wall against the Huns, the de- 
 struction of feudalism, and the burning of the books. 
 The destruction of feudalism, it must be confessed, had 
 
 4 On this subject, see Professor Giles’s “Confucianism and its 
 Rivals,” Williams & Norgate, 1915, Lecture I, especially p. 9. 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 19 
 
 to be repeated by many subsequent rulers; for a long 
 time, feudalism tended to grow up again whenever the 
 central government was in weak hands. But Shih 
 Huang Ti was the first ruler who made his authority 
 really effective over all China in historical times. Al- 
 though his dynasty came to an end with his son, the im- 
 pression he made is shown by the fact that our word 
 ‘ ‘ China ” is probably derived from his family name, 
 Tsin or Chin. 1 (The Chinese put the family name 
 first.) His empire was roughly coextensive with what 
 is now China proper. 
 
 The destruction of the books was a curious incident. 
 Shih Huang Ti, as appears from his calling himself 
 “First Emperor,’ ’ disliked being reminded of the fact 
 that China had existed before his time; therefore his- 
 tory was anathema to him. Moreover the literati were 
 already a strong force in the country, and were always 
 (following Confucius) in favor of the preservation of 
 ancient customs, whereas Shih Huang Ti was a vigorous 
 innovator. Moreover, he appears to have been unedu- 
 cated and not of pure Chinese race. Moved by the com- 
 bined motives of vanity and radicalism, he issued an 
 edict decreeing that — 
 
 All official histories, except the memoirs of Tsin (his own 
 family), shall be burned; except the persons who have the 
 office of literati of the great learning, those who in the empire 
 permit themselves to hide the “Shi-King,” the “Shu-King” 
 (Confucian classics), or the discourses of the hundred schools, 
 
 i Cf. Henri Cordier, “Histoire Gen6rale de la Chine,” Paris, 
 1920, Yol. I, p. 213. 
 
20 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 must all go before the local civil and military authorities so 
 that they may be burned. Those who shall dare to discuss 
 among themselves the “Shi-King” and the “Shu-King” shall 
 be put to death and their corpses exposed in a public place; 
 those who shall make use of antiquity to belittle modem 
 times shall be put to death with their relations. . . . Thirty 
 days after the publication of this edict, those who have not 
 burned their books shall be branded and sent to forced labor. 
 The books which shall not be proscribed are those of med- 
 icine and pharmacy, of divination ... of agriculture and 
 of arboriculture. As for those who desire to study the laws 
 and ordinances, let them take the officials as masters. (Cor- 
 dier, op. cit., Yol. I, p. 203.) 
 
 It will be seen that the First Emperor was some- 
 thing of a Bolshevik. The Chinese literati, naturally, 
 have blackened his memory. On the other hand, modern 
 Chinese reformers, who have experienced the opposition 
 of old-fashioned scholars, have a certain sympathy with 
 his attempt to destroy the innate conservatism of his 
 subjects. Thus Li Ung Bing says : 2 
 
 No radical change can take place in China without encoun- 
 tering the opposition of the literati. This was no less the 
 case then than it is now. To abolish feudalism by one stroke 
 was a radical change indeed. Whether the change was for 
 the better or the worse, the men of letters took no time to 
 inquire; whatever was good enough for their fathers was 
 good enough for them and their children. They found nu- 
 merous authorities in the classics to support their contention 
 and these they freely quoted to show that Shih Huang Ti 
 
 2 “Outlines of Chinese History” ( Shanghai, Commercial Press, 
 1914), p. 61. 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 21 
 
 was wrong. They continued to criticize the government to 
 such an extent that something had to be done to silence the 
 voice of antiquity. ... As to how far this decree (on the 
 burning of the books) was enforced, it is hard to say. At 
 any rate, it exempted all libraries of the government, or 
 such as were in possession of a class of officials called Po 
 Szu or Learned Men. If any real damage was done to 
 Chinese literature under the decree in question, it is safe to 
 say that it was not of such a nature as later writers would 
 have us believe. Still, this extreme measure failed to secure 
 the desired end, and a number of the men of letters in Han 
 Yang, the capital, were subsequently buried alive. 
 
 This passage is written from the point of view of 
 Young China, which is anxious to assimilate Western 
 learning in place of the dead scholarship of the Chinese 
 classics. China, like every other civilized country, has 
 a tradition which stands in the way of progress. The 
 Chinese have excelled in stability rather than in prog- 
 ress; therefore Young China, which perceives that the 
 advent of industrial civilization has made progress es- 
 sential to continued national existence, naturally looks 
 with a favorable eye upon Shih Huang TPs struggle 
 with the reactionary pedants of his age. The very con- 
 siderable literature which has come down to us from be- 
 fore his time shows, in any case, that his edict was some- 
 what ineffective; and in fact it was repealed after 
 twenty-two years, in 191 b. c. 
 
 After a brief reign by the son of the First Emperor, 
 who did not inherit his capacity, we come to the great 
 Han dynasty, which reigned from 206 b. c. to a. d. 220. 
 This was the great age of Chinese imperialism — exactly 
 
22 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 coeval with the great age of Rome. In the course of 
 their campaigns in Northern India and Central Asia, 
 the Chinese were brought into contact with India, with 
 Persia, and even with the Roman Empire. 3 Their re- 
 lations with India had a profound effect upon their re- 
 ligion, as well as upon that of Japan, since they led to 
 the introduction of Buddhism. Relations with Rome 
 were chiefly promoted by the Roman desire for silk, 
 and continued until the rise of Mohammedanism. They 
 had little importance for China, though we learn for 
 example, that about a. d. 164 a treatise on astronomy 
 was brought to China from the Roman Empire. 4 Marcus 
 Aurelius appears in Chinese history under the name of 
 An Tun, which stands for Antonius. 
 
 It was during this period that the Chinese acquired 
 that immense prestige in the Far East which lasted un- 
 til the arrival of European armies and navies in the 
 nineteenth century. One is sometimes tempted to think 
 that the irruption of the white man into China may 
 prove almost as ephemeral as the raids of Huns and Tar- 
 tars into Europe. The military superiority of Europe 
 to Asia is not an eternal law of nature, as we are tempted 
 to think ; and our superiority in civilization is a mere de- 
 lusion. Our histories, which treat the Mediterranean as 
 the center of the universe, give quite a wrong perspec- 
 tive. Cordier, 5 dealing with the campaigns and voyages 
 
 3 See Hirth, “China and the Roman Orient” (Leipzig and 
 Shanghai, 1885), an admirable and fascinating monograph. 
 There are allusions to the Chinese in Virgil and Horace; cf. 
 Cordier, op. tit., Vol. I, p. 271. 
 
 4 Cordier, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 281. 
 
 s Cordier, op. cit ., Vol. I, p. 237. 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 23 
 
 of discovery which took place under the Han dynasty, 
 says : 
 
 The Occidentals have singularly contracted the field of the 
 history of the world when they have grouped around the 
 people of Israel, Greece, and Rome the little that they knew 
 of the expansion of the human race, being completely ig- 
 norant of these voyagers who plowed the China Sea and the 
 Indian Ocean, of these cavalcades across the immensities of 
 Central Asia up to the Persian Gulf. The greatest part of 
 the universe, and at the same time a civilization different 
 but certainly as developed as that of the ancient Greeks and 
 Romans, remained unknown to those who wrote the history 
 of their little world while they believed that they were set- 
 ting forth the history of the world as a whole. 
 
 In our day, this provincialism, which impregnates all 
 our culture, is liable to have disastrous consequences 
 politically, as well as for the civilization of mankind. 
 We must make room for Asia in our thoughts, if we 
 are not to arouse Asia to a fury of self-assertion. 
 
 After the Han dynasty there are various short dy- 
 nasties and periods of disorder, until we come to the 
 Tang dynasty (a. d. 618-907). Under this dynasty, in 
 its prosperous days, the empire acquired its greatest ex- 
 tent, and art and poetry reached their highest point. 6 
 
 6 Murdoch, in his “History of Japan” (Vol. I, p. 146), thus 
 describes the greatness of the early Tang Empire: 
 
 “In the following year (618) Li Yuen, Prince of T’ang estab- 
 lished that illustrious dynasty of that name, which continued 
 to sway the fortunes of China for nearly three centuries (618- 
 008). After a brilliant reign of ten years he handed over the 
 
24 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 The empire of Jenghis Khan (died 1227) was con- 
 siderably greater, and contained a great part of China; 
 but Jenghis Khan was a foreign conqueror. Jenghis 
 and his generals, starting from Mongolia, appeared as 
 conquerors in C.hina, India, Persia, and Russia. 
 Throughout Central Asia, Jenghis destroyed every man, 
 woman, and child in the cities he captured. When Merv 
 was captured, it was transformed into a desert and 700,- 
 000 people were killed. But it was said that many had 
 escaped by lying among the corpses and pretending to 
 be dead; therefore at the capture of Nishapur, shortly 
 afterward, it was ordered that all the inhabitants should 
 have their heads cut off. Three pyramids of heads were 
 made, one of men, one of women, and one of children. 
 As it was feared that some might have escaped by hid- 
 ing underground, a detachment of soldiers was left to 
 kill any that might emerge. 7 Similar horrors were en- 
 acted at Moscow and Kieff, in Hungary and Poland. 
 Yet the man responsible for these massacres was sought 
 
 imperial dignity to his son, Tai-tsung (627-650), perhaps the 
 greatest monarch the Middle Kingdom has ever seen. At this 
 time China undoubtedly stood in the very forefront of civiliza- 
 tion.. She was then the most powerful, the most enlightened, 
 the most progressive, and the best governed empire, not only 
 in Asia, but on the face of the globe. Tai-tsung’s frontiers 
 reached from the confines of Persia, the Caspian Sea, and the 
 Altai of the Kirghis steppe, along these mountains to the north 
 side of the Gobi Desert eastward to the inner Hing-an, while 
 Sogdiana, Khorassan, and the regions around the Hindu Kush 
 also acknowledged his suzerainty. The sovereign of Nepal and 
 Magadha in India sent envoys; and in 643 envoys appeared 
 from the Byzantine Empire and the court of Persia.” 
 
 7 Cordier, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 212. 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 25 
 
 in alliance by St. Louis and the pope. The times of 
 Jenghis Khan remind one of the present day, except 
 that his methods of causing death were more merciful 
 than those that have been employed since the armistice. 
 
 Kublai Khan (died 1294), who is familiar, at least 
 by name, through Marco Polo and Coleridge, was the 
 grandson of Jenghis Khan, and the first Mongol who 
 was acknowledged emperor of China, where he ousted 
 the Sung dynasty (960-1277). By this time, contact 
 with China had somewhat abated the savagery of the 
 first conquerors. Kublai removed his capital from 
 Kara Korom in Mongolia to Peking. He built walls 
 like those which still surround the city, and established 
 on the walls an observatory which is preserved to this 
 day. Until 1900, two of the astronomical instruments 
 constructed by Kublai were still to be seen in this ob- 
 servatory, but the Germans removed them to Potsdam 
 after the suppression of the Boxers. 8 I understand they 
 have been restored in accordance with one of the pro- 
 visions of the* Treaty of Versailles. If so, this was 
 probably the most important benefit which that treaty 
 secured to the world. 
 
 Kublai plays the same part in Japanese history that 
 Philip II plays in the history of England. He pre- 
 pared an Invincible Armada, or rather two successive 
 armadas, to conquer Japan, but they were defeated, 
 partly by storms, and partly by Japanese valor. 
 
 After Kublai, the Mongal emperors more and more 
 adopted Chinese ways, and lost their tyrannical vigor. 
 Their dynasty came to an end in 1370, and was suc- 
 
 8 Cordier, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 339. 
 
26 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 ceeded by the pure Chinese Ming dynasty, which lasted 
 until the Manchu conquest of 1644. The Manchus in 
 turn adopted Chinese ways, and were overthrown by a 
 patriotic revolution in 1911, having contributed noth- 
 ing notable to the native culture of China except the 
 pigtail, officially abandoned at the revolution. 
 
 The persistence of the Chinese Empire down to our 
 own day is not to be attributed to any military skill; 
 on the contrary, considering its extent and resources, 
 it has at most times shown itself weak and incompetent 
 in war. Its southern neighbors were even less warlike, 
 and were less in extent. Its northern and western neigh- 
 bors inhabited a barren country, largely desert, which 
 was only capable of supporting a very sparse population. 
 The Huns were defeated by the Chinese after centuries 
 of warfare; the Tartars and Manchus, on the contrary, 
 conquered China. But they were too few and too un- 
 civilized to impose their ideas or their way of life upon 
 China, which absorbed them and went on its way as if 
 they had never existed. Rome could have survived the 
 Goths, if they had come alone, but the successive 
 waves of barbarians came too quickly to be all civilized 
 in turn. China was saved from this fate by the Gobi 
 Desert and the Tibetan uplands. Since the white men 
 have taken to coming by sea, the old geographical im- 
 munity is lost, and greater energy will be required to 
 preserve the national independence. 
 
 In spite of geographical advantages, however, the 
 persistence of Chinese civilization, fundamentally un- 
 changed since the introduction of Buddhism, is a re- 
 markable phenomenon. Egypt and Babylonia persisted 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 27 
 
 as long, but since they fell* there has been nothing com- 
 parable in the world. Perhaps the main cause is the 
 immense population of China, with an almost complete 
 identity of culture throughout. In the middle of the 
 eighth century, the population of China is estimated at 
 over fifty millions, though ten years later, as a result 
 of devastating wars, it is said to have sunk to about 
 seventeen millions. 9 A census has been taken at va- 
 rious times in Chinese history, but usually a census of 
 houses, not of individuals. From the number of houses 
 the population is computed by a more or less doubtful 
 calculation. It is probable, also, that different methods 
 were adopted on different occasions, and that compari- 
 sons between different enumerations are therefore rather 
 unsafe. Putnam Weale says: 10 
 
 The first census taken by the Manchus in 1651, after the 
 restoration of order, returned China’s population at 55 mil- 
 lion persons, which is less than the number given in the first 
 census of the Han dynasty, a.d. 1, and about the same as 
 when Kublai Khan established the Mongal dynasty in 1295. 
 (This is presumably a misprint, as Kublai died in 1294.) 
 Thus we are faced by the amazing fact that, from the begin- 
 ning of the Christian era, the toll of life taken by internecine 
 and frontier wars in China was so great that in spite of all 
 territorial expansion the population for upwards of sixteen 
 centuries remained more or less stationary. There is in all 
 history no similar record. Now, however, came a vast 
 change. Thus three years after the death of the celebrated 
 
 9 Cordier, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 484. 
 
 10 “The Truth About China and Japan,” George Allen & 
 Unwin, Ltd., pp. 13, 14 
 
28 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 Manchu Emperor Kang Hsi, in 1720, the population had 
 risen to 125 millions. At the beginning of the reign of the 
 no less illustrious Ch’ien Lung (1743) it was returned at 145 
 millions; towards the end of his reign, in 1783, it had 
 doubled, and was given as 283 millions. In the reign of 
 Chia Ch’ing (1812) it had risen to 360 millions; before the 
 Taiping rebellion (1842) it had grown to 413 millions; after 
 that terrible rising it sunk to 261 millions. 
 
 I do not think such definite statements are warranted. 
 The “ China Year Book” for 1919 (the latest I have 
 seen) says p. 1) : 
 
 The taking of a census by the methods adopted in West- 
 ern nations has never yet been attempted in China, and con- 
 sequently estimates of the total population have varied to an 
 extraordinary degree. The nearest approach to a reliable 
 estimate is, probably, the census taken by the Minchengpu 
 (Ministry of Interior) in 1910, the results of which are em- 
 bodied in a report submitted to the Department of State at 
 Washington by Mr. Raymond P. Tenney, a Student Inter- 
 preter at the U. S. Legation, Peking. ... It is pointed out 
 that even this census can only be regarded as approximate, 
 as, with few exceptions, households and not individuals were 
 counted. 
 
 The estimated population of the Chinese Empire (ex- 
 clusive of Tibet) is given, on the basis of this census, 
 as 329,542,000, while the population of Tibet is esti- 
 mated at 1,500,000. Estimates which have been 
 made at various other dates are given as follows 
 
 (p. 2) 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 29 
 
 A.D. 
 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1381 
 
 59,850,000 
 
 1760 
 
 1412 
 
 65,377,000 
 
 1580 
 
 60,692,000 
 
 1761 
 
 1662 
 
 21,068,000 
 
 1762 
 
 1668 
 
 25,386,209 
 
 1790 
 
 
 [ 23,312,200 
 
 1792 
 
 1710 - 
 
 ) 27,241,129 
 
 1711 
 
 28,241,129 
 
 
 1736 
 
 125,046,245 
 
 1812 
 
 1 
 
 ' 157,343,975 
 
 1842 
 
 1743 J 
 
 149,332,730 
 
 1868 
 
 1 
 
 t 150,265,475 
 
 1881 
 
 1753 
 
 " 103,050,600 
 
 1882 
 
 1885 
 
 143,125,225 
 
 203,916,477 
 
 205,293,053 
 
 198,214,553 
 
 155,249,897 
 
 307,467,200 
 
 333.000. 000 
 362,467,183 
 
 360.440.000 
 
 413.021.000 
 404,946,514 
 
 350.000. 000 
 
 381.309.000 
 
 377.636.000 
 
 These figures suffice to show how little is known about 
 the population of China. Not only are widely diver- 
 gent estimates made in the same year (e. g. 1760), but 
 in other respects the figures are incredible. Mr. Put- 
 nam Weale might contend that the drop from sixty 
 millions in 1580 to twenty-one millions in 1662 was due 
 to the wars leading to the Manchu conquest. But no 
 one can believe that between 1711 and 1736 the popula- 
 tion increased from twenty-eight millions to 125 millions, 
 or that it doubled between 1790 and 1792. No one 
 knows whether the population of China is increasing 
 or diminishing, whether people in general have large 
 or small families, or any of the other facts that vital 
 statistics are designed to elucidate. What is said on 
 these subjects, however dogmatic, is no more than guess- 
 work. Even the population of Peking is unknown. It 
 
30 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 is said to be about 900,000, but it may be anywhere be- 
 tween 800,000 and a million. As for the population 
 of the Chinese Empire, it is probably safe to assume 
 that it is between three and four hundred millions, and 
 somewhat likely that it is below three hundred and 
 fifty millions. Very little indeed can be said with con- 
 fidence as to the population of China in former times; 
 so little that, on the whole, authors who give statistics 
 are to be distrusted. 
 
 There are certain broad features of the traditional 
 Chinese civilization which give it its distinctive charac- 
 ter. I should be inclined to select as the most impor- 
 tant: (1) the use of ideograms instead of an alphabet 
 in writing; (2) the substitution of the Confucian ethic 
 for religion among the educated classes; (3) govern- 
 ment by literati chosen by examination instead of by 
 a hereditary aristocracy. The family system dis- 
 tinguishes traditional China from modern Europe, but 
 represents a stage which most other civilizations have 
 passed through, and which is therefore not distinctively 
 Chinese; the three characteristics which I have enumer- 
 ated, on the other hand, distinguish China from all 
 other countries of past times. Something must be said 
 at this stage about each of the three. 
 
 1. As every one knows, the Chinese do not have 
 letters, as we do, but symbols for whole words. This 
 has, of course, many inconveniences: it means that, in 
 learning to write, there are an immense number of dif- 
 ferent signs to be learned, not only twenty-six as with us ; 
 that there is no such thing as alphabetical order, so that 
 dictionaries, files, catalogues, etc., are difficult to arrange, 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 31 
 
 and linotype is impossible; that foreign words, such as 
 proper names and scientific terms, cannot be written 
 down by sound, as in European languages, but have to 
 be represented by some elaborate device. 11 For these 
 reasons, there is a movement for phonetic writing among 
 the more advanced Chinese reformers; and I think the 
 success of this movement is essential if China is to take 
 her place among the bustling, hustling nations which 
 consider that they have a monopoly of all excellence. 
 Even if there were no other argument for the change, 
 the difficulty of elementary education, where reading and 
 writing take so long to learn, would be alone sufficient 
 to decide any believer in democracy. For practical 
 purposes, therefore, the movement for phonetic writing 
 deserves support. 
 
 There are, however, many considerations, less obvious 
 to a European, which can be adduced in favor of the 
 ideographic system, to which something of the solid 
 stability of the Chinese civilization is probably trace- 
 able. To us, it seems obvious that a written word must 
 represent a sound, whereas to the Chinese it represents 
 an idea. We have adopted the Chinese system our- 
 selves as regards numerals; “1922,” for example, can 
 be read in English, French, or any other language, with 
 quite different sounds, but with the same meaning. 
 Similarly, what is written in Chinese characters can 
 be read throughout China, in spite of the difference of 
 
 11 For example, the nearest approach that could be made in 
 Chinese to my own name was “Lo-Su.” There is a word “Lo,” 
 and a word “Su,” for both of which there are characters; but 
 no combination of characters gives a better approximation to 
 the sound of my name. 
 
32 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 dialects which are mutually unintelligible when spoken. 
 Even a Japanese, without knowing a word of spoken 
 Chinese, can read out Chinese script in Japanese, just as 
 he could read a row of numerals written by an English- 
 man. And the Chinese can still read their classics, al- 
 though the spoken language must have changed as much 
 as French has changed from Latin. 
 
 The advantage of writing over speech is its greater 
 permanence, which enables it to be a means of communi- 
 cation between different places and different times. 
 But since the spoken language changes from place to 
 place and from time to time, the characteristic advan- 
 tage of writing is more fully attained by a script which 
 does not aim at representing spoken sounds than by one 
 which does. 
 
 Speaking historically, there is nothing peculiar in the 
 Chinese method of writing, which represents a stage 
 through which all writing probably passed. Writing 
 everywhere seems to have begun as pictures, not as a 
 symbolic representation of sounds. I understand that 
 in Egyptian hieroglyphics the course of development 
 from ideograms to phonetic writing can be studied. 
 What is peculiar in China is the preservation of the 
 ideographic system throughout thousands of years of 
 advanced civilization — a preservation probably due, at 
 least in part, to the fact that the spoken language is 
 monosyllabic, uninflected and full of homonyms. 
 
 As to the way in which the Chinese system of writ- 
 ing has affected the mentality of those who employ it, I 
 find some suggestive reflections in an article published 
 in the “Chinese Students’ Monthly” (Baltimore), for 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 33 
 
 February 1922, by Mr. Chi Li, in an article on i ‘Some 
 Anthropological Problems of China.” He says (p. 
 327): 
 
 Language has been traditionally treated by European 
 scientists as a collection of sounds instead of an expression 
 of something inner and deeper than the vocal apparatus as 
 it should be. The accumulative effect of language-symbols 
 upon one’s mental formulation is still an unexploited field. 
 Dividing the world culture of the living races on this basis, 
 one perceives a fundamental difference of its types between 
 the alphabetical users and the hieroglyphic users, each of 
 which has its own virtues and vices. Now, with all respects 
 to alphabetical civilization, it must be frankly stated that it 
 has a grave and inherent defect in its lack of solidity. The 
 most civilized portion under the alphabetical culture is also 
 inhabited by the most fickle people. The history of the 
 Western land repeats the same story over and over again. 
 Thus up and down with the Greeks; up and down with 
 Rome; up and down with the Arabs. The ancient Semitic 
 and Hametic peoples are essentially alphabetic users, and 
 their civilizations show the same lack of solidity as the 
 Greeks and the Romans. Certainly this phenomenon can 
 be partially explained by the extra-fluidity of the alphabet- 
 ical language which cannot be depended upon as a suitable 
 organ to conserve any solid idea. Intellectual contents of 
 these people may be likened to waterfalls and cataracts, 
 rather than seas and oceans. No other people is richer in 
 ideas than they; but no people would give up their valuable 
 ideas as quickly as they do. . . . 
 
 The Chinese language is by all means the counterpart of 
 the alphabetic stock. It lacks most of the virtues that are 
 found in the alphabetic language; but as an embodiment of 
 
34 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 simple and final truth, it is invulnerable to storm and stress. 
 It has already protected the Chinese civilization for more 
 than forty centuries. It is solid, square, and beautiful, ex- 
 actly as the spirit of it represents. Whether it is the 
 spirit that has produced this language or whether this 
 language has in turn accentuated the spirit remains to be 
 determined. 
 
 Without committing ourselves wholly to the theory 
 here set forth, which is impregnated with Chinese 
 patriotism, we must nevertheless admit that the 
 Westerner is unaccustomed to the idea of “alphabetical 
 civilization ’ ’ as merely one kind, to which he happens 
 to belong. I am not competent to judge as to the im- 
 portance of the ideographic script in producing the 
 distinctive characteristics of Chinese civilization, but I 
 have no doubt that this importance is very great, and 
 is more or less of the kind indicated in the above quo- 
 tation. 
 
 2. Confucius (b. c. 551-479) must be reckoned, as re- 
 gards his social influence, with the founders of religions. 
 His effect on institutions and on men’s thoughts has 
 been of the same kind of magnitude as that of Buddha, 
 Christ, or Mohammed, but curiously different in its 
 nature. Unlike Buddha and Christ, he is a completely 
 historical character, about whose life a great deal is 
 known, and with whom legend and myth have been less 
 busy than with most men of his kind. What most dis- 
 tinguishes him from other founders is that he inculcated 
 a strict code of ethics, which has been respected ever 
 since, but associated it with very little religious dogma, 
 which gave place to complete theological skepticism in 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 35 
 
 the countless generations of Chinese literati who revered 
 his memory and administered the empire. 
 
 Confucius himself belongs rather to the type of 
 Lycurgus and Solon than to that of the great founders 
 of religions. He was a practical statesman, concerned 
 with the administration of the state; the virtues he 
 sought to inculcate were not those of personal holiness 
 or designed to secure salvation in a future life, but 
 rather those which lead to a peaceful and prosperous 
 community here on earth. His outlook was essentially 
 conservative, and aimed at preserving the virtues of 
 former ages. He accepted the existing religion — a 
 rather unemphatic monotheism, combined with belief 
 that the spirits of the dead preserved a shadowy exist- 
 ence, which it was the duty of their descendants to 
 render as comfortable as possible. He did not, how- 
 ever, lay any stress upon supernatural matters. In 
 answer to a question, he gave the following definition 
 of wisdom: “To cultivate earnestly our duty towards 
 
 our neighbor, and to reverence spiritual beings while 
 maintaining always a due reserve. ’ ’ 12 But reverence 
 for spiritual beings was not an active part of Confu- 
 cianism, except in the form of ancestor-worship, which 
 was part of filial piety, and thus merged in duty to- 
 ward one’s neighbor. Filial piety included obedience 
 to the emperor, except when he was so wicked as to 
 forfeit his divine right — for the Chinese, unlike the 
 
 12 Giles, op. cit., p. 74. Professor Giles adds, a propos of the 
 phrase “maintaining always a due reserve/’ the following foot- 
 note: “Dr. Legge has ‘to keep aloof from them,’ which would 
 
 he equivalent to ‘have nothing to do with them.’ Confucius 
 seems rather to have meant ‘no familiarity.’ ” 
 
36 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Japanese, have always held that resistance to the em- 
 peror was justified if he governed very badly. The 
 following passage from Professor Giles 13 illustrates this 
 point : 
 
 The Emperor has been uniformly regarded as the son of 
 God by adoption only, and liable to be displaced from that 
 position as a punishment for the offence of misrule. ... If 
 the ruler failed in his duties, the obligation of the people 
 was at an end, and his divine right disappeared simultaneously. 
 Of this we have an example in a portion of the 
 Canon to be examined by and by. Under the year 558 b.c. 
 we find the following narrative. One of the feudal princes 
 asked an official, saying, ‘TIave not the people of the Wei 
 State done very wrong in expelling their ruler?” “Perhaps 
 the ruler himself,” was the reply, “may have done very 
 wrong. ... If the life of the people is impoverished, and 
 if the spirits are deprived of their sacrifices, of what use 
 is the ruler, and what can the people do but get rid of 
 him?” 
 
 This very sensible doctrine has been accepted at all 
 times throughout Chinese history, and has made re- 
 bellions only to frequent. 
 
 Filial piety, and the strength of the family generally, 
 are perhaps the weakest point in Confucian. ethics, the 
 only point where the system departs seriously from 
 common sense. Family feeling has militated against 
 public spirit, and the authority of the old has increased 
 the tyranny of ancient custom. In the present day, 
 
 is Op. dt., p. 21. 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 37 
 
 when China is confronted with problems requiring a 
 radically new outlook, these features of the Confucian 
 system have made it a barrier to necessary reconstruc- 
 tion, and accordingly we find all those foreigners who 
 wish to exploit China praising the old tradition and 
 deriding the efforts of Young China to construct some- 
 thing more suited to modern needs. The way in which 
 Confucian emphasis on filial piety prevented the 
 growth of public spirit is illustrated by the following 
 story : 14 
 
 One of the feudal princes was boasting to Confucius of 
 the high level of morality which prevailed in his own State. 
 “Among us here,” he said, “you will find upright men. If 
 a father has stolen a sheep, his son will give evidence against 
 him.” “In my part of the country,” replied Confucius, 
 “there is a different standard from this. A father will 
 shield his son, a son will shield his father. It is thus that 
 uprightness will be found.” 
 
 It is interesting to contrast this story with that of 
 the elder Brutus and his sons, upon which we in the 
 "West were all brought up. 
 
 Chao Ki, expounding the Confucian doctrine, says 
 it is contrary to filial piety to refuse a lucrative post by 
 which to relieve the indigence of one’s aged parents. 15 
 This form of sin, however, is rare in China as in other 
 countries. 
 
 The worst failure of filial piety, however, is to re- 
 
 1* Giles, op. cit., p. 86. 
 
 15 Cordier, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 176. 
 
38 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 main without children, since ancestors are supposed to 
 suffer if they have no descendants to keep up their 
 cult. It is probable that this doctrine has made the 
 Chinese mdre prolific, in which case it has had great 
 biological importance. Filial piety is, of course, in no 
 way peculiar to China, but has been universal at a cer- 
 tain stage of culture. In this respect, as in certain 
 others, what is peculiar to China is the preservation 
 of the old custom after a very high level of civilization 
 had been attained. The early Greeks and Romans did 
 not differ from the Chinese in this respect, but as their 
 civilization advanced the family became less and less 
 important. In China, this did not begin to happen 
 until our own day. 
 
 Whatever may be said against filial piety carried to 
 excess, it is certainly less harmful than its Western 
 counterpart, patriotism. Both, of course, err in in- 
 culcating duties to a certain portion of mankind to the 
 practical exclusion of the rest. But patriotism directs 
 one’s loyalty to a fighting unit, which filial piety does 
 not (except in a very primitive society). Therefore 
 patriotism leads much more easily to militarism and 
 imperialism. The principal method of advancing the 
 interests of one’s nation is homicide; the principal 
 method of advancing the interest of one’s family is 
 corruption and intrigue. Therefore family feeling is 
 less harmful than patriotism. This view is borne out 
 by the history and present condition of China as com- 
 pared to Europe. 
 
 Apart from filial piety, Confucianism was, in practice, 
 mainly a code of civilized behavior, degenerating at 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 39 
 
 times into an etiquette book. It taught self-restraint, 
 moderation, and above all courtesy. Its moral code 
 was not, like those of Buddhism and Christianity, so 
 severe that only a few saints could hope to live up to 
 it, or so much concerned with personal salvation as to 
 be incompatible with political institutions. It was not 
 difficult for a man of the world to live up to the more 
 imperative parts of the Confucian teaching. But in 
 order to do this he must exercise at all times a certain 
 kind of self-control — an extension of the kind which 
 children learn when they are taught to “ behave.’ ’ He 
 must not break into violent passions; he must not be 
 arrogant; he must “save face,” and never inflict humil- 
 iations upon defeated adversaries ; he must be moderate 
 in all things, never carried away by excessive love or 
 hate; in a word, he must keep calm reason always in 
 control of all his actions. This attitude existed in 
 Europe in the eighteenth century, but perished in the 
 French Revolution : romanticism, Rousseau, and the 
 guillotine put an end to it. In China, though wars and 
 revolutions have occurred constantly, Confucian calm 
 has survived them all, making them less terrible for the 
 participants, and making all who were not immediately 
 involved hold aloof. It is bad manners in China to 
 attack your adversary in wet weather. Wu-Pei-Fu, I 
 am told, once did it, and won a victory; the beaten 
 general complained of the breach of etiquette; so Wu- 
 Pei-Fu went back to the position he held before the 
 battle, and fought all over again on a fine day. (It 
 should be said that battles in China are seldom bloody.) 
 In such a country, militarism is not the scourge it is 
 
40 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 with ns; and the difference is due to the Confucian 
 ethics. 16 
 
 Confucianism did not assume its present form until 
 the twelfth century a. d., when the personal God in 
 whom Confucius had believed was thrust aside by the 
 philosopher Chu Fu Tze 17 whose interpretation of 
 Confucianism has ever since been recognized as ortho- 
 dox. Since therfall of the Mongols (1370), the Govern- 
 ment has uniformly favored Confucianism as the teach- 
 ing of the state ; before that, there were struggles with 
 Buddhism and Taoism, which were connected with 
 magic, and appealed to superstitious emperors, quite a 
 number of whom died of drinking the Taoist elixir of 
 life. The Mongol emperors were Buddhists of the lama 
 religion, which still prevails in Tibet and Mongolia; 
 but the Manchu emperors, though also northern con- 
 querors, were ultra-orthodox Confucians. It has been 
 customary in China, for many centuries, for the literati 
 to be pure Confucians, skeptical in religion but not in 
 morals, while the rest of the population believed and 
 practised all three religions simultaneously. The 
 
 16 As far as anti-militarism is concerned, Taoism is even more 
 emphatic. “The best soldiers,” says Lao-Tze, “do not fight.” 
 (Giles, op. cit., p. 150.) Chinese armies contain many good 
 soldiers. 
 
 17 Giles, op. cit., Lecture VUE. When Chu Fu Tze was dead, 
 and his son-in-law was watching beside his coffin a singular in- 
 cident occurred. Although the sage had spent his life teaching 
 that miracles are impossible, the coffin- rose and remained sus- 
 pended three feet above the ground. The pious son-in-law was 
 horrified. “O my revered father-in-law,” he prayed, “do not 
 destroy my faith that miracles are impossible.” Whereupon the 
 coffin slowly descended to earth again, and the son-in-law’s faith 
 revived. 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 41 
 
 Chinese have not the belief, which we owe to the Jews, 
 that if one religion is true, all others must be false. 
 At the present day, however, there appears to be very 
 little in the way of religion in China, though the belief 
 in magic lingers on among the uneducated. At all 
 times, even when there was religion, its intensity was far 
 less than in Europe. It is remarkable that religious 
 skepticism has not led, in China, to any corresponding 
 ethical skepticism, as it has done repeatedly in' Europe. 
 
 3. I come now to the system of selecting officials by 
 competitive examination, without which it is hardly 
 likely that so literary and unsuperstitious a system as 
 that of Confucius could have maintained its hold. The 
 view of the modern Chinese on this subject is set forth 
 by the present president of the Republic of China, Hsu 
 Shi-chang, in his book on 4 ‘China after the War,” pp. 
 59-60. 18 After considering the educational system un- 
 der the Chou dynasty, he continues: 
 
 In later periods, in spite of minor changes, the importance 
 of moral virtues continued to be stressed upon. For in- 
 stance, during the most flourishing period of Tang Dynasty 
 (627-650 a.d.), the Imperial Academy of Learning, known 
 as Kuo-tzu-chien, was composed of four collegiate depart- 
 ments, in which ethics was considered as the most important 
 of all studies. It was said that in the Academy there were 
 more than three thousand students who were able and vir- 
 tuous in nearly all respects, while the total enrolment, in- 
 cluding aspirants from Korea and Japan, was as high as 
 eight thousand. At the same time, there was a system of 
 
 18 Translated by the Bureau of Economic Information, Peking, 
 1920. 
 
42 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 “elections” through which able and virtuous men were rec- 
 ommended by different districts to the Emperor for ap- 
 pointment to public offices. College training and local elec- 
 tions supplemented each other, but in both moral virtues 
 were given the greatest emphasis. 
 
 Although the Imperial Academy exists till this day, it has 
 never been as flourishing as during that period. For this 
 change the introduction of the competitive examination or 
 Ko-chii system, must be held responsible. The “election” 
 system furnished no fixed standard for the recommendation 
 of public service candidates, and, as a result, tended to create 
 an aristocratic class from which alone were to be found 
 eligible men. Consequently, the Sung Emperors (960-1277 
 A. d. ) abolished the elections, set aside the Imperial Academy, 
 and inaugurated the competitive examination system in 
 their place. The examinations were to supply both scholars 
 and practical statesmen, and they were periodically held 
 throughout the later dynasties until the introduction of the 
 modern educational regime. Useless and stereotyped as they 
 were in later days, they once served some useful purpose. 
 Besides, the ethical background of Chinese education had 
 already been so firmly established, that, in spite of the em- 
 phasis laid by these examinations on pure literary attain- 
 ments, moral teachings have survived till this day in family 
 education and in private schools. 
 
 Although the system of awarding government posts 
 for proficiency in examinations is much better than 
 most other systems that have prevailed, such as nepo- 
 tism, bribery, threats of insurrection, etc., yet the 
 Chinese system, at any rate after it assumed its final form 
 was harmful through the fact that it was based solely 
 on the classics, that it was purely literary, and that it 
 
BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 43 
 
 allowed no scope whatever for originality. The system 
 was established in its final form by the Emperor Hung 
 Wu (1368-98), and remained unchanged until 1905. 
 One of the first objects of modern Chinese reformers 
 was to get it swept away. Li Ung Bing says : 19 
 
 In spite of the many good things that may be said to the 
 credit of Hung Wu, he will ever be remembered in connec- 
 tion with a form of evil which has eaten into the very heart 
 of the nation. This was the system of triennial examina- 
 tions, or rather the form of Chinese composition, called the 
 “Essay, : ” or the “Eight Legs,” which, for the first time in 
 the history of Chinese literature, was made the basis of all 
 literary contests. It was so-named, because after the intro- 
 duction of the theme the writer was required to treat it in 
 four paragraplis, each consisting of two members, made up 
 of an equal number of sentences and words. The theme was 
 always chosen from either the Four Books, or the Five 
 Classics. The writer could not express any opinion of his 
 own, or any views at variance with those expressed by Chu 
 Hsi and his school. All he was required to do was to put 
 the few words of Confucius, or whomsoever it might be, into 
 an essay in conformity with the prescribed rules. Degrees, 
 which were to serve as passports to Government positions, 
 w'ere awarded the best writers. To say that the training af- 
 forded by the time required to make a man efficient in the 
 art of such writing, would at the same time qualify him to 
 hold the various offices under the Government, was absurd. 
 But absurd as the whole system was, it was handed down to 
 recent times from the third year of the reign of Hung Wu, 
 and was not abolished until a few years ago. No system 
 was more perfect or effective in retarding the intellectual 
 
 I 9 Op. cit., p. 233. 
 
44 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 and literary development of a nation. With her “Eight 
 Legs/’ China long ago reached the lowest point on her down- 
 hill journey. It is largely on account of the long lease of 
 life that was granted to this rotten system that the teach- 
 ings of the Sung philosophers have been so long venerated. 
 
 These are the words of a Chinese patriot of the pres- 
 ent day, and no doubt, as a modern system, the “Eight 
 Legs” deserve all the hard things that he says about 
 them. But in the fourteenth century, when one con- 
 siders the practicable alternatives, one can see that there 
 was probably much to be said for such a plan. At any 
 rate, for good or evil, the examination system profoundly 
 affected the civilization of China. Among its good 
 effects were : a widely-diffused respect for learning ; the 
 possibility of doing without a hereditary aristocracy; 
 the selection of administrators who must at least have 
 been capable of industry ; and the preservation of 
 Chinese civilization in spite of barbarian conquest. 
 But, like so much else in traditional China, it has had to 
 be swept away to meet modern needs. I hope nothing 
 of greater value will have to perish in the struggle to 
 repel the foreign Exploiters and the fierce and cruel 
 system which they miscall civilization. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CHINA AND THE WESTERN POWERS 
 
 I N order to understand the international position of 
 China, some facts concerning its nineteenth-century 
 history are indispensable. China was for many ages 
 the supreme empire of the Far East, embracing a 
 vast and fertile area, inhabited by an industrious and 
 civilized people. Aristocracy, in our sense of the word, 
 came to an end before the beginning of the Christian era, 
 and government was in the hands of officials chosen for 
 their proficiency in writing in a dead language, as in 
 England. Intercourse with the West was spasmodic 
 and chiefly religious. In the early centuries of the 
 Christian era, Buddhism was imported from India, and 
 some Chinese scholars penetrated to that country to 
 master the theology of the new religion in its native 
 home, but in later times the intervening barbarians 
 made the journey practically impossible. Nestorian 
 Christianity reached China in the seventh century, and 
 had a good deal of influence, but died out again. (What 
 is known on this subject is chiefly from the Nestorian 
 monument discovered in Hsianfu in 1625.) In the 
 seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Roman 
 Catholic missionaries acquired considerable favor at 
 court, because of their astronomical knowledge and their 
 
 45 
 
46 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 help in rectifying the irregularities and confusions of 
 the Chinese calendar. 1 Their globes and astrolabes are 
 still to be seen on the walls of Peking. But in the long 
 run they could not resist quarrels between different 
 orders, and were almost completely excluded from both 
 China and Japan. 
 
 In the year 1793, a British ambassador, Lord Macart- 
 ney, arrived in China, to request further trade facili- 
 ties and the establishment of a permanent British dip- 
 lomatic representative. The emperor at this time was 
 Chien Lung, the best of the Mancku dynasty, a culti- 
 vated man, a patron of the arts, and an exquisite calli- 
 graphist. (One finds specimens of his writing in all 
 sorts of places in China.) His reply to King George III 
 is given by Backhouse and Bland. 2 I wish I could 
 quote it all, but some extracts must suffice. It begins : 
 
 You, 0 King, live beyond the confines of many seas, 
 nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to partake of 
 the benefits of our civilization, you have despatched a mis- 
 sion respectfully bearing your memorial. ... To show your 
 devotion, you have also sent offerings of your country’s prod- 
 uce. I have read your memorial : the earnest terms in 
 which it is cast reveal a respectful humility on your part, 
 which is highly praiseworthy. 
 
 1 In 1691 the Emperor Kang Hsi issued an edict explaining 
 
 his attitude toward various religions. Of Roman Catholicism he 
 says: “As to the western doctrine which glorifies Tien Chu, 
 
 the Lord of the Sky, that, too, is heterodox; but because its 
 priests are thoroughly conversant with mathematics, the Gov- 
 ernment makes use of them — a point which you soldiers and 
 people should understand.” (Giles, op. cit., p. 252.) 
 
 2 “Annals and Memoirs of the. Court of Peking,” pp. 322 ff. 
 
THE WESTERN POWERS 
 
 47 
 
 He goes on to explain, with the patient manner appro- 
 priate in dealing with an importunate child, why George 
 Ill’s desires cannot possibly be gratified. An ambassa- 
 dor, he assures him, would be useless, for : 
 
 If you assert that your reverence for our Celestial Dynasty 
 fills you with a desire to acquire our civilization, our cere- 
 monies and code of laws differ so completely from your own 
 that, even if your Envoy were able to acquire the rudiments 
 of our civilization, you could not possibly transplant our 
 manners and customs to your alien soil. Therefore, however 
 adept the Envoy might become, nothing would be gained 
 thereby. 
 
 Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, 
 namely, to maintain a perfect governance and to fulfill the 
 duties of the State; strange and costly objects do not inter- 
 est me. I . . . have no use for your country’s manufactures. 
 . . . It behoves you, 0 King, to respect my sentiments 
 and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in fu- 
 ture, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you 
 may secure peace and prosperity for your country here- 
 after. 
 
 He can understand the English desiring the produce 
 of China, but feels that they have nothing worth hav- 
 ing to offer in exchange : 
 
 “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific 
 abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. 
 There was therefore no need to import the manufactures 
 of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce. 
 But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial 
 Empire produces are absolute necessities to European 
 
48 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 nations and to yourselves, ’ ’ the limited trade hitherto 
 permitted at Canton is to continue. 
 
 He would have shown less favor to Lord Macartney, 
 but “I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your 
 island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of 
 sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the 
 usages of our Celestial Empire.’ ’ He concludes with 
 the injunction : ‘ ‘ Tremblingly obey and show no negli- 
 
 gence ! 9 ’ 
 
 What I want to suggest is that no one understands 
 China until this document has ceased to seem absurd. 
 The Romans claimed to rule the world, and what lay 
 outside their empire was to them of no account. The 
 empire of C.hien Lung was more extensive, with probably 
 a larger population; it had risen to greatness at the 
 same time as Rome, and had not fallen, but invariably de- 
 feated all its enemies, either by war or by absorption. 
 Its neighbors were comparatively barbarous, except the 
 Japanese, who acquired their civilization by slavish 
 imitation of China. The view of Chien Lung was no 
 more absurd than that of Alexander the Great, sighing 
 for new worlds to conquer when he had never even 
 heard of China, where Confucius had been dead already 
 for a hundred and fifty years. Nor was he mistaken as 
 regards trade: China produces everything needed for 
 the happiness of its inhabitants, and we have forced 
 trade upon them solely for our benefit, giving them in 
 exchange only things which they would do better with- 
 out. 
 
 Unfortunately for China, its culture was deficient in 
 one respect, namely, science. In art and literature, in 
 
THE WESTERN POWERS 
 
 49 
 
 manners and customs, it was at least the equal of 
 Europe; at the time of the Renaissance, Europe would 
 not have been in any way the superior of the Celestial 
 Empire. There is a museum in Peking where, side by 
 side with good Chinese art, may be seen the presents 
 which Louis XIV made to the emperor when he wished 
 to impress him with the splendor of Le Boi Soleil. 
 Compared to the Chinese things surrounding them, they 
 are tawdry and barbaric. The fact that Britain has pro- 
 duced Shakspere and Milton, Locke and Hume, and all 
 the other men who have adorned literature and the 
 arts, does not make us superior to the Chinese. What 
 makes us superior is Newton and Robert Boyle and their 
 scientific successors. They make us superior by giving 
 us greater proficiency in the art of killing. It is easier 
 for an Englishman to kill a Chinaman than for a China- 
 man to kill an Englishman. Therefore our civilization 
 is superior to that of China, and Chien Lung is absurd. 
 When we had finished with Napoleon, we soon set to 
 work to demostrate this proposition. 
 
 Our first war with China was in 1840, and was 
 fought because the Chinese Government endeavored to 
 stop the importation of opium. It ended with the ces- 
 sion of Hong-Kong and the opening of five ports to 
 British trade, as well as (soon afterward) to the trade 
 of France, America, and Scandinavia. In 1856-60, the 
 English and French jointly made war on China, and 
 destroyed the Summer Palace near Peking, 3 a building 
 whose artistic value, on account of the treasures it con- 
 
 3 The Summer Palace now shown to tourists is modern, chiefly 
 built by the empress dowager. 
 
50 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 tained, must have been about equal to that of Saint 
 Mark’s in Venice and much greater than that of Rheims 
 Cathedral. This act did much to persuade the Chinese 
 of the superiority of our civilization, so they opened 
 seven more ports and the river Yangtze, paid an idem- 
 nity and granted us more territory at Hong-Kong. In 
 1870, the Chinese were rash enough to murder a British 
 diplomat, so the remaining British diplomats demanded 
 and obtained an indemmity, five more ports, and a fixed 
 tariff for opium. Next, the French took Annam and 
 the British took Burma, both formerly under Chinese 
 suzerainty. Then came the war with Japan in 1894- 
 95, leading to Japan’s complete victory and conquest 
 of Korea. Japan’s acquisitions would have been much 
 greater but for the intervention of France, Germany, 
 and Russia, England holding aloof. This was the be- 
 ginning of our support of Japan, inspired by fear of 
 Russia. It also led to an alliance between China and 
 Russia, as a reward for which Russia acquired all the 
 important rights in Manchuria, which passed to Japan, 
 partly after the Russo-Japanese War, and partly after 
 the Bolshevik revolution. 
 
 The next incident begins with the murder of two 
 German missionaries in Shantung in 1897. Nothing in 
 their life became them like the leaving of it; for if 
 they had lived they would probably have made very few 
 converts, whereas by dying they afforded the world an 
 object-lesson in Christian ethics. The Germans seized 
 Kiaochow Bay and created a naval base there ; they also 
 acquired railroad and mining rights in Shantung, which 
 by the Treaty of Versailles, passed to Japan in accord- 
 
THE WESTERN POWERS 
 
 51 
 
 ance with the Fourteen Points. Shantung therefore be- 
 came virtually a J apanese possession, though America at 
 Washington has insisted upon its restitution. The serv- 
 ices of the two missionaries to civilization did not, how- 
 ever, end in China, for their death was constantly used 
 in the German Reichstag during the first debates on the 
 German Big Navy Bills, since it was held that war-ships 
 would make Germany respected in China. Thus they 
 helped to exacerbate the relations of England and Ger- 
 many and to hasten the advent of the Great War. 
 They also helped to bring on the Boxer rising, which is 
 said to have begun as a movement against the Germans 
 in Shantung, though the other powers emulated the 
 Germans in every respect, the Russians by creating a 
 naval base at Port Arthur, the British by acquiring 
 Wei-hai-wei and a sphere of influence in the Yangtze, 
 and so on. The Americans alone held aloof, proclaim- 
 ing the policy of Chinese integrity and the Open 
 Door. 
 
 The Boxer rising is one of the few Chinese events 
 that all Europeans know about. After we had demon- 
 strated our superior virtue by the sack of Peking, we 
 exacted a huge indemnity, and turned the Legation 
 Quarter of Peking into a fortified city. To this day, 
 it is inclosed by a wall, filled with European, American, 
 and Japanese troops, and surrounded by a bare space 
 on which the Chinese are not allowed to build. It is 
 administered by the diplomatic body, and the Chinese 
 authorities have no powers over any one within its gates. 
 When some unusually corrupt and traitorous govern- 
 ment is overthrown, its members take refuge in the 
 
52 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Japanese (or other) legation and so escape the punish- 
 ment of their crimes, while within the sacred precincts 
 of the Legation Quarter the Americans erect a vast 
 wireless station said to be capable of communicating 
 directly with the United States. And so the refutation 
 of Chien Lung is completed. 
 
 Out of the Boxer indemnity, however, one good thing 
 has come. The Americans found that, after paying all 
 just claims for damages, they still had a large surplus. 
 This they returned to China to he spent on higher 
 education, partly in colleges in China under American 
 control, partly by sending advanced Chinese students 
 to American universities. The gain to China has been 
 enormous, and the benefit to America from the friend- 
 ship of the Chinese (especially the most educated of 
 them) is incalculable. This is obvious to every one, yet 
 England shows hardly any signs of following suit. 
 
 To understand the difficulties with which the Chinese 
 Government is faced, it is necessary to realize the loss 
 of fiscal independence which China has suffered as the 
 result of the various wars and treaties which have been 
 forced upon her. In the early days, the Chinese had no 
 experience of European diplomacy, and did not know 
 what to avoid ; in later days, they have not been allowed 
 to treat old treaties as scraps of paper, since that is the 
 prerogative of the great powers — a prerogative which 
 every single one of them exercises. 
 
 The best example of this state of affairs is the customs 
 tariff . 4 At the end of our first war with China, in 
 
 4 There is an admirable account of this question in Chap. VIII 
 of Sih-Gung Cheng’s “Modern China,” Clarendon Press, 1919. 
 
THE WESTERN POWERS 
 
 53 
 
 1842, we concluded a treaty which provided for a duty 
 at treaty ports of 5 per cent, on all imports and not 
 more than 5 per cent, on exports. This treaty is the 
 basis of the whole customs system. At the end of our 
 next war, in 1858, we drew up a schedule of conventional 
 prices on which the 5 per cent, was to be calculated. 
 This was to be revised every ten years, but has in fact 
 only been revised twice, once in 1902 and once in 1918. 5 
 Revision of the schedule is merely a change in the con- 
 ventional prices, not a change in the tariff which remains 
 fixed at 5 per cent. Change in the tariff is practically 
 impossible, since China has concluded commercial 
 treaties involving a most-favored-nation clause, and 
 the same tariff, with twelve states besides Great 
 Britain, and therefore any change in the tariff requires 
 the unanimous consent of thirteen powers. 
 
 When foreign powers speak of the Open Door as a 
 panacea for China, it must be remembered that the Open 
 Door does nothing to give the Chinese the usual auton- 
 omy as regards customs that is enjoyed by other sover- 
 eign states. 6 The treaty of 1842, on which the system 
 rests, has no time-limit or provision for denunciation 
 by either party, such as other commercial treaties con- 
 tain. A low tariff suits the powers that wish to find a 
 market for their goods in China, and they have there- 
 
 5 A new revision has been decided upon by the Washington 
 conference. 
 
 6 If you lived in a town where the burglars had obtained pos- 
 session of the town council, they would very likely insist upon 
 the policy of the Open Door, but you might not consider it 
 wholly satisfactory. Such is China’s situation among the great 
 powers. 
 
54 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 fore no motive for consenting to any alteration. In 
 the past, when we practised free trade, we could defend 
 ourselves by saying that the policy we forced upon 
 China was the same as that which we adopted ourselves. 
 But no other nation could make this excuse, nor can 
 we know that we have abandoned free trade by the Safe- 
 guarding of Industries Act. 
 
 The import tariff being so low, the Chinese Govern- 
 ment is compelled, for the sake of revenue, to charge 
 the maximum of 5 per cent, on all exports. This, of 
 course, hinders the development of Chinese commerce, 
 and is probably a mistake. But the need of sources of 
 revenue is desperate, and it is not surprising that the 
 Chinese authorities should consider the tax indispen- 
 sable. 
 
 There is also another system in China, chiefly in- 
 herited from the time of the Taiping Rebellion, namely, 
 the erection of internal customs barriers at various im- 
 portant points. This plan is still adopted with the 
 internal trade. But merchants dealing with the inte- 
 rior and sending goods to or from a treaty port can 
 escape internal customs by the payment of half the 
 duty charged under the external tariff. As this is gen- 
 erally less than the internal tariff charges, this provi- 
 sion favors foreign produce at the expense of that of 
 China. Of course the system of internal customs is 
 bad, but it is traditional, and is defended on the ground 
 that revenue is indispensable. China offered to abolish 
 internal customs in return for certain uniform increases 
 in the import and export tariff, and Great Britain, 
 Japan, and the United States consented. But there 
 
THE WESTERN POWERS 
 
 55 
 
 were ten other powers whose consent was necessary, 
 and not all could be induced to agree. So the old sys- 
 tem remains in force, not chiefly through the fault of 
 the Chinese central government. It should be added 
 that internal customs are collected by the provincial 
 authorities, who usually intercept them and use them 
 for private armies and civil war. At the present time, 
 the central government is not strong enough to stop 
 these abuses. 
 
 The administration of the customs is only partially 
 in the hands of the Chinese. By treaty, the inspector- 
 general, who is at the head of the service, must be 
 British so long as our trade with China exceeds that 
 of any other treaty state; and the appointment of all 
 subordinate officials is in his hands. In 1918 (the latest 
 year for which I have the figures) there were 7500 per- 
 sons employed in the customs, and of these 2000 were 
 non-Chinese. The first inspector-general was Sir Robert 
 Hart, who, by the unanimous testimony of all parties, 
 fulfilled his duties exceedingly well. For the time be- 
 ing, there is much to be said for the present system. 
 The Chinese have the appointment of the inspector- 
 general, and can therefore choose a man who is sym- 
 pathetic to their country. Chinese officials are, as a 
 rule, corrupt and indolent, so that control by foreigners 
 is necessary in creating a modern bureaucracy. So 
 long as the foreign officials are responsible to the 
 Chinese Government, not to foreign states, they fulfill 
 a useful educative function, and help to prepare the 
 way for the creation of an efficient Chinese state. The 
 problem for China is to secure practical and intellec- 
 
56 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 tual training from the white nations without becoming 
 their slaves. In dealing with this problem, the system 
 adopted in the customs has much to recommend it dur- 
 ing the early stages . 7 
 
 At the same time, there are grave infringements of 
 Chinese independence in the present position of the 
 customs, apart altogether from the fact that the tariff 
 is fixed by treaty forever. Much of the revenue de- 
 rivable from customs is mortgaged for various loans 
 and indemnities, so that the customs cannot be dealt 
 with from the point of view of Chinese interests alone. 
 Moreover, in the present state of anarchy, the customs 
 administration can exercise considerable control over 
 Chinese politics by recognizing or not recognizing a 
 given de facto government. (There is no government 
 de jure, at any rate in the North.) At present, the 
 customs revenue is withheld in the South, and an arti- 
 ficial bankruptcy is being engineered. In view of the 
 reactionary instincts of diplomats, this constitutes a 
 terrible obstacle to internal reform. It means that no 
 government which is in earnest in attempting to intro- 
 
 7 “The Times” of November 26, 1921, had a leading article on 
 Mr. Wellington Koo’s suggestion, at Washington, that China 
 ought to be allowed to recover fiscal autonomy as regards the 
 tariff. Mr. Koo did not deal with the customs administration, 
 nevertheless “The Times” assumed that his purpose was to get 
 the administration into the hands of the Chinese on account of 
 the opportunities of lucrative corruption which it would af- 
 ford. I wrote to “The Times” pointing out that they had con- 
 fused the administration with the tariff, and that Mr. Koo was 
 dealing only with the tariff. In view of the fact that they did 
 not print either my letter or any other to the same effect, are 
 we to conclude that their misrepresentation was deliberate and 
 intentional ? 
 
THE WESTERN POWERS 
 
 57 
 
 duce radical improvements can hope to enjoy the cus- 
 toms revenue, which interposes a formidable fiscal 
 barrier in the way of reconstruction. 
 
 There is a similar situation as regards the salt tax. 
 This also was accepted as security for various foreign 
 loans, and in order to make the security acceptable the 
 foreign powers concerned insisted upon the employment 
 of foreigners in the principal posts. As in the case of 
 the customs, the foreign inspectors are appointed by the 
 Chinese Government, and the situation is in all respects 
 similar to that existing as regards the customs. 
 
 The customs and the salt tax form the security for 
 various loans to China. This, together with foreign ad- 
 ministration, gives opportunities of interference by the 
 powers which they show no inclination to neglect. The 
 way in which the situation is utilized may be illustrated 
 by three telegrams in “The Times” which appeared 
 during January of this year. 
 
 On January 14, 1922, “The Times” published the fol- 
 lowing in a telegram from its Peking correspondent: 
 
 It is curious to reflect that this country (China) could be 
 rendered completely solvent and the Government provided 
 with a substantial income almost by a stroke of the foreign- 
 er’s pen, while without that stroke there must be bank- 
 ruptcy, pure and simple. Despite constant civil war and 
 political chaos, the Customs revenue consistently grows, and 
 last year exceeded all records by £1,000,000. The increased 
 duties sanctioned by the Washington Conference will pro- 
 vide sufficient revenue to liquidate the whole foreign and 
 domestic floating debt in a very few years, leaving the 
 splendid salt surplus unencumbered for the Government. 
 
58 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 The difficulty is not to provide money, but to find a Govern- 
 ment to which to entrust it. Nor is there any visible pros- 
 pect of the removal of this difficulty. 
 
 I venture to think “The Times’ ’ would regard the dif- 
 ficulty as removed if the Manchu Empire were restored. 
 
 As to the “splendid salt surplus,” there are two tele- 
 grams from the Peking correspondent to “The Times” 
 (of January 12 and 23, respectively) showing what we 
 gain by making the Peking government artificially bank- 
 rupt. The first telegram (sent on January 10) is as 
 follows : — 
 
 Present conditions in China are aptly illustrated by what 
 is happening in one of the great salt revenue stations on the 
 Yangtsze, near Chinkiang. That portion of the Chinese fleet 
 faithful to the Central Government — the better half went 
 over to the Canton Government long ago — has dispatched a 
 squadron of gunboats to the salt station and notified Peking 
 that if $3,000,000 (about £400,000) arrears of pay were not 
 immediately forthcoming the amount would be forcibly re- 
 covered from the revenue. Meanwhile the immense salt traffic 
 on the Yangtsze has been suspended. The Legations con- 
 cerned have now sent an Identic Note to the Government 
 warning it of the necessity for immediately securing the re- 
 moval of the obstruction to the traffic and to the operations 
 of the foreign collectorate. 
 
 The second telegram is equally interesting. It is as 
 follows : 
 
 The question of interference with the Salt Gabelle is as- 
 suming a serious aspect. The Chinese squadron of gunboats 
 referred to in my message of the 10th is still blocking the 
 
THE WESTERN POWERS 
 
 59 
 
 salt traffic near Chinldang, while »a new intruder in the shape 
 of an agent of Wu-Pei-Fu [the Liberal military leader] has 
 installed himself in the collectorate at Hankow, and is 
 endeavoring to appropriate the receipts for his powerful 
 master. The British, French, and Japanese Ministers accord- 
 ingly have again addressed the Government, giving notice 
 that if these irregular proceedings do not cease they will 
 be compelled to take independent action. The Reorganiza- 
 tion Loan of £25,000,000 is secured on the salt revenues, 
 and interference with the foreign control of the department 
 constitutes an infringement of the loan agreement. In va- 
 rious parts of China, some independent of Peking, others 
 not, the local Tucliuns (military governors) impound the 
 collections and materially diminish the total coming under 
 the control of the foreign inspectorate, but the balance re- 
 maining has been so large, and protest so useless, that 
 hitherto all concerned have considered it expedient to ac- 
 quiesce. But interference at points on the Yangtsze, where 
 naval force can be brought to bear, is another matter. The 
 situation is interesting in view of the amiable resolutions 
 adopted at Washington, by which the Powers would seem to 
 have debarred themselves, in the future, from any active 
 form of intervention in this country. In view of the exten- 
 sive opposition to the Liang Sliih-yi Cabinet and the pres- 
 ent interference with the salt negotiations, the $90,000,000 
 (£11,000,000) loan to be secured on the salt surplus has been 
 dropped. The problem of how to weather the new year 
 settlement on January 28th remains unsolved. 
 
 It is a pretty game: creating artificial bankruptcy, 
 and then inflicting punishment for the resulting an- 
 archy. How regrettable that the Washington confer- 
 ence should attempt to interfere! 
 
60 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 It is useless to deny that the Chinese have brought 
 these troubles upon themselves, by their inability to pro- 
 duce capable and honest officials. This inability has its 
 roots in Chinese ethics, which lay stress upon a man’s 
 duty to his family rather than to the public. An of- 
 ficial is expected to keep all his relations supplied with 
 funds, and therefore can only be honest at the expense 
 of filial piety. The decay of the family system is a 
 vital condition of progress in China. All Young China 
 realizes this, and one may hope that twenty years hence 
 the level of honesty among officials may not be lower in 
 China than in Europe — no very extravagant hope. 
 But for this purpose friendly contact with Western 
 nations is essential. If we insist upon rousing Chinese 
 nationalism as we have roused that of India and Japan, 
 the ‘Chinese will begin to think that wherever they differ 
 from Europe, they differ for the better. There is more 
 truth in this than Europeans like to think, but it is not 
 wholly true, and if it comes to be believed our power 
 for good in China will be at an end. 
 
 I have described briefly in this chapter what the 
 Christian powers did to China while they were able to 
 act independently of Japan. But in modern China it 
 is Japanese aggression that is the most urgent problem. 
 Before considering this, however, we must deal briefly 
 with the rise of modern Japan — a quite peculiar blend 
 of East and West, which I hope is not prophetic of the 
 blend to be ultimately achieved in China. But before 
 passing to Japan, I will give a brief description of the 
 social and political condition of modem China, without 
 which Japan’s action in China would be unintelligible. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MODERN CHINA 
 
 HE position of China among the nations of the 
 
 world is quite peculiar, because in population and 
 potential strength China is the greatest nation in the 
 world, while in actual strength at the moment it is one 
 of the least. The international problems raised by this 
 situation have been brought into the forefront of world- 
 politics by the Washington conference. What settle- 
 ment, if any, will ultimately be arrived at, it is as yet 
 impossible to foresee. There are, however, certain 
 broad facts and principles which no wise solution can 
 ignore, for which I shall try to give the evidence in the 
 course of the following chapters, but which it may be 
 as well to state briefly at the outset. First, the Chinese, 
 though as yet incompetent in politics and backward in 
 economic development, have, in other respects, a civili- 
 zation at least as good as our own, containing elements 
 ■which the world greatly needs, and which we shall de- 
 stroy at our peril. Secondly, the powers have inflicted 
 upon China a multitude of humiliations and disabilities, 
 for which excuses have been found in China’s misdeeds, 
 but for which the sole reason has been China’s military 
 and naval weakness. Thirdly, the best of the great 
 powers at present, in relation to China, is America, and 
 
 61 
 
62 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 the worst is Japan; in the interests of China, as well as 
 in our own larger interests, it is an immense advance 
 that we have ceased to support Japan and have ranged 
 ourselves on the side of America, in so far as America 
 stands for Chinese freedom, but not when Japanese free- 
 dom is threatened. Fourthly, in the long run, the Chi- 
 nese cannot escape economic domination by foreign pow- 
 ers unless China becomes military or the foreign powers 
 become Socialistic, because the capitalist system involves 
 in its very essence a predatory relation of the strong to- 
 ward the weak, internationally as well as nationally. 
 A strong military China would be a disaster; therefore 
 socialism in Europe and America affords the only ul- 
 timate solution. 
 
 After these preliminary remarks, I come to the theme 
 of this chapter, namely, the present internal condition 
 of China. 
 
 As every one knows, China, after having an emperor 
 for forty centuries, decided, eleven years ago, to become 
 a modern democratic republic. Many causes led up to 
 this result. Passing over the first 3700 years of Chinese 
 history, we arrive at the Manchu conquest in 1644,, when 
 a warlike invader from the north succeeded in establish- 
 ing himself upon the Dragon Throne. He set to work 
 to induce Chinese men to wear pigtails and Chinese 
 women to have big feet. After a time a statesmanlike 
 compromise was arranged: pigtails were adopted but 
 big feet were rejected ; the new absurdity was accepted 
 and the old one retained. This characteristic com- 
 promise shows how much England and China have in 
 common. 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 63 
 
 The Manchu emperors soon became almost completely 
 Chinese, bnt the differences of dress and manners kept 
 the Manchns distinct from the more civilized people 
 whom they had conquered, and the Chinese remained 
 inwardly hostile to them. Fibm 1840 to 1900, a series 
 of disastrous foreign wars, culminating in the humilia- 
 tion of the Boxer time, destroyed the prestige of the 
 imperial family and showed all thoughtful people the 
 need of learning from Europeans. The Taiping Rebel- 
 lion, which lasted for fifteen years (1849-64), is thought 
 by Putnam Weale to have diminished the population by 
 150 millions, 1 and was almost as terrible a business as 
 the Great War. For a long time it seemed doubtful 
 whether the Manchus could suppress it, and when at 
 last they succeeded (by the help of Gordon) their energy 
 was exhausted. The defeat of China by Japan (1894- 
 95) and the vengeance of the powers after the Boxer 
 rising (1900) finally opened the eyes of all thoughtful 
 Chinese to the need for a better and more modern 
 government than that of the imperial family. But 
 things move slowly in China, and it was not till eleven 
 years after the Boxer movement that the revolution 
 broke out. 
 
 The revolution of 1911, in China, was a moderate one, 
 similar in spirit to ours of 1688. Its chief promoter, 
 
 i “The Truth about China and Japan,” Allen & Unwin, 1921, 
 p. 14. On the other hand Sih-Gung Cheng (“Modern China,” 
 p. 13) says that it “killed twenty million people,” which is 
 the more usual estimate, of “China for the Chinese” by E. T. C. 
 Werner, p. 24. The extent to which the population was dimin- 
 ished is not accurately known, but I have no doubt that twenty 
 millions is nearer the truth than 150 millions, 
 
64 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Sun Yat Sen, now at the head of the Canton govern- 
 ment, was supported by the Republicans, and was elected 
 provisional president. But the Northern army re- 
 mained faithful to the dynasty, and could probably have 
 defeated the revolutionaries. Its commander-in-chief, 
 Yuan !Shih-k’ai, however, hit upon a better scheme. He 
 made peace with the revolutionaries and acknowledged 
 the republic, on condition that he should be the first 
 president instead of Sun Yat Sen. Yuan Shih-k’ai was, 
 of course, supported by the Legations, being what is 
 called a “strong man,” i. e., a believer in blood and 
 iron, not likely to be led astray by talk about democracy 
 or freedom. In China, the North has always been more 
 military and less liberal than the South, and Yuan Shih- 
 k’ai had created out of Northern troops whatever China 
 possessed in the way of a modern army. As he was also 
 ambitious and treacherous, he had every quality needed 
 for inspiring confidence in the diplomatic corps. In 
 view of the chaos which has existed since his death, it 
 must be admitted, however, that there was something 
 to be said in favor of his policy and methods. 
 
 A constituent assembly, after enacting a provisional 
 constitution, gave place to a duly elected parliament, 
 which met in April, 1913, to determine the permanent 
 constitution. Yuan soon began to quarrel with the 
 parliament as to the powers of the president, which the 
 parliament wished to restrict. The majority in parlia- 
 ment was opposed to Yuan, but he had the preponder- 
 ance in military strength. Under these circumstances, 
 as was to be expected, constitutionalism was soon over- 
 thrown. Yuan made himself financially independent of 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 65 
 
 parliament (which had been duly endowed with the 
 power of the purse) by unconstitutionally concluding a 
 loan with the foreign bankers. This led to a revolt of 
 the South, which, however, Yuan quickly suppressed. 
 After this, by various stages, he made himself virtually 
 absolute ruler of China. He appointed his army lieu- 
 tenants military governors of provinces, and sent North- 
 ern troops into the South. His regime might have 
 lasted but for the fact that, in 1915, he tried to become 
 emperor, and was met by a successful revolt. He died 
 in 1916 — of a broken heart, it was said. 
 
 Since then there has been nothing but confusion in 
 China. The military governors appointed by Yuan re- 
 fused to submit to the central government when his 
 strong hand was removed, and their troops terrorized 
 the populations upon whom they were quartered. Ever 
 since there has been civil war, not, as a rule for any 
 definite principle, but simply to determine which of 
 various rival generals should govern various groups of 
 provinces. There still remains the issue of North versus 
 South, but this has lost most of its constitutional signif- 
 icance. 
 
 The military governors of provinces or groups of 
 provinces, who are called tuchuns, govern despotically 
 in defiance of Peking, and commit depredations on the 
 inhabitants of the districts over which they rule. They 
 intercept the revenue, except the portions collected and 
 administered by foreigners, such as the salt tax. They 
 are nominally appointed by Peking, but in practice de- 
 pend only upon the favor of the soldiers in their prov- 
 inces. The central government is nearly bankrupt, and 
 
66 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 is usually unable to pay the soldiers, who live by loot 
 and by such portions of the tucliun’s ill-gotten wealth 
 as he finds it prudent to surrender to them. When any 
 faction seemed near to complete victory, the Japanese 
 supported its opponents, in order that civil discord 
 might be prolonged. While I was in Peking, the three 
 most important tuchuns met there for a conference on 
 the division of the spoils. They were barely civil to the 
 president and the prime minister, who still officially 
 represent China in the eyes of foreign powers. The un- 
 fortunate nominal government was obliged to pay to 
 these three worthies, out of a bankrupt treasury, a sum 
 which the newspapers stated to be nine million dollars, 
 to secure their departure from the capital. The largest 
 share went to Chang-tso-lin, the viceroy of Manchuria 
 and commonly said to be a tool of Japan. His share 
 was paid to cover the expenses of an expedition to Mon- 
 golia, which had revolted ; but no one for a moment sup- 
 posed that he would undertake such an expedition, and 
 in fact he has remained at Mukden ever since. 2 
 
 In the extreme South, however, there has been es- 
 tablished a government of a different sort, for which it 
 is possible to have some respect. Canton, which has al- 
 ways been the center of Chinese radicalism, succeeded, 
 in the autumn of 1920, in throwing off the tyranny of its 
 Northern garrison and establishing a progressive efficient 
 government under the presidency of Sun Yat Sen. 
 This government now embraces two provinces,, Kwang- 
 
 2 In January, 1922, lie came to Peking to establish a more 
 subservient government, the dismissal of which has been ordered 
 by Wu-Pei-Fu. A clash is imminent. See Appendix. 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 67 
 
 tung (of which Canton is the capital) and Kwangsi. 
 For a moment it seemed likely to conquer the whole of 
 the South, but it has been checked by the victories of the 
 Northern General Wu-Pei-Fu in the neighboring prov- 
 ince of Hunan. Its enemies allege that it cherishes 
 designs of conquest, and wishes to unite all China under 
 its sway . 3 In all ascertainable respects it is a govern- 
 ment which deserves the support of all progressive 
 people. Professor Dewey, in articles in “The New Re- 
 public, ” has set forth its merits, as well as the bitter 
 enmity which it has encountered from Hong-Kong and 
 the British generally. This opposition is partly on gen- 
 eral principles, because we dislike radical reform, partly 
 because of the Cassel agreement. This agreement — of a 
 common type in China — would have given us a virtual 
 monopoly of the railways and mines in the province of 
 Kwangtung. It had been concluded with the former 
 government, and only awaited ratification, but the change 
 of government has made ratification impossible. The 
 new government, very properly, is befriended by the 
 Americans, and one of them, Mr. Shank, concluded an 
 agreement with the new government more or less sim- 
 ilar to that which we had concluded with the old one. 
 The American Government, however, did not support 
 Mr. Shank, whereas the British Government did support 
 the Cassel agreement. Meanwhile we have lost a very 
 
 3 The blame for this is put upon Sun Yat Sen, who is said 
 to have made an alliance with Chang-tso-lin. The best element 
 in the Canton government was said to be represented by Sun's 
 colleague General Cheng Chiung Ming, who is now reported to 
 have been dismissed (“The Times,” April 24, 1922). These 
 statements are apparently unfounded. See Appendix. 
 
68 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 valuable though very iniquitous concession, merely be- 
 cause we, but not the Americans, prefer what is old and 
 corrupt to what is vigorous and honest. I understand, 
 moreover, that the Shank agreement lapsed because Mr. 
 Shank could not raise the necessary capital. 
 
 The anarchy in China is, of course, very regrettable, 
 and every friend of China must hope that it will be 
 brought to an end. But it would be a mistake to ex- 
 aggerate the evil, or to suppose that it is comparable in 
 magnitude to the evils endured in Europe. China must 
 not be compared to a single European country, but to 
 Europe as a whole. In “The Times” of November 11, 
 1921, I notice a pessimistic article headed : ‘ ‘ The Peril 
 of China. A dozen rival Governments.” But in Eu- 
 rope there are much more than a dozen governments, 
 and their enmities are much fiercer than those of China. 
 The number of troops in Europe is enormously greater 
 than in China, and they are infinitely better provided 
 with weapons of destruction. The amount of fighting 
 in Europe since the armistice has been incomparably 
 more than the amount in China during the same period. 
 You may travel through China from end to end, and it 
 is ten to one that you will see no signs of war. Chinese 
 battles are seldom bloody, being fought by mercenary 
 soldiers who take no interest in the cause for which they 
 are supposed to be fighting. I am inclined to think 
 that the inhabitants of China, at the present moment, 
 are happier, on the average, than the inhabitants of Eu- 
 rope, taken as a whole. 
 
 It is clear, I think, that political reform in China, 
 when it becomes possible, will have to take the form of 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 69 
 
 a federal constitution, allowing a very large measure of 
 autonomy to the provinces. The division into provinces 
 is very ancient, and provincial feeling is strong. After 
 the revolution, a constitution more or less resembling our 
 own was attempted, only with a president instead of a 
 king. But the successful working of a non-federal con- 
 stitution requires a homogeneous population without 
 much local feeling, as may be seen from our own ex- 
 perience in Ireland. Most progressive Chinese, as far 
 as I was able to judge, now favor a federal constitution, 
 leaving to the central government not much except arma- 
 ments, foreign affairs, and customs. But the difficulty 
 of getting rid of the existing military anarchy is very 
 great. The central government cannot disband the 
 troops, because it cannot find the money to pay them. 
 It would be necessary to borrow from abroad enough 
 money to pay off the troops and establish them in new 
 jobs. But it is doubtful whether any power or powers 
 would make such a loan without exacting the sacrifice 
 of the last remnants of Chinese independence. One 
 must therefore hope that somehow the Chinese will find 
 a way of escaping their troubles without too much for- 
 eign assistance. 
 
 It is by no means impossible that one of the tuchuns 
 may become supreme, and may then make friends with 
 the constitutionalists as the best way of consolidating 
 his influence. China is a country where public opinion 
 has great weight, and where the desire to be thought 
 well of may quite possibly lead a successful militarist 
 into patriotic courses. There are, at the moment, two 
 tuchuns who are more important than any of the others. 
 
70 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 These are Chang-tso-lin and 'Wu-Pei-Fu, both of whom 
 have been already mentioned. Chang-tso-lin is supreme 
 in Manchuria, and strong in Japanese support; he rep- 
 resents all that is most reactionary in China. Wu-Pei- 
 Fu, on the other hand, is credited with liberal tendencies. 
 He is an able general; not long ago, nominally at the 
 bidding of Peking, he established his authority on the 
 Yangtze and in Hunan, thereby dealing a blow to the 
 hopes of Canton. It is not easy to see how he could 
 come to terms with the Canton government, especially 
 since it has allied itself with Chang-tso-lin, but in the 
 rest of China he might establish his authority and seek 
 to make it permanent by being constitutional (see Ap- 
 pendix). If so, China might have a breathing-space, 
 and a breathing-space is all that is needed. 
 
 The economic life of China, except in the treaty ports 
 and in a few regions where there are mines, is still 
 wholly pre-industrial. Peking has nearly a million in- 
 habitants, and covers an enormous area, owing to the fact 
 that all the houses have only a ground floor and are 
 built round a courtyard. Yet it has no trams or buses 
 or local trains. So far as I could see, there are not more 
 than two or three factory chimneys in the whole town. 
 Apart from begging, trading, thieving, and government 
 employment, people live by handicrafts. The products 
 are exquisite and the work less monotonous than 
 machine-minding, but the hours are long and the pay 
 infinitesimal. 
 
 Seventy or 80 per cent, of the population of China 
 are engaged in agriculture. Rice and tea are the chief 
 products of the South, while wheat and other kinds of 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 71 
 
 grain form the staple crops in the North. 4 The rain- 
 fall is very great in the South, but in the North it is 
 only just sufficient to prevent the land from being a 
 desert. When I arrived in China, in the autumn of 
 1920, a large area in the North, owing to drought, was 
 afflicted with a terrible famine, nearly as bad, probably, 
 as the famine in Russia in 1921. As the Bolsheviks 
 were not concerned, foreigners had no hesitation in try- 
 ing to bring relief. As for the Chinese, they regarded 
 it passively as a stroke of fate, and even those who died 
 of it shared this view. 
 
 Most of the land is in the hands of peasant pro- 
 prietors, who divide their holdings among their sons, so 
 that each man’s share becomes barely sufficient to sup- 
 port himself and his family. Consequently, when the 
 rainfall is less than usual, immense numbers perish of 
 starvation. It would of course be possible, for a time, 
 to prevent famines by more scientific methods of agri- 
 culture, and to prevent droughts and floods by afforesta- 
 tion. More railways and better roads would give a 
 vastly improved market, and might greatly enrich the 
 peasants for a generation. But in the long run, if the 
 birth-rate is as great as is usually supposed, no per- 
 manent cure for their poverty is possible while their 
 families continue to be so large. In China, Malthus’s 
 theory of population, according to many writers, finds 
 full scope. 5 If so, the good done by any improvement 
 
 4 The soya bean is rapidly becoming an important product, 
 especially in Manchuria. 
 
 5 There are, however, no accurate statistics as to the birth- 
 rate or the death-rate in China, and some writers question 
 
72 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 of methods will lead to the survival of more children, 
 involving* a greater subdivision of the land, and in the 
 end, a return to the same degree of poverty. Only edu- 
 cation and a higher standard of life can remove the 
 fundamental cause of these evils. And popular educa- 
 tion on a large scale, is of course impossible until there 
 is a better government and an adequate revenue. Apart 
 even from these difficulties, there does not exist, as yet, 
 a sufficient supply of competent Chinese teachers for a 
 system of universal education. 
 
 Apart from war, the impact of European civilization 
 upon the traditional life of China takes two forms, one 
 commercial, the other intellectual. Both depend upon 
 the prestige of armaments; the Chinese would never 
 have opened either their ports to our trade or their 
 minds to our ideas if we had not defeated them in war. 
 But the military beginning of our intercourse with the 
 Middle Kingdom has now receded into the background; 
 one is not conscious, in any class, of a strong hostility 
 to foreigners as such. It would not be difficult to make 
 out a case for the view that intercourse with the white 
 races in proving a misfortune to China, but apparently 
 this view is not taken by any one in China except where 
 unreasoning conservative prejudice outweighs all other 
 
 whether the birth-rate is really very large. From a privately 
 printed pamphlet by my friend Mr. V. K. Ting, I learn that 
 Dr. Lennox, of the Peking Union Medical College, from a care- 
 ful study of 4000 families, found that the average number of 
 children (dead and living) per family was 2.1, while the infant 
 mortality was 184.1. Other investigations are quoted to show 
 that the birth-rate near Peking is between 30 and 50. In the 
 absence of statistics, generalizations about the population ques- 
 tion in China must be received with extreme caution. 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 73 
 
 considerations. The Chinese have a very strong instinct 
 for trade, and a considerable intellectual curiosity, to 
 both of which we appeal. Only a bare minimum of 
 common decency is required to secure their friendship, 
 whether privately or politically. And I think their 
 thought is as capable of enriching our culture as their 
 commerce of enriching our pockets. 
 
 In the treaty ports, Europeans and Americans live 
 in their own quarters, with streets well paved and 
 lighted, houses in European style, and shops full of 
 American and English goods. There is generally also 
 a Chinese part of the town, with narrow streets, gaily 
 decorated shops, and the rich mixture of smells char- 
 acteristic of China. Often one passes through a gate, 
 suddenly, from one to the other ; after the cheerful dis- 
 ordered beauty of the old town, Europe’s ugly cleanli- 
 ness and Sunday-go-to-meeting decency make a strange 
 complex impression, half love and half hate. In the 
 European town one finds safety, spaciousness and hy- 
 giene ; in the Chinese town, romance, overcrowding, and 
 disease. In spite of my affection for China, these tran- 
 sitions always made me realize that I am a European; 
 for me, the Chinese manner of life would not mean 
 happiness. But after making all necessary deductions 
 for the poverty and the disease, I am inclined to think 
 that Chinese life brings more happiness to the Chinese 
 than English life does to us. At any rate this seemed 
 to me to be true for the men; for the women I do not 
 think it would be true. 
 
 Shanghai and Tientsin are white men’s cities; the 
 first sight of Shanghai makes one wonder what is the 
 
74 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 use of traveling, because there is so little change from 
 what one is used to. Treaty ports, each of which is a 
 center of European influence, exist practically all over 
 China, not only on the sea coast. Hankow, a very im- 
 portant treaty port, is almost exactly in the center of 
 China. North and South China are divided by the 
 Yangtze; East and West China are divided by the route 
 from Peking to Canton. These two dividing lines meet 
 at Hankow, which has long been an important strategi- 
 cal point in Chinese history. From Peking to Hankow 
 there is a railway, formerly Franco-Belgian, now owned 
 by the Chinese Government. From Wuchang, opposite 
 Hankow on the southern bank of the river, there is to 
 be a railway to Canton, but at present it only runs half- 
 way, to Changsha, also a treaty port. The completion 
 of the railway, together with improved docks, will 
 greatly increase the importance of Canton and diminish 
 that of Honk-Kong. 
 
 In the treaty ports commerce is the principal busi- 
 ness; but in the lower Yangtze and in certain mining 
 districts there are beginnings of industrialism. China 
 produces large amounts of raw cotton, which are mostly 
 manipulated by primitive methods ; but there are a cer- 
 tain number of cotton-mills on modern lines. If low 
 wages meant cheap labor for the employer, there would 
 be little hope for Lancashire, because in Southern China 
 the cotton is grown on the spot, the climate is damp, 
 and there is an inexhaustible supply of industrious 
 coolies ready to work very long hours for wages upon 
 which an English working-man would find it literally 
 impossible to keep body and soul together. Neverthe- 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 75 
 
 less, it is not the underpaid Chinese coolie whom Lan- 
 cashire has to fear, and China will not become a formi- 
 dable competitor until improvement in methods and 
 education enables the Chinese workers to earn good 
 wages. Meanwhile, in China, as in every other country, 
 the beginnings of industry are sordid and cruel. The 
 intellectuals wish to be told of some less horrible method 
 by which their country may be industrialized, but so far 
 none is in sight. 
 
 The intelligentsia in China has a very peculiar posi- 
 tion, unlike that which it has in any other country. 
 Hereditary aristocracy has been practically extinct in 
 China for about two thousand years, and foi* many 
 centuries the country has been governed by the success- 
 ful candidates in competitive examinations. This has 
 given to the educated the kind* of prestige elsewhere 
 belonging to a governing aristocracy. Although the old 
 traditional education is fast dying out, and higher edu- 
 cation now teaches modern subjects, the prestige of 
 education has survived, and public opinion is still ready 
 to be influenced by those who have intellectual qualifi- 
 cations. The tuchuns, many of whom, including Chang- 
 tso-lin, have begun by being brigands , 6 are, of course, 
 mostly too stupid and ignorant to share this attitude, 
 
 6 I repeat what everybody, Chinese or foreign, told me. Mr. 
 Bland, per contra, describes Chang-tso-lin as a polished Confu- 
 cian. Contrast p. 104 of his “China, Japan and Korea” with 
 pp. 143, 146 of Coleman’s “The Far East Unveiled,” which gives 
 the view of everybody except Mr. Bland. Lord Northcliffe had 
 an interview with Chang-tso-lin reported in “The Times” re- 
 cently, but he was, of course, unable to estimate Chang-tso-lin’s 
 claims to literary culture. 
 
76 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 but that in itself makes their regime weak and unstable. 
 The influence of Young China — i. e., of those who have 
 been educated either abroad or in modern colleges at 
 home — is far greater than it would be in a country with 
 less respect for learning. This is,, perhaps, the most 
 hopeful feature in the situation, because the number of 
 modern students is rapidly increasing, and their out- 
 look and aims are admirable. In another ten years or 
 so they will probably be strong enough to regenerate 
 China — if only the powers will allow ten years to elapse 
 without taking any drastic action. 
 
 It is important to try to understand the outlook and 
 potentialities of Young China. Most of my time was 
 spent among those Chinese who had had a modern educa- 
 tion, and I should like to give some idea of their mental- 
 ity. It seemed to me that one could already distinguish 
 two generations: the older men, who had fought their 
 way with great difficulty and almost in solitude out of 
 the traditional Confucian prejudices; and the younger 
 men, who had found modern schools and colleges waiting 
 for them, containing a whole world of modern-minded 
 people ready to give sympathy and encouragement in the 
 inevitable fight against the family. The older men — 
 men varying in age from thirty to fifty — have gone 
 through an inward and outward struggle resembling 
 that of the rationalists of Darwin’s and Mill’s genera- 
 tion. They have had, painfully and with infinite diffi- 
 culty, to free their minds from the beliefs instilled in 
 youth, and to turn their thoughts to a new science and a 
 new ethic. Imagine, say, Plotinus recalled from the 
 shades and miraculously compelled to respect Mr. Henry 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 77 
 
 Ford; this will give you some idea of the centuries 
 across which these men have had to travel in becoming 
 European. Some of them are a little weary with the 
 effort, their forces somewhat spent and their originality 
 no longer creative. But this can astonish no one who 
 realizes the internal revolution they have achieved in 
 their own minds. 
 
 It must not be supposed that an able Chinaman, when 
 he masters our culture, becomes purely imitative. 
 This may happen among the second-rate Chinese, 
 especially when they turn Christians, but it does not 
 happen among the best. They remain Chinese, critical 
 of European civilization even when they have assimi- 
 lated it. They retain a certain crystal candor and a 
 touching belief in the efficacy of moral forces; the in- 
 dustrial revolution has not yet affected their mental 
 processes. When they become persuaded of the impor- 
 tance of some opinion, they try to spread it by setting 
 forth the reasons in its favor ; they do not hire the front 
 page of newspapers for advertising, or put up on board- 
 ings along the railways, “So-and-so’s opinion is the 
 best.” In all this they differ greatly from more ad- 
 vanced nations, and particularly from America ; it 
 never occurs to them to treat opinions as if they were 
 soaps. And they have no admiration for ruthlessness, 
 or love of bustling activity without regard to its pur- 
 pose. Having thrown over the prejudices in which 
 they were brought up, they have not taken on a new 
 set, but have remained genuinely free in their thoughts, 
 able to consider any proposition honestly on its merits. 
 
 The younger men, however, have something more than 
 
78 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 the first generation of modern intellectuals. Having had 
 less of a struggle, they have retained more energy and 
 self-confidence. The candor and honesty of the pioneers 
 survive, with more determination to be socially effective. 
 This may be merely the natural character of youth, but 
 I think it is more than that. Young men under thirty 
 have often come in contact with Western ideas at a 
 sufficiently early age to have assimilated them without 
 a great struggle, so that they can acquire knowledge 
 without being torn by spiritual conflicts. And they 
 have been able to learn Western knowledge from 
 Chinese teachers to begin with, which has made the pro- 
 cess less difficult. Even the youngest students, of 
 course, still have reactionary families, but they find less 
 difficulty than their predecessors in resisting the claims 
 of the family, and in realizing practically, not only 
 theoretically, that the traditional Chinese reverence for 
 the old may well be carried too far. In these young 
 men I see the hope of China. When a little experience 
 has taught them practical wisdom, I believe they will 
 be able to lead Chinese opinion in the directions in which 
 it ought to move. 
 
 There is one traditional Chinese belief which dies 
 very hard, and that is the belief that correct ethical 
 sentiments are more important then detailed scientific 
 knowledge. This view is, of course, derived from the 
 Confucian tradition, and is more or less true in a pre- 
 industrial society. It would have been upheld by Rous- 
 seau or Dr. J ohnson, and broadly speaking by everybody 
 before the Benthamites. We, in the West, have now 
 swung to the opposite extreme: we tend to think that 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 79 
 
 technical efficiency is everything and moral purpose noth- 
 ing. A battle-ship may be taken as the concrete embodi- 
 ment of this view. When we read, say, of some new 
 poison-gas by means of which one bomb from an aero- 
 plane can exterminate a whole town, we have a thrill 
 of what we fondly believe to be horror, but it is really 
 delight in scientific skill. Science is our god ; we say to 
 it, “Though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee/’ 
 And so it slays us. The Chinese have not this defect, 
 but they have the opposite one, of believing that good 
 intentions are the only thing really necessary. I will 
 give an illustration. Forsythe Sherfesee, forestry ad- 
 visor to the Chinese Government, gave an address at the 
 British legation in January, 1919, on “Some National 
 Aspects of Forestry in China. ” 7 In this address he 
 proves (so far a person ignorant of forestry can judge) 
 that large parts of China which now lie waste are suit- 
 able for forestry, that the importation of timber (e. g., 
 for railway sleepers) which now takes place is wholly 
 unnecessary, and that the floods which often sweep away 
 whole districts would be largely prevented if the slopes 
 of the mountains from which the rivers come were re- 
 afforested. Yet it is often difficult to interest even the 
 most reforming Chinese in afforestation, because it is 
 not an easy subject for ethical enthusiasm. Trees are 
 planted round graves, because Confucius said they 
 should be; if Confucianism dies out, even these will be 
 cut down. But public-spirited Chinese students learn 
 political theory as it is taught in our universities, and 
 
 7 Printed in “China in 1918,” published by the “Peking 
 Leader.” 
 
80 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 despise such humble questions as the utility of trees. 
 After learning all about, say, the proper relations of 
 the two houses of Parliament, they go home to find that 
 some tuchun has dismissed both houses, and is govern- 
 ing in a fashion not conidered in our text-books. Our 
 theories of politics are only true in the West (if there) ; 
 our theories of forestry are equally true everywhere. 
 Yet it is our theories of politics that Chinese students 
 are most eager to learn. Similarly the practical study 
 of industrial processes might be very useful, but the 
 Chinese prefer the study of our theoretical economics, 
 which is hardly applicable except where industry is al- 
 ready developed. In all these respects, however, there 
 is beginning to be a marked improvement. 
 
 It is science that makes the difference between our 
 intellectual outlook and that of the Chinese intelli- 
 gentsia. The Chinese even the most modern, look to 
 the white nations, especially America, for moral maxims 
 to replace those of Confucius. They have not yet 
 grasped that men’s morals in the mass are the same 
 everywhere : they do as much harm as they dare, and as 
 much good as they must. In so far as there is a differ- 
 ence of morals between us and the Chinese, we differ 
 for the worse, because we are more energetic, and can 
 therefore commit more crimes per diem. What we have 
 to teach the Chinese is not morals, or ethical maxims 
 about government but science and technical skill. The 
 real problem for the Chinese intellectuals is to acquire 
 Western knowledge without acquiring the mechanistic 
 outlook. 
 
 Perhaps it is not clear what I mean by “the mechan- 
 
 , 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 81 
 
 istic outlook. ” I mean something which exists equally 
 in imperialism, Bolshevism, and the Y.M.C.A. ; some- 
 thing which distinguishes all these from the Chinese 
 outlook, and which I, for my part, consider very evil. 
 What I mean is the habit of regarding mankind as raw 
 material, to be molded by our scientific manipulation 
 into whatever form may happen to suit our fancy. The 
 essence of the matter, from the point of view of the 
 individual who has this point of view, is the cultivation 
 of will at the expense of perception, the fervent moral 
 belief that it is our duty to force other people to realize 
 our conception of the world. The Chinese intellectual 
 is not much troubled by imperialism as a creed, but is 
 vigorously assailed by Bolshevism and the Y.M.C.A., to 
 one or other of which he is too apt to fall a victim, learn- 
 ing a belief from the one in the class war and the dic- 
 tatorship of the communists, from the other in the 
 mystic efficacy of cold baths and dumb-bells. Both 
 these creeds, in their Western adepts, involve a con- 
 tempt for the rest of mankind except as potential con- 
 verts, and the belief that progress consists in the spread 
 of a doctrine. They both involve a belief in govern- 
 ment and a life against nature. This view, though I 
 have called it mechanistic, is as old as religion, though 
 mechanism has given it new and more virulent forms. 
 The first of Chinese philosophers, Lao-Tze, wrote his 
 book to protest against it, and his disciple Chuang-Tze 
 put his criticism into a fable : 8 
 
 s “Musings of a Chinese Mystic,” by Lionel Giles (Murray), 
 p. 66. For Legge’s translation, see Vol. I, p. 277, of his “Texts 
 of Taoism” in “Sacred Books of the East,” Vol. XXXIX. 
 
82 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow; 
 hair, to protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass 
 and drink water, and fling up their heels over the cham- 
 paign. Such is the real nature of horses. Palatial dwellings 
 are of no use to them. 
 
 One day Po Lo appeared, saying : “I understand the 
 
 management of horses.” 
 
 So he branded them, and clipped them, and pared their 
 hoofs, and put halters on them, tying them up by the head 
 and shackling them by the feet, and disposing them in stables, 
 with the result that two or three in every ten died. Then he 
 kept them hungry and thirsty, trotting them and galloping 
 them, and grooming, and trimming, with the misery of the 
 tasselled bridle before and the fear of the knotted whip be- 
 hind, until more than half of them were dead. 
 
 The potter says: “I can do what I will with clay. If I 
 
 want it round, I use compasses; if rectangular, a square.” 
 
 The carpenter says : “I can do what I will with wood. If 
 
 I want it curved. I use an arc; if straight, a line.” 
 
 But on what grounds can we think that the natures of clay 
 and wood desire this application of compasses and square, of 
 arc and line? Nevertheless, every age extols Po Lo for his 
 skill in managing horses, and potters and carpenters for their 
 skill with clay and wood. Those who govern the Empire 
 make the same mistake. 
 
 Although Taoism, of which Lao-Tze was the founder 
 and Chuang-Tze the chief apostle, was displaced by 
 Confucianism, yet the spirit of this fable has penetrated 
 deeply into Chinese life, making it more urbane and 
 tolerant, more contemplative and observant, than the 
 fiercer life of the West. The Chinese watch foreigners 
 as we watch animals in the zoo, to see whether they 
 
MODERN CHINA 
 
 83 
 
 11 drink water and fling up their heels over the cham- 
 paign, ” and generally to derive amusement from their 
 curious habits. Unlike the Y.M.C.A., they have no wish 
 to alter the habits of the foreigners, any more than we 
 wish to put the monkeys at the zoo into trousers and 
 stiff shirts. And their attitude toward each other is, 
 as a rule, equally tolerant. When they became a re- 
 public, instead of cutting off the emperor’s head, as 
 other nations do, they left him his title, his palace, and 
 four million dollars a year (about £600,000), and he re- 
 mains to this moment with his officials, his eunuchs, and 
 his etiquette, but without one shred of power or in- 
 fluence. In talking with a Chinese, you feel that he is 
 trying to understand you, not to alter you or interfere 
 with you. The result of his attempt may be a carica- 
 ture or a panegyric, but in either case it will be full 
 of delicate perception and subtle humor. A friend in 
 Peking showed me a number of pictures, among which 
 I specially remember various birds: a hawk swooping 
 on a sparrow, an eagle clasping a big bough of a tree 
 in his claws, water-fowl standing on one leg disconso- 
 late in the snow. All these pictures showed that kind 
 of sympathetic understanding which one feels also in 
 their dealings with human beings — something which I 
 can perhaps best describe as the antithesis of Nietzsche. 
 This quality, unfortunately, is useless in warfare, and 
 foreign nations are doing their best to stamp it out. 
 But it is an infinitely valuable quality, of which our 
 Western world has far too little. Together with their 
 exquisite sense of beauty it makes the Chinese nation 
 quite extraordinary lovable. The injury that we are 
 
84 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 doing to China is wanton and cruel, the destruction of 
 something delicate and lovely for the sake of the gross 
 pleasures of barbarous millionaires. One of the poems 
 translated from the Chinese by Mr. Waley 9 is called 
 “Business Men,” and it expresses, perhaps more accu- 
 rately than I could do, the respects in which the Chinese 
 are our superiors : — 
 
 Business men boast of their skill and cunning 
 But in philosophy they are like little children. 
 
 Bragging to each other of successful depredations 
 They neglect to consider the ultimate fate of the body. 
 What should they know of the Master of Dark Truth 
 Who saw the wide world in a jade cup, 
 
 By illumined conception got clear of heaven and earth: 
 
 On the chariot of Mutation entered the Gate of Immu- 
 tability ? 
 
 I wish I could hope that some respect for “the Mas- 
 ter of Dark Truth’’ would enter into the hearts of our 
 apostles of Western culture. But as that is out of the 
 question, it is necessary to seek other ways of solving 
 the Far Eastern question. 
 
 9 Waley, “170 Chinese Poems,” p. 95. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION 
 
 F OR modern China, the most important foreign na- 
 tion is Japan. In order to understand the part 
 played by Japan, it is necessary to know something 
 of that country, to which we must now turn our atten- 
 tion. 
 
 In reading the history of Japan, one of the most 
 amazing things is the persistence of the same forces and 
 the same beliefs throughout the centuries. Japanese 
 history practically begins with a “Restoration” by no 
 means unlike that of 1867-68. Buddhism was intro- 
 duced into Japan from Korea in 552 a. d . 1 At the 
 same time and from the same source Chinese civiliza- 
 tion became much better known in Japan than it had 
 been through the occasional intercourse of former cen- 
 turies. Both novelties won favor. Two Japanese stu- 
 dents (followed later by many others went to China 
 
 i The best book known to me on early J apan is Murdoch’s 
 “History of Japan.” The volume dealing with the earlier period 
 is published by Kegan Paul, 1910. The chronologically later 
 volume was published earlier; its title is: “A History of Ja- 
 
 pan during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse ( 1542- 
 1651),” by James Murdoch M. A. in collaboration with Isoh 
 Yamagata; Kobe, office of the “Japan Chronicle,” 1903. I shall 
 allude to these volumes as Murdoch, I, and Murdoch, II, respec- 
 tively. 
 
 85 
 
86 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 in 608 a. d v to master the civilization of that country. 
 The Japanese are an experimental nation, and before 
 adopting Buddhism nationally they ordered one or two 
 prominent courtiers to adopt it, with a view to seeing 
 whether they prospered more or less than the adher- 
 ents of the traditional Shinto religion. 2 After some 
 vicissitudes, the experiment was held to have favored 
 the foreign religion which, as a court religion, acquired 
 more prestige than Shinto, although the latter was never 
 ousted, and remained the chief religion of the peasantry 
 until the thirteenth century. It is remarkable to find 
 that,, as late as the sixteenth century, Hideyoshi, who 
 was of peasant origin, had a much higher opinion of 
 “the way of the gods’’ (which is what “Shinto” 
 means) than of Buddhism. 3 Probably the revival of 
 Shinto in modern times was facilitated by a continuing 
 belief in that religion on the part of the less noisy 
 sections of the population. But so far as the people 
 mentioned in history are concerned, Buddhism plays a 
 very much greater part than Shinto. 
 
 The object of the Restoration in 1867-68 was, at 
 any rate in part, to restore the constitution of 645 a. d. 
 The object of the constitution of 645 a. d. was to re- 
 store the form of government that had prevailed in 
 the good old days. What the object was of those who 
 established the government of the good old days, I do 
 not profess to know. However that may be, the 
 country before 645 a. d. was given over to feudalism 
 and internal strife, while the power of the mikado had 
 
 2 Murdoch, I, pp. 113 ff. 
 
 3 Ibid., II, pp. 375 ff. 
 
JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION 87 
 
 sunk to a very low ebb. The mikado had had the civil 
 power, but had allowed great feudatories to acquire 
 military control, so that the civil government fell into 
 contempt. Contact with the superior civilization of 
 China made intelligent people think that the Chinese 
 constitution deserved imitation, along with the Chinese 
 morals and religion. The Chinese emperor was the 
 Son of Heaven, so the mikado came to be descended from 
 the Sun Goddess. The Chinese emperor, whenever he 
 happened to be vigorous man, was genuinely supreme 
 so the mikado must be made so. 
 
 The similarity of the influence of China in produc- 
 ing the Restoration of 645 a. d. and that of Europe in 
 producing the Restoration of 1867-68 is set forth by 
 Murdoch 4 as follows : 
 
 In the summer of 1SG3 a band of four Choshu youths were 
 smuggled on board a British steamer by the aid of kind 
 Scottish friends who sympathized with their endeavour to 
 proceed to Europe for purposes of study. These friends 
 possibly did not know that some of the four had been protag- 
 onists in the burning down of the British Legation on 
 Gotenyama a few months before, and they certainly could 
 never have suspected that the real mission of the four youths 
 was to master the secrets of Western civilization with a sole 
 view of driving the Western barbarians from the sacred soil 
 of Japan. Prince Ito and Marquis Inouye — for they were 
 two of this venturesome quartette — have often told of their 
 rapid disillusionment when they reached London, and saw 
 these despised Western barbarians at home. On their return 
 to Japan they at once became the apostles of a new doctrine, 
 
 4 Murdoch, I, p. 147. 
 
88 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 and their effective preaching has had much to do with the 
 pride of place Dai Nippon now holds among the Great Pow- 
 ers of the world. 
 
 The two students who went to China in 608 a. d. 
 “rendered even more illustrious service to their country 
 perhaps than Ito and Inouye have done. For at the 
 Revolution of 1868, the leaders of the movement 
 harked back to the 645-650 a. d. period for a good 
 deal of their inspiration, and the real men of political 
 knowledge at that time were the two National Doc- 
 tors.’ ’ 
 
 Politically, what was done in 645 a. d. and the period 
 immediately following was not unlike what was done 
 in France by Louis XI and Richeleiu — a curbing of 
 the great nobles and an exaltation of the sovereign, with 
 a substitution of civil justice for military anarchy. The 
 movement was represented by its promoters as a resto- 
 ration, probably with about the same amount of truth 
 as in 1867. At the later date, there was restoration so 
 far as the power of the mikado was concerned, but in- 
 novation as regards the introduction of Western ideas. 
 Similarly, in 645 a. d., what was done about the mikado 
 was a return to the past, but what was done in the 
 way of spreading Chinese civilization was just the oppo- 
 site. There must have been, in both cases, the same 
 curious mixture of antiquarian and reforming tenden- 
 cies. 
 
 Throughout subsequent Japanese history, until the 
 Restoration, one seems to see the opposite forces strug- 
 
JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION 89 
 
 gling for mastery over people’s minds, namely, the ideas 
 of government, civilization, and art derived from China 
 on the one hand, and the native tendency to feudalism, 
 clan government, and civil war on the other. The con- 
 flict is very analogous to that which went on in medieval 
 Europe between the church, which represented ideas 
 derived from Rome, and the turbulent barons, who were 
 struggling to preserve the way of life of the ancient 
 Teutons. Henry IV at Canossa, Henry II doing penance 
 for Becket, represent the triumph of civilization over 
 rude vigor ; and something similar is to be seen at inter- 
 vals in Japan. 
 
 After 645, the mikado’s government had real power 
 for some centuries, but gradually it fell more and more 
 under the sway of the soldiers. So long as it had 
 wealth (which lasted long after it ceased to have power) 
 it continued to represent what was most civilized in 
 Japan: the study of Chinese literature, the patronage 
 of art, and the attempt to preserve respect for something 
 other than brute force. But the court nobles (who 
 remained throughout quite distinct from the military 
 feudal chiefs) were so degenerate and feeble, so stereo- 
 typed and unprogressive, that it would have been quite 
 impossible for the country to be governed by them and 
 the system they represented. In this respect they 
 differed greatly from the medieval church, which no 
 one could accuse of lack of vigor, although the vigor 
 of the feudal aristocracy may have been even greater. 
 Accordingly, while the church in Europe usually de- 
 feated the secular princes, the exact opposite happened 
 
90 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 in Japan, where the mikado and his court sank into 
 greater and greater contempt down to the time of the 
 Restoration. 
 
 The Japanese have a curious passion for separating 
 the real and the nominal governments, leaving the show 
 to the latter and the substance of power to the former. 
 First the emperors took to resigning in favor of their 
 infant sons, and continuing to govern in reality, often 
 from some monastery, where they had become monks. 
 Then the shogun, who represented the military power, 
 became supreme, but still governed in the name of 
 the emperor. The word “shogun” merely means “gen- 
 eral”; the full title of the people whom we call “sho- 
 gun” is “Sei-i-Tai Shogun,” which means “Barbarian- 
 subduing great General”; the barbarians in question 
 being the Ainus, the Japanese aborigines. The first 
 to hold this office in the form which it had at most 
 times until the Restoration was Minamoto Yoritomo, 
 on whom the title was conferred by the mikado in 
 1192. But before long the shogun became nearly as 
 much of a figure head as the mikado. Custom confined 
 the shogunate to the Minamoto family, and the actual 
 power was wielded by regents in the name of the sho- 
 gun. This lasted until near the end of the sixteenth 
 century, when it happened that Iyeyasu, the supreme 
 military commander of his day, belonged to the Min- 
 amoto family, and was therefore able to assume the 
 office of shogun himself. He and his descendants held 
 the office until it was abolished at the Restoration. The 
 Restoration, however, did not put an end to the prac- 
 tice of a real government behind the nominal one. 
 
JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION 91 
 
 The prime minister and his cabinet are presented to 
 the world as the Japanese Government, but the real 
 government is the Genro, or Elder Statesmen, and their 
 successors, of whom I shall have more to say in the 
 next chapter. 
 
 What the Japanese made of Buddhism reminds one 
 in many ways of what the Teutonic nations made of 
 Christianity. Buddhism and Christianity, originally, 
 were very similar in spirit. They were both religions 
 aiming at the achievement of holiness by renunciation 
 of the world. They both ignored politics and govern- 
 ment and wealth, for which they substituted the future 
 life as what was of real importance. They were both 
 religions of peace, teaching gentleness and non-resis- 
 tance. But both had to undergo great transformations 
 in adapting themselves to the instincts of warlike bar- 
 barians. In Japan, a multitude of sects arose, teaching 
 doctrines which differed in many ways from Mahayana 
 orthodoxy. Buddhism became national and militaristic ; 
 the abbots of great monasteries became important feudal 
 chieftains, whose monks constituted an army which was 
 ready to fight on the slightest provocation. Sieges of 
 monasteries and battles with monks are of constant 
 occurrence in Japanese history. 
 
 The Japanese, as every one knows, decided, after 
 about one hundred years’ experience of Western mis- 
 sionaries and merchants, to close their country com- 
 pletely to foreigner^, with the exception of a very re- 
 stricted and closely supervised commerce with the 
 Dutch. The first arrival of the Portuguese in Japan 
 was in or about the year 1543, and their final expulsion 
 
92 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 was in the year 1639. What happened between these 
 two dates is instructive for the understanding of Japan. 
 The first Portuguese brought with them Christianity and 
 fire arms, of which the Japanese tolerated the former 
 for the sake of the latter. At that time there was vir- 
 tually no central government in the country, and the 
 various D-aimyo were engaged in constant wars with 
 each other. The south western island, Kyushu, was even 
 more independent of such central authority as existed 
 than were the other parts of Japan, and it was in this 
 island (containing the port of Nagasaki) that the Portu- 
 guese first landed and were throughout chiefly active. 
 They traded from Macao, bringing merchandise, match- 
 locks and Jesuits, as well as artillery on their larger 
 vessels. It was found that they attached importance 
 to the spread of Christianity, and some of the Daimyo, 
 in order to get their trade and their guns, allowed 
 themselves to be baptized by the Jesuits. The Portu- 
 guese of those days seem to have been genuinely more 
 anxious to make converts than to extend their trade; 
 when, later on, the Japanese began to object to mission- 
 aries while still desiring trade, neither the Portuguese 
 nor the Spaniards could be induced to refrain from 
 helping the fathers. However, all might have gone well 
 if the Portuguese had been able to retain the monopoly 
 which had been granted to them by a papal bull. Their 
 monopoly of trade was associated w T ith a Jesuit monop- 
 oly of missionary activity. But, from 1592 onward, 
 the Spaniards from Manila competed with the Portu- 
 guese from Macao, and the Dominican and Franciscan 
 missionaries, brought by the Spaniards, competed with 
 
JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION 93 
 
 the Jesuit missionaries brought by the Portuguese. 
 They quarreled furiously, even at times when they were 
 suffering persecution; and the Japanese naturally be- 
 lieved the accusations that each side brought against 
 the other. Moreover, when they were shown maps dis- 
 playing the extent of the king of Spain’s dominions, 
 they became alarmed for their national independence. 
 In the year 1596, a Spanish ship, the San Felipe, on its 
 way from Manila to Acapulco, was becalmed off the 
 coast of Japan. The local Daimyo insisted on sending 
 men to tow it into his harbor, and gave them instructions 
 to run it aground on a sand-bank, which they did. He 
 thereupon claimed the whole cargo, valued at 600,000 
 crowns. However, Hideyoshi, who was rapidly acquir- 
 ing supreme power in Japan, thought this too large a 
 windfall for a private citizen, and had the Spanish 
 pilot interviewed by a man named Masuda. The 
 pilot, after trying reason in vain, attempted intimida- 
 tion. 
 
 He produced a map of the world, and on it pointed out 
 the vast extent of the dominions of Philip II. Thereupon 
 Masuda asked him how it was so many countries had been 
 brought to acknowledge the sway of a single man. . . . “Our 
 Kings,” said this outspoken seaman, “begin by sending into 
 the countries they wish to conquer religieux who induce the 
 people to embrace our religion, and when they have made 
 considerable progress, troops are sent who combine with the 
 new Christians, and then our Kings have not much trouble 
 in accomplishing the rest.” 5 
 
 5 Murdoch, II, p. 288. 
 
94 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 As Spain and Portugal were at this time both subject 
 to Philip II, the Portuguese also suffered from the sus- 
 picions engendered by this speech. Moreover, the 
 Dutch, who were at war with Spain, began to trade 
 with Japan, and to tell all they knew against Jesuits, 
 Dominicans, Franciscans, and papists generally. A 
 breezy Elizabethan sea-captain, Will Adams, was 
 wrecked in Japan, and on being interrogated naturally 
 gave a good British account of the authors of the Ar- 
 mada. As the Japanese had by this time mastered the 
 use and manufacture of fire arms, they began to think 
 that they had nothing more to learn from Christian 
 nations. 
 
 Meanwhile, a succession of three great men — Nobu- 
 naga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu — had succeeded in unify- 
 ing Japan, destroying the quasi-independence of the feu- 
 dal nobles, and establishing that reign of internal peace 
 which lasted until the Restoration — a period of nearly 
 two and a half centuries. It was possible, therefore, for 
 the central government to enforce whatever policy it 
 chose to adopt with regard to the foreigners and their 
 religion. The Jesuits and the friars between them 
 had made a considerable’ number of converts in Japan, 
 probably about 300,000. Most of these were in the 
 island of Kyushu, the last region to be subdued by Hide- 
 yoshi. They tended to disloyalty, not only on account 
 of their Christianity, but also on account of their 
 geographical position. It was in this region that the 
 revolt against the shogun began in 1867, and Satsuma, 
 the chief clan in the island of Kyushu, has had great 
 
JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION 95 
 
 power in the government ever since the Restoration, 
 except during its rebellion of 1887. It is hard to dis- 
 entangle what belongs to Christianity and what to 
 mere hostility to the central government in the move- 
 ments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. How- 
 ever that may be, Iyeyasu decided to persecute the 
 Christians vigorously, if possible without losing the 
 foreign trade. His successors were even more anti- 
 Christian and less anxious for trade. After an abor- 
 tive revolt in 1637, Christianity was stamped out, and 
 foreign trade was prohibited in the most vigorous 
 terms : 
 
 So long as the sun warms the earth, let no Christian be 
 so bold as to come to Japan, and let ail know that if King 
 Philip himself, or even the very God of the Christians, or 
 the great Shaka contravene this prohibition, they shall pay 
 for it with their heads. 6 
 
 The persecution of the Christians, though it was ruth- 
 less and exceedingly cruel, was due, not to religious 
 intolerance, but solely to political motives. There was 
 reason to fear that the Christians might side with the 
 king of Spain if he should attempt to conquer Japan; 
 and even if no foreign power intervened, there was 
 reason to fear rebellions of Christians against the newly 
 established central power. Economic exploitation, in 
 the modern sense of the word, did not yet exist apart 
 from political domination, and the Japanese would have 
 
 6 Murdoch, II, p. 667. 
 
96 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 welcomed trade if there had been no danger of conquest. 
 They seem to have overrated the power of Spain, which 
 certainly could not have conquered them. Japanese 
 armies were, in those days, far larger than the armies 
 of Europe; the Japanese had learned the use of fire- 
 arms; and their knowledge of strategy was very great. 
 Kyoto, the capital, was one of the largest cities in the 
 world, having about a million inhabitants. The popu- 
 lation of Japan was probably greater than that of any 
 European state. It would therefore have been possible, 
 without much trouble, to resist any expedition that 
 Europe could have sent againt Japan. It would even 
 have been easy to conquer Manila, as Hideyoshi at one 
 time thought of doing. But we can well understand 
 how terrifying would be a map of the world showing the 
 whole of North and South America as belonging to 
 Philip II. Moreover the Japanese Government sent 
 pretended converts to Europe, where they became priests, 
 had audience of the pope, penetrated into the inmost 
 councils of Spain, and mastered all the meditated vil- 
 lainies of European imperialism. These spies, when they 
 came home and laid their reports before the government, 
 naturally increased its fears. The Japanese, therefore, 
 decided to have no further intercourse with the white 
 men. And whatever may be said against this policy, I 
 cannot feel convinced that it was unwise. 
 
 For over two hundred years, until the coming of 
 Commodore Perry’s squadron from the United States 
 in 1853, Japan enjoyed complete peace and almost com- 
 plete stagnation — the only period of either in Japanese 
 history. It then became necessary to learn fresh lessons 
 
JAPAN BEFORE THE RESTORATION 97 
 
 in the use of fire-arms from Western nations, and to 
 abandon the exclusive policy until they were learned. 
 When they have been learned perhaps we shall see an- 
 other period of isolation. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MODERN JAPAN 
 
 T HE modern Japanese nation is unique, not only in 
 this age, but in the history of the world. It com- 
 bines elements which most Europeans would have sup- 
 posed totally incompatible, and it has realized an orig- 
 inal plan to a degree hardly known in human affairs. 
 The Japan which now exists is almost exactly that which 
 was intended by the leaders of the Restoration in 1867. 
 Many unforeseen events have happened in the world: 
 America has risen and Russia has fallen, China has 
 become a Republic and the Great War has shattered 
 Europe. But throughout all these changes the leading 
 statesmen of Japan have gone along the road traced out 
 for them at the beginning of the Meiji era, and the 
 nation has followed them with ever-increasing faithful- 
 ness. One single purpose has animated leaders and 
 followers alike: the strengthening and extension of the 
 empire. To realize this purpose a new kind of policy 
 has been created, combining the sources of strength in 
 modern America with those in Rome at the time of the 
 Punic Wars, uniting the material organization 
 and scientific knowledge of pre-war Germany with 
 the outlook on life of the Hebrews in the Book of 
 J oshua. 
 
 98 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 99 
 
 The transformation of Japan since 1867 is amazing, 
 and people have been duly amazed by it. But what 
 is still more amazing is that such an immense change in 
 knowledge and in way of life should have brought so lit- 
 tle change in religion and ethics, and that such change as 
 it has brought in these matters should have been in a di- 
 rection opposite to that which w T ould have been naturally 
 expected. Science is supposed to tend to rationalism; 
 yet the spread of scientific knowledge in Japan has syn- 
 chronized with a great intensification of Mikado worship, 
 the most anachronistic feature in the Japanese civiliza- 
 tion. For sociology, for social psychology, and for poli- 
 tical theory, Japan is an extraordinarily interesting 
 country. The synthesis of East and West which has 
 been effected is of a peculiar kind. There is far more 
 of the East than appears on the surface; but there is 
 everything of the West that tends to national efficiency. 
 How far there is a genuine fusion of Eastern and 
 Western elements may be doubted; the nervous excita- 
 bility of the people suggests something strained and arti- 
 ficial in their way of life, but this may possibly be a 
 merely temporary phenomenon. 
 
 Throughout Japanese politics since the Restoration, 
 there are two separate strands, one analogous to that of 
 Western nations especially pre-war Germany, the other 
 inherited from the feudal age, which is more analogous 
 to the politics of the Scottish Highlands down to 1745. 
 It is no part of my purpose to give a history of modern 
 Japan; I wish only to give an outline of the forces 
 which control events and movements in that country, 
 with such illustrations as are necessary. There are 1 
 
100 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 many good books on Japanese politics; the one that I 
 have found most informative is McLaren ’s “political 
 History of Japan during the Meiji Era, 1867-1912” 
 (Allen & Unwin, 1916), For a picture of Japan as it 
 appeared in the early days of the Meiji era, Lafcadio 
 Hearn is of course invaluable; his book “Japan, An 
 Interpretation,” shows his dawning realization of the 
 grim sides of the Japanese character, after the cherry- 
 blossom business has lost its novelty. I shall not have 
 much to say about cherry-blossom; it was not flowering 
 when I was in Japan. 
 
 Before 1867, Japan was a feudal federation of clans, 
 in which the central government was in the hands of the 
 shogun, who was the head of his own clan, but had by 
 no means undisputed sway over the more powerful of 
 the other clans. There had been various dynasties of 
 shoguns at various times, but since the seventeenth cen- 
 tury the shogunate had been in the Tokugawa clan. 
 Throughout the Tokugawa shogunate, except during its 
 first few years,, Japan had been closed to foreign inter- 
 course, except for a strictly limited commerce with the 
 Dutch. The modern era was inaugurated by two 
 changes: first, the compulsory opening of the country 
 to Western trade; secondly, the transference of power 
 from the Tokugawa clan to the clans of Satsuma and 
 Choshu, who have governed Japan ever since. It is 
 impossible to understand Japan or its politics and possi- 
 bilities without realizing the nature of the governing 
 forces and their roots in the feudal system of the former 
 age. I will therefore first outline these internal move- 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 101 
 
 ments, before coining to the part which Japan has played 
 in international affairs. 
 
 What happened, nominally, in 1867 was that the 
 mikado was restored to power, after having been com- 
 pletely eclipsed by the shogun since the end of the 
 twelfth century. During this long period, the mikado 
 seems to have been regarded by the common people with 
 reverence as a holy personage, but he was allowed no 
 voice in affairs, was treated with comtempt by the sho- 
 gun, was sometimes deposed if he misbehaved, and was 
 often kept in great poverty. 
 
 Of so little importance was the Imperial person in the 
 days of early foreign intercourse that the Jesuits hardly 
 knew of the EmperoPs existence. They seem to have thought 
 of him as a Japanese counterpart of the Pope of Rome, 
 except that he had no aspirations for temporal power. The 
 Dutch writers likewise were in the habit of referring to the 
 Shogun as “His Majesty,” and on their annual pilgrimage 
 from Dashima to Yedo, Kyoto (where the Mikado lived) was 
 the only city which they were permitted to examine freely. 
 The privilege was probably accorded by the Tokugawa to 
 show the foreigners how lightly the Court was regarded. 
 Commodore Perry delivered to the Shogun in Yedo the auto- 
 graph letter to the Emperor of Japan from the President of 
 the United States, and none of the Ambassadors of the 
 Western Powers seem to have entertained any suspicion that 
 in dealing with the authorities in Yedo they were not ap- 
 proaching the throne. 
 
 In the light of these facts, some other explanation of the 
 relations between the Shogunate and the Imperial Court 
 must be sought than that which depends upon the claim now 
 
102 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 made by Japanese historians of the official type, that the 
 throne, throughout this whole period, was divinely preserved 
 by the Heavenly Gods. 1 
 
 What happened, in outline, seems to have been a 
 combination of very different forces. There were anti- 
 quarians who observed that the mikado had had real 
 power in the tenth century, and who wished to revert 
 to the ancient customs. There were patriots who were 
 annoyed with the shogun for yielding to the pressure 
 of the white men and concluding commercial treaties 
 with them. And there were the western clans, which 
 had never willingly submitted to the authority of the 
 shogun. To quote McLaren once more (p. 33) : 
 
 The movement to restore the Emperor was coupled with 
 a form of Chauvinism or intense nationalism which may be 
 summed up in the expression “Exhalt the Emperor! Away 
 with the barbarians !” (Kinno! Joi!) From this it would 
 appear that the Dutch scholars’ work in enlightening the na- 
 tion upon the subject of foreign scientific attainments was 
 anathema, but a conclusion of that kind must not be hastily 
 arrived at. The cry, “Away with the barbarians !” was 
 directed against Perry and the envoys of other foreign Pow- 
 ers, but there was nothing in that slogan which indicates a 
 general unwillingness to emulate the foreigners’ achievements 
 in armaments or military tactics. In fact, for a number of 
 years previous to 1853, Satsuma and Choshu and other 
 western clans had been very busily engaged in manufacturing 
 guns and practising gunnery: to that extent, at any rate, 
 
 i McLaren, op. cit. p. 19. 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 103 
 
 the discoveries of the students of European sciences had been 
 deliberately used by those men who were to be foremost in 
 the Restoration. 
 
 This passage gives the key to the spirit which has 
 animated modern Japan down to the present day. 
 
 The Restoration was, to a greater extent than is usu- 
 ally realized in the West, a conservative and even re- 
 actionary movement. Professor Murdoch, in his author- 
 itative “History of Japan,” says : 2 
 
 In the interpretation of this sudden and startling develop- 
 ment most European writers and critics show themselves 
 seriously at fault. Even some of the more intelligent among 
 them find the solution of this portentous enigma in the very 
 superficial and facile formula of “imitation.” But the Jap- 
 anese still retain their own unit of social organization, which 
 is not the individual, as with us, but the family. Further- 
 more, the resemblance of the Japanese administrative sys- 
 tem, both central and local, to certain European systems is 
 not the result of imitation, or borrowing, or adaptation. 
 Such resemblance is merely an odd and fortuitous resem- 
 blance. When the statesmen who overthrew the Tokugawa 
 regime in 18G8, and abolished the feudal system in 1871, were 
 called upon to provide the nation with a new equipment of 
 administrative machinery, they did not go to Europe for 
 their models. They simply harked back some eleven or 
 twelve centuries in their own history and resuscitated the 
 administrative machinery that had first been installed in 
 Japan by the genius of Fujiwara Kamatari and his coad- 
 jutors in 645 a. d., and more fully supplemented and organ- 
 ized in the succeeding fifty or sixty years. The present 
 
 2 Kegan Paul, 1910, Vol. I, p. 20. 
 
104 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Imperial Cabinet of ten Ministers, with their departments 
 and departmental staff of officials, is a modified revival of 
 the Eight Boards adapted from China and established in the 
 seventh century. . . . The present administrative system is 
 indeed of alien provenance; but it was neither borrowed nor 
 adapted a generation ago, nor borrowed nor adapted from 
 Europe. It was really a system of hoary antiquity that was 
 revived to cope with pressing modern exigencies. 
 
 The outcome was that the clans of Satsuma and 
 Choshu acquired control of the mikado, made his exalta- 
 tion the symbol of resistance to the foreigner (with 
 whom the shogun had concluded unpopular treaties), and 
 secured the support of the country by being the cham- 
 pions of nationalism. Under extraordinarily able 
 leaders, a policy was adopted which has been pursued 
 consistently ever since, and has raised Japan from be- 
 ing the helpless victim of Western greed to being one 
 of the greatest powers in the world. Feudalism was 
 abolished, the central government was made omnipo- 
 tent, a powerful army and navy were created, China and 
 Russia were successively defeated, Korea was annexed 
 and a protectorate established over Manchuria and Inner 
 Mongolia, industry and commerce were developed, uni- 
 versal compulsory education instituted, and worship of 
 the mikado firmly established by teaching in the schools 
 and by professorial patronage of historical myths. 
 
 The artificial creation of mikado worship is one of the 
 most interesting features of modern Japan, and a model 
 to all other states as regards the method of preventing 
 the growth of rationalism. There is a very instructive 
 little pamphlet by Professor B. H. Chamberlain, who 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 105 
 
 was professor of Japanese and philosophy at Tokyo, 
 and had a knowledge of Japanese which few Europeans 
 had equalled. His pamphlet is called “The Invention 
 of a New Religion,” and is published by the Rational- 
 ist Press Association. He points out that, until recent 
 times, the religion of Japan was Buddhism, to the prac- 
 tical exclusion of every other. There had been, in very 
 ancient times, a native religion called Shinto, and it had 
 lingered on obscurely. But it is only during the last 
 forty years or so that Shinto has been erected into a 
 state religion, and has been reconstructed so as to suit 
 modern requirements . 3 It is, of course, preferable to 
 Buddhism because it is native and national ; it is a tribal 
 religion, not one which aims at appealing to all man- 
 kind. Its whole purpose, as it has been developed by 
 modern statesmen, is to glorify Japan and the mikado. 
 
 Professor Chamberlain points out how little rever- 
 ence there was for the mikado until some time after the 
 Restoration : 
 
 The sober fact is that no nation probably has ever treated 
 its sovereigns more cavalierly than the Japanese have done, 
 from the beginning of authentic history down to within the 
 memory of living men. Emperors have been deposed, em- 
 perors have been assassinated; for centuries every succession 
 to the throne was the signal for intrigues and sanguinary 
 
 3 “What popular Shinto, as expounded by its village priests 
 in the old time, was we simply do not know. Our carefully 
 selected and edited official edition of Shinto is certainly not true 
 aboriginal Shinto as practised in Yamato before the introduc- 
 tion of Buddhism and Chinese culture, and many plausible ar- 
 guments which disregard that indubitable fact lose much of 
 their weight.” (Murdoch, I, p. 173 n.) 
 
106 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 broils. Emperors have been exiled; some have been mur- 
 dered in exile. . . . For long centuries the Government was 
 in the hands of Mayors of the Palace, who substituted one 
 infant sovereign for another, generally forcing each to ab- 
 dicate as he approached man’s estate. At one period, these 
 Mayors of the Palace left the Descendant of the Sun in such 
 distress that His Imperial Majesty and the Imperial Princes 
 were obliged to gain a livelihood by selling their autographs! 
 Nor did any great party in the State protest against this 
 condition of affairs. Even in the present reign (that of 
 Meiji) — the most glorious in Japanese history — there have 
 been two rebellions, during one of which a rival Emperor 
 was set up in one part of the country, and a Republic pro- 
 claimed in another. 
 
 This last sentence, though it states sober historical 
 fact, is scarcely credible to those who only know twen- 
 tieth-century Japan. The spread of superstition has 
 gone pari passu -with the spread of education, and a re- 
 volt against the mikado is now unthinkable. Time and 
 again, in the midst of political strife, the mikado has 
 been induced to intervene, and instantly the hottest com- 
 batants have submitted abjectly. Although there is a 
 Diet, the mikado is an absolute ruler — as absolute as any 
 sovereign ever has been. 
 
 The civilization of Japan, before the Restoration, came 
 from China. Religion, art, writing, philosophy, and 
 ethics, everything was copied from Chinese models. 
 J apanese history begins in the fifth century a. d. 
 whereas Chinese history goes back to about 2000 b. c., 
 or at any rate to somewhere in the second millennium 
 b. c. This was galling to Japanese pride, so an early 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 107 
 
 history was invented long ago, like the theory that the 
 Romans were descended from iEneas. To quote Pro- 
 fessor Chamberlain again: 
 
 The first glimmer of genuine Japanese history dates from 
 the fifth century after Christ, and even 'the accounts of what 
 happened in the sixth century must be received with caution. 
 Japanese scholars know this as well as we do; it is one of 
 the certain results of investigation. But the Japanese bu- 
 reaucracy does not desire to have the light let in on this in- 
 convenient circumstance. While granting a dispensation re 
 the national mythology, properly so called, it exacts belief 
 in every iota of the national historic legends. Woe to the 
 native professor who strays from the path of orthodoxy. 
 His wife and children (and in Japan every man, however 
 young, has a wife and children) will starve. From the late 
 Prince Ito’s grossly misleading 11 Commentary on the Japanese 
 Constitution” down to school compendiums, the absurd dates 
 are everywhere insisted upon. 
 
 This question of fictitious early history might be con- 
 sidered unimportant, like the fact that, with us, parsons 
 have to pretend to believe the Bible, which some people 
 think innocuous. But it is part of the whole system, 
 which has a political object, to which free thought and 
 free speech ar& ruthlessly sacrificed. As this same 
 pamphlet says : 
 
 Shinto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into dis- 
 credit, was taken out of its cupboard and dusted. The com- 
 mon people, it is true, continued to place their affections on 
 Buddhism, the popular festivals were Buddhist; Buddhist 
 
108 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 also the temples where they buried their dead. The govern- 
 ing class determined to change all this. They insisted on the 
 Shinto doctrine that the Mikado descends in direct succession 
 from the native Goddess of the Sun, and that He himself 
 is a living God on earth who justly claims the absolute fealty 
 of his subjects. Such things as laws and constitutions are 
 but free gifts on His part, not in any sense popular rights. 
 Of course, the ministers and officials, high and low, who carry 
 on His government, are to be regarded not as public serv- 
 ants, but rather as executants of supreme — one might say 
 supernatural — authority. Shinto, because connected with the 
 Imperial family, is to be alone honoured. 
 
 All this is not mere theorizing; it is the practical 
 basis of Japanese politics. The mikado, after hav- 
 ing been for centuries in the keeping of the Toku- 
 gawa shoguns, was captured by the clans of Satsuma 
 and Choshu, and has been in their keeping ever since. 
 They were represented politically by five men, the 
 Genro or Elder Statesmen, who are sometimes miscalled 
 the Privy Council. Only two still survive. The Genro 
 have no constitutional existence ; they are merely the peo- 
 ple who have the ear of the mikado. They can make 
 him say whatever they wish ; therefore they are omnipo- 
 tent. It has happened repeatedly that they have had 
 against them the Diet and the whole force of public 
 opinion; nevertheless they have invariably been able to 
 enforce their will, because they could make the mikado 
 speak, and no one dare oppose the mikado. They do 
 not themselves take office ; they select the prime minister 
 and the ministers of war and marine, and allow them 
 to bear the blame if anything goes wrong. The Genro 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 109 
 
 are the real government of Japan, and will presumably 
 remain so until the mikado is captured by some other 
 clique. 
 
 From a patriotic point of view, the Genro have 
 shown very great wisdom in the conduct of affairs. 
 There is reason to think that if J apan were a democracy 
 its policy would be more chauvinistic than it is. 
 Apologists of Japan, such as Mr. Bland, are in the 
 habit of telling us that there is a Liberal anti-militarist 
 party in Japan, which is soon going to dominate for- 
 eign policy. I see no reason to believe this. Un- 
 doubtedly there is a strong movement for increasing the 
 power of the Diet and making the cabinet responsible 
 to it; there is also a feeling that the ministers of war 
 and marine ought to he responsible to the cabinet and 
 the prime minister, not only to the mikado directly . 4 
 
 4 The strength of this movement may, however, be doubted. 
 Murdoch (op. cit., I, p. 162) says: “At present, 1910, the 
 
 War Office and Admiralty are, of all Ministries, by far the 
 strongest in the Empire. When a party Government does by 
 any strange hap make its appearance on the political stage, the 
 Ministers of War and of Marine can afford to regard its advent 
 with the utmost insouciance. For the most extreme of party 
 politicians readily and unhesitatingly admit that the affairs of 
 the Army and Navy do not fall within the sphere of party 
 politics, but are the exclusive concern of the Commander-in- 
 Chief, his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan. On none 
 in the public service of Japan are titles of nobility, high rank, 
 and still more substantial emoluments showered with a more 
 liberal hand than upon the great captains and the great sailors 
 of the Empire. In China, on the other hand, the military man 
 is, if not a pariah, at all events an exceptional barbarian, whom 
 policy makes it advisable to treat with a certain amount of 
 gracious, albeit semi -contemptuous, condescension.” 
 
110 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 But democracy in Japan does not mean a diminution 
 of chauvinism in foreign policy. There is a small So- 
 cialist party which is genuinely anti-chauvinist and 
 anti-militarist ; this party, probably, will grow as 
 Japanese industrialism grows. But so-called Japanese 
 Liberals are just as chauvinistic as the government, and 
 public opinion is more so. Indeed there have been oc- 
 casions when the Genro, in spite of popular fury, has 
 saved the nation from mistakes which it would certainly 
 have committed if the government had been democratic. 
 One of the most interesting of these occasions was the 
 conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth, after the Sino- 
 Japanese War, which deserves to be told as illustrative 
 of Japanese politics. 5 
 
 In 1905, after the battles of Tsushima and Mukden, 
 it became clear to impartial observers that Russia could 
 accomplish nothing further at sea, and Japan could ac- 
 complish nothing further on land. The Russian Gov- 
 ernment was anxious to continue the war, having 
 gradually accumulated men and stores in Manchuria, 
 and greatly improved the working of the Siberian Rail- 
 way. The Japanese Government, on the contrary, knew 
 that it had already achieved all the success it could 
 hope for, and that it would be extremely difficult to 
 raise the loans required for a prolongation of the war. 
 Under these circumstances, Japan appealed secretly to 
 President Roosevelt requesting his good offices for the 
 restoration of peace. President Roosevelt therefore is- 
 sued invitations to both belligerents to a peace confer- 
 
 s The following account is taken from McLaren, op. tit., 
 Chaps. XII and XIII. 
 
 J 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 111 
 
 ence. The Russian Government, faced by a strong peace 
 party and incipient revolution, dared not refuse the 
 invitation, especially in view of the fact that the sym- 
 pathies of neutrals were on the whole with Japan. Ja- 
 pan, being anxious for peace, led Russia to suppose that 
 Japan’s demands would be so excessive as to alienate 
 the sympathy of the world and afford a complete an- 
 swer to the peace party in Russia. In particular, the 
 Japanese gave out that they would absolutely insist 
 upon an indemnity. The government had in fact re- 
 solved, from the first, not to insist on an indemnity, 
 but this was known to very few people in Japan, and 
 to no one outside Japan. The Russians, believing that 
 the Japanese would not give way about the indemnity, 
 showed themselves generous as regards all other Jap- 
 anese demands. To their horror and consternation, 
 when they had already packed up and were just ready 
 to break up the conference, the Japanese announced (as 
 they had from the first intended to do) that they ac- 
 cepted the Russian concessions and would waive the 
 claim to an indemnity. Thus the Russian Government 
 and the Japanese people were alike furious, because 
 they had been tricked — the former in the belief that it 
 could yield everything except the indemnity without 
 bringing peace, the latter in the belief that the govern- 
 ment would never give way about the indemnity. In 
 Russia there was revolution ; in Japan there were riots, 
 furious diatribes in the press, and a change of govern- 
 ment — of the nominal government, that is to say, for 
 the Genro continued to be the real power throughout. 
 In this case, there is no doubt that the decision of the 
 
112 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Genro to make peace was the right one from every 
 point of view; there is also very little doubt that a 
 peace advantageous to Japan could not have been made 
 without trickery. 
 
 Foreigners unacquainted with Japan, knowing that 
 there is a Diet in which the lower house is elected, im- 
 agine that Japan is at least as democratic as pre-war 
 Germany. This is a delusion. It is true that Marquis 
 Ito, who framed the constitution, which was promul- 
 gated in 1889, took Germany for his model, as the 
 Japanese have always done in all their Westernizing 
 efforts, except as regards the navy, in which Great 
 Britain has been copied. But there were many points 
 in which the Japanese constitution differed from that 
 of the German Empire. To begin with, the Reichstag 
 was elected by manhood suffrage, whereas in J apan there 
 is a property qualification which restricts the franchise 
 to about 25 per cent, of the adult males. This, however, 
 is a small matter compared to the fact that the mikado’s 
 power is far less limited than that of the Kaiser was. 
 It is true that Japan does not differ from pre-war Ger- 
 many in the fact that ministers are not responsible to 
 the Diet, but to the emperor, and are responsible sever- 
 ally, not collectively. The war minister must be a gen- 
 eral, the minister of marine must be an admiral; they 
 take their orders, not from the prime minister, but from 
 the military and naval authorities respectively, who, of 
 course, are under the control of the mikado. But in 
 Germany the Reichstag had the power of the purse, 
 whereas in Japan, if the Diet refuses to pass the budget, 
 the budget of the previous year can be applied, and, 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 113 
 
 when the Diet is not sitting, laws can be enacted tem- 
 porarily by imperial decree — a provision which had no 
 analogue in the German constitution. 
 
 The constitution having been granted by the emperor 
 of his free grace, it is considered impious to criticize it 
 or to suggest any change in it, since this would imply 
 t’hat his Majesty’s work was not wholly perfect. To 
 understand the constitution, it is necessary to read it 
 in conjunction with the authoritative commentary of 
 Marquis Ito, which was issued at the same time. Mr. 
 Coleman very correctly summarizes the Constitution as 
 follows : 6 
 
 Article I of the Japanese Constitution provides that “The 
 Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a 
 line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal.” 
 
 “By reigned over and governed,” wrote Marquis Ito in his 
 “Commentaries on the Constitution of Japan,” “it is meant 
 that the Emperor on His Throne combines in Himself the 
 Sovereignty of the State and the Government of the country 
 and of His subjects.” 
 
 Article 3 of the Constitution states that “the Emperor is 
 sacred and inviolate.” Marquis Ito’s comment in explanation 
 of this is peculiarly Japanese. He says, “The Sacred Throne 
 was established at the time when the heavens and earth be- 
 came separated. The Emperor is Heaven-descended, divine 
 and sacred; He is pre-eminent above all His subjects. He 
 must be reverenced and is inviolable. He has, indeed, to pay 
 due respect to the law, but the law has no power to hold 
 Him accountable to it. Not only shall there be no irrever- 
 ence for the Emperor’s person, but also shall He neither be 
 
 6 ‘‘The Far East Unveiled/’ pp. 252-53. 
 
114 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 made a topic of derogatory comment nor one of discussion. 7 ’ 
 
 Through the Constitution of Japan the Japanese Emperor 
 exercises the legislative power, the executive power, and the 
 judiciary power. The Emperor convokes the Imperial Diet, 
 opens, closes, prorogues, and dissolves it. When the Imperial 
 Diet is not sitting, Imperial ordinances may be issued in 
 place of laws. The Emperor has supreme control of the 
 Army and Navy, declares war, makes peace, and concludes 
 treaties; orders amnesty, pardon and commutation of pun- 
 ishments. 
 
 As to the Ministers of State, the Constitution of Japan, 
 Article 55, says: “The respective Ministers of State shall 
 give their advice to the Emperor and be responsible for it.” 
 
 Ito’s commentary on this article indicates his intention in 
 framing it. “When a Minister of State errs in the discharge 
 of his functions, the power of deciding upon his responsi- 
 bilities belongs to the Sovereign of the State: he alone can 
 dismiss a Minister who has appointed him. WTio then is it, 
 except the Sovereign, that can appoint, dismiss, and punish 
 a Minister of State? The appointment and dismissal of 
 them having been included by the Constitution in the sover- 
 eign power of the Emperor, it is only a legitimate conse- 
 quence that the power of deciding as to the responsibility of 
 Ministers is withheld from the Diet. But the Diet may put 
 questions to the Ministers and demand open answers from 
 them before the public, and it may also present addresses to 
 the Sovereign setting forth its opinions. 
 
 “The Minister President of State is to make representa- 
 tions to the Emperor on matters of State, and to indicate, 
 according to His pleasure, the general course of the policy 
 of the State, every branch of the administration being under 
 control of the said Minister. The compass of his duties is 
 large, and his responsibilities cannot but be proportionately 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 115 
 
 great. As to the other Ministers of State, they are severally 
 held responsible for the matters within their respective com- 
 petency; there is no joint responsibility among them in re- 
 gard to such matters. For, the Minister President and the 
 other Ministers of State, being alike personally appointed by 
 the Emperor, the proceedings of each one of them are, in 
 every respect, controlled by the will of the Emperor, and the 
 Minister President himself has no power of control over the 
 posts occupied by other Ministers, while the latter ought not 
 to be dependent upon the former. In some countries, the 
 Cabinet is regarded as constituting a corporate body, and 
 the Ministers are not held to take part in the conduct of 
 the Government each one in an individual capacity, but joint 
 responsibility is the rule. The evil of such a system is that 
 the power of party combination will ultimately overrule 
 the supreme power of the Sovereign. Such a state of 
 things can never be approved of according to our Constitu- 
 tion.” 
 
 In spite of the small powers of the Diet, it succeeded, 
 in the first four years of its existence (1890-94), in caus- 
 ing some annoyance to the government. Until 1894 the 
 policy of Japan was largely controlled by Marquis Ito, 
 who was opposed to militarism and chauvinism. The 
 statesmen of the first half of the Meiji era were con- 
 cerned mainly with introducing modern education and 
 modern social organization; they wished to preserve 
 Japanese independence vis-a-vis the Western powers, 
 but did not aim, for the time being, at imperialist ex- 
 pansion on their own account. Ito represented this 
 older school of Restoration statesmen. Their ideas of 
 statecraft were in the main derived from the Germany 
 
116 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 of the eighties, which was kept by Bismarck from un- 
 due adventurousness. But when the Diet proved dif- 
 ficult to manage, they reverted to an earlier phase of 
 Bismarck ’s career for an example to imitate. The Prus- 
 sian Landtag (incredible as it may seem) was vigorously 
 obstreperous at the time when Bismarck first rose to 
 power, but he tamed it by glutting the nation with mili- 
 tary glory in the wars against Austria and France. 
 Similarly, in 1894, the Japanese Government embarked 
 on war against China, and instantly secured the en- 
 thusiastic support of the hitherto rebellious Diet. From 
 that day to this, the Japanese Government has never 
 been vigorously opposed except for its good deeds (such 
 as the Treaty of Portsmouth) ; and it has atoned for 
 these by abundant international crimes, which the na- 
 tion has always applauded to the echo. Marquis Ito was 
 responsible for the outbreak of war in 1894. He was 
 afterward again opposed to the new policy of predatory 
 war, but was powerless to prevent it. 7 His opposition, 
 however, was tiresome, until at last he was murdered in 
 Korea. 
 
 Since the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese War in 1894, 
 Japan has pursued a consistent career of imperialism, 
 with quite extraordinary success. The nature and 
 fruits of that career I shall consider in the next two 
 chapters. For the time being, it has arrested whatever 
 tendency existed toward the development of democracy ; 
 the Diet is quite as unimportant as the English Parlia- 
 ment was in the time of the Tudors. Whether the 
 present system will continue for a long time, it is im- 
 
 7 See McLaren, op. cit. pp. 277, 228, 289. 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 117 
 
 possible to guess. An unsuccessful foreign war would 
 probably destroy not only the existing system, but the 
 whole unity and morale of the nation; I do not believe 
 that Japan would be as firm in defeat as Germany has 
 proved to be. Diplomatic failure, without war, would 
 probably produce a more Liberal regime, without revolu- 
 tion. There is, however, one very explosive element in 
 Japan, and that is industrialism. It is impossible for 
 Japan to be a great power without developing her in- 
 dustry, and in fact everything possible is done to in- 
 crease Japanese manufactures. Moreover, industry is 
 required to absorb the growing population, which can- 
 not emigrate to English-speaking regions, and will not 
 emigrate to the mainland of Asia because Chinese com- 
 petition is too severe. Therefore the only way to sup- 
 port a larger population is to absorb it into industrial- 
 ism, manufacturing goods for export as a means of pur- 
 chasing food abroad. Industrialism in Japan requires 
 control of China, because Japan contains hardly any 
 of the raw materials of industry, and cannot obtain them 
 sufficiently cheaply or securely in open competition with 
 America and Europe. Also dependence upon imported 
 food requires a strong navy. Thus the motives for im- 
 perialism and navalism in Japan are very similar to 
 those that have prevailed in England. But this policy 
 requires high taxation, while successful competition in 
 neutral markets requires — or rather, is thought to re- 
 quire — starvation wages and long hours for operatives. 
 In the cotton industry of Osaka, for example, most of the 
 work is done by girls under fourteen, who work eleven 
 hours a day and got, in 1916, an average daily wage of 
 
118 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 fivepence . 8 Labor organization is in its infancy, and so 
 is socialism ; 9 but both are certain to spread if the num- 
 ber of industrial workers increases without a very 
 marked improvement in hours and wages. Of course 
 the very rigidity of the Japanese policy, which has given 
 it its strength, makes it incapable of adjusting itself to 
 socialism and trade-unionism, which are vigorously per- 
 secuted by the government. And on the other hand 
 socialism and trade-unionism cannot accept mikado 
 worship and the whole farrago of myth upon which the 
 Japanese state depends . 10 There is therefore a likeli- 
 hood, some twenty or thirty years hence — assuming a 
 peaceful and prosperous development in the meantime 
 — of a very bitter class conflict between the proletarians 
 on the one side and the employers and bureaucrats on 
 
 8 Coleman, op. cit., Chap. XXXV. 
 
 9 See an invaluable pamphlet, “The Socialist and Labour Move- 
 ments in Japan,” published by the “Japan Chronicle,” 1921, for 
 an account of what is happening in this direction. 
 
 i° “The Times” of February 7, 1922, contains a telegram from 
 its correspondent in Tokyo, a propos of the funeral of Prince 
 Yamagata, chief of the Genro, to the following effect: 
 
 “To-day a voice was heard in the Diet in opposition to the 
 grant of expenses for the State funeral of Prince Yamagata. 
 The resolution, which was introduced by the member for Osaka 
 constituency, who is regarded as the spokesman of the so-called 
 Parliamentary Labour Party founded last year, states that the 
 Chief of the Genro (Elder Statesman) did not render true serv- 
 ice to the State, and, although the recipient of the highest 
 dignities, was an enemy of mankind and suppressor of demo- 
 cratic institutions. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, but 
 the fact that the introducer could obtain the necessary support 
 to table the resolution formally was not the least interesting 
 feature of the incident.” 
 
MODERN JAPAN 
 
 119 
 
 the other. If this should happen to synchronize with 
 agrarian discontent, it would prove impossible to fore- 
 tell the issue. 
 
 The problems facing Japan are therefore very dif- 
 ficult. To provide for the growing population it is 
 necessary to develop industry; to develop industry it 
 is necessary to control Chinese raw materials ; to control 
 Chinese raw materials it is necessary to go against the 
 economic interests of America and Europe; to do this 
 successfully requires a large army and navy, which in 
 turn involve great poverty for wage-earners. And ex- 
 panding industry with poverty for wage-earners means 
 growing discontent, increase of socialism, dissolution of 
 filial piety and mikado worship in the poorer classes, 
 and therefore a continually greater and greater menace 
 to the whole foundation on which the fabric of the state 
 is built. From without, Japan is threatened with the 
 risk of war against America or of a revival of China. 
 From within, there will be, before long, the risk of pro- 
 letarian revolution. 
 
 From all these dangers, there is only one escape, and 
 that is a diminution of the birth-rate. But such an 
 idea is not merely abhorrent to the militarists as di- 
 minishing the supply of cannon-fodder; it is funda- 
 mentally opposed to Japanese religion and morality, of 
 which patriotism and filial piety are the basis. There- 
 fore, if Japan is to emerge successfully, a much more 
 intense westernizing must take place, involving not only 
 mechanical processes and knowledge of bare facts, but 
 ideals and religion and general outlook on life. There 
 
120 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 must be free thought, skepticism, diminution in the in- 
 tensity of herd-instinct. Without these, the population 
 question cannot be solved ; and if that remains unsolved, 
 disaster is sooner or later inevitable. 
 
CHAPTER YII 
 
 JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914 
 
 B EFORE going into detail of Japan’s policy toward 
 China, it is necessary to put the reader on his guard 
 against the habit of thinking of the “Yellow Races,” as 
 though China and Japan formed some kind of unity. 
 There are, of course, reasons which, at first sight, would 
 lead one to suppose that China and Japan could be taken 
 in one group in comparison with the races of Europe 
 and of Africa. To begin with, the Chinese and Japanese 
 are both yellow, which points to ethnic affinities; but 
 the political and cultural importance of ethnic affinities 
 is very small. The Japanese assert that the hairy Ainus, 
 who are low in the scale of barbarians, are a white race 
 akin to ourselves. I never saw a hairy Ainu, and I sus- 
 pect the Japanese of malice in urging us to admit the 
 Ainus as poor relations; but, even if they really are of 
 Aryan descent, that does not prove that they have any- 
 thing of the slightest importance in common with us as 
 compared to what the Japanese and Chinese have in 
 common with us. Similarity of culture is infinitely 
 more important than a common racial origin. 
 
 It is true that Japanese culture, until the Restoration, 
 was derived from China. To this day, Japanese script 
 is practically the same as Chinese, and Buddhism, which 
 
 121 
 
122 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 is still the religion of the people, is of the sort derived 
 originally from China. Loyalty and filial piety, which 
 are the foundations of Japanese ethics, are Confucian 
 virtues, imported along with the rest of ancient Chinese 
 culture. But even before the irruption of European 
 influences, China and Japan had had such different 
 histories and national temperaments that doctrines orig- 
 inally similar had developed in opposite directions. 
 China has been, since the time of the First Emperor (c. 
 200 b. c.), a vast unified bureaucratic land empire, hav- 
 ing much contact with foreign nations — Annamese, Bur- 
 mese, Mongols, Tibetans, and even Indians. Japan, on 
 the other hand, was an island kingdom, having practi- 
 cally no foreign contact except with Korea and occasion- 
 ally with China, divided into clans which were con- 
 stantly at war with each other, developing the virtues 
 and vices of feudal chivalry, but totally unconcerned 
 with economic or administrative problems on a large 
 scale. It was not difficult to adapt the doctrines of Con- 
 fucius to such a country, because in the time of Con- 
 fucius China was still feudal and still divided into a 
 number of petty kingdoms, in one of which the sage 
 himself was a courtier, like Goethe at Weimar. But 
 naturally his doctrines underwent a different develop- 
 ment from that which befell them in their own coun- 
 try. 
 
 In old Japan, for instance, loyalty to the clan chief- 
 tain is the virtue one finds most praised ; it is this same 
 virtue, with its scope enlarged, which has now become 
 patriotism. Loyalty is a virtue naturally praised where 
 conflicts between roughly equal forces are frequent, as 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914 123 
 
 they were in feudal Japan, and are in the modern inter- 
 national world. In China, on the contrary, power 
 seemed so secure, the empire was so vast and immemorial, 
 that the need for loyalty was not felt. Security bred a 
 different set of virtues, such as courtesy, considerate- 
 ness, and compromise. Now that security is gone, and 
 the Chinese find themselves plunged into a world of 
 warring bandits, they have difficulty in developing the 
 patriotism, ruthlessness, and unscrupulousness which the 
 situation demands. The Japanese have no such dif- 
 ficulty, having been schooled for just such requirements 
 by their centuries of feudal anarchy. Accordingly we 
 find that Western influence has only accentuated the 
 previous differences between China and Japan: modern 
 Chinese like our thought but dislike our mechanism, 
 while modern Japanese like our mechanism but dislike 
 our thought. 
 
 From some points of view, Asia, including Russia, 
 may be regarded as a unity; but from this unity Japan 
 must be excluded. Russia, China, and India contain 
 vast plains given over to peasant agriculture; they are 
 easily swayed by military empires such as that of Jen- 
 ghis Khan; with modern railways, they could be dom- 
 inated from a center more securely than in former times. 
 They could be self-subsistent economically, and invulner- 
 able to outside attack, independent of commerce, and so 
 strong as to be indifferent to progress. All this may 
 come about some day, if Russia happens to develop a 
 great conqueror supported by German organizing 
 ability. But Japan stands outside this order of possi- 
 bilities. Japan, like Great Britain, must depend 
 
124 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 upon commerce for power and prosperity. As yet, 
 Japan has not developed the liberal mentality ap- 
 propriate to a commercial nation, and is still bent upon 
 Asiatic conquest and military prowess. This policy 
 brings with it conflicts with China and Russia, which 
 the present weakness of those powers has enabled Japan, 
 hitherto, to conduct successfully. But both are likely 
 to recover their strength sooner or later, and then the 
 essential weakness of present Japanese policy will be- 
 come apparent. 
 
 It results naturally from the situation that the 
 Japanese have two somewhat incompatible ambitions. 
 On the one hand, they wish to pose as the champions of 
 Asia against the oppression of the white man; on the 
 other hand, they wish to be admitted to equality by the 
 white powers, and to join in the feast obtained by ex- 
 ploiting the nations that are inefficient in homicide. 
 The former policy should make them friendly to China 
 and India and hostile to the white races; the latter pol- 
 icy has inspired the Anglo- Japanese alliance and its 
 fruits in the annexation of Korea and the virtual an- 
 nexation of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. As a mem- 
 ber of the league of nations, of the Big Five at Ver- 
 sailles, and of the Big Three at Washington, Japan ap- 
 pears as one of the ordinary great powers ; but at other 
 moments Japan aims at establishing a hegemony in Asia 
 by standing for the emancipation from white tyranny 
 of those who happen to be yellow or brown, but not 
 black. Count Okuma, speaking in the Kobe Chamber 
 of Commerce, said: “ There are three hundred million 
 
 natives in India looking to us to rescue them from the 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1911 125 
 
 thraldom of Great Britain.” 1 While in the Far East, 
 I inquired of innumerable Englishmen what advantage 
 our government could suppose that we derived from 
 the Japanese alliance. The only answer that seemed 
 to me to supply an intelligible motive was that the al- 
 liance somewhat mitigates the intensity of Japanese anti- 
 British propaganda in India. However that may be, 
 there can be no doubt that the Japanese would like to 
 pose before the Indians as their champions against white 
 tryanny. Mr. Pooley 2 quotes Dr. Ichimura of the Im- 
 perial University of Kyoto as giving the following list 
 of white men’s sins: 
 
 (1) White men consider that they alone are human beings, 
 and that all coloured races belong to a lower order of civili- 
 zation. 
 
 (2) They are extremely selfish, insisting on their own in- 
 terests, but ignoring the interests of all whom they regard 
 as inferiors. 
 
 (3) They are full of racial pride and conceit. If any con- 
 cession is made to them they demand and take more. 
 
 (4) They are extreme in everything, exceeding the coloured 
 races in greatness and wickedness. 
 
 (o) They worship money, and believing that money is the 
 basis of everything, will adopt any measures to gain it. 
 
 This enumeration of our vices appears to me wholly 
 just. One might have supposed that a nation which 
 saw us in this light would endeavor to be unlike us. 
 
 1 Quoted by A. M. Pooley, “Japan’s Foreign Policy,” Allen & 
 Unwin, 1920, p. 18. 
 
 2 Op. cit., p. 16 n. 
 
126 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 That, however, is not the moral which the Japanese 
 draw. They argue, on the contrary, that it is necessary 
 to imitate us as closely as possible. We shall find that, 
 in the long catalogue of crimes committed by Europeans 
 toward China, there is hardly one which has not been 
 equaled by the Japanese. It never occurs to a Japanese, 
 even in his wildest dreams, to think of a Chinaman as 
 an equal. And, although he wants the white man to re- 
 gard him as an equal, he himself regards Japan as im- 
 measurably superior to any white country. His real 
 desire is to be above the whites, not merely equal with 
 them. Count Okuma put the matter very simply in an 
 address given in 1913 : 
 
 The white races regard the world as their property and 
 all other races are greatly their inferiors. They presume to 
 think that the role of the whites in the universe is to govern 
 the world as they please. The Japanese were a people who 
 suffered by this policy, and wrongfully, for the Japanese 
 were not inferior to the white races, but fully their equals. 
 The whites were defying destiny, and woe to them . 3 
 
 It would be easy to quote statements by eminent men 
 to the effect that Japan is the greatest of all nations. 
 But the same could be said of the eminent men of all 
 other nations down to Ecuador. It is the acts of the 
 Japanese rather than their rhetoric that must concern 
 us. 
 
 The Sino- Japanese War of 1894—95 concerned Korea, 
 with whose internal affairs China and Japan had mutu- 
 
 3 Pooley, op. cit., p. 17. 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914 127 
 
 ally agreed not to interfere without first consulting each 
 other. The Japanese claimed that China had infringed 
 this agreement. Neither side was in the right ; it was a 
 war caused by a conflict of rival imperialisms. The 
 Chinese were easily and decisively defeated, and from 
 that day to this have not ventured to oppose any foreign 
 power by force of arms, except unofficially in the Boxer 
 rebellion. The Japanese were, however, prevented from 
 reaping the fruits of their victory by the intervention 
 of Russia, Germany, and France, England holding aloof. 
 The Russians coveted Korea for themselves, the French 
 came in as their allies, and the Germans presumably 
 joined them because of William II ’s dread of the Yellow 
 Peril. However that may be, this intervention made the 
 Russo-Japanese War inevitable. It would not have 
 mattered much to Japan if the Chinese had established 
 themselves in Korea, but the Russians would have con- 
 stituted a serious menace. The Russians did not be- 
 friend China for nothing ; they acquired a lease of Port 
 Arthur and Dalny (now called Dairen), with railway 
 and mining rights in Manchuria. They built the 
 Chinese Eastern Railway, running right through Man- 
 churia, connecting Port Arthur and Peking with the 
 Siberian Railway and Europe. Having accomplished 
 all this, they set to work to penetrate Korea. 
 
 The Russo-Japanese War would presumably not have 
 taken place but for the Anglo- Japanese alliance, con- 
 cluded in 1902. In British policy, this alliance has al- 
 ways had a somewhat minor place, while it has been the 
 corner-stone of Japanese foreign policy except during 
 the Great War, when the Japanese thought that Ger- 
 
128 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 many would win. The alliance provided that, in the 
 event of either power being attacked by two powers at 
 once, the other should come to its assistance. It was of 
 course, originally inspired by fear of Russia, and was 
 framed with a view to preventing the Russian Govern- 
 ment, in the event of war with Japan or England, from 
 calling upon the help of France. In 1902 we were hostile 
 to France and Russia, and Japan remained hostile to 
 Russia until after the Treaty of Portsmouth had been 
 supplemented by the convention of 1907. The alliance 
 served its purpose admirably for both parties during 
 the Russo-Japanese War. It kept France from joining 
 Russia, and thereby enabled Japan to acquire command 
 of the sea. It enabled Japan to weaken Russia, thus 
 curbing Russian ambitions, and making it possible for 
 us to conclude an entente with Russia in 1907. With- 
 out this entente, the entente concluded with France in 
 1904 would have been useless, and the alliance which 
 defeated Germany could not have been created. 
 
 Without the Anglo- Japanese alliance, Japan could not 
 have fought Russia alone, but would have had to fight 
 France also. This was beyond her strength at that 
 time. Thus the decisive step in Japan’s rise to great- 
 ness was due to our support. 
 
 The war ended with a qualified victory for Japan. 
 Russia renounced ail interference in Korea, surrendered 
 Port Arthur and Dalny (since called Dairen) to the 
 Japanese, and also the railway, as far north as Chang- 
 chun. This part of the railway, with a few branch lines, 
 has since then been called the South Manchurian Rail- 
 way. From Dairen to Changchun is 437 miles j Chang- 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914 129 
 
 chun is 150 miles south of Harbin. The Japanese use 
 Dairen as the commercial port for Manchuria, reserv- 
 ing Port Arthur for purely naval purposes. In regard 
 to Korea, Japan has conformed strictly to Western 
 models. During the Russo-Japanese War the Japanese 
 made a treaty guaranteeing the independence and in- 
 tegrity of Korea; in 1910 they annexed Korea; since 
 then they have suppressed Korean nationalists with every 
 imaginable severity. All this establishes their claim to 
 be fully the equals of the white men. 
 
 The Japanese not merely hold the South Manchurian 
 Railway, but have a monopoly of railway construction 
 in South Manchuria. As this was practically the be- 
 ginning of Japan’s control of large regions in China by 
 means of railway monopolies, it will be worth while to 
 quote Mr. Pooley’s account of the Fa-ku-Men Railway 
 incident, 4 which shows how the South Manchurian 
 monopoly was acquired: 
 
 In November 1907 the Chinese Government signed a con- 
 tract with Messrs Pauling and Co. for an extension of the 
 Imperial Chinese railways northwards from Hsin-min-Tung 
 to Fa-ku-Men, the necessary capital for the work being 
 found by the British and Chinese Corporation. Japan pro- 
 tested against the contract, firstly, on an alleged secret 
 protocol annexed to the treaty of Peking, which was alleged 
 to have said that “the Chinese Government shall not construct 
 any main line in the neighbourhood of or parallel to the 
 South Manchurian Railway, *nor any branch line which should 
 be prejudicial to the interests of that railway”; and, sec- 
 ondly, on the Convention of 1902, between China and Russia, 
 
 * A. M. Pooley, “Japan’s Foreign Policies,” pp. 48-51. 
 
130 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 that no railway should be built from Hsin-min-Tung without 
 Russian consent. As by the Treaty of Portsmouth, Japan 
 succeeded to the Russian rights, the projected line could not 
 be built without her consent. Her diplomatic communica- 
 tions were exceedingly offensive in tone, and concluded with 
 a notification that, if she was wrong, it was obviously only 
 Russia who could rightfully take her to task! 
 
 The Chinese Government based its action in granting the 
 contract on the clause of the 1898 contract for the construc- 
 tion of the Chung-hon-so to Hsin-min-Tung line, under which 
 China specifically reserved the right to build the Fa-ku-Men 
 line with the aid of the same contractors. Further although 
 by the Russo-British Note of 1898 British subjects were 
 specifically excluded from participation in railway con- 
 struction north of the Great Wall, by the Additional Note 
 attached to the Russo-British Note the engagements between 
 the Chinese Government and the British and Chinese Cor- 
 poration were specifically reserved from the purview of the 
 agreement. 
 
 Even if Japan, as the heir of Russia’s assets and liabilities 
 in Manchuria, had been justified in her protest by the Con- 
 vention of 1902 and by the Russo-British Note of 1899, she 
 had not fulfilled her part of the bargain, namely, the Russian 
 undertaking in the Note to abstain from seeking concession, 
 rights and privileges in the valley of the Yangtsze. Her re- 
 liance on the secret treaty carried weight with Great Britain, 
 but with no one else, as may be gauged from the records of 
 the State Department at Washington. A later claim ad- 
 vanced by Japan that her action was justified by Article VI 
 of the Treaty of Portsmouth, which assigned to Japan all 
 Russian rights in the Chinese Eastern Railway (South Man- 
 churian Railway) “with all rights and properties appertain- 
 ing thereto,” was effectively answered by China’s citation of 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914 131 
 
 Articles III and IY of the same Treaty. Under the first 
 of these articles it is declared that “Russia has no territorial 
 advantages or preferential or exclusive concessions in Man- 
 churia in impairment of Chinese sovereignty or inconsistent 
 with the principle of equal opportunity”; whilst the second 
 is a reciprocal engagement by Russia and Japan “not to ob- 
 struct any general measures common to all countries which 
 China may take for the development of the commerce and 
 industry of Manchuria.” 
 
 It w T ould be interesting to know whether a refusal to allow 
 China to build a railway on her own territory is or is not 
 an impairment of Chinese sovereignty and whether such a 
 railway as that proposed was not a measure of the “develop- 
 ment of the commerce and industry of Manchuria.” 
 
 It is doubtful if even the Russo-Japanese War created as 
 much feeling in China as did the Fa-ku-Men incident. Ja- 
 pan’s action was of such flagrant dishonesty and such a 
 cynical repudiation of her promises and pledges that her 
 credit received a blow from which it has never since recov- 
 ered. The abject failure of the British Government to sup- 
 port its subjects’ treaty rights was almost as much an eye- 
 opener to the world as the protest from Tokio. . . . 
 
 The methods which had proved so successful in stopping 
 the Fa-ku-Men railway were equally successful in forcing the 
 abandonment of other projected railways. Among these were 
 the Chin-chou-Aigun line and the important Antung-Mukden 
 line. 5 The same alleged secret protocol was used equally 
 brutally and successfully for the acquisition of the Newch- 
 wang line, and participation in 1909, and eventual acquisi- 
 tion in 1914, of the Chan-Chun-Kirin lines. Subsequently 
 by an agreement with Russia the sixth article of the Russo- 
 Chinese Agreement of 1896 was construed to mean “the ab- 
 
 5 This line was subsequently built by the Japanese. 
 
132 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 solute and exclusive rights of administration within the rail- 
 way zone.” 
 
 Japan’s spheres of influence have been subsequently 
 extended to cover the whole of Manchuria and the whole 
 of Shantung — though the latter has been nominally re- 
 nounced at Washington. By such methods as the above, 
 or by loans to impecunious Chinese authorities, the Japa- 
 nese have acquired vast railway monopolies wherever 
 their influence has penetrated, and have used the rail- 
 ways as a means of acquiring all real power in the prov- 
 inces through which they run. 
 
 After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia and Japan be- 
 came firm friends, and agreed to bring pressure on China 
 jointly in any matter affecting Manchuria. Their 
 friendship lasted until the Bolshevik revolution. Russia 
 had entered into extensive obligations to support Japan’s 
 claims at the peace conference, which of course the Bol- 
 sheviks repudiated. Hence the implacable hostility of 
 Japan to Soviet Russia, leading to the support of in- 
 numerable White filibusters in the territory of the Far 
 Eastern Republic, and to friendship with France in all 
 international questions. 
 
 As soon as there began to be in China a revolutionary 
 party aiming at the overthrow of the Manchus, the 
 Japanese supported it. They have continuously sup- 
 ported either or both sides in Chinese dissensions, as 
 they judged most useful for prolonging civil war and 
 weakening China politically. Before the revolution of 
 1911, Sun Yat Sen was several times in Japan, and there 
 is evidence that as early as 1900 he was obtaining finan- 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914 133 
 
 cial support from some Japanese. 6 When the revolu- 
 tion actually broke out, Japan endeavored to support 
 the Manchus, but was prevented from doing so effectively 
 by the other legations. It seems that the policy of 
 Japan at that time, as later, was to prevent the union of 
 North and South, and to confine the revolution to the 
 South. Moreover, reverence for monarchy made Japan 
 unwilling to see the emperor of China dispossessed and 
 his whole country turned into a republic, though it 
 would have been agreeable to see him weakened by the 
 loss of some southern provinces. Mr. Pooley gives a 
 good account of the actions of Japan during the Chi- 
 nese revolution, of which the following quotation gives 
 the gist : 7 
 
 It [the Genro] commenced with a statement from Prince 
 Katsura on December 18th [1911], that the time for inter- 
 vention had arrived, with the usual rider “for the sake of 
 the peace of the Far East.” This was followed by a private 
 instruction to M. Ijuin, Japanese Minister in Peking, where- 
 under the latter on December 23rd categorically informed 
 Yuan-shi-kai that under no circumstances would Japan 
 recognize a republican form of government in China. ... In 
 connection with the peace conference held at Shanghai, Mr. 
 Matsui (now Japanese Ambassador to France), a trusted 
 Councillor of the Foreign Office, was dispatched to Peking 
 to back M. Ijuin in the negotiations to uphold the dynasty. 
 Simultaneously, Mr. Denison, Legal Adviser to the Japanese 
 Foreign Office, was sent to Shanghai to negotiate with the 
 rebel leaders. Mr. Matsui’s mission was to bargain for 
 
 s Pooley, op. cit., pp. 57-8'. 
 
 7 Page 6G. 
 
134 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Japanese support of the Manchus against the rebels, Man- 
 churia against the throne; Mr. Denison’s mission was to bar- 
 gain for Japanese support of the rebels against the throne, 
 recognition by Peking of the Southern Republic against 
 virtually a Japanese protectorate of that Republic and ex- 
 clusive railway and mining concessions within its borders. 
 The rebels absolutely refused Mr. Denison’s offer, and sent 
 the proposed terms to the Russian Minister at Peking, 
 through whom they eventually saw the light of day. Needless 
 to say the Japanese authorities strenuously denied their au- 
 thenticity. 
 
 The British Legation, however, supported Yuan Shih- 
 k’ai, against both the Manchus and Sun Yat’Sen; and it 
 was the British policy which won the day. Yuan-Shih- 
 k’ai became president, and remained so until 1915. He 
 was strongly anti- Japanese, and had, on that ground, 
 been opposed as strongly as Japan dared. His success 
 was therefore a blow to the influence of Japan in China. 
 If the Western powers had remained free to make them- 
 selves felt in the Far East, the course of events would 
 doubtless have been much less favorable to the Japanese; 
 but the war came, and the Japanese saw their chance. 
 How they used it must be told in a separate chapter. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 
 
 T HE most urgent problem in China’s relations with 
 foreign powers is Japanese aggression. Originally 
 Japan was less powerful than China, but after 1868 the 
 Japanese rapidly learned from us whatever we had to 
 teach in the way of skilful homicide, and in 1894 they 
 resolved to test their new armaments upon China, just 
 as Bismarck tested his on Denmark. The Chinese 
 Government preserved its traditional haughtiness, and 
 appears to have been quite unaware of the defeat in 
 store for it. The question at issue was Korea, over 
 which both powers claimed suzerainty. At that time 
 there would have been no reason for an impartial neu- 
 tral to take one side rather than the other. The 
 Japanese were quickly and completely victorious, but 
 were obliged to fight Russia before obtaining secure 
 possession of Korea. The war with Russia (1904-05) 
 was fought chiefly in Manchuria, which the Russians 
 had gained as a reward for befriending China. Port 
 Arthur and Southern Manchuria up to Mukden were 
 acquired by the Japanese as a result of the Russo- 
 Japanese War; the rest of Manchuria came under 
 Japanese control as a result of Russia’s collapse after 
 the Great War. 
 
 i35 
 
136 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 The nominal sovereignty in Manchuria is still 
 Chinese; the Chinese have the civil administration, an 
 army, and the appointment of the viceroy. But the 
 Japanese also have troops in Manchuria; they have the 
 railways, the industrial enterprises, and the complete 
 economic and military control. The Chinese viceroy 
 could not remain in power a week if he were displeas- 
 ing to the Japanese, which, however, he takes care not 
 to be. (See Note A.) The same situation was being 
 brought about in Shantung. 
 
 'Shantung brings us to what Japan did in the Great 
 War. In 1914, China could easily have been induced 
 to join the allies and to set to work to turn the Ger- 
 mans out of Kiao-Chow, but this did not suit the 
 Japanese, who undertook the work themselves and in- 
 sisted upon the Chinese remaining neutral (until 1917). 
 Having captured Tsing-tau, they presented to the 
 Chinese the famous Twenty-one Demands, which gave 
 the Chinese Question its modern form. These demands, 
 as originally presented in January, 1915, consisted of 
 five groups. The first dealt with Shantung, demanding 
 that China should agree in advance to whatever terms 
 Japan might ultimately make with Germany as regarded 
 this Chinese province, that the Japanese should have 
 the right to construct certain specified railways, and 
 that certain ports (unspecified) should be opened to 
 trade; also that no privileges in Shantung should be 
 granted to any power other than Japan. The second 
 group concerns South Manchuria and eastern Inner 
 Mongolia, and demands what is in effect a protectorate, 
 with control of railways, complete economic freedom for 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 137 
 
 Japanese enterprise, and exclusion of all other foreign 
 industrial enterprise. The third group gives Japan a 
 monopoly of the mines and iron and steel works in a 
 certain region of the Yangtze, 1 where we claim a sphere 
 of influence. The fourth group consists of a single de- 
 mand, that China shall not cede any harbor, bay or 
 island to any power except Japan. The fifth group, 
 which was the most serious, demanded that Japanese 
 political, financial, and military advisers should be 
 employed by the Chinese Government; that the police 
 in important places should be administered by Chinese 
 and Japanese jointly, and should be largely Japanese 
 in personnel ; that China should purchase from Japan 
 at least 50 per cent, of her munitions, or obtain them 
 from a Sino- Japanese arsenal to be established in China, 
 
 i On this subject George Gleason, “What Shall I Think of Ja- 
 pan?” pp. 174-5, says: “This paragraph concerns the iron and 
 
 steel mills at the city of Hanyang, which, with Wuchang and 
 Hangkow, form the Upper Yangtze commercial centre with a 
 population of 1,500,000 people. The Hanyeping Company owns 
 a large part of the Tayeh iron mines, eighty miles east of Hang- 
 kow, with which there are water and rail connections 1 . The ore 
 is 67 per cent, iron, fills the whole of a series of hills 500 feet 
 high, and is sufficient to turn out 1,000,000 tons a year for 700 
 years. [Probably an over-statement.] Coal for the furnaces is 
 obtained from Pinghsiang, 200 miles distant by water, where in 
 1913 five thousand miners dug 690,000 tons. Japanese have es- 
 timated that the vein is capable of producing yearly a million 
 tons for at least five centuries. . . .. 
 
 “Thus did Japan attempt to enter and control a vital spot 
 in the heart of China which for many years Great Britain has 
 regarded as her special trade domain.” 
 
 Mr. Gleason is an American, not an Englishman. The best 
 account of this matter is given by Mr. Coleman, “The Far East 
 Unveiled,” Chaps. X-XIV. See below, pp. 232-3. 
 
138 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 controlled by Japanese experts and employing Japanese 
 material; that Japan should have the right to construct 
 certain railways in and near the Yangtze Valley; that 
 Japan should have industrial priority in Fukien (oppo- 
 site Formosa) ; and finally that the Japanese should 
 have the right of missionary propaganda in China, to 
 spread the knowledge of their admirable ethics. 
 
 These demands involved, as is obvious, a complete 
 loss of Chinese independence, the closing of important 
 areas to the commerce and industry of Europe and 
 America, and a special attack upon the British position 
 in the Yangtze. We, however, were so busy with the 
 war that we had no time to think of keeping ourselves 
 alive. Although the demands constituted a grave 
 menace to our trade, although the Far East was in an 
 uproar about them, although America took drastic dip- 
 lomatic action against them, Mr. Lloyd George never 
 heard of them until they were explained to him by the 
 Chinese delegation at Versailles. 2 He had no time to 
 find out what Japan wanted, but had time to conclude 
 a secret agreement with Japan in February, 1917, prom- 
 ising that whatever Japan wanted in Shantung we 
 should support at the peace conference. 3 By the terms 
 of the Anglo- Japanese alliance, Japan was bound to 
 communicate the Twenty-one Demands to the British 
 Government. In fact, Japan communicated the first 
 four groups, but not the fifth and worst, thus definitely 
 
 2 See letter from Mr. Eugene Chen, “Japan Weekly Chronicle,” 
 October 20, 1921. 
 
 s The notes embodying this agreement are quoted in Pooley, 
 “Japan’s Foreign Policies,” Allen & Unwin, 1920, pp. 141-2. 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 139 
 
 breaking the treaty; 4 but this also, one must suppose, 
 Mr. Lloyd George only discovered by chance when he 
 got to Versailles. 
 
 China negotiated with Japan about the Twenty-one 
 Demands, and secured certain modifications, but was 
 finally compelled to yield by an ultimatum. There was 
 a modification as regards the Hanyehping mines on the 
 Yangtze, presumably to please us; and the specially 
 obnoxious fifth group was altered into an exchange of 
 studiously vague notes. 5 In this form, the demands 
 were accepted by China on May 9, 1915. The United 
 States immediately notified Japan that they could not 
 recognize the agreement. At that time America was 
 still neutral, and was therefore still able to do some- 
 thing to further the objects for which we were sup- 
 posed to be fighting, such as protection of the weaker 
 nations. In 1917, however, after America had entered 
 the war for self-determination, it became necessary to 
 placate Japan, and in November of that year the Ishii- 
 Lansing agreement was concluded, by which ‘ ‘ the 
 
 4 On this subject, Baron Hayashi, now Japanese ambassador 
 to the United Kingdom said to Mr. Coleman : “When Viscount 
 
 Kato sent China a Note containing five groups, however, and 
 then sent to England what purported to be a copy of his Note 
 to China, and that copy only contained four of the groups and 
 omitted the fifth altogether, which was directly a breach of the 
 agreement contained in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, he did 
 something which I can no more explain than you can. Outside 
 of the question of probity involved, his action was unbelievably 
 foolish.” (“The Far East Unveiled.” p. 73) 
 
 s The demands in their original and revised forms, with the 
 negotiations concerning them, are printed in Appendix B of 
 “Democracy and the Eastern Question,” by Thomas F. Millard, 
 Allen & Unwin, 1919. 
 
140 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Government of the United States recognizes that Japan 
 has special interests in China, particularly for the parts 
 to which her possessions are contiguous. The rest of 
 the agreement (which is long) consists of empty ver- 
 biage. 6 
 
 I come now to the events leading up to China’s 
 entry into the war. 7 In this matter, the lead was taken 
 by America so far as severing diplomatic relations was 
 concerned, hut passed to Japan as regards the declara- 
 tion of war. It will be remembered that, when America 
 broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, President 
 Wilson called upon all neutrals to do likewise. Dr. 
 Paul S. Reinsch, United States minister in Peking, pro- 
 ceeded to act with vigor in- accordance with this policy. 
 He induced China first, on February 9, 1917, to send a 
 note of expostulation to Germany on the subject of the 
 submarine campaign; then, on March 14, to break off 
 diplomatic relations. The further step of declaring 
 war was not taken until August 14. The intrigues con- 
 nected with these events deserve some study. 
 
 In view of the fact that the Japanese were among the 
 allies, the Chinese had not any strong tendency to take 
 
 6 The texts concerned in the various stages of the Shantung 
 question are printed in S. G. Cheng’s “Modern China,” Appendix 
 II, III, and IX. For text of Ishii-Lansing agreement, see 
 Gleason, op. cit., pp. 214-6. 
 
 7 Three books, all by Americans, give the secret and official 
 
 history of this matter. They are: “An American Diplomat in 
 
 China,” by Paul S. Reinsch, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1922; “De- 
 mocracy and the Eastern Question,” by Thomas F. Millard, Allen 
 & Unwin, 1919; and “China, Captive or Free?” by the Rev. 
 Gilbert Reid, A.M., D.D., director of International Institute of 
 China, Allen & Unwin, 1922. 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 141 
 
 sides against Germany. The English, French, and 
 Russians had always desired the participation of China 
 (for reasons which I shall explain presently), and there 
 appears to have been some suggestion, in the early days 
 of the w T ar, that China should participate in return for 
 our recognizing Yuang Shili-k’ai as emperor. These 
 suggestions, however, fell through owing to the opposi- 
 tion of Japan, based partly on hostility to Yuang Sliih- 
 k’ai, partly on the fear that China would be protected 
 by the allies if she became a belligerent. When, in 
 November, 1915, the British, French, and Russian am- 
 bassadors in Tokyo requested Japan to join in urging 
 China to join the allies, Viscount Ishii said that “Japan 
 considered developments in China as of paramount 
 interest to her, and she must keep a firm hand there. 
 Japan could not regard with equanimity the organiza- 
 tion of an efficient Chinese army such as would be re- 
 quired for her active participation in the war, nor could 
 Japan fail to regard with uneasiness a liberation of 
 the economic activities of 400,000,000 people.” 8 Ac- 
 cordingly the proposal lapsed. It must be understood 
 that throughout the war the Japanese were in a position 
 to blackmail the allies, because their sympathies were 
 with Germany, they believed Germany would win, and 
 they filled their newspapers with scurrilous attacks on 
 the British, accusing them of cowardice and military 
 incompetence. 9 
 
 But when America severed diplomatic relations with 
 
 s Millard, p. 99. 
 
 9 See Pooley, “Japan’s Foreign Policies,” pp. 23 ff; Coleman, 
 “The Far East Unveiled,” Chap. V, and Millard, Chap. III. 
 
142 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Germany, the situation for China was changed. Amer- 
 ica was not bound to subservience to Japan, as we were ; 
 America was not one of the allies ; and America had al- 
 ways been China’s best friend. Accordingly, the 
 Chinese were willing to take the advice of America, 
 and proceeded to sever diplomatic relations with Ger- 
 many in March, 1917. Dr. Reinsch was careful to make 
 no promises to the Chinese, but of course he held out 
 hopes. The American Government, at that time, could 
 honestly hold out hopes, because it was ignorant of the 
 secret treaties and agreements by which the allies were 
 bound. The allies, however, can offer no such excuse 
 for having urged China to take the further step of de- 
 claring war. Russia, France, and Great Britain had 
 all sold China’s rights to secure the continued support 
 of Japan. 
 
 In May, 1916, the Japanese represented to the Rus- 
 sians that Germany was inviting Japan to make a 
 separate peace. In July, 1916, Russia and Japan con- 
 cluded a secret treaty, subsequently published by the 
 Bolsheviks. This treaty constituted a separate alliance, 
 binding each to come to the assistance of the other in 
 any war, and recognizing that “the vital interests of 
 one and the other of them require the safeguarding 
 of China from the political domination of any third 
 Power whatsoever, having hostile designs against Russia 
 or Japan.” The last article provided that “the present 
 agreement must remain profoundly secret except to 
 both of the High Contracting Parties.” 10 That is to 
 io Millard, pp. 64-66, 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DUPING THE WAP 143 
 
 say, the treaty was not communicated to the other allies, 
 or even to Great Britain, in spite of Article 3 of the 
 Anglo- Japanese alliance, which provides that “The 
 High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them 
 will, without consulting the other, enter into a separate 
 agreement with another Power to the prejudice of 
 the objects described in the preamble of this Agree- 
 ment,’ ’ one of which objects was the preservation of 
 equal opportunity for all powers in China and of 
 the independence and integrity of the Chinese Em- 
 pire. 
 
 On February 16, 1917, at the very time when America 
 was urging China to sever diplomatic relations with 
 Germany, we concluded an agreement with Japan con- 
 taining the following words: 
 
 His Britannic Majesty’s Government accedes with pleasure 
 to the request of the Japanese Government for an assurance 
 that they will support Japan’s claims in regard to the dis- 
 posaj of Germany’s rights in Shantung and possessions in 
 the islands north of the equator on the occasion of the Peace 
 Conference; it being understood that the Japanese Govern- 
 ment will, in the eventual peace settlement, treat in the same 
 spirit Great Britain’s claims to the German islands south of 
 the equator. 
 
 The French .attitude about Shantung, at the same 
 time, is indicated by notes which passed between France 
 and Japan at Tokyo. 11 On February 19, Baron 
 Motono sent a communication to the French and Rus- 
 
 ii Reid, op. tit., pp. 114-5; Cheng, op. tit., pp. 343-6* 
 
144 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 sian ambassadors stating, among other things, that “the 
 Imperial Japanese Government proposes to demand 
 from Germany at the time of the peace negotiations, the 
 surrender of the territorial rights and special inter- 
 ests Germany possessed before the war in Shantung and 
 the islands belonging to her situated north of the equa- 
 tor in the Pacific Ocean/ ’ The French ambassador, on 
 March 2, replied as follows: 
 
 The Government of the French Republic is disposed to 
 give the Japanese Government its accord in regulating at 
 the time of the Peace Negotiations questions vital to Japan 
 concerning Shantung and the German islands on the Pacific 
 north of the equator. It also agrees to support the demands 
 of the Imperial Japanese Government for the surrender of 
 the rights Germany possessed before the war in this Chinese 
 province and these islands. 
 
 M. Briand demands on the other hand that Japan give its 
 support to obtain from China the breaking of its diplomatic 
 relations with Germany, and that it give this act desirable 
 significance. The consequences in China should be the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 First, handing passports to the German diplomatic agents 
 and consuls; 
 
 Second, the obligation of all under German jurisdiction to 
 leave Chinese territory; 
 
 Third, the internment of German ships in Chinese ports 
 and the ultimate requisition of these ships in order to place 
 them at the disposition of the Allies, following the example 
 of Italy and Portugal; 
 
 Fourth, requisition of German commercial houses, estab- 
 lished in China; forfeiting the rights of Germany in the con- 
 cessions she possesses in certain ports of China. 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 145 
 
 The Russian reply to Baron Motono’s note to the 
 French and Russian ambassadors, dated March 5, 1917, 
 was as follows: 
 
 In reply to the Note of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign 
 Affairs, under the date of February 19th last, the Russian 
 Embassy is charged with giving the Japanese Government 
 the assurance that it can entirely count on the support of the 
 Imperial Government of Russia with regard to its desiderata 
 concerning the eventual surrender to Japan of the rights 
 belonging to Germany in Shantung and of the German is- 
 lands, occupied by the Japanese forces, in the Pacific Ocean 
 to the north of the Equator. 12 
 
 It will be observed that, unlike England and France, 
 Russia demands no quid pro quo y doubtless owing to 
 the secret treaty concluded in the previous year. 
 
 After these agreements, Japan saw no further objec- 
 tion to China’s participation in the war. The chief in- 
 ducement held out to China was the hope of recovering 
 Shantung ; but as there was now no danger of this hope 
 being realized, Japan was willing that America, in more 
 or less honest ignorance, should unofficially use this hope 
 for the persuasion of the Chinese. It is true that Japan 
 had reason to fear America until the last days of the 
 peace conference, but this fear was considerably dimin- 
 ished by the conclusion of the Lansing-Ishii agreement 
 in November, 1917. 
 
 12 See Appendix III of Cheng’s “Modern China.” which con- 
 tains this note (p. 346) as well as the other “documents rela- 
 tive to the negotiations between Japan and the Allied Powers 
 as to the disposal of the German rights in respect of Shantung 
 Province, and the South Sea Islands north of the Equator.” 
 
146 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Meanwhile Japan had discovered that the question 
 of China’s entry into the war could be used to increase 
 internal strife in China, which has been one of the aims 
 of Japanese policy ever since the beginning of the 
 revolutionary movement. 13 If the Chinese had not 
 been interfered with at this time, there was some pros- 
 pect of their succeeding in establishing a stable demo- 
 cratic government. Yuan was dead, and his successor 
 in the presidency, Li Yuan Hung, was a genuine consti- 
 tutionalist. He reassembled the Parliament which 
 Yuan had dismissed, and the work of drafting a per- 
 manent constitution was resumed. The president was 
 opposed to severing diplomatic relations, and, of course, 
 still more to declaring war. The prime minister, Tuan 
 Chih-jui, a militarist, was strongly in favor of war. 
 He and his cabinet persuaded a considerable majority 
 of both houses of the Chinese Parliament to side with 
 them on the question of severing diplomatic relations, 
 and the president, as in duty bound, gave way on this 
 issue. 
 
 On the issue of declaring war, however, public opin- 
 ion was different. It was President Wilson’s summons 
 to the neutrals to follow him in breaking off diplomatic 
 relations that had given force to the earlier campaign; 
 but on June 5 the American minister, acting on instruc- 
 tions, presented a note to the Chinese Government urg- 
 ing that the preservation of national unity was more im- 
 portant than entry into the war, and suggesting the 
 desirability of preserving peace for the present. What 
 
 is The story of the steps leading up to China’s declaration 
 of war is admirably told in Reid, op. cit., pp. 88-109. 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING TPIE WAR 147 
 
 had happened in the meantime was that the war issue, 
 which might never have become acute but for Presi- 
 dent Wilson’s action, had been used by the Japanese 
 to revive the conflict between North and South, and to 
 instigate the Chinese militarists to unconstitutional 
 action. Sun Yat Sen and most of the Southern politi- 
 cians were opposed to the declaration of war; Sun’s 
 reasons were made known in an open letter to Mr. 
 Lloyd George on March 7. They were thoroughly 
 sound. 14 The cabinet, on May 1, decided in favor of 
 <rar, but by the constitution a declaration of war re- 
 quired the consent of Parliament. The militarists at- 
 tempted to coerce Parliament, which had a majority 
 against war ; but, as this proved impossible, they brought 
 military force to bear on the president to compel him to 
 dissolve Parliament unconstitutionally. The bulk of the 
 members of Parliament retired to the South, where they 
 continued to act as a Parliament and to regard them- 
 selves as the sole source of constitutional government. 
 After these various illegalities, the military autocrats 
 were still compelled to deal with one of their number, 
 who, in July, effected a five days’ restoration of the 
 Manchu emperor. The president resigned, and was suc- 
 ceeded by a person more agreeable to the militarists, who 
 have henceforth governed in the North sometimes with- 
 out a Parliament, sometimes with a subservient uncon- 
 stitutional Northern Parliament. Then at last they 
 were free to declare war. It was thu's that China 
 entered the war for democracy and against militarism. 
 
 Of course China helped little, if at all, toward the 
 14 Part of the letter is quoted by Dr. Eeid, p. 108, 
 
148 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 winning of the war, but that was not what the allies 
 expected of her. The objects of the European allies 
 are disclosed in the French note quoted above. We 
 wished to confiscate German property in China, to expel 
 Germans living in China, and to prevent, as far as 
 possible, the revival of German trade in China after 
 the war. The confiscation of German property was 
 duly carried out — not only public property, but pri- 
 vate property also, so that the Germans in China were 
 suddenly reduced to beggary. Owing to the claims on 
 shipping, the expulsion of the Germans had to wait till 
 after the armistice. They were sent home through the 
 tropics in overcrowded ships, sometimes with only 
 twenty-four hours’ notice; no degree of hardship was 
 sufficient to secure exemption. The British authorities 
 insisted on expelling delicate pregnant women, whom 
 they officially knew to be very likely to die on the 
 voyage. All this was done after the armistice, for the 
 sake of British trade. The kindly Chinese often took 
 upon themselves to hide Germans, in hard cases, from 
 the merciless persecution of the allies; otherwise, the 
 miseries inflicted would have been much greater. 
 
 The confiscation of private property during the war 
 and by the treaty of Versailles was a new departure, 
 showing that on this point all the belligerents agreed 
 with the Bolsheviks. Dr. Reid places side by side two 
 statements, one by President Wilson when asking 
 Congress to agree to the Declaration of War: “We 
 shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belliger- 
 ents without passion, and ourselves observe with proud 
 punctilio the principles of right and fair play we pro- 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 149 
 
 fess to be fighting for”; the other by Senator Hitch- 
 cock, when the war was over, after a day spent with 
 President Wilson in learning the case for ratification of 
 the Versailles Treaty: “Through the Treaty, we will 
 yet get very much of importance. ... In violation of 
 all international law and treaties we have made dis- 
 position of a billion dollars of German-owned property 
 here. The Treaty validates all that.” 15 The European 
 allies secured very similar advantages from inducing 
 China to enter the war for righteousness. 
 
 We have seen what England and France gained by 
 the Chinese declaration of war. What Japan gained 
 was somewhat different. 
 
 The Northern military faction, which controlled the 
 Peking government, was completely dependent upon 
 Japan, and could do nothing to resist Japanese aggres- 
 sion. All the other powers were fully occupied with 
 the war, and had sold China to Japan in return for 
 Japanese neutrality — for Japan can hardly be counted 
 as a belligerent after the capture of Tsingtau in Novem- 
 ber, 1914. The Southern government and all the liberal 
 elements in the North were against the clique which had 
 seized the central government. In March, 1918, mili- 
 tary and naval agreements were concluded between 
 China and Japan, of which the text, never officially 
 published, is given by Millar. 16 By these agreements 
 the Japanese were enabled, under pretence of military 
 
 is Reid, op. cit., p. 161. Chap. VII of this book, “Commercial 
 Rivalries as affecting China,” should be read by any one who 
 still thinks that the allies stood for honesty or mercy or any- 
 thing except money-grubbing. 
 
 is Appendix C, pp. 421-4. 
 
150 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 needs in Manchuria and Mongolia, to send troops into 
 Chinese territory, to acquire control of the Chinese 
 Eastern Railway and consequently of Northern Man- 
 churia, and generally to keep all Northern China at 
 their mercy. In all this, the excuse of operations 
 against the Bolsheviks was very convenient. 
 
 After this the Japanese went ahead gaily. During 
 the year 1918, they placed loans in China to the extent 
 of yen 246, 000, 000, 17 i. e., about £25,000,000. China was 
 engaged in civil war, and both sides were as willing as 
 the European belligerents to sell freedom for the sake 
 of victory. Unfortunately for J apan, the side on which 
 Japan was fighting in the war proved suddenly victo- 
 rious, and some portion of the energies of Europe and 
 America became available for holding Japan in check. 
 For various reasons, however, the effect of this did not 
 show itself until after the Treaty of Versailles was con- 
 cluded. During the peace negotiations, England and 
 France, in virtue of secret agreements, were compelled 
 to support Japan. President Wilson, as usual, sacrificed 
 everything to his league of nations, which the Japanese 
 would not have joined unless they had been allowed to 
 keep Shantung. The chapter on this subject in Mr. Lan- 
 sing ’s account of the negotiations is one of the most 
 interesting in his book. 18 By article 156 of the Treaty 
 
 17 A list of these loans is given by Hollington K. Tong in an 
 article on “China’s Finances in 1918” in “China in 1918,” pub- 
 lished early in 1919 by the “Peking Leader,” pp. 61-2. The list 
 and some of the comments appear also in Putnam Weale’s “The 
 Truth about China and Japan.” 
 
 is Mr. Lansing’s book, in so far as it deals with Japanese 
 questions, is severely criticized from a Japanese point of view 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 151 
 
 of Versailles, “Germany renounces, in favor of Japan, 
 all her rights, title, and privileges’ ’ in the province 
 of Shantung. 19 Although President Wilson had con- 
 sented to this gross violation of justice, America re- 
 fused to ratify the treaty, and was therefore free to 
 raise the issue of 'Shantung at Washington. The 
 Chinese delegates at Versailles resisted the clauses con- 
 cerning Shantung to the last, and finally, encouraged 
 by a vigorous agitation of Young China, 20 refused to 
 sign the treaty. They saw no reason why they should 
 be robbed of a province as a reward for having joined 
 the allies. All the other allies agreed to a proceeding 
 exactly as iniquitous as it would have been if we had 
 annexed Virginia as a reward to the Americans for 
 having helped us in the war, or France had annexed 
 Kent on a similar pretext. 
 
 Meanwhile, Young China had discovered that it 
 could move Chinese public opinion on the anti- Japanese 
 cry. The government in Peking in 1919-20 was in the 
 hands of the pro- Japanese An Fu party, but they were 
 forcibly ejected, in the summer of 1920, largely owing 
 to the influence of the Young China agitation on the 
 soldiers stationed in Peking. The An Fu leaders took 
 refuge in the Japanese legation, and since then the Pek- 
 in Dr. Y. Soyeda’s pamphlet “Shantung Question and Japanese 
 Case,” League of Nations Association of Japan, June 1921. I 
 do not think Dr. Soyeda’s arguments are likely to appeal to 
 any one who is not Japanese. 
 
 19 See the clauses concerning Shantung, in full, in Cheng’s 
 “Modern China,” Clarendon Press, pp. 360-1. 
 
 29 This agitation is well described in Mr. M. T. Z. Tyau’s 
 “China Awakened” (Macmillan, 1922) Chap. IX, “The Student 
 Movement.” 
 
152 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 ing government has ventured to be less subservient to 
 Japan, hoping always for American support. Japan 
 did everything possible to consolidate her position in 
 Shantung, but always with the knowledge that America 
 might reopen the question at any time. As soon as the 
 Washington conference was announced, Japan began 
 feverishly negotiating with China, with a view to having 
 the question settled before the opening of the confer- 
 ence. But the Chinese, very wisely, refused the illusory 
 concessions offered by Japan, and insisted on almost 
 unconditional evacuation. At Washington, both parties 
 agreed to the joint mediation of England and America. 
 The pressure of American public opinion caused the 
 American administration to stand firm on the question 
 of Shantung, and I understand that the British delega- 
 tion, on the whole, concurred with America. Some con- 
 cessions were made to Japan, but they will not amount 
 to much if American interest in Shantung lasts for 
 another five years. On this subject, I shall have more 
 to say when I come to the Washington conference. 
 
 There is a question with which the Washington con- 
 ference determined not to concern itself, but which 
 nevertheless is likely to prove of great importance 
 in the Far East — I mean the question of Russia. It 
 was considered good form in diplomatic circles, until the 
 Genoa conference, to pretend that there is no such 
 country as Russia, but the Bolsheviks, with their usual 
 wickedness, have refused to fall in with this pretense. 
 Their existence constitutes an embarrassment to Amer- 
 ica, because in a quarrel with Japan the United States 
 would unavoidably find themselves in unwilling alliance 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 153 
 
 with Russia. The conduct of Japan toward Russia has 
 been quite as bad as that of any other power. At the 
 time of the Czecho-Slovak revolt, the allies jointly 
 occupied Vladivostok, but after a time all withdrew 
 except the Japanese. All Siberia east of Lake Baikal, 
 including Vladivostok, now forms one state, the Far 
 Eastern Republic, with its capital at Chita. Against 
 this republic, which is practically though not theoreti- 
 cally Bolshevik, the Japanese have launched a whole se- 
 ries of miniature Kolchaks — Semenov, Horvath, Un- 
 gern, etc. These have all been defeated, but the 
 Japanese remain in military occupation of Vladivostok 
 and a great part of the Maritime Province, though they 
 continually affirm their earnest wish to retire. 
 
 In the early days of the Bolshevik regime the Rus- 
 sians lost Northern Manchuria, which is now controlled 
 by Japan. A board consisting partly of Chinese and 
 partly of reactionary Russians forms the directorate 
 of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which runs through 
 Manchuria and connects with the Siberian Railway. 
 There is no through communication by rail between 
 Peking and Europe as in the days before 1914. This 
 is an extreme annoyance to European business men in 
 the Far East, since it means that letters or journeys 
 from Peking to London take five or six weeks instead 
 of a fortnight. They try to persuade themselves that 
 the fault lies with the Bolsheviks, but they are gradu- 
 ally realizing that the real cause is the reactionary con- 
 trol of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Meanwhile, va- 
 rious Americans are interesting themselves in this rail- 
 way and endeavoring to get it internationalized. Mo- 
 
154 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 tives similar to those which led to the Vanderlip con- 
 cession are forcing friendship with Russia upon all 
 Americans who have Siberian interests. If Japan were 
 engaged in a war with America, the Bolsheviks would 
 in all likelihood seize the opportunity to liberate Vladi- 
 vostok and recover Russia’s former position in Man- 
 churia. Already, according to “The Times” corre- 
 spondent in* Peking, Outer Mongolia, a country about as 
 large as England, France, and Germany combined, has 
 been conquered by Bolshevik armies and propaganda. 
 
 The Bolsheviks have, of course, the enthusiastic sym- 
 pathy of the younger Chinese students. If they can 
 weather their present troubles, they have a good chance 
 of being accepted by all vigorous progressive people in 
 Asia as the liberators of Asia from the tyranny of the 
 great powers. As they were not invited to Washington, 
 they are not a party to any of the agreements reached 
 there, and it may turn out that they will upset impar- 
 tially the ambitions of Japan, Great Britain, and 
 America . 21 For America, no less than other powers, 
 has ambitions, though they are economic rather than 
 
 21 “Soviet Russia has addressed to the Powers a protest 
 against the discussion at the Washington Conference of the East 
 China Railway, a question exclusively affecting China and 
 Russia, and declares that it reserves for itself full liberty of 
 action in order to compel due deference to the rights of the Rus- 
 sian labouring masses and to make demands consistent with 
 those rights” ( Daily Herald, December 22, 1921). This is the 
 new-style imperialism. It was not the “Russian labouring 
 masses,” but the Chinese coolies, who built the railway. What 
 Russia contributed, was capital, but one is surprised to find the 
 Bolsheviks considering that this confers rights upon themselves 
 as heirs of the capitalists. 
 
JAPAN AND CHINA DURING THE WAR 155 
 
 territorial. If America is victorious in the Far East, 
 China will be Americanized, and, though the shell of 
 political freedom may remain, there will be an economic 
 and cultural bondage beneath it. Russia is not strong 
 enough to dominate in this way, but may become strong 
 enough to secure some real freedom for China. This, 
 however, is as yet no more than a possibility. It is 
 worth remembering, because everybody chooses to for- 
 get it, and because, while Russia is treated as a pariah, 
 no settlement of the Far East can be stable. But what 
 part Russia is going to play in the affairs of China it 
 is as yet impossible to say. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 
 
 T HE Washington conference, and the simultaneous 
 conference, at Washington, between the Chinese 
 and Japanese, have somewhat modified the Far Eastern 
 situation. The general* aspects of the new situation will 
 be dealt with in the next chapter; for the present it 
 is the actual decisions arrived at in Washington that 
 concern us, as well as their effect upon the Japanese 
 position in Siberia. 
 
 In the first place, the Anglo- Japanese alliance has 
 apparently been brought to an end, as a result of the 
 conclusion of the Four Power Pact between America, 
 Great Britain, France, and Japan. Within this gen- 
 eral alliance of the exploiting powers, there is a sub- 
 ordinate grouping of America and Great Britain 
 against France and Japan, the former standing for in- 
 ternational capitalism, the latter for national capitalism. 
 The situation is not yet plain, because England and 
 America disagree as regards Russia, and because Amer- 
 ica is not yet prepared to take part in the reconstruc- 
 tion of Europe; but in the Far East, at any rate, we 
 seem to have decided to seek the friendship of America 
 rather than of Japan. It may perhaps be hoped that 
 this will make our Chinese policy more liberal than it 
 
 156 
 
THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 157 
 
 has been. We have announced the restoration of Wei- 
 hai-wei — a piece of generosity which would have been 
 more impressive but for two facts: first, that Wei-hai- 
 wei is completely useless to us, and, secondly, that the 
 lease had only two more years to run. By the terms of 
 the lease, in fact, it should have been restored as soon 
 as Russia lost Port Arthur, however many years it 
 still had to run at that date. 
 
 One very important result of the Washington con- 
 ference is the agreement not to fortify islands in the 
 Pacific, with certain specified exceptions. This agree- 
 ment, if it is adhered to, will make war between America 
 and Japan very difficult, unless we were allied with 
 America. Without a naval base somewhere near Japan, 
 America could hardly bring naval force to bear on the 
 Japanese navy. It had been the intention of the Navy 
 Department to fortify Guam with a view to turning it 
 into a first-class naval base. The fact that America has 
 been willing to forego this intention must be taken as 
 evidence of a genuine desire to preserve the peace with 
 Japan. 
 
 Various small concessions were made to China. There 
 is to be a revision of the customs schedule to bring it 
 to an effective 5 per cent. The foreign post-offices are 
 to be abolished, though the Japanese have insisted that 
 a certain number of Japanese should be employed in 
 the Chinese Post-office. They had the effrontery to 
 pretend that they desired this for the sake of the effi- 
 ciency of the postal service, though the Chinese post 
 is excellent and the Japanese is notoriously one of the 
 worst in the world. The chief use to which the J apanese 
 
158 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 have put their postal service in China has been the im- 
 portation of morphia, as they have not allowed the 
 Chinese customs authorities to examine parcels sent 
 through their post-office. The development of the 
 Japanese importation of morphia into China, as well 
 as the growth of the poppy in Manchuria, where they 
 have control, has been a very sinister feature of their 
 penetration of China. 1 
 
 Of course the Open Door, equality of opportunity, 
 the independence and integrity of China, etc., etc., were 
 reaffirmed at Washington; but these are mere empty 
 phrases devoid of meaning. 
 
 From the Chinese point of view, the chief achieve- 
 ment at Washington was the Shantung treaty. Ever 
 since the expulsion by the Germans at the end of 1914, 
 the Japanese had held Kiaochow Bay, which includes 
 the port of Tsingtau ; they had stationed troops along the 
 whole extent of the Shantung Railway; and by the 
 treaty following the Twenty-one Demands, they had 
 preferential treatment as regards all industrial under- 
 takings in Shantung. The railway belonged to them by 
 right of conquest and through it they acquired control 
 of the whole province. When an excuse was needed 
 for increasing the garrison, they supplied arms to brig- 
 ands, and claimed that their intervention was necessary 
 to suppress the resulting disorder. This state of affairs 
 was legalized by the Treaty of Versailles, to which, how- 
 ever, America and China were not parties. The Wash- 
 
 1 See e. g. Chap. VIII of Millard’s “Democracy and the East- 
 ern Question.” 
 
THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 159 
 
 ington conference, therefore, supplied an opportunity of 
 raising the question afresh. 
 
 At first, however, it seemed as if the Japanese would 
 have things all their own way. The Chinese wished to 
 raise the question before the conference, while the 
 Japanese wished to settle it in direct negotiation with 
 China. This point was important, because, ever since 
 the Lansing-Ishii agreement, the Japanese have tried 
 to get the powers to recognize, in practice if not in 
 theory, an informal Japanese protectorate over China, 
 as a first step toward which it was necessary to establish 
 the principle that the Japanese should not be interfered 
 with in their diplomatic dealings with China. The 
 conference agreed to the Japanese proposal that the 
 Shantung question should not come before the confer- 
 ence, but should be dealt with in direct negotiations be- 
 tween the Japanese and Chinese. The Japanese victory 
 on this point, however, was not complete, because it was 
 arranged that, in the event of a deadlock, Mr. Hughes 
 and Sir Arthur Balfour should mediate. A deadlock, 
 of course, soon occurred, and it then appeared that the 
 British were no longer prepared to back up the Japanese 
 whole-heartedly, as in the old days. The American ad- 
 ministration, for the sake of peace, showed some dis- 
 position to urge the Chinese to give way. But Amer- 
 ican opinion was roused on the Shantung question, and 
 it appeared that, unless a solution more or less satis- 
 factory to China was reached, the Senate would prob- 
 ably refuse to ratify the various treaties which embodied 
 the work of the conference. Therefore, at the last mo- 
 
160 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 ment, the Americans strongly urged J apan to give way, 
 and we took the same line, though perhaps less strongly. 
 The result was the conclusion of the Shantung treaty be- 
 tween China and Japan. 
 
 By this treaty, the Chinese recover everything in 
 Shantung, except the private property of Japanese sub- 
 jects, and certain restrictions as regards the railway. 
 The railway was the great difficulty in the negotiations, 
 since, so long as the Japanese could control that, they 
 would have the province at their mercy. The Chinese 
 offered to buy back the railway at once, having raised 
 about half the money as a result of a patriotic move- 
 ment among the merchants. This, however, the 
 Japanese refused to agree to. What was finally done 
 was that the Chinese were compelled to borrow the 
 money from the Japanese Government to be repaid in 
 fifteen years, with an option of repayment in five years. 
 The railway was valued at 53,400,000 gold marks, plus 
 the cost involved in repairs or improvements incurred 
 by Japan, less deterioration; and it was to be handed 
 over to China within nine months of the signature of 
 the treaty. Until the purchase price, borrowed from 
 Japan, is repaid, the Japanese retain a certain degree 
 of control over the railway : a Japanese traffic manager 
 is to be appointed, and two accountants, one Chinese 
 and the other Japanese, under the control of a Chinese 
 president. 
 
 It is clear that, on paper, this gives the Chinese every- 
 thing five years hence. Whether things will work out 
 so depends upon whether, five years hence, any power 
 is prepared to force Japan to keep her word. As both 
 
THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 161 
 
 Mr. Hughes and Sir Arthur Balfour strongly urged 
 the Chinese to agree to this compromise, it must be 
 assumed that America and Great Britain have some 
 responsibility for seeing that it is properly carried out. 
 In that case, we may perhaps expect that in the end 
 China will acquire complete control of the Shantung 
 Railway. 
 
 On the whole, it must be said that China did better 
 at Washington than might have been expected. As re- 
 gards the larger aspects of the new international situa- 
 tion arising out of the conference, I shall deal with 
 them in the next chapter. But in our present connec- 
 tion it is necessary to consider certain Far Eastern ques- 
 tions not discussed at Washington, since the mere fact 
 that they were not discussed gave them a new form. 
 
 The question of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia was 
 not raised at Washington. It may therefore be assumed 
 that Japan’s position there is secure until such time 
 as the Chinese, or the Russians, or both together, are 
 strong enough to challenge it. America, at any rate, 
 will not raise the question unless friction occurs on 
 some other issue. (See Appendix.) 
 
 The Siberian question also was not settled. There- 
 fore Japan’s ambitions in Vladivostok and the Maritime 
 Provinces will presumably remain unchecked except 
 in so far as the Russians unaided are able to check 
 them. There is a chronic state of semi-war between the 
 Japanese and the Far Eastern Republic, and there 
 seems no reason why it should end in any near future. 
 The Japanese from time to time announce that they 
 have decided to withdraw, but they simultaneously send 
 
162 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 fresh troops. A conference between them and the Chita 
 government has been taking place at Dairen, and from 
 time to time announcements have appeared to the effect 
 that an agreement has been reached or was about to be 
 reached. But on April 16 (1922) the Japanese broke 
 up the conference. “The Times’ ’ of April 27 contains 
 both the Japanese and the Russian official accounts of 
 this break-up. The Japanese statement is given in 
 “The Times” as follows: 
 
 The Japanese Embassy communicates the text of a state- 
 ment given out on April 20th by the Japanese Foreign Office 
 on the Dairen Conference. 
 
 It begins by recalling that in response to the repeatedly ex- 
 pressed desire of the Chita Government, the Japanese Govern- 
 ment decided to enter into negotiations. The first meeting 
 took place on August 26th last year. 
 
 The Japanese demands included the non-enforcement of 
 communistic principles in the Republic against Japanese, the 
 prohibition* of Bolshevist propaganda, the abolition of menac- 
 ing military establishments, the adoption of the principle of 
 the open door in Siberia, and the removal of industrial re- 
 strictions on foreigners. Desiring speedily to conclude an 
 agreement, so that the withdrawal of troops might be carried 
 out as soon as possible, Japan met the wishes of Chita as far 
 as practicable. Though, from the outset, Chita pressed for 
 a speedy settlement of the Nicolaievsk affair, Japan eventually 
 agreed to take up the Nicolaievsk affair immediately after the 
 conclusion of the basis agreement. She further assured Chita 
 that in settling the affair Japan had no intention of violating 
 the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia, and that 
 the troops would be speedily withdrawn from Saghalin after 
 the settlement of the affair, and that Chita’s wishes in regard 
 
THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 163 
 
 to the transfer of property now in the custody of the Japanese 
 authorities would be met. 
 
 The 11th Division of the troops in Siberia was originally 
 to be relieved during April, but if the Dairen Conference had 
 progressed satisfactorily, the troops, instead of being relieved, 
 would have been sent home. Japan therefore intimated to 
 Chita that should the basis agreement be concluded within a 
 reasonable period these troops would be immediately with- 
 drawn, and proposed the signature of the agreement by the 
 middle of April, so that the preparations for the relief of the 
 said division might be dispensed with. Thereupon Chita not 
 only proposed the immediate despatch of Chita troops to Vladi- 
 vostok without waiting for the withdrawal of the Japanese 
 troops, but urged that Japan should fix a time-limit for the 
 complete withdrawal of all her troops. 
 
 Japan informed Chita that the withdrawal would be carried 
 out within a short period after the conclusion of the detailed 
 arrangements, giving a definite period as desired, and at the 
 same time she proposed the signing of the agreement drawn 
 up by Japan. 
 
 Whereas Japan thus throughout the negotiations maintained 
 a sincere and conciliatory attitude, the Chita delegates en- 
 tirely ignored the spirit in which she offered concessions and 
 brought up one demand after another, thereby trying to gain 
 time. Not only did they refuse to entertain the Japanese pro- 
 posals, but declared that they would drop the negotiations and 
 return to Chita immediately. The only conclusion from this 
 attitude of the Chita government is that they lacked a sincere 
 effort to bring the negotiations to fruition, and the Japanese 
 Government instructed its delegates to quit Dairen. 
 
 The Russian official account is given by “The Times” 
 immediately below the above. It is as follows: 
 
164 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 On April 16th the Japanese broke up the Dairen Conference 
 with the Far Eastern Republic. The Far Eastern Delegation 
 left Dairen. Agreement was reached between the Japanese 
 and Russian Delegations on March 30th on all points of the 
 general treaty, but when the question of military evacuation 
 was reached the Japanese Delegation proposed a formula per- 
 mitting continued Japanese intervention. 
 
 Between March 30th and April 15th the Japanese dragged 
 on the negotiations re military convention, reproaching the 
 Far Eastern delegates for mistrusting the Japanese Govern- 
 ment. The Russian delegation declared that the general treaty 
 would be signed only upon obtaining precise written guaran- 
 tees of Japanese military evacuation. 
 
 On April 15th the Japanese Delegation presented an ulti- 
 matum demanding a reply from the Far Eastern representa- 
 tives in half an hour as to whether they were willing to sign 
 a general agreement with new Japanese conditions forbidding 
 an increase in the Far Eastern Navy and retaining a Japanese 
 military mission on Far Eastern territory. Ee evacuation, 
 the Japanese presented a Note promising evacuation if “not 
 prevented by unforeseen circumstances.” The Russian dele- 
 gation rejected this ultimatum. On April 16th the Japanese 
 declared the Dairen Conference broken up. The Japanese 
 delegates left for Tokyo, and Japanese troops remain in the 
 zone established by the agreement of March 29th. 
 
 Readers will believe one or other of these official 
 statements according to their prejudices, while those 
 who wish to think themselves impartial will assume 
 that the truth lies somewhere between the two. For 
 my part, I believe the Russian statement. But even 
 from the Japanese communique it is evident that what 
 wrecked the conference was Japanese unwillingness to 
 
THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 165 
 
 evacuate Vladivostok and the Maritime Province; all 
 that they were willing to give was a vague promise to 
 evacuate some day, which would have had no more value 
 than Mr. Gladstone’s promise to evacuate Egypt. 
 
 It will be observed that the conference went well for 
 Chita until the Senate had ratified the Washington 
 treaties. After that, the Japanese felt that they had 
 a free hand in all Far Eastern matters not dealt with 
 at Washington. The practical effect of the Washington 
 decisions will naturally be to make the Japanese seek 
 compensation, at the expense of the Far Eastern Re- 
 public, for what they have had to surrender in China. 
 This result was to be expected, and was presumably 
 foreseen by the assembled peacemakers. 2 
 
 It will be seen that the Japanese policy involves 
 hostility to Russia. This is no doubt one reason for 
 the friendship between Japan and France. Another 
 reason is that both are the champions of nationalistic 
 capitalism, as against the international capitalism aimed 
 at by Messrs. Morgan and Mr. Lloyd George, because 
 France and Japan look to their armaments as the chief 
 source of their income, while England and America 
 look rather to their commerce and industry. It would 
 be interesting to compute how much coal and iron 
 
 2 1 ought perhaps to confess that I have a bias in favor of 
 the Far Eastern Republic, owing to my friendship for their 
 diplomatic mission which was in Peking while I was there. I 
 never met a more high-minded set of men in any country. And, 
 although they were communists, and knew the views that I had 
 expressed on Russia, they showed me great kindness. I do not 
 think, however, that these courtesies have affected my view of 
 the dispute between Chita and Tokyo. 
 
166 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 France and Japan have acquired in recent years by* 
 means of their armies. England and America already 
 possessed coal and iron; hence their different policy. 
 An uninvited delegation from the Far Eastern Republic 
 at Washington produced documents tending to show 
 that France and Japan came there as secret allies. Al- 
 though the authenticity of the documents was denied, 
 most people, apparently, believed them to be genuine. 
 In any case, it is to be expected that France and Japan 
 will stand together, now that the Anglo- Japanese alli- 
 ance has come to an end and the Anglo-French entente 
 has become anything but cordial. Thus it is to be 
 feared that Washington and Genoa have sown the seeds 
 of future wars — unless, by some miracle, the ‘ ‘ civilized * ’ 
 nations should grow weary of suicide. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES IN THE FAR EAST 
 
 T HE Far Eastern situation is so complex that it is 
 very difficult to guess what will be the ultimate 
 outcome of the Washington conference, and still more 
 difficult to know what outcome we ought to desire. I 
 will endeavor to set forth the various factors each in 
 turn, not simplifying the issues, but rather aiming at 
 producing a certain hesitancy which I regard as desir- 
 able in dealing with China. I shall consider succes- 
 sively the interests and desires of America, Japan, 
 Russia, and China, with an attempt, in each case, to 
 gage what parts of these various interests and desires 
 are compatible with the welfare of mankind as a whole . 1 
 
 I begin with America, as the leading spirit in the 
 conference and the dominant power in the world. 
 American public opinion is in favor of peace, and at 
 the same time profoundly persuaded that America is 
 wise and virtuous while all other powers are foolish 
 and wicked. The pessimistic half of this opinion I do 
 not desire to dispute, but the optimistic half is more 
 open to question. Apart from peace, American public 
 
 i The interests of England, apart from the question of India, 
 are roughly the same as those of America. Broadly speaking, 
 British interests are allied with American finance, as against 
 the pacifistic and agrarian tendencies of the Middle West. 
 
 167 
 
168 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 opinion believes in commerce and industry, Protestant 
 morality, athletics, hygiene, and hypocrisy, which may 
 be taken as the main ingredients of American and Eng- 
 lish Kultur. Every American I met in the Far East, 
 with one exception, was a missionary for American Kul- 
 tur, whether nominally connected with Christian mis- 
 sions or not. I ought to explain that when I speak of 
 hypocrisy I do not mean the conscious hypocrisy prac- 
 tised by Japanese diplomats in their dealings with 
 Western powers, but that deeper, unconscious, kind 
 which forms the chief strength of the. Anglo-Saxons. 
 Everybody knows Labouchere’s comment on Mr. Glad- 
 stone, that like other politicians he always had a card 
 up his sleeve, but, unlike the others, he thought the 
 Lord had put it there. This attitude, which has been 
 characteristic of England, has been somewhat chas- 
 tened among ourselves by the satire of men like Ber- 
 nard Shaw; but in America it is still just as prevalent 
 and self-confident as it was with us fifty years ago. 
 There is much justification for such an attitude. Glad- 
 stonian England was more of a moral force than the 
 England of the present day; and America is more of a 
 moral force at this moment than any other power (ex- 
 cept Russia). But the development from Gladstone’s 
 moral fervor to the cynical imperialism of his successors 
 is one which we can now see to be inevitable; and a 
 similar development is bound to take place in the United 
 States. Therefore, when we wish to estimate the de- 
 sirability of extending the influence of the United 
 States, we have to take account of this almost certain 
 future loss of idealism. 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 169 
 
 Nor is idealism in itself always an unmixed blessing to 
 its victims. It is apt to be incompatible with tolerance, 
 with the practice of live-and-let-live, which alone can 
 make the world endurable for its less pugnacious and 
 energetic inhabitants. It is difficult for art or the con- 
 templative outlook to exist in an atmosphere of bus- 
 tling practical philanthropy, as difficult as it would be 
 to write a book in the middle of a spring cleaning. The 
 ideals which inspire a spring cleaning are useful and 
 valuable in their place, but when they are not enriched 
 by any others they are apt to produce a rather bleak 
 and uncomfortable sort of world. 
 
 All this may seem, at first sight, somewhat remote 
 from the Washington conference, but it is essential if 
 we are to take a just view of the friction between 
 America and Japan. I wish to admit at once that, 
 hitherto, America has been the best friend of China, 
 and Japan the worst enemy. It is also true that 
 America is doing more than any other power to pro- 
 mote peace in the world, while Japan would probably 
 favor war if there were a good prospect of victory. 
 On these grounds, I am glad to see our Government 
 making friends with America and abandoning the mili- 
 taristic Anglo- Japanese alliance. But I do not wish 
 this to be done in a spirit of hostility to Japan, or in a 
 blind reliance upon the future good intentions of 
 America. I shall therefore try to state Japan’s case, 
 although, for the present , I think it weaker than 
 America’s. 
 
 It should be observed, in the first place, that the 
 present American policy, both in regard to China and 
 
170 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 in regard to naval armaments, while clearly good for 
 the world, is quite as clearly in line with American 
 interests. To take the naval question first: America, 
 with a navy equal to our own, will be quite strong 
 enough to make our admiralty understand that it is 
 out of the question to go to war with America, so that 
 America will have as much control of the seas as there 
 is any point in having . 2 The Americans are adamant 
 about the Japanese navy, but very pliant about French 
 submarines, which only threaten us. Control of the 
 seas being secured, limitation of naval armaments merely 
 decreases the cost, and is an equal gain to all parties, 
 involving no sacrifice of American interests. To take 
 next the question of China: American ambitions in 
 China are economic, and require only that the whole 
 country should be open to the commerce and industry 
 of the United States. The policy of spheres of influ- 
 ence is obviously less advantageous, to so rich and 
 economically strong a country as America, than the 
 policy of the universal Open Door. We cannot there- 
 fore regard America’s liberal policy as regards 
 China and naval armaments as any reason for ex- 
 pecting a liberal policy when it goes against self-in- 
 terest. 
 
 2 It is interesting to observe that, since the Washington con- 
 ference, the American administration has used the naval ratio 
 there agreed upon to induce Congress to consent to a larger 
 expenditure on the navy than would otherwise have been sanc- 
 tioned. Expenditure on the navy is unpopular in America, but 
 by its parade of pacifism the Government has been enabled to 
 extract the necessary money out of the pockets of reluctant tax- 
 payers. See “The Times’s” New York correspondent’s telegram 
 in “The Times” of April 10, 1922; also April 17 and 22. 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 171 
 
 In fact, there is evidence that when American inter- 
 ests or prejudices are involved liberal and humanitarian 
 principles have no weight whatever. I will cite two 
 instances: Panama tolls, and Russian trade. In the 
 
 matter of the Panama Canal, America i^ bound by 
 treaty not to discriminate against our shipping; never- 
 theless a bill has been passed by a two-thirds majority 
 of the House of Representatives, making a discrimina- 
 tion in favor of American shipping. Even if the Pres- 
 ident ultimately vetoes it, its present position shows 
 | that at least two thirds of the House of Representatives 
 J share Bethmann-Hollweg’s view of treaty obligations. 
 And as for trade with Russia, England led the way, 
 while American hostility to the Bolsheviks remained 
 implacable, and to this day Gompers, in the name of 
 American labor, thunders against “shaking hands w*ith 
 murder.” It cannot therefore be said that America is 
 always honorable or humanitarian or liberal. The evi- 
 dence is that America adopts these virtues when they 
 suit national or rather financial interests, but fails to 
 perceive their applicability in other cases. 
 
 I could of course have given many other instances, 
 but I content myself with one, because it especially con- 
 cerns China. I quote from an American weekly, “The 
 Freeman” (November 23, 1921, p. 244) : 
 
 On November 1st, the Chinese Government failed to meet 
 an obligation of $5,500,000, due and payable to a large bank- 
 ing-house in Chicago. The State Department had facilitated 
 the negotiation of this loan in the first instance; and now, in 
 fulfilment of the promise of Governmental support in an emer- 
 gency, an official cablegram was launched upon Peking, with 
 
172 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 intimations that continued defalcation might have a most 
 serious effect upon the financial and political rating of the 
 Chinese Republic. In the meantime, the American bankers 
 of the new international consortium had offered to advance to 
 the Chinese Government an amount which would cover the 
 loan in default, together with other obligations already in 
 arrears, and still others which will fall due on December 1st; 
 and this proposal had also received the full and energetic 
 support of the Department of State. That is to say, Ameri- 
 can financiers and politicians were at one and the same time 
 the heroes and villians of the piece; having co-operated in 
 the creation of a dangerous situation, they came forward 
 handsomely in the hour of trial with an offer to save China 
 from themselves as it were, if the Chinese Government would 
 only enter into relations with the consortium, and thus pre- 
 pare the way for the eventual establishment of an American 
 financial protectorate. 
 
 It should be added that the Peking Government, af- 
 ter repeated negotiations, had decided not to accept 
 loans from the consortium on the terms on which they 
 were offered. In my opinion, there were very adequate 
 grounds for this decision. As the same article in ‘‘The 
 Freeman” concludes: 
 
 If this plan is put through, it will make the bankers of the 
 consortium the virtual owners of China; and among these 
 bankers, those of the United States are the only ones who are 
 prepared to take full advantage of the situation. 
 
 There is some, reason to think that, at the beginning 
 of the Washington conference, an attempt was made by 
 the consortium banks, with* the connivance of the Brit- 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 173 
 
 ish* but not of the American Government, to establish, 
 by means of the conference, some measure of interna- 
 tional control over China. In the “Japan Weekly 
 Chronicle” for November 17, 1921 (p. 725), in a tele- 
 gram headed “International Control of China,” I find 
 it reported that America is thought to be seeking to 
 establish international control, and that Mr. Welling- 
 ton Koo told the “Philadephia Public Ledger”: “We 
 
 suspect the motives which led to the suggestion and we 
 thoroughly doubt its feasibility. China will bitterly 
 oppose any Conference plan to offer China international 
 aid.” He adds: “International control will not do. 
 
 China must be given time and opportunity to find her- 
 self. The world should not misinterpret or exaggerate 
 the meaning of the convulsion which China is now pass- 
 ing through.” These are wise words, with which every 
 true friend of China must agree. In the same issue of 
 the? “Japan Weekly Chronicle,” — which, by the way, I 
 consider the best weekly paper in the world, — I find the 
 following (p. 728) : 
 
 Mr. Lennox Simpson [Putnam Weale] is quoted as saying: 
 “The international bankers have a scheme for the inter- 
 national control of China. Mr. Lamont, representing the 
 consortium, offered a sixteen-million-dollar loan to China, 
 which the Chinese Government refused to accept because Mr. 
 Lamont insisted that the Hukuang bonds, German issue, which 
 had been acquired by the Morgan Company, should be paid 
 out of it.” Mr. Lamont, on hearing this charge, made an 
 emphatic denial, saying: “Simpson’s statement is unquali- 
 
 fiedly false. When this man Simpson talks about resisting 
 the control of the international banks he is fantastic. We 
 
174 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 don’t want control. We are anxious that the Conference re- 
 sult in such a solution as will furnish full opportunity to 
 China to fulfil her own destiny .” 
 
 Sagacious- people will be inclined to conclude that so 
 much anger must be due to being touched on the raw, 
 and that Mr. Lamont, if he had nothing to conceal, would 
 not have spoken of a distinguished writer and one of 
 China’s best friends as “this man Simpson.” 
 
 I do not pretend that the evidence against the con- 
 sortium is conclusive, and I have not space here to set 
 it all forth. But to any European radical Mr. Lamont ’s 
 statement that the consortium does not want control 
 reads like a contradiction in terms. Those who wish to 
 lend to a government which is on the verge of bank- 
 ruptcy, must aim at control, for, even if there were not 
 the incident of the Chicago bank, it would be impossible 
 to believe that Messrs. Morgan are so purely philan- 
 thropic as not to care whether' they get any interest on 
 their money or not, although emissaries of the consortium 
 in China have spoken as though this were the case, there- 
 by greatly increasing the suspicions of the Chinese. 
 
 In “The New Republic” for November 30, 1921, there 
 is an article by Mr. Brailsford entitled “A New Tech- 
 nique of Peace,” which I fear is prophetic even if not 
 wholly applicable at the moment when it was written. 
 I expect to see, if the Americans are successful in the 
 Far East, China compelled to be orderly so as to 
 afford a field for foreign commerce and industry; a 
 government which the West will consider good sub- 
 stituted for the present go-as-you-please anarchy; a 
 
 A 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 175 
 
 gradually increasing flow of wealth from China to the 
 investing countries, the chief of which is America; the 
 development of a sweated proletariat; the spread of 
 Christianity; the substitution of the American democ- 
 racy for the Chinese; the destruction of traditional 
 beauty, except for such oh jets d’art as millionaires may 
 think it worth while to buy; the gradual awakening of 
 China to her exploitation by the foreigner ; and o.ne day, 
 fifty or a hundred years hence, the massacre of every 
 white man throughout the Celestial Empire at a signal 
 from some vast secret society. All this is probably in- 
 evitable, human nature being what it is. It will be done 
 in order that rich men may grow richer, but we shall 
 be told that it is done in order that China may have 
 “good” government. The definition of the word 
 “good” is difficult, but the definition of “good govern- 
 ment” is as easy as A.B.C.: it is government that yields 
 fat dividends to capitalists. 
 
 The Chinese are gentle, urbane, seeking only justice 
 and freedom. They have a civilization superior to ours 
 in all that makes for human happiness. They have a 
 vigorous movement of young reformers, who, if they are 
 allowed a little time, will revivify China and produce 
 something immeasurably better than the worn-out grind- 
 ing mechanism that w r e call civilization. When Young 
 China has done its work, Americans will be able to make 
 money by trading with China, without destroying the 
 soul of the country. China needs a period of anarchy 
 in order to work out her salvation; all great nations 
 need such a period, from time to time. When America 
 went through such a period, in 1861-65, England 
 
176 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 thought of intervening' to insist on ‘ ‘ good government, ’ ’ 
 but fortunately abstained. Nowadays, in China, all the 
 powers want to intervene. Americans recognize this in 
 the case of the wicked Old World, but are smitten with 
 blindness when it comes to their own consortium. All 
 I ask of them is that they should admit that they are as 
 other men, and cease to thank God that they are not as 
 this publican. 
 
 So much by way of criticism by America; we come 
 now to the defense of Japan. 
 
 Japan’s relations with the powers are not of her own 
 seeking; all that Japan asked of the world was to be let 
 alone. This, however, did not suit the white nations, 
 among whom America led the way. It was a United 
 States squadron under Commodore Perry that first made 
 Japan aware of Western aggressiveness. Very soon it 
 became evident that there were only two ways of deal- 
 ing with the white man, either to submit to him, or to 
 fight him with his own weapons. Japan adopted the 
 latter course, and developed a modern army trained by 
 the Germans, a modern navy modeled on the British, 
 modern machinery derived from America, and modern 
 morals copied from the whole lot. Everybody except 
 the British was horrified, and called the Japanese “yel- 
 low monkeys.” However, they began to be respected 
 when they defeated Russia, and after they had captured 
 Tsing-tao and half -enslaved China they were admitted 
 to equality with the other great powers at Versailles. 
 The Consideration shown to them by the West is due to 
 their armaments alone ; none of their other good qualities 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 17T 
 
 would have saved them from being regarded as 
 * ‘ niggers.’ ’ 
 
 People who have never been outside Europe can hardly 
 imagine the intensity of the color prejudice that white 
 men develop when brought into contact with any dif- 
 ferent pigmentation. I have seen Chinese of the' highest 
 education, men as cultured as, say, Dean Inge, treated 
 by greasy white men as if they were dirt, in a way 
 which, at home, no duke would venture to treat a cross- 
 ing-sweeper. The’ Japanese are not treated in this way, 
 because they have a* powerful army and navy. The fact 
 that white men, as individuals, no longer dare to bully 
 individual Japanese, is important as a beginning of 
 better relations toward the colored races in general. If 
 the Japanese, by defeat in war, are prevented froon re- 
 taining the status of a great power, the colored races in 
 general will suffer, and the tottering insolence of the 
 white man will be reestablished. Also the world will 
 have lost the last chance of the survival of civilizations 
 of a different type from that of the industrial West. 
 
 The civilization of Japan, in its material aspect, is 
 similar to that of the West, though industrialism, as yet, 
 is not very developed. But in its mental aspect it is 
 utterly unlike the West, particularly the Anglo-Saxon 
 West. Worship of the mikado, as an actually divine 
 being, is successfully taught in every village school, and 
 provides the popular support for nationalism. The 
 nationalistic aims of Japan are not merely economic; 
 they are also dynastic and territorial in a mediaeval 
 way. The morality of the Japanese is not utilitarian, 
 
178 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 but intensely idealistic. Filial piety is the basis, and in- 
 cludes patriotism, because the mikado is the father of 
 his people. The Japanese outlook has the same kind of 
 superstitious absence of realism that one finds in thir- 
 teenth-century theories as to the relations of the em- 
 peror and the pope. But in Europe the emperor and 
 the pope were different people, and their quarrels pro- 
 moted freedom of thought; in Japan, since 1868, they 
 are combined in one sacred person, and there are no in- 
 ternal conflicts to produce doubt. 
 
 Japan, unlike China, is a religious country. The 
 Chinese doubt a proposition until it is proved to be true ; 
 the Japanese believe it until it is proved to be false. 1 
 do not know of any evidence against the view that the 
 mikado is divine. Japanese religion is essentially 
 nationalistic, like that of the Jews in the Old Testament. 
 Shinto, the state religion, has been in the main invented 
 since 1868, 3 and propagated by education in schools. 
 (There was of course an old Shinto religion, but most of 
 what constitutes modern Shintoism is new.) It is not a 
 religion which aims at being universal, like Buddhism, 
 Christianity, and Islam; it is a tribal religion, only in- 
 tended to appeal to the Japanese. Buddhism subsists 
 side by side with it, and is believed by the same people. 
 It is customary to adopt Shinto rites for marriages and 
 Buddhist rites for funerals, because Buddhism is con- 
 sidered more suitable for mournful occasions. Although 
 Buddhism is a universal religion, its Japanese form is 
 
 3 See Chamberlain, “The Invention of a New Religion,” pub- 
 lished by the Rationalist Press Association. 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 179 
 
 intensely national, 4 like the Church of England. Many 
 of its priests marry, and in some temples the priesthood 
 is hereditary. Its dignitaries remind one vividly of 
 English archdeacons. 
 
 The Japanese, even when they adopt industrial 
 methods, do not lose their sense of beauty. One hears 
 complaints that their goods are shoddy, but they have 
 a remarkable power of adapting artistic taste to in- 
 dustrialism. If Japan were rich it might produce cities 
 as beautiful as Venice, by methods as modern as those 
 of New York. Industrialism has hitherto brought with 
 it elsewhere a rising tide of ugliness, and any nation 
 which can show us how to make this tide recede deserves 
 our gratitude. The Japanese are earnest, passionate, 
 strong-willed, amazingly hard working, and capable of 
 boundless sacrifice to an ideal. Most of them have the 
 correlative defects: lack of humor, cruelty, intolerance, 
 and incapacity for free thought. But these defects are 
 by no means universal ; one meets among them a certain 
 number of men and women of quite extraordinary ex- 
 cellence. And there is in their civilization as a whole 
 a degree of vigor and determination which commands 
 the highest respect. 
 
 The growth of industrialism in Japan has brought 
 with it the growth of socialism and the labor move- 
 ment. 5 In China the intellectuals are often theoretical 
 socialists, but in the absence of labor organizations there 
 
 4 See Murdoch, “History of Japan,” I, pp. 500 ff. 
 
 s An excellent account of these is given in “The Socialist 
 and Labour Movement in Japan,” by an American Sociologist, 
 published by the “Japan Chronicle.” 
 
180 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 is as yet little room for more than theory. In Japan, 
 trade-unionism has made considerable advances, and 
 every variety of socialist and anarchist opinion is vigor- 
 ously represented. In time, if Japan becomes increas- 
 ingly industrial, socialism may become a political force ; 
 as yet, I do not think it is. Japanese socialists resemble 
 those of other countries, in that they do not share the 
 national superstitions. They are much persecuted by 
 the government, but not so much as socialists in America 
 — so at least I am informed by an American who is in a 
 position to judge. 
 
 The real power is still in the hands of certain aris- 
 tocratic families. By the constitution, the ministers of 
 war and marine are directly responsible to the mikado, 
 not to the Diet or the prime minister. They therefore 
 can and do persist in policies which are disliked by the 
 Foreign Office. For example, if the Foreign Office were 
 to promise the evacuation of Vladivostok, the War Office 
 might nevertheless decide to keep the soldiers there, and 
 there would be no constitutional remedy. Some part, at 
 least, of what appears as Japanese bad faith is explic- 
 able in this way. There is of course a party which 
 wishes to establish real parliamentary government, but 
 it is not likely to come into power unless the existing 
 regime suffers some severe diplomatic humiliation. If 
 the Washington conference had compelled the evacua- 
 tion of not only Shantung but also Vladivostok by dip- 
 lomatic pressure, the effect on the internal government 
 of Japan would probably have been excellent. 
 
 The Japanese are firmly persuaded that they have no 
 friends, and that the Americans are their implacable 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 181 
 
 foes. One gathers that the government regards war 
 with America as unavoidable in the long run. The ar- 
 gument would be that the economic imperialism of the 
 United States will not tolerate the industrial develop- 
 ment of a formidable rival in the Pacific, and that sooner 
 or later the Japanese will be presented with the alter- 
 native of dying by starvation or on the battlefield. 
 Then Bushido will come into play, and will lead to choice 
 of the battlefield in preference to starvation. Admiral 
 Sato 6 (the Japanese Bernhardi, as he is called) main- 
 tains that absence of Bushido in the Americans will lead 
 to their defeat, and that their money-grubbing souls 
 will be incapable of enduring the hardships and priva- 
 tions of a long war. This, of course, is romantic non- 
 sense. Bushido is no use in modern war, and the Ameri- 
 cans are quite as courageous and obstinate as the Japa- 
 nese. A war might last ten years, bat it would certainly 
 end in the defeat of Japan. 
 
 One is constantly reminded of the situation between 
 England and Germany in the years before 1914. The 
 Germans wanted to acquire a colonial empire by means 
 similar to those which we have employed; so do the 
 Japanese. We considered such methods wicked when 
 employed by foreigners; so do the Americans. The 
 Germans developed their industries and roused our 
 hostility by competition; the Japanese are similarly 
 competing with America in Far Eastern markets. The 
 Germans felt themselves encircled by our alliances, which 
 we regarded as purely defensive ; the Japanese, similarly, 
 found themselves isolated at Washington (except for 
 
 6 Author of a book called “If Japan and America Fight.” 
 
182 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 French sympathy) since the superior diplomatic skill 
 of the Americans has brought us over to their side. The 
 Germans at last, impelled by terrors largely of their own 
 creation, challenged the whole world, and fell ; it is very 
 much to be feared that Japan may do likewise. The 
 pros and cons are so familiar in the case of Germany 
 that I need not elaborate them further, since the whole 
 argument can be transferred bodily to the case of Japan. 
 There is, however, this difference, that, while Germany 
 aimed at hegemony of the whole world, the Japanese 
 only aim at hegemony in Eastern Asia. 
 
 The conflict between America and Japan is super- 
 ficially economic, but, as often happens, the economic 
 rivalry is really a cloak for deeper passions. Japan 
 ^till believes in the divine right of kings; America be- 
 lieves in the divine right of commerce. I have 
 sometimes tried to persuade Americans that there may 
 be nations which will not gain by an extension of their 
 foreign commerce, but I have always found the attempt 
 futile. The Americans believe also that their .religion 
 and morality and culture are far superior to those of the 
 Far East. I regard this as a delusion, though one 
 shared by almost all Europeans. The Japanese, pro- 
 foundly and with all the strength of their being, long 
 to preserve their own culture and to avoid becoming like 
 Europeans or Americans; and in this I think we ought 
 to sympathize with them. The color prejudice is even 
 more intense among Americans than among Europeans; 
 the Japanese are determined to prove that the yellow 
 man may be the equal of the white man. In this, also, 
 justice and humanity are on the side of Japan. Thus 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 183 
 
 on the deeper issues, which underlie the economic and 
 diplomatic conflict, my feelings go with the Japanese 
 rather than with the Americans. 
 
 Unfortunately, the Japanese are always putting them- 
 selves in the wrong through impatience and contempt. 
 They ought to have claimed for China the same con- 
 sideration that they have extorted toward themselves; 
 then they could have become, what they constantly pro- 
 fess to be, the champions of Asia against Europe. The 
 Chinese are prone to gratitude, and would have helped 
 Japan loyally if Japan had been a true friend to them. 
 But the Japanese despise the Chinese more than the 
 Europeans do; they do not want to destroy the belief 
 in Eastern inferiority, but only to be regarded as them- 
 selves belonging to the West. They have therefore be- 
 haved so as to cause a well-deserved hatred of them in 
 China. And this same behavior has made the best 
 Americans as hostile to them as the worst. If America 
 had had none but base reasons for hostility to them, 
 they would have found many champions in the United 
 States; as it is, they have practically none. It is not 
 yet too late; it is still possible for them to win the af- 
 fection of China and the respect of the best Americans. 
 To achieve this, they would have to change their Chi- 
 nese policy and adopt a more democratic constitution; 
 but if they do not achieve it, they will fall as Germany 
 fell. And their fall will be a great misfortune for man- 
 kind. 
 
 A war between America and Japan would be a very 
 terrible thing in itself, and a still more terrible thing 
 in its consequences. It would destroy Japanese civiliza- 
 
184 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 tion, insure the subjugation of China to Western 
 culture, and launch America upon a career of world- 
 wide militaristic imperialism. It is therefore, at all 
 costs, to be avoided. If it is to be avoided, Japan 
 must become more liberal; and Japan will only become 
 more liberal if the present regime is discredited by 
 failure. Therefore, in the interests of Japan no less 
 than in the interests of China, it would be well if Japan 
 were forced, by the joint diplomatic pressure of Eng- 
 land and America, to disgorge, not only Shantung, but 
 also all of Manchuria except Port Arthur and its im- 
 mediate neighborhood. (I make this exception because 
 I think nothing short of actual war would lead the 
 Japanese to abandon Port Arthur.) Our alliance with 
 Japan, since the end of the Russo-Japanese War, has 
 been an encouragement to J apan in all that she has done 
 amiss. Not that Japan has been worse than we have, 
 but that certain kinds of crime are only permitted to 
 very great powers, and have been committed by the 
 Japanese at an earlier stage of their career than 
 prudence would warrant. Our alliance has been a con- 
 tributory cause of Japan’s mistakes, and the ending of 
 the alliance is a necessary condition of Japan’s reform. 
 
 We come now to Russia’s part in the Chinese problem. 
 There is a tendency in Europe to regard Russia as de- 
 crepit, but this is a delusion. True, millions are starv- 
 ing and industry is at a standstill. But that does not 
 mean what it would in a more highly organized country. 
 Russia is still able to steal a march on us in Persia and 
 Afghanistan, and on the Japanese in Outer Mongolia. 
 Russia is still able to organize Bolshevik propaganda in 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 185 
 
 every country in Asia. And a great part of the effec- 
 tiveness of this propaganda lies in its promise of libera- 
 tion from Europe. So far, in China proper, it has af- 
 fected hardly any one except the younger students, to 
 whom Bolshevism appeals as a method of developing in- 
 dustry without passing through the stage of private 
 capitalism. This appeal will doubtless diminish as the 
 Bolsheviks are more and more forced to revert to capital- 
 ism. Moreover, Bolshevism, as it has developed in 
 Russia, is quite peculiarly inapplicable to China, for 
 the following reasons: (1) It requires a strong central- 
 ized state, whereas China has a very weak state, and is 
 tending more and more to federalism instead of central- 
 ization; (2) Bolshevism requires a very great deal of 
 government, and more control of individual lives by the 
 authorities than has ever been known before, whereas 
 China has developed personal liberty to an extraordi- 
 nary degree, and is the country of all others where the 
 doctrines of anarchism seem to find successful practical 
 application; (3) Bolshevism dislikes private trading, 
 which is the breath of life to all Chinese except the 
 literati. For these reasons, it is not likely that Bol- 
 shevism as a creed will make much progress in China 
 proper. But Bolshevism as a political force is not the 
 same thing as Bolshevism as a creed. The arguments 
 which proved successful with the ameer of Afghanistan 
 or the nomads of Mongolia were probably different from 
 those employed in discussion with Mr. Lansbury. The 
 Asiatic expansion of Bolshevik influence is not a dis- 
 tinctively Bolshevik phenomenon, hut a continuation of 
 traditional Russian policy, carried on by men who are 
 
1S6 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 more energetic, more intelligent, and less corrupt than 
 the officials of the czar’s regime, and who moreover, like 
 the Americans, believe themselves to be engaged in the 
 liberaton of mankind, not in mere imperialistic expan- 
 sion. This belief, of course, adds enormously to the 
 vigor and success of Bolshevik imperialism, and gives 
 an impulse to Asiatic expansion which is not likely to 
 be soon spent, unless there is an actual restoration of 
 the czarist regime under some new Kolchak dependent 
 upon alien arms for his throne and his life. 
 
 It is therefore not at all unlikely, if the international 
 situation develops in certain ways, that Russia may set 
 to work to regain Manchuria, and to recover that in- 
 fluence over Peking which the control of Manchuria is 
 bound to give to any foreign power. It would probably 
 be useless to attempt such an enterprise while Japan 
 remains unembarrassed, but it would at once become 
 feasible if Japan were at war with America or with 
 Great Britain. There is therefore nothing improbable 
 in the supposition that Russia may, within the next ten 
 or twenty 3 T ears, recover the position which she held in 
 relation to China before the Russo-Japanese War. It 
 must be remembered also that the Russians have an in- 
 stinct for colonization, and have been trekking eastward 
 for centuries. This tendency has been interrupted by 
 the disasters of the last seven years, but is likely to as- 
 sert itself again before long. 
 
 The hegemony of Russia in Asia would not, to my 
 mind, be in any way regrettable. Russia would prob- 
 ably not be strong enough to tyrannize as much as the 
 English, the Americans, or the Japanese would do. 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 
 
 187 
 
 Moreover, the Russians are sufficiently Asiatic in out- 
 look and character to be able to enter into relations of 
 equality and mutual understanding with Asiatics, in a 
 way which seems quite impossible for the English-speak- 
 ing nations. And an Asiatic bloc, if it could be 
 formed, w T ould be strong for defense and weak for attack, 
 which would make for peace. Therefore, on the whole, 
 such a result, if it came about, would probably be de- 
 sirable in the interests of mankind as a whole. 
 
 What, meanwhile, is China’s interest? What would 
 be ideally best for China would be to recover Manchuria 
 and Shantung, and then be let alone. The anarchy in 
 China might take a long time to subside, but in the end 
 some system suited to China would be established. The 
 artificial ending of Chinese anarchy by outside inter- 
 ference means the establishment of some system con- 
 venient for foreign trade and industry, but probably 
 quite unfitted to the needs of the Chinese themselves. 
 The English in the seventeenth century, the French in 
 the eighteenth, the Americans in the nineteenth, and the 
 Russians in our own day, have passed through years 
 of anarchy and civil war, which were essential to their 
 development, and could not have been curtailed by out- 
 side interference without grave detriment to the final 
 solution. So it is with China. Western political ideas 
 have swept away the old imperial system, but have not 
 yet proved strong enough to put anything stable into its 
 place. The problem of transforming China into a 
 modern country is a difficult one, and foreigners ought 
 to be willing to have some patience while the Chinese 
 attempt its solution. They understand their own 
 
188 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 country, and we do not. If they are let alone, they 
 will, in the end, find a solution suitable to their charac- 
 ter, which we should certainly not do. A solution 
 slowly reached by themselves may he stable, whereas one 
 prematurely imposed by outside powers will be artificial 
 and therefore unstable. 
 
 There is, however, very little hope that the decisions 
 reached by the Washington conference will permanently 
 benefit China, and a considerable chance that they may 
 do quite the reverse. In Manchuria the status quo is to 
 be maintained, while in Shantung the Japanese have 
 made concessions, the value of which only time can show. 
 The four powers — America, Great Britain, France, and 
 Japan — have agreed to exploit China in combination, 
 not competitively. There is a consortium as regards 
 loans, which will have the power of the purse and will 
 therefore be the real government of China. As the 
 Americans are the only people who have much spare 
 capital, they will control the consortium. As they con- 
 sider their civilization the finest in the world, they will 
 set to work to turn the Chinese into muscular Chris- 
 tians. As the financiers are the most splendid feature 
 of the American civilization, China must be so governed 
 as to enrich the financiers, who will in return establish 
 colleges and hospitals and Y.M.C.A.’s throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land, and employ agents to 
 buy up the artistic treasures of China for sepulture in 
 their mansions. Chinese intellect, like that of America, 
 will be, directly or indirectly, in the pay of the trust 
 magnates, and therefore no effective voice will be raised 
 in favor or radical reform. The inauguration of this 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 189 
 
 system will be welcomed even by some socialists in the 
 West as a great victory for peace and freedom. 
 
 But it is impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow ’s 
 ear, or peace and freedom out of capitalism. The four- 
 fold agreement between England, France, America, and 
 Japan is, perhaps, a safeguard of peace, but in so far 
 as it brings peace nearer it puts freedom further off. 
 It is the peace obtained when competing firms join in a 
 combine, which is by no means always advantageous to 
 those who have profited by the previous competition. It 
 is quite possible to dominate China without infringing 
 the principle of the Open Door. This principle merely 
 insures that the domination everywhere shall be Ameri- 
 can, because America is the strongest power financially 
 and commercially. It is to America’s interest to secure, 
 in China, certain things consistent with Chinese in- 
 terests, and certain others inconsistent with them. The 
 Americans, for the sake of commerce and good invest- 
 ments, would wish to see a stable government in China, 
 an increase in the purchasing power of the people, and 
 an absence of territorial aggression by other powers. 
 But they will not wish to see the Chinese strong enough 
 to own and work their own railways or mines, and they 
 will resent all attempts at economic independence, par- 
 ticularly when (as is to be expected) they take the form 
 of state socialism, or what Lenin calls state capitalism. 
 They will keep a dossier of every student educated in 
 colleges under American control, and will probably see 
 to it that those who profess socialist or radical opinions 
 shall get no posts. They will insist upon the standard 
 of hypocrisy which led them to hound out Gorky when 
 
190 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 he visited the United States. They will destroy beauty 
 and substitute tidiness. In short, they will insist upon 
 China becoming as like as possible to ‘‘God’s own 
 country,” except that it will not be allowed to keep the 
 wealth generated by its industries. The Chinese have 
 it in them to give to the world a new contribution to 
 civilization as valuable as that which they gave in the 
 past. This would be prevented by the domination of 
 the Americans, because they believe their own civiliza- 
 tion to be perfect. 
 
 The ideal of capitalism, if it could be achieved, would 
 be to destroy competition among capitalists by means of 
 trusts, but to keep alive competition among workers. 
 To some extent trade-unionism has succeeded in di- 
 minishing competition among wage-earners within the 
 advanced industrial countries ; but it has only intensified 
 the conflict between workers of different races, particu- 
 larly between the white and yellow races . 7 Under 
 the existing economic system, the competition of cheap 
 
 7 The attitude of white labor to that of Asia is illustrated 
 by the following telegram which appeared in “The Times” 
 for April 5. 1922, from its Melbourne correspondent: “A depu- 
 
 tation of shipwrights and allied trades complained to Mr. Hughes, 
 the Prime Minister, that four Commonwealth ships had been 
 repaired at Antwerp instead of in Australia, and that two had 
 been repaired in India by black labour receiving eight annas (8d.) 
 a day. When the deputation reached the black labour allegation 
 Mr. Hughes jumped from his chair and turned on his interviewers 
 with, ‘Black labour be damned. Go to blithering blazes. Don’t 
 talk to me about black labour.’ Hurrying from the room, he 
 pushed his way through the deputation. ...” I do not gen- 
 erally agree with Mr. Hughes, but on this occasion, deeply as 
 I deplore his language, I find myself in agreement with his senti- 
 ments, assuming that the phrase “black labour be damned” is 
 meant to confer a blessing. 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 191 
 
 Asiatic labor in America, Canada, or Australia might 
 well be harmful to white labor in those countries. But 
 under socialism an influx of industrious, skilled workers 
 in sparsely populated countries would be an obvious gain 
 to everybody. Under socialism, the immigration of any 
 person who produces more than he or she consumes will 
 be a gain to every other individual in the community, 
 since it increases the wealth per head. But under 
 capitalism, owing to competition for jobs, a worker who 
 either produces much or consumes little is the natural 
 enemy of the others; thus the system makes for in- 
 efficient work, and creates an opposition between the 
 general interest and the individual interest of the ■wage- 
 earner. The case of yellow labor in America and the 
 British dominions is one of the most unfortunate in- 
 stances of the artificial conflicts of interest produced by 
 the capitalist system. This whole question of Asiatic 
 immigration, which is liable to cause trouble for cen- 
 turies to come, can only be radically solved by socialism, 
 since socialism alone can bring the private interests of 
 workers in this matter into harmony with the interests 
 of their nation and of the world. 
 
 The concentration of the world’s capital in a few 
 nations, which, by means of it, are able to drain all other 
 nations of their wealth, is obviously not a system by 
 which permanent peace can be secured except through 
 the complete subjection of the poorer nations. In the 
 long run, China will see no reason to leave the profits 
 of industry in the hands of foreigners. If, for the 
 present, Russia is successfully starved into submission 
 to foreign capital, Russia also will, when the time is 
 
192 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 ripe, attempt a new rebellion against the world empire 
 of finance. I cannot see, therefore, any establishment 
 of a stable world system as a result of the syndicate 
 formed at Washington. On the contrary, we may expect 
 that, when Asia has thoroughly assimilated our economic 
 system, the Marxian class war will break out in the form 
 of a war between Asia and the West, with America as 
 the protagonist of capitalism, and Russia as the cham- 
 pion of Asia and socialism. In such a war, Asia would 
 be fighting for freedom, but probably too late to pre- 
 serve the distinctive civilizations which now make Asia 
 valuable to the human family. Indeed, the war would 
 probably be so devastating that no civilization of any 
 sort would survive it. 
 
 To sum up : The real government of the world is in 
 
 the hands of the big financiers, except on questions 
 which rouse passionate public interest. No doubt the 
 exclusion of Asiatics from America and the dominions is 
 due to popular pressure, and is against the interests of 
 big finance. But not many questions rouse so much 
 popular feeling, and among them only a few are suf- 
 ficiently simple to be incapable of misrepresentation in 
 the interests of the capitalists. Even in such a case as 
 Asiatic immigration, it is the capitalist system which 
 causes the anti-social interests of wage-earners and makes 
 them illiberal. The existing system makes each man’s 
 individual interest opposed, in some vital point, to the 
 interest of the whole. And what applies to individuals 
 applies also to nations; under the existing economic 
 system, a nation’s interest is seldom the same as that of 
 
PRESENT FORCES AND TENDENCIES 193 
 
 the world at large, and then only by accident. Inter- 
 national peace might conceivably be secured under the 
 present system, but only by a combination of the strong 
 to explot the weak. Such a combination is being at- 
 tempted as the outcome of Washington; but it can only 
 diminish, in the long run, the little freedom now enjoyed 
 by the weaker nations. 
 
 The essential evil of the present system, as socialists 
 have pointed out over and over again, is production for 
 profit instead of use. A man or a company or a nation 
 produces goods, not in order to consume them, but in 
 order to sell them. Hence arise competition and ex- 
 ploitation and all the evils, both in internal labor prob- 
 lems and in international relations. The development 
 of Chinese commerce by capitalistic methods means an 
 increase, for the Chinese, in the prices of the things 
 they export, which are also the things they chiefly con- 
 sume, and the artificial stimulation of new needs for 
 foreign goods, which places China at the mercy of those 
 who supply these goods, destroys the existing content- 
 ment, and generates a feverish pursuit of purely mate- 
 rial ends. In a socialistic world, production will be reg- 
 ulated by the same authority which represents the 
 needs of the consumers, and the whole business of com- 
 petitive buying and selling will cease. Until then, it is 
 possible to have peace by submission to exploitation, or 
 some degree of freedom by continual war, but it is not 
 possible to have both peace and freedom. The success 
 of the present American policy may, for a time, secure 
 peace, but it will certainly not secure freedom for the 
 
194 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 weaker nations, such as the Chinese. Only international 
 socialism can secure both; and, owing to the stimula- 
 tion of revolt by capitalist oppression, even peace alone 
 can never be secure until international socialism is es- 
 tablished throughout the world. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION CONTRASTED 
 
 T HERE is at present in China, as we have seen in 
 previous chapters, a close contact between our 
 civilization and that which is native to the Celestial Em- 
 pire. It is still a doubtful question whether this con- 
 tact will breed a new civilization better than either of 
 its parents, or whether it will merely destroy the native 
 culture and replace it by that of America. Contacts be- 
 tween different civilizations have often in the past proved 
 to be landmarks in human progress. Greece learned 
 from Egypt, Rome from Greece, the Arabs from the 
 Roman Empire, medieval Europe from the Arabs, and 
 Renaissance Europe from the Byzantines. In many 
 of these cases, the pupils proved better than their mas- 
 ters. In the case of China, if we regard the Chinese 
 as the pupils, this may be the case again. In fact, 
 we have quite as much to learn from them as they 
 from us, but there is far less chance of our learning it. 
 If I treat the Chinese as our pupils, rather than 
 vice versa, it is only because I fear we are unteach- 
 able. 
 
 I propose in this chapter to deal with the purely 
 cultural aspects of the questions raised by the contact 
 of China with the West. In the three following chap- 
 
 195 
 
196 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 ters, I shall deal with questions concerning the internal 
 condition of China, returning finally in a concluding 
 chapter, to the hopes for the future which are per- 
 missible in the present difficult situation. 
 
 With the exception of Spain and America in the six- 
 teenth century, I cannot think of any instance of two 
 civilization coming into contact after such a long period 
 of separate development as has marked those of China 
 and Europe. Considering this extraordinary separate- 
 ness, it is surprising that mutual understanding between 
 Europeans and Chinese is not more difficult. In order 
 to make this point clear, it will be worth while to dwell 
 for a moment on the historical origins of the two civil- 
 izations. 
 
 Western Europe and America have a practically 
 homogeneous mental life, which I should trace to three 
 sources: (1) Greek culture; (2) Jewish religion and 
 ethics; (3) modern industrialism, which itself is an 
 outcome of modern science. We may take Plato, the 
 Old Testament, and Galileo as representing these three 
 elements, which have remained singularly separable 
 down to the present day. From the Greeks we derive 
 literature and the arts, philosophy and pure mathe- 
 matics; also the more urbane portions of our social out- 
 look. From the Jews we derive fanatical belief, which 
 its friends call “faith”; moral fervor, with the con- 
 ception of sin ; religious intolerance, and some part of 
 our nationalism. From science, as applied in industrial- 
 ism, we derive power and the sense of power, the belief 
 that we are as gods, and may justly be the arbiters of 
 life and death for unscientific races. We derive also 
 
CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION 197 
 
 the empirical method, by which almost all real knowl- 
 edge has been acquired. These three elements, I think, 
 account for most of our mentality. 
 
 No one of these three elements has had any appre- 
 ciable part in the development of China, except that 
 Greece indirectly influenced Chinese painting, sculp- 
 ture and music. 1 China belongs, in the dawn of its 
 history, to the great river empires, of which Egypt and 
 Babylonia contributed to our origins, by the influence 
 which they had upon the Greeks and Jews. Just as 
 these civilizations were rendered possible by the rich 
 alluvial soil of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris, 
 so the original civilization of China was rendered possible 
 by the Yellow River. Even in the time of Confucius, 
 the Chinese Empire did not stretch far either to south 
 or north of the Yellow River. But in spite of this 
 similarity in physical and economic circumstances, there 
 was very little in common between the mental outlook 
 of the Chinese and that of the Egyptians and Babylo- 
 nians. Lao-Tze 2 and Confucius, who both belong to the 
 sixth century b. c., have already the characteristics which 
 we should regard as distinctive of the modern Chinese. 
 People who attribute everything to economic causes 
 would be hard put to it to account for the differences 
 between the ancient Chinese and the ancient Egyptians 
 and Babylonians. For my part, I have no alternative 
 theory to offer. I do not think science can, at present, 
 account wholly for national character. Climate and 
 
 1 See Cordier, op. cit., I, p. 368, and Giles, op. tit., p. 187. 
 
 2 With regard to Lao-Tze, the book which bears his name 
 is of doubtful authenticity and was probably compiled two 
 or three centuries after his death Cf. Giles, op. tit., Lecture V. 
 
198 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 economic circumstances account for part, but not tbe 
 whole. Probably a great deal depends upon the char- 
 acter of dominant individuals who happen to emerge 
 at a formative period, such as Moses, Mohammed, and 
 Confucius. 
 
 The oldest known Chinese sage is Lao-Tze, the founder 
 of Taoism. “Lao-Tze” is not really a proper name, 
 but means merely “the old philosopher.” He was 
 (according to tradition) an older contemporary of Con- 
 fucius, and his philosophy is to my mind far more in- 
 teresting. He held that every person, every animal, and 
 every thing has a certain way or manner of behaving 
 which is natural to him, or her, or it, and that we ought 
 to conform to this way ourselves and encourage others to 
 conform to it. “Tao” means “way,” but used in a 
 more or less mystical sense, as in the text : “I am the 
 
 Way and the Truth and the Life.” I think he fancied 
 that death was due to departing from the “way,” and 
 that if we all lived strictly according to nature we should 
 be immortal, like the heavenly bodies. In later times 
 Taoism degenerated into mere magic, and was largely 
 concerned with the search for the elixir of life. But I 
 think the hope of escaping from death was an element 
 in Taoist philosophy from the first. 
 
 Lao-Tze’s book, or rather the book attributed to him, 
 is very short but his ideas were developed by his dis- 
 ciple Chaung-Tze, who is more interesting than his 
 master. The philosophy which both advocated was one 
 of freedom. They thought ill of government, and of all 
 interferences with nature. They complained of the 
 hurry of modern life, which they contrasted with the 
 
CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION 199 
 
 calm, existence of those whom they called “the pure 
 men of old.” There is a flavor of mysticism in the 
 doctrine of the Tao, because in spite of the multiplic- 
 ity of living things the Tao is in some sense one, so 
 that if all live according to it there will be no strife 
 in the world. But both sages have already the Chinese 
 characteristics of humor, restraint, and under statement. 
 Their humor is illustrated by Chuang-Tze’s account of 
 Po-Lo, who “understood the management of horses,” 
 and trained them till five out of every ten died. 3 Their 
 restraint and understatement are evident when they are 
 compared with Western mystics. Both characteristics 
 belong to all Chinese literature and art, and to the con- 
 versation of cultivated Chinese in the present day. All 
 classes in China are fond of laughter, and never miss 
 a chance of a joke. In the educated classes, the humor 
 is sly and delicate, so that Europeans often fail to see 
 it, which adds to the enjoyment of the Chinese. Their 
 habit of understatement is remarkable. I met one day 
 in Peking a middle-aged man who told me he was 
 academically interested in the theory of politics; being 
 new to the country, I took his statement at its face 
 value, but I afterward discovered that he had been 
 governor of a province, and had been for many years 
 a very prominent politician. In Chinese poetry there 
 is an apparent absence of passion, which is due to the 
 same practice of understatement. They consider that 
 a wise man should always remain calm, and, though 
 they have their passionate moments (being in fact a 
 very excitable race), they do not wish to perpetuate 
 3 Quoted in Chap. IV, pp. 82. 
 
200 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 them in art, because they think ill of them. Our roman- 
 tic movement, which led people to like vehemence, has, 
 so far as I know, no analogue in their literature. Their 
 old music, some of which is very beautiful, makes so 
 little noise that one can only just hear it. In art they 
 aim at being exquisite, and in life at being reasonable. 
 There is no admiration for the ruthless strong man, or 
 for the unrestrained expression of passion. After the 
 more blatant life of the West, one misses at first all 
 the effects at which they are aiming; but gradually 
 the beauty and dignity of their existence become visible, 
 so that the foreigners who have lived longest in China 
 are those who love the Chinese best. 
 
 The Taoists, though they survive as magicians, were 
 entirely ousted from the favor of the educated classes 
 by Confucianism. I must confess that I am unable 
 to appreciate the merits of Confucius. His writings are 
 largely occupied with trivial points of etiquette, and his 
 main concern is to teach people how to behave correctly 
 on various occasions. When one compares him, how- 
 ever, with the traditional religious teachers of some 
 other ages and races, one must admit that he has great 
 merits, even if they are mainly negative. His system, 
 as developed by his followers, is one of pure ethics, with- 
 out religious dogma ; it has not given rise to a powerful 
 priesthood, and it has not led to persecution. It cer- 
 tainly has succeeded in producing a whole nation 
 possessed of exquisite manners and perfect courtesy. 
 Nor is Chinese courtesy merely conventional ; it is quite 
 as reliable in situations for which no precedent has 
 been provided. And it is not confined to one class; it 
 
CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION 201 
 
 exists even in the humblest coolie. It is humiliating to 
 watch the brutal insolence of white men received by 
 the Chinese with a quiet dignity which cannot demean 
 itself to answer rudeness with rudeness. Europeans 
 often regard this as weakness, hut it is really strength, 
 the strength by which the Chinese have hitherto con- 
 quered all their conquerors. 
 
 There is one, and only one, important foreign ele- 
 ment in the traditional civilization of China, and that 
 is Buddhism. Buddhism came to China from India 
 in the early centuries of the Christian era, and acquired 
 a definite place in the religion of the country. We, 
 with the intolerant outlook which we have taken over 
 from the Jews, imagine that if a man adopts one 
 religion he cannot adopt another. The dogmas of 
 Christianity and Mohammedanism, in their orthodox 
 forms, are so framed that no man can accept both. But 
 in China this incompatibility does not exist ; a man may 
 be both a Buddhist and a Confueian, because nothing 
 in either is incompatible with the other. In Japan, 
 similarly, most people are both Buddhists and Shin- 
 toists. Nevertheless there is a temperamental difference 
 between Buddhism and Confucianism, which will cause 
 any individual to lay stress on one or the other even if 
 he accepts both. Buddhism is a religion in the sense in 
 which we understand the word. It has mystic doctrines 
 and a way of salvation and a future life. It has a 
 message to the world intended to cure the despair which 
 it regards as natural to those who have no religious 
 faith. It assumes an instinctive pessimism only to be 
 cured by some gospel. Confucianism has nothing of 
 
202 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 all this. It assumes people fundamentally at peace 
 with the world, wanting only instruction as to how to 
 live, not encouragement to live at all. And its ethical 
 instruction is not based upon any metaphysical or re- 
 ligious dogma; it is purely mundane. The result of the 
 coexistence of these two religions in China has been 
 that the more religious and contemplative natures turned 
 to Buddhism, while the active administrative type was 
 content with Confucianism, which was always the offi- 
 cial teaching, in which candidates for the civil service 
 were examined. The result is that for many ages the 
 government of China has been in the hands of literary 
 skeptics, whose administration has been lacking in those 
 qualities of energy and destructiveness which Western 
 nations demand of their rulers. In fact, they have 
 conformed very closely to the maxims of Chuang-Tze. 
 The result has been that the population has been happy 
 except where civil war brought misery; that subject 
 nations have been allowed autonomy; and that foreign 
 nations have had no need to fear China, in spite of its 
 immense population and resources. 
 
 Comparing the civilization of China with that of 
 Europe, one finds in China most of what was to be 
 found in Greece, but nothing of the other two elements 
 of our civilization, namely Judaism and science. China 
 is practically destitute of religion, not only in the 
 upper classes, but throughout the population. There is 
 a very definite ethical code, but it is not fierce or perse- 
 cuting, and does not contain the notion “sin.” Except 
 quite recently, through European influence, there has 
 been no science and no industrialism. 
 
CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION 203 
 
 What will be the outcome of the contact of this 
 ancient civilization with the West? I am not thinking 
 of the political or economic, .but of the effect on the 
 Chinese mental outlook. It is difficult to dissociate the 
 two questions altogether, because of course the cultural 
 contact with the West must be affected by the nature 
 of the political and economic contact. Nevertheless, I 
 wish to consider the cultural question as far as I can 
 in isolation. 
 
 There is, in China, a great eagerness to acquire West- 
 ern learning, not simply in order to acquire national 
 strength and be able to resist Western aggression, but 
 because a very large number of people consider learn- 
 ing a good thing in itself. It is traditional in China 
 to place a high value on knowledge, but in old days the 
 knowledge sought was only of the classical literature. 
 Nowadays it is generally realized that Western knowl- 
 edge is more useful. Many students go every year to 
 universities in Europe, and still more to America, to 
 learn science or economics or law or political theory. 
 These men, when they return to China, mostly become 
 teachers or civil servants or journalists or politicians. 
 They are rapidly modernizing the Chinese outlook, es- 
 pecially in the educated classes. 
 
 The traditional civilization of China had become un- 
 progressive, and had ceased to produce much of value 
 in the way of art and literature. This was not due, I 
 think, to any decadence in the race, but merely to lack 
 of new material. The influx of Western knowledge 
 provides just the stimulus that was needed. Chinese 
 students are able and extraordinarily keen. Higher 
 
204 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 education suffers from lack of funds and absence of 
 libraries, but does not suffer from any lack of the finest 
 human material. Although Chinese civilization has 
 hitherto been deficient in science, it never contained any- 
 thing hostile to science, and therefore the spread of 
 scientific knowledge encounters no such obstacles as the 
 church put in its way in Europe. I have no doubt that 
 if the Chinese could get a stable government and suffi- 
 cient funds, they would, within the next thirty years, 
 begin to produce remarkable work in science. It is quite 
 likely that they might outstrip us, because they come 
 with fresh zest and with all the ardor of a renaissance. 
 In fact, the enthusiasm for learning in Young China 
 reminds one constantly of the renaissance spirit in fif- 
 teenth-century Italy. 
 
 It is remarkable, as distinguishing the Chinese from 
 the Japanese, that the things they wish to learn from 
 us are not those that bring wealth or military strength, 
 but rather those that have either an ethical and social 
 value, or a purely intellectual interest. They are not 
 by any means uncritical of our civilization. Some of 
 them told me that they were less critical before 1914, 
 but that the war made them think there must be im- 
 perfection in the Western manner of life. The habit of 
 looking to the West for wisdom was, however, very 
 strong, and some of the younger ones thought that 
 Bolshevism could give what they were looking for. 
 That hope also must be suffering disappointment, and 
 before long they will realize that they must work out 
 their own salvation by means of a new synthesis. The 
 Japanese adopted our faults and kept their own, but it 
 
CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION 205 
 
 is impossible to hope that the Chinese will make the 
 opposite selection, keeping their own merits and adopt- 
 ing ours. 
 
 The distinctive merit of our civilization, I should say, 
 is the scientific method; the distinctive merit of the 
 Chinese a just conception of the ends of life. It is 
 these two that one must hope to see gradually uniting. 
 
 Lao-Tze describes the operation of Tao as “produc- 
 tion without possession, action without self-assertion, 
 development without domination.” I think one could 
 derive from these words a conception of the ends of 
 life as reflective Chinese see them and it must be ad- 
 mitted that they are very different from the ends which 
 most white men set before themselves. Possession, self- 
 assertion, domination, are eagerly sought, both nation- 
 ally and individually. They have been erected into a 
 philosophy by Nietzsche, and Nietzsche’s disciples are 
 not confined to Germany. 
 
 But, it will be said, you have been comparing Western 
 practice with Chinese theory ; if you had compared 
 Western theory with Chinese practice, the balance would 
 have come out quite differently. There is, of course, 
 a great deal of truth in this. Possession, which is one 
 of the three things that Lao-Tze wishes us to forego, is 
 certainly dear to the heart of the average Chinaman. 
 As a race, they are tenacious of money — not perhaps 
 more so than the French, but certainly more than the 
 English or the Americans. Their politics are corrupt, 
 and their powerful men make money in disgraceful 
 ways. All this it is impossible to deny. 
 
 Nevertheless, as regards the other two evils, self- 
 
206 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 assertion and domination, I notice a definite superior- 
 ity to ourselves in Chinese practice. There is much 
 less desire than among the white races to tyrannize 
 over other people. The weakness of China internation- 
 ally is quite as much due to this virtue as to the vices 
 of corruption and so on which are usually assigned as 
 the sole reason. If any nation in the world could ever 
 be “too proud to fight,” that nation would be China. 
 The natural Chinese attitude is one of tolerance and 
 friendliness, showing courtesy and expecting it in re- 
 turn. If the Chinese chose, they could be the most 
 powerful nation in the world. But they only desire 
 freedom, not domination. It is not improbable that 
 other nations may compel them to fight for their free- 
 dom, and if so, they may lose their virtues and acquire 
 a taste for empire. But at present, though they have 
 been an imperial race for tw'o thousand years, their love 
 of empire is extraordinarily slight. 
 
 Although there have been many wars in China, the 
 natural outlook of the Chinese is very pacifistic. I do 
 not know of any other country where a poet would 
 have chosen, as Po-Chui did in one of the poems trans- 
 lated by Mr. Waley, called by him “The Old Man with 
 the Broken Arm,” to make a hero of a recruit who 
 maimed himself to escape military service. Their paci- 
 fism is rooted in their contemplative outlook, and in 
 the fact that they do not desire to change whatever 
 they see. They take a pleasure — as their pictures show 
 — in observing characteristic manifestations of differ- 
 ent kinds of life, and they have no wish to reduce 
 everything to a preconceived pattern. They have not 
 
CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION 207 
 
 the ideal of progress which dominates the Western 
 nations, and affords a rationalization of our active im- 
 pulses. Progress is, of course, a very modern ideal even 
 with us; it is part of what we owe to science and in- 
 dustrialism. The cultivated conservative Chinese of the 
 present day talk exactly as their earliest sages write. 
 If one points out to them that this shows how little prog- 
 ress there has been, they will say: “Why seek prog- 
 
 ress when you already enjoy what is excellent?” At 
 first, this point of view seems to a European unduly 
 indolent; but gradually doubts as to one’s own wisdom 
 grow up, and one begins to think that much of what we 
 call progress is only restless change, bringing us no 
 nearer to any desirable goal. 
 
 It is interesting to contrast what the Chinese have 
 sought in the West with what the West has sought in 
 China. The Chinese in the West seek knowledge, in 
 the hope — which I fear is usually vain — that knowledge 
 may prove a gateway to wisdom. White men have gone 
 to China with three motives: to fight, to make money, 
 and to convert the Chinese to our religion. The last of 
 these motives has the merit of being idealistic, and has 
 inspired many heroic lives. But the soldier, the mer- 
 chant, and the missonary are alike concerned to stamp 
 our civilization upon the world; they are all three, in 
 a certain sense, pugnacious. The Chinese have no wish 
 to convert us to Confucianism; they say “religions 
 are many, but reason is one,” and with that they are 
 content to let us go our way. They are good merchants, 
 but their methods are quite different from those of 
 European merchants in China, who are perpetually 
 
208 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 seeking concessions, monopolies, railways, and mines, 
 and endeavoring to get their claims supported by gun- 
 boats. The Chinese are not, as a rule, good soldiers, 
 because the causes for which they are asked to fight are 
 not worth fighting for, and they know it. But that is 
 only a proof of their reasonableness. 
 
 I think the tolerance of the Chinese is in excess of 
 anything that Europeans can imagine from their ex- 
 perience at home. We imagine ourselves tolerant, be- 
 cause we are more so than our ancestors. But we still 
 practise political and social persecution, and what is 
 more, we are firmly persuaded that our civilization and 
 our way of life are immeasurably better than any other, 
 so that when we come across a nation like the Chinese, 
 we are convinced that the kindest thing we can do to 
 them is to make them like ourselves. I believe this to be 
 a profound mistake. It seemed to me that the average 
 Chinaman, even if he is miserably poor, is happier than 
 the average Englishman, and is happier because the 
 nation is built upon a more humane and civilized out- 
 look than our own. Restlessness and pugnacity not only 
 cause obvious evils, but fill our lives with discontent, in- 
 capacitate us for the enjoyment of beauty, and make 
 us almost incapable of the contemplative virtues. In 
 this respect we have grown rapidly worse during the 
 last hundred years. I do not deny that the Chinese 
 go too far in the other direction; but for that very 
 reason I think contact between East and West is likely 
 to be fruitful to both parties. They may learn from 
 us the' indespensable minimum of practical efficiency, 
 and we may learn from them something of that con- 
 
CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION 209 
 
 templative wisdom which has enabled them to persist 
 while all the other nations of antiquity have perished. 
 
 When I went to China, I went to teach ; but every day 
 that I stayed I thought less of what I had to teach them 
 and more of what I had to learn from them. Among 
 Europeans who had lived a long time in China, I found 
 this attitude not uncommon; but among those whose 
 stay is short, or who go only to make money, it is sadly 
 rare. It is rare because the Chinese do not excel in the 
 things we really value — military prowess and industrial 
 enterprise. But those who value wisdom or beauty, or 
 even the simple enjoyment of life, will find more of 
 these things in China than in the distracted and tur- 
 bulent West, and will be happy to live where such things 
 are valued. I wish I could hope that China, in return 
 for our scientific knowledge, may give us something of 
 her large tolerance and contemplative peace of mind. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 T HERE is a theory among Occidentals that the 
 Chinaman is inscrutable, full of secret thoughts, 
 and impossible for us to understand. It may be that 
 a greater experience of China would have brought me 
 to share this opinion; but I could see nothing to sup- 
 port it during the time when I was working in that 
 country. I talked to the Chinese as I should have 
 talked to English people, and they answered me much 
 as English people would have answered a Chinese whom 
 they considered educated and not wholly unintelligent. 
 I do not believe in the myth of the ‘‘subtle Oriental’': 
 I am convinced that in a game of mutual deception an 
 Englishman or an American can beat a Chinese nine 
 times out of ten. But, as many comparatively poor Chi- 
 nese have dealings with rich white men, the game is 
 often played only on one side. Then, no doubt, the 
 white man is deceived and swindled ; but not more than 
 a Chinese mandarin would be in London. 
 
 One of the most remarkable things about the Chinese 
 is their power of securing the affection of foreigners. 
 Almost all Europeans like China, both those who come 
 only as tourists and those who live there for many 
 
 210 
 
THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 211 
 
 years. In spite of the Anglo- Japanese alliance, I 
 can recall hardly a single Englishman in the Far 
 East -who liked the Japanese as well as the Chi- 
 nese. Those who have lived long among them tend 
 to acquire their outlook and their standards. New 
 arrivals are struck by obvious evils: the beggars, the 
 terrible poverty, the prevalence of disease, the anarchy 
 and corruption in politics. Every energetic Westerner 
 feels at first a strong desire to reform these evils, and of 
 course they ought to be reformed. 
 
 But the Chinese, even those who are the victims of 
 preventable misfortunes, show a vast passive indiffer- 
 ence to the excitement of the foreigners ; they wait for it 
 to go off, like the effervescence of soda-water. And 
 gradually strange hesitations creep into the mind of 
 the bewildered traveler; after a period of indignation, 
 he begins to doubt all the maxims he has hitherto ac- 
 cepted without question. Is it really wise to be al- 
 ways guarding against future misfortune? Is it pru- 
 dent to lose all enjoyment of the present through think- 
 ing of the disasters that may come at some future date ? 
 Should our lives be passed in building a mansion that 
 we shall never have leisure to inhabit? 
 
 The Chinese answer these questions in the negative, 
 and therefore have to put up with poverty, disease, and 
 anarchy. But, to compensate for these evils, they have 
 retained, as industrial nations have not, the capacity 
 for civilized enjoyment, for leisure and laughter, for 
 pleasure in sunshine and philosophical discourse. The 
 Chinese, of all classes, are more laughter-loving than any 
 other race with which I am acquainted ; they find amuse- 
 
212 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 ment in everything, and a dispute can always be softened 
 by a joke. 
 
 I remember one hot day when a party of us were cross- 
 ing the hills in chairs — the way was rough and very 
 steep, the work for the coolies very severe. At the 
 highest point of our journey, we stopped for ten min- 
 utes to let the men rest. Instantly they all sat in a row, 
 brought out their pipes, and began to laugh among them- 
 selves as if they had not a care in the world. In any 
 country that had learned the virtue of forethought, they 
 would have devoted the moments to complaining of the 
 heat, in order to increase their tip. We, being Euro- 
 peans, spent the time worrying whether the automobile 
 would be waiting for us at the right place. Well-to-do 
 Chinese would have started a discussion as to whether 
 the universe moves in cycles or progresses by a rectilinear 
 motion; or they might have set to work to consider 
 whether the truly virtuous man shows complete self-ab- 
 negation, or may, on occasion, consider his own interest. 
 
 One comes across white men occasionally who suffer 
 under the delusion that China is not a civilized country. 
 Such men have quite forgotten what constitutes civiliza- 
 tion. It is true that there are no trams in Peking, 
 and that the electric light is poor. It is true that there 
 are places full of beauty, which Europeans itch to make 
 hideous by digging up coal. It is true that the educated 
 Chinaman is better at writing poetry than at remember- 
 ing the sort of facts which can be looked up in 
 “Whitaker’s Almanac.” A European, in recommend- 
 ing a place of residence, will tell you that it has a good 
 train service; the best quality he can conceive in any 
 
THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 213 
 
 place is that it should be easy to get away from. But 
 a Chinaman will tell you nothing about the trains; if 
 you ask, he will tell you wrong. What he tells you is 
 that there is a palace built by an ancient emperor, and 
 a retreat in a lake for scholars weary of the world, 
 founded by a famous poet of the Tang dynasty. It is 
 this outlook that strikes the Westerner as barbaric. 
 
 The Chinese, from the highest to the lowest, have an 
 imperturbable quiet dignity, which, is usually not de- 
 stroyed even by a.- European education. They are not 
 self-assertive, either individually or nationally; their 
 pride is too profound for self-assertion. They admit 
 China’s military weakness in comparison with foreign 
 powers, but they do not consider efficiency in homicide 
 the most important quality in a man or a nation. I 
 think that, at bottom, they almost all believe that China 
 is the greatest nation in the world, and has the finest 
 civilization. A Westerner cannot be expected to ac- 
 cept this view, because it is based on traditions utterly 
 different from his own. But gradually one comes to 
 feel that it is, at any rate, not an absurd view; that it 
 is, in fact, the logical outcome of a self-consistent stand- 
 ard of values. The typical Westerner wishes to be the 
 cause of as many changes as possible in his environment ; 
 the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as 
 delicately as' possible. This difference is at the bottom 
 of most of the contrast between China and the English- 
 speaking world. 
 
 We in the West make a fetish of “ progress,” which 
 is the ethical camouflage of the desire to be the cause 
 of changes. If we are asked, for instance, whether 
 
214 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 machinery has- really improved the world, the question 
 strikes us as foolish: it has brought great changes and 
 therefore great “progress.” What we believe to be 
 a love of progress is really, in nine cases out of ten, a 
 love of power, an enjoyment of the feeling that by our 
 fiat we can make things different. For the sake of this 
 pleasure, a young American will work so hard that, by 
 the time he has acquired his millions, he has become a 
 victim of dyspepsia, compelled to live on toast and 
 water, and to be a mere spectator of the feasts that he 
 offers to his guests. But he consoles himself with the 
 thought that he can control politics, and provoke or pre- 
 vent wars as may suit his investments. It is this 
 temperament that makes Western nations “progres- 
 sive. ’ ’ 
 
 There are, of course, ambitious men in China, but 
 they are less common than among ourselves. And their 
 ambition takes a different form — not a better form, 
 but one produced by the preference of enjoyment to 
 power. It is a natural result of this preference that 
 avarice is a wide-spread failing of the Chinese. Money 
 brings the means of enjoyment; therefore money is 
 passionately desired. With us, money is desired chiefly 
 as a means to power ; politicians, who can acquire power 
 without much money, are often content to remain poor. 
 In China the tuchuns (military governors), who have 
 the real power, almost always use it for the sole pur- 
 pose of amassing a fortune. Their object is to escape 
 to Japan at a suitable moment, with sufficient plunder 
 to enable them to enjoy life quietly for the rest of their 
 days. The fact that in escaping they lose power does 
 
THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 215 
 
 not trouble them in the least. It is, of course, obvious 
 that such politicians, who spread devastation only in the 
 provinces committed to their care, are far less harmful 
 to the world than our own, who ruin whole continents in 
 order to win an election campaign. 
 
 The corruption and anarchy in Chinese politics do 
 much less harm than one would be inclined to expect. 
 But for the predatory desires of the great powers — es- 
 pecially Japan — the harm would be much less than is 
 done by our own “ efficient ” governments. Nine tenths 
 of the activities of a modern government are harmful; 
 therefore the worse they are performed, the better. In 
 China, where the government is lazy, corrupt, and stu- 
 pid, there is a degree of individual liberty which has 
 been wholly lost in the rest of the world. 
 
 The laws are just as bad as elsewhere ; occasionally, 
 under foreign pressure, a man is imprisoned for Bolshe- 
 vist propaganda, just as he might be in England or 
 America. But this is quite exceptional; as a rule, in 
 practice, there is very little interference with free 
 speech and a free press. 1 The individual does not 
 feel obliged to follow the herd, as he has in Europe 
 since 1914, and America since 1917. Men still think 
 for themselves, and are not afraid to announce the con- 
 clusions a.t which they arrive. Individualism has per- 
 ished in the West, but in China it survives, for good 
 as well as for evil. Self-respect and personal dignity 
 are possible for every coolie in China, to a degree which 
 
 1 This vexes the foreigners, who are attempting to establish 
 a very severe press censorship in Shanghai. See “The Shanghai 
 Printed Matter Bve-Law.” Hollington K. Tong, “Review of the 
 Far East,” April 15, 1922. 
 
216 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 is, among ourselves, possible only for a few leading 
 financiers. 
 
 The business of “ saving, face,” which often strikes 
 foreigners in China as ludicrous, is only the carrying-out 
 of respect for personal dignity in the sphere of social 
 manners. Everybody has ‘ ‘ face, even the humblest beg- 
 gar; there are humiliations that you must not inflict 
 upon him, if you are not to outrage the Chinese ethical 
 code. If you speak to a Chinaman in a way that trans- 
 gresses the code, he will laugh, because your words must 
 be taken as spoken in jest if they are not to constitute 
 an offense.. 
 
 Once I thought that the students to whom I was lectur- 
 ing were not as industrious as they might be and I told 
 them so in just the same words that I should have 
 used to English students in the same circumstances. 
 But soon I found I was making a mistake. They all 
 laughed uneasily, which surprised me until I saw the 
 reason. Chinese life, even among the most modern- 
 ized, is far more polite than anything to which we are 
 accustomed. This, of course, interferes with efficiency, 
 and also (what is more serious) with sincerity and truth 
 in personal relations. If I were Chinese, I should wish 
 to see it mitigated. But, to those who suffer from the 
 brutalities of the West, Chinese urbanity is very restful. 
 Whether on the balance it is better or worse than our 
 frankness, I shall not venture to decide. 
 
 The Chinese remind one of the English in their love 
 of compromise and in their habit of bowing to public 
 opinion. Seldom is a conflict pushed to its ultimate 
 brutal issue. The treatment of the Manchu emperor 
 
THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 217 
 
 may be taken as a case in point. When a Western 
 country becomes a republic, it is customary to cut of! 
 the head of the deposed monarch, or at least to cause 
 him to fly the country. But the Chinese have left the 
 emperor his title, his beautiful palace, his troops of 
 eunuchs, and an income of several million dollars a 
 year. He is a boy of sixteen, living peaceably in the 
 Forbidden City. Once, in the course of a civil war, 
 he was nominally restored to power for a few days; 
 but he was desposed again, without being in any way 
 punished for the use to which he had been put. 
 
 Public opinion is a very real force in China, when 
 it can be roused. It was, by all accounts, mainly re- 
 sponsible for the downfall of the An Fu party in the 
 summer of 1920. This party was pro- Japanese and was 
 accepting loans from Japan. Hatred of Japan is the 
 strongest and most wide-spread of political passions in 
 China, and it was stirred up by the students in fiery 
 orations. The An Fu party had, at first, a great pre- 
 ponderance of military strength ; but their soldiers 
 melted away when they came to understand the cause 
 for which they were expected to fight. In the end, the 
 opponents of the An Fu party were able to enter Peking 
 and change the goverment almost without firing a shot. 
 
 The same influence of public opinion was decisive 
 in the teachers’ strike, which was on the point of being 
 settled when I left Peking. The government, which is 
 always impecunious, owing to corruption, had left its 
 teachers unpaid for many months. At last they struck 
 to enforce payment, and went on a peaceful deputation 
 to the government, accompanied by many students. 
 
218 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 There was a clash, with the soldiers and police, and many 
 teachers and students were more or less severely 
 wounded. This led to a terrific outcry, because the love 
 of education in China is profound and wide-spread. 
 The newspapers clamored for revolution. The govern- 
 ment had just spent nine million dollars in corrupt 
 payments to three tucliwns who had descended upon the 
 capital to extort blackmail. It could not find any color- 
 able pretext for refusing the few hundred thousands re- 
 quired by the teachers, and it capitulated in panic. I 
 do not think there is any Anglo-Saxon country where 
 the interests of teachers would have roused the same de- 
 gree of public feeling. 
 
 Nothing astonishes a European more in the Chinese 
 than their patience. The educated Chinese are well 
 aware of the foreign menace. They realize acutely what 
 the Japanese have done in Manchuria and Shantung. 
 They are aware that the English in Hong-Kong are do- 
 ing their utmost to bring to naught the Canton attempt 
 to introduce good government in the South. They know 
 that all the great powers, without exception, look with 
 greedy eyes upon the undeveloped resources of their 
 country, especially its coal and iron. They have before 
 them the example of Japan, which, by developing a 
 brutal militarism, a cast-iron discipline, and a new re- 
 actionary religion, has succeeded in holding at bay the 
 fierce lusts of 1 1 civilized 9 ’ industrialists. Yet they 
 neither copy Japan nor submit tamely to foreign domin- 
 ation. They think not in decades, but in centuries. 
 They have been conquered before, first by the Tartars 
 and then by the Manchus; but in both cases they ab- 
 
THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 219 
 
 sorbed their conquerors. Chinese civilization persisted, 
 unchanged; and after a few generations the invaders 
 became more Chinese than their subjects. 
 
 Manchuria is a rather empty country, with abundant 
 room for colonization. The Japanese assert that they 
 need colonies for their surplus population, yet the 
 Chinese immigrants into Manchuria exceed the Japanese 
 a hundredfold. Whatever may be the temporary 
 political status of Manchuria, it will remain a part of 
 Chinese civilization, and can be recovered whenever 
 Japan happens to be in difficulties. The Chinese derive 
 such strength from their four hundred millions, the 
 toughness of their national customs, their power of pas- 
 sive resistance, and their unrivaled national cohesive- 
 ness — in spite of the civil wars, which merely ruffle the 
 surface — that they can afford to despise military 
 methods, and to wait till the feverish energy of their 
 oppressors shall have exhausted itself in internecine 
 combats. 
 
 China is much less a political entity than a civiliza- 
 tion — the only one that has survived from ancient times. 
 Since the days of Confucius, the Egyptian, Babylonian, 
 Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires have perished ; 
 but China has persisted through a continuous evolution. 
 There have been foreign influences — first Buddhism, and 
 now Western science. But Buddhism did not turn the 
 Chinese into Indians, and Western science will not turn 
 them into Europeans. I have met men in China who 
 knew as much of Western learning as any professor 
 among ourselves ; yet they had not been thrown off their 
 balance, nor lost touch with their own people. What is 
 
220 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 bad in the West — its brutality, its restlessness, it readi- 
 ness, to oppress the weak, its preoccupation with purely 
 material aims — they see to be bad, and do not wish 
 to adopt. What is good, especially its science, they 
 do wish to adopt. 
 
 The old indigenous culture of China has become rather 
 dead ; its art and literature are not what they were, and 
 Confucius does not satisfy the spiritual needs of a 
 modern man, even if he is Chinese. The Chinese who 
 have had a European or American education realize that 
 a new element is needed to vitalize native traditions, 
 and they look to our civilization to supply it. But they 
 do not wish to construct a civilization just like ours ; and 
 it is precisely in this that the best hope lies. If they 
 are not goaded into militarism, they may produce a gen- 
 uinely new civilization, better than any that we in the 
 West have been able to create. 
 
 So far, I have spoken chiefly of the good sides of 
 the Chinese character; but of course China, like every 
 other nation, has its bad sides also. It is disagreeable 
 to me to speak of these, as I experienced so much cour- 
 tesy and real kindness from the Chinese that I should 
 prefer to say only nice things about them. But for the 
 sake of China, as well as for the sake of truth, it would 
 be a mistake to conceal what is less admirable. I will 
 only ask the reader to remember that, on the balance, 
 I think the Chinese one of the best nations I have come 
 across, and am prepared to draw up a graver indictment 
 against every one of the great powers. Shortly before 
 I left China, an eminent Chinese writer pressed me to 
 say what I considered the chief defects of the Chinese. 
 
THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 221 
 
 With some reluctance, I mentioned three: avarice, 
 cowardice, and callousness. Strange to say, my inter- 
 locutor, instead of getting angry, admitted the justice 
 of my criticism, and proceeded to discuss possible reme- 
 dies. This is a sample of the intellectual integrity which 
 is one of China’s greatest virtues. 
 
 The callousness of the Chinese is bound to strike every 
 Anglo-Saxon. They have none of that humanitarian 
 impulse which leads us to devote 1 per cent, of our 
 energy to mitigating the evils wrought by the other 99 
 per cent. For instance, we have been forbidding the 
 Austrians to join with Germany, to emigrate, or to ob- 
 tain the raw materials of industry. Therefore the 
 Viennese have starved, except those whom it has pleased 
 us to keep alive from philanthropy. The Chinese would 
 not have had the energy to starve the Viennese, nor the 
 philanthropy to keep some of them alive. While I was in 
 China, millions were dying of famine; men sold their 
 children into slavery for a few dollars, and killed them 
 if this sum was unobtainable. Much was done by white 
 men to relieve the famine, but very little by the Chinese, 
 and that little vitiated by corruption. It must be said, 
 however, that the efforts of the white men were more 
 effective in soothing their own consciences than in help- 
 ing the Chinese. So long as the present birth-rate and 
 the present methods of agriculture persist, famines are 
 bound to occur periodically; and those whom philan- 
 thropy keeps alive through one famine are only too 
 likely to perish in the next. 
 
 Famines in China can be permanently cured only by 
 better methods of agriculture combined with emigration 
 
222 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 or birth-contral on a large scale. Educated Chinese 
 realize this, and it makes them indifferent to efforts to 
 keep the present victims alive. A great deal of Chinese 
 callousness has a similar explanation, and is due to per- 
 ception of the vastness of the problems involved. But 
 there remains a residue which cannot be so explained. 
 If a dog is run over by an automobile and seriously 
 hurt, nine out of ten passers-by will stop to laugh at 
 the poor brute’s howls. The spectacle of suffering does 
 not of itself rouse any sympathetic pain in the average 
 Chinaman ; in fact, he seems to find it mildly agreeable. 
 Their history, and their penal code before the revolu- 
 tion of 1911, show that they are by no means destitute 
 of the impulse of active cruelty ; but of this I did not 
 myself come across any instances. And it must be said 
 that active cruelty is practised by all the great nations, 
 to an extent concealed from us only by our hypocrisy. 
 
 Cowardice is prima facie a fault of the Chinese ; but I 
 am not sure that they are really lacking in courage. It 
 is true that, in battles between rival tuchuns, both sides 
 run away, and victory rests with the side that first dis- 
 covers the flight of the other. But this proves only 
 that the Chinese soldier is a rational man. No cause of 
 any importance is involved, and the armies consist of 
 mere mercenaries. When there is a serious issue, as, 
 for instance, in the Tai-Ping Rebellion, the Chinese are 
 said to fight well, particularly if they have good officers. 
 Nevertheless, I do not think that, in comparison with the 
 Anglo-Saxons, the French, or the Germans, the Chinese 
 can be considered a courageous people, except in the 
 matter of passive endurance. They will endure torture, 
 
THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 223 
 
 and even death, for motives which men of more pugna- 
 cious races would find insufficient — for example, to con- 
 ceal the hiding-place of stolen plunder. In spite of their 
 comparative lack of active courage, they have less fear 
 of death than we. have, as is shown by their readiness 
 to commit suicide. 
 
 Avarice is, I should say, the greatest defect of the 
 Chinese. Life is hard, and money is not easily obtained. 
 For the sake of money, all except a very few foreign- 
 educated Chinese will be guilty of corruption. For the 
 sake of a few pence, almost any coolie will run an immi- 
 nent risk of death. The difficulty of combating Japan 
 has arisen mainly from the fact that hardly any Chinese 
 politician can resist Japanese bribes. I think this defect 
 is probably due to the fact that, for many ages, an honest 
 living has been hard to get; in which case it will be 
 lessened as economic conditions improve. I doubt if it 
 is any worse now in China than it was in Europe in the 
 eighteenth century. I have not heard of any Chinese 
 general more corrupt than Marlborough or of any poli- 
 tician more corrupt than Cardinal Dubois. It is, there- 
 fore, quite likely that changed industrial conditions will 
 make the Chinese as honest as we are — which is not say- 
 ing much. 
 
 I have been speaking of the Chinese as they are in 
 ordinary life, when they appear as men of active and 
 skeptical intelligence, but of somewhat sluggish passions. 
 There is, however, another side to them: they are cap- 
 able of wild excitement, often of a collective kind. I saw 
 little of this myself, but there can be no doubt of the 
 fact. The Boxer rising was a case in point, and one 
 
224 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 which particularly affected Europeans. But their his- 
 tory is full of more or less analogous disturbances. It 
 is this element in their character that makes them incal- 
 culable, and makes it impossible even to guess at their 
 future. One can imagine a section of them becoming 
 fanatically Bolshevist, or anti- Japanese, or Christian, or 
 devoted to some leader who would ultimately declare 
 himself emperor. I suppose it is this element in their 
 character that makes them, in spite of their habitual 
 caution, the most reckless gamblers in the world. And 
 many emperors have lost their thrones through the force 
 of romantic love, although romantic love is far more 
 despised than it is in the West. 
 
 To sum up the Chinese character is not easy. Much 
 of what strikes the foreigner is due merely to the fact 
 that they have preserved an ancient civilization which 
 is not industrial. All this is likely to pass away, under 
 the pressure of the Japanese, and of European and 
 American financiers. Their art is already perishing, 
 and being replaced by crude imitations of second-rate 
 European pictures. Most of the Chinese who have had 
 a European education are quite incapable of seeing any 
 beauty in native painting, and merely observe contemp- 
 tuously that it does not obey the laws of perspective. 
 
 The obvious charm which the tourist finds in China 
 cannot be preserved ; it must perish at the touch of in- 
 dustrialism. But perhaps something may be preserved, 
 something of the ethical qualities in which China is su- 
 preme, and which the modern world most desperately 
 needs. Among these qualities I place first the pacific 
 temper, which seeks to settle disputes on grounds of 
 
THE CHINESE CHARACTER 
 
 225 
 
 justice rather than by force. It remains to be seen 
 whether the West will allow this temper to persist, or 
 will force it to give place, in self-defense, to a frantic 
 militarism like that to which Japan has been driven. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA 
 
 C HINA, like Italy and Greece, is frequently mis- 
 judged by persons of culture because they regard 
 it as a museum. The preservation of ancient beauty is 
 very important, but no vigorous forward-looking man is 
 content to be a mere curator. The result is that the best 
 people in China tend to be Philistines as regards all that 
 is pleasing to the European tourist. The European in 
 China, quite apart from interested motives, is apt to be 
 ultra-conservative, because he likes everything distinc- 
 tive and non-European. But this is the attitude of an 
 outsider, of one who regards China as a country to be 
 looked at rather than lived in, as a country with a past 
 rather than a future. Patriotic Chinese naturally do 
 not view their country in this way; they wish their 
 country to acquire what is best in the modern world, 
 not merely to remain an interesting survival of a by- 
 gone age, like Oxford or the Yellowstone Park. As the 
 first step to this end, they do all they can to promote 
 higher education, and to increase the number of Chinese 
 who can use and appreciate Western knowledge without 
 being the slaves of Western follies. What is being done 
 in this direction is very interesting, and one of the most 
 hopeful things happening in our not very cheerful epoch. 
 
 There is, first, the old traditional curriculum, the 
 learning by rote of the classics without explanation in 
 
 226 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA 
 
 227 
 
 early youth, followed by a more intelligent study in 
 later years. This is exactly like the traditional study 
 of the classics in this country, as it existed, for example, 
 in the eighteenth century. Men over thirty, even if, 
 in the end, they have secured a thoroughly modern edu- 
 cation, have almost all begun by learning reading and 
 writing in old-fashioned schools. Such schools still form 
 the majority, and give most of the elementary education 
 that is given. Every child has to learn by heart efvery 
 day some portion of the classical text, and repeat it out 
 loud in class. As they all repeat at the same time, the 
 din is deafening. (In Peking I lived next to one of these 
 schools, so I can speak from experience.) The number 
 of people who are taught to read by these methods is 
 considerable; in the large towns one finds that even 
 coolies can read as often as not. But writing (which 
 is very difficult in Chinese) is a much rarer accomplish- 
 ment. Probably those who can both read and write ^ 
 form about 5 per cent, of the population. 
 
 The establishment of normal schools for the training 
 of teachers on modern lines, which grew out of the edict 
 of 1905 abolishing the old examination system and pro- 
 claiming the need of educational reform, has done much, 
 and will do much more, to transform and extend elemen- 
 tary education. The following statistics showing the 
 increase in the number of schools, teachers, and students 
 in China are taken from Mr. Tyau’s “China Awakened,’’ 
 p. 4:— 
 
 1910 1914 1917 1919 
 
 Number of Schools . . 42,444 59,796 12S,048 134,000 
 
 Number of Teachers .. 185,566 200,000 326,417 326,000 
 
 Number of Students . . 1,625,534 3,849,554 4,269,197 4,500,000 
 

 228 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Considering that the years concerned are years of 
 revolution and civil war, it must be admitted that the 
 progress shown by these figures is very remarkable. 
 
 There are schemes for universal elementary education, 
 but so far, owing to the disturbed condition of the coun- 
 try and the lack of funds, it has been impossible to carry 
 them out except in a few places on a small scale. They 
 would, however, be soon carried out if there were a stable 
 government. 
 
 The traditional classical education was, of course, not 
 intended to be only elementary. The amount of Chinese 
 literature is enormous, and the older texts are extremely 
 difficult to understand. There is scope, within the tradi- 
 tion, for all the industry and erudition of the finest 
 renaissance scholars. Learning of this sort has been 
 respected in China for many ages. One meets old 
 scholars of this type, to whose opinions, even in politics, 
 it is customary to defer, although they have the inno- 
 cence and unworldliness of the old-fashioned don. They 
 remind one almost of the men whom Lamb describes in 
 his essay on Oxford in the vacation — learned, lovable, 
 and sincere, but utterly lost in the modern world, basing 
 their opinions of socialism, for example, on what some 
 eleventh-century philosopher said about it. The argu- 
 ments for and against the type of higher education that 
 they represent are exactly the same as those for and 
 against a classical education in Europe, and one is 
 driven to the same conclusion in both cases: that the 
 existence of specialists having this type of knowledge is 
 highly desirable, but that the ordinary curriculum for 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA 
 
 229 
 
 the average educated person should take more account 
 of modern needs, and give more instruction in science, 
 modern languages, and contemporary international rela- 
 tions. This is the view, so far as I could discover, of all 
 reforming educationists in China. 
 
 The second kind of higher education in China is that 
 initiated by the missionaries, and now almost entirely in 
 the hands of the Americans. As every one knows, 
 America’s position in Chinese education was acquired 
 through the Boxer indemnity. Most of the powers, at 
 that time, if their own account is to be believed, de- 
 manded a sum representing only actual loss and damage, 
 but the Americans, according to their critics, demanded 
 (and obtained) a vastly larger sum, of which they gen- 
 erously devoted the surplus to educating Chinese stu- 
 dents, both in China and at American universities. This 
 course of action has abundantly justified itself, both 
 politically and commercially; a larger and larger num- 
 ber of posts in China go to men who have come under 
 American influence, and who have come to believe that 
 America is the one true friend of China among the great 
 powers. 
 
 One may take as typical of American work three insti- 
 tutions of which I saw a certain amount : Tsing- 
 
 Hua College (about ten miles from Peking), the 
 Peking Union Medical College (connected with the 
 Rockefeller Hospital), and the so-called Peking Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 Tsing-Hua College, delightfully situated at the foot 
 of the western hills, with a number of fine solid build- 
 
230 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 ings, 1 in a good American style, owes its existence en- 
 tirely to the Boxer indemnity money. It has an atmos- 
 phere exactly like that of a small American university, 
 and a (Chinese) president who is an almost perfect re- 
 production of the American college president. The 
 teachers are partly American, partly Chinese educated 
 in America, and there tends to be more and more of the 
 latter. As one enters the gates, one becomes aware of 
 the presence of every virtue usually absent in China; 
 cleanliness, punctuality, exactitude, efficiency. I had 
 not much opportunity to judge of the teaching, but 
 whatever I saw made me think that the institution was 
 thorough and good. One great merit, which belongs to 
 American institutions generally, is that the students are 
 made to learn English. Chinese differs so profoundly 
 from European languages that even with the most skil- 
 ful translations a student who knows only Chinese can- 
 not understand European ideas; therefore the learning 
 of some European language is essential, and English is 
 far the most familiar and useful throughout the Far 
 East. 
 
 The students at Tsing-Hua College learn mathemat- 
 ics and science and philosophy, and, broadly speaking, 
 the more elementary parts of what is commonly taught 
 in universities. Many of the best of them go afterward 
 to America, where they take a doctor’s degree. On re- 
 turning to China they become teachers or civil servants. 
 Undoubtedly they contribute greatly to the improvement 
 
 1 It should be said that one sees just as fine buildings in 
 purely Chinese institutions, such as Peking Government Univer- 
 sity and Nanking Teachers’ Training College. 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA 
 
 231 
 
 of their country in efficiency and honesty and technical 
 intelligence. 
 
 The Rockefeller Hospital is a large, conspicuous 
 building, representing an interesting attempt to combine 
 something of Chinese beauty with European utilitarian 
 requirements. The green roofs are quite Chinese, but 
 the walls and windows are European. The attempt is 
 praiseworthy, though perhaps not wholly successful. 
 The hospital has all the most modern scientific appara- 
 tus but, with the monopolistic tendency of the Standard 
 Oil Co., it refuses to let its apparatus be of use to any- 
 one not connected with the hospital. The Peking Union 
 Medical College teaches many things besides medicine, 
 — English literature, for example, — and apparently 
 teaches them well. They are necessary in order to pro- 
 duce Chinese physicians and surgeons who will reach the 
 European level, because a good knowledge of some Eu- 
 ropean language is necessary for medicine as for other 
 kinds of European learning. And a sound knowledge 
 of scientific medicine is, of course, of immense impor- 
 tance to China, where there is no sort of sanitation and 
 epidemics are frequent. 
 
 The so-called Peking University is an example of what 
 the Chinese have to suffer on account of extraterritori- 
 ality. The Chinese Government (so at least I was told) 
 had already established a university in Peking, fully 
 equipped and staffed, and known as the Peking Uni- 
 versity. But the Methodist missionaries decided to 
 give the name “Peking University” to their schools, so 
 the already existing university had to alter its name to 
 “Government University.” The case is exactly as if a 
 
232 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 collection of old-fashioned Chinamen had established 
 themselves in London to teach the doctrine of Confucius, 
 and had be.en able to force London University to aban- 
 don its name to them. However, I do not wish to raise 
 the question of extraterritoriality, the more so as I do 
 not think it can be abandoned for some years to come, 
 in spite of the - abuses to which it sometimes gives 
 rise. 
 
 Returned students (i.e., students who have been at 
 foreign universities) form a definite set in China . 2 
 There is in Peking a “Returned Students’ Club,” a 
 charming place. It is customary among Europeans to 
 speak ill of returned students, but for no good reason. 
 There are occasionally disagreements between different 
 sections; in particular, those who have been only to 
 Japan are not regarded quite as equals by those who 
 have been to Europe or America. My impression was 
 that America puts a more definite stamp upon a stu- 
 
 2 Mr. Tyau {op. cit. p. 27) quotes from “Who’s Who of Amer- 
 ican Returned Students,” a classification of the occupations of 
 596 Chinese who have returned from American universities. 
 The larger items are: In education, 38 as administrators and 
 
 197 as teachers; in government service, 129 in executive offices 
 (there are also three members of Parliament and four judges) ; 
 95 engineers; 35 medical practitioners (including dentists) ; CO 
 in business; and 21 social and religious workers. It is esti- 
 mated that the total number of Chinese holding university de- 
 grees in America is 1700, and in Great Britain 400 {ib .) . This 
 disproportion is due to the more liberal policy of America in 
 the matter of the Boxer indemnity. In 1916 there were 292 
 Chinese university students in Great Britain, and Mr. Tyau 
 (p. 28) gives a classification of them by their subjects. The 
 larger groups are: Medicine, 50; law and economics, 47; en- 
 
 gineering. 42; mining, 22; natural science (including chemistry 
 and geology, which are classified separately), 19. 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA 
 
 233 
 
 dent than any other country; certainly those returning 
 from England are less Anglicized than those returning 
 from the United States are Americanised. To the 
 Chinaman who wishes to be modern and up-to-date, sky- 
 scrapers and hustle seem romantic, because they are so 
 unlike his home. The old traditions which conservative 
 Europeans value are such a mushroom growth compared 
 to those of China (where authentic descendants of Con- 
 fucius abound) that it is useless to attempt that way 
 of impressing the Chinese. One is reminded of the con- 
 versation in “Eothen” between the English country 
 gentleman and the pasha, in which the pasha praises 
 England to the refrain: “Buzz, buzz, all by steam; 
 
 whir, whir, all on wheels,” while the Englishman keeps 
 saying: “Tell the Pasha that the British yeoman is 
 
 still, thank God, the British yeoman.” 
 
 Although the educational work of the Americans in 
 China is on the whole admirable, nothing directed by 
 foreigners can adequate^ satisfy the needs of the 
 country. The Chinese have a civilization and a national 
 temperament in many ways superior to those of white 
 men. A few Europeans ultimately discover this, but 
 Americans never do. They remain always missionaries 
 — not of Christianity, though they often think that is 
 what they are preaching, but of Americanism. What 
 is Americanism? “Clean living, clean thinking, and 
 pep,” I think an American would reply. This means, 
 in practice, the substitution of tidiness for art, cleanli- 
 ness for beauty, moralizing for philosophy, prostitutes 
 for concubines (as being easier to conceal), and a general 
 air of being fearfully busy for the leisurely calm of the 
 
234 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 traditional Chinese. Voltaire — that hardened old cynic 
 — laid it down that the true ends of life are “ aimer et 
 penser.” Both are common in China, but neither is 
 compatible with “pep.” The American influence, there- 
 fore, inevitably tends to eliminate both. If it prevailed 
 it would, no doubt, by means of hygiene, save the lives 
 of many Chinamen, but would at the same time make 
 them not worth saving. It cannot therefore be regarded 
 as wholly and altogether satisfactory. 
 
 The best Chinese educationists are aware of this, and 
 have established schools and universities which are 
 modern but under Chinese direction. In these, a cer- 
 tain proportion of the teachers are European or Ameri- 
 can, but the spirit of the. teaching is not that of the 
 Y. M. Q. A. One can never rid oneself of the feeling 
 that the* education controlled by white men is not dis- 
 interested; it seems always designed, unconsciously in 
 the main, to produce convenient tools for the capitalist 
 penetration of China by the merchants and manufactur- 
 ers of the nation concerned. Modern Chinese schools 
 and universities are singularly different; they are not 
 hotbeds of rabid nationalism as they would be in any 
 other country, but institutions where the student is 
 taught to think freely, and his thoughts are judged by 
 their intelligence, not by their utility to exploiters. The 
 outcome, among the best young men, is a really beautiful 
 intellectual disinterestedness. The discussions which I 
 used to have in my seminar (consisting of students be- 
 longing to the Peking Government University) could 
 not have been surpassed anywhere for keenness, candor, 
 and fearlessness. I had the same impression of the 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA 
 
 235 
 
 Science Society of Nanking*, and of all similar bodies 
 wherever I came across them. There is, among the 
 young, a passionate desire to acquire Western knowl- 
 edge, together with a vivid realization of Western vices. 
 They wish to be scientific but not mechanical, industrial 
 but not capitalistic. To a man they are Socialists, as are 
 most of the best among their Chinese teachers. They 
 respect the knowledge of Europeans, but quietly 
 put aside their arrogance. For the present, the purely 
 Chinese modern educational institutions, such as the 
 Peking Government University, leave much to be de- 
 sired from the point of view of instruction; there are 
 no adequate libraries, the teaching of English is not suf- 
 ficiently thorough, and there is not enough mental dis- 
 cipline. But these are the faults of youth, and are un- 
 important compared with the profoundly humanistic at- 
 titude to life which is formed in the students. Most of 
 the faults may be traced to the lack of funds, because 
 the government — loved by the powers on account of its 
 weakness — has to part with all its funds to the military 
 chieftains who fight each other and plunder the country, 
 as in Europe — for China must be compared with Eu- 
 rope, not with any one of the petty states into which Eu- 
 rope is unhappily divided. 
 
 The students are not only full of public spirit them- 
 selves, but are a powerful force in arousing it through- 
 out the nation. What they did in 1919, when Versailles 
 awarded Shangtung to Japan, is well told by Air. Tyau 
 in his chapter on “The Student Movement.” And what 
 they did was not merely political. To quote Mr. Tyau 
 (p. 146) : 
 
236 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Having aroused the nation, prevented the signature of the 
 Versailles Treaty and assisted the merchants to enforce the 
 Japanese boycott, the students then directed their energies to 
 the enlightenment of their less educated brothers and sisters. 
 For instance, by issuing publications, by popular lectures 
 showing them the real situation, internally as well as exter- 
 nally; but especially by establishing free schools and main- 
 taining them out of their own funds. No praise can be too 
 high for such self-sacrifice, for the students generally also 
 teach in these schools. The scheme is endorsed everywhere 
 with the greatest enthusiasm, and in Peking alone it is esti- 
 mated that fifty thousand children are benefited by such edu- 
 cation. 
 
 One thing which came as a surprise to me was to find 
 that, as regards modern education under Chinese con- 
 trol, there is complete equality between men and women. 
 The position of women in Peking Government University 
 is better than at Cambridge. Women are admitted to 
 examinations and degrees, and there are women teachers 
 in the university. The Girls’ Higher Normal School in 
 Peking, where prospective women teachers are taught, 
 is a most excellent and progressive institution, and the 
 spirit of free inquiry among girls would horrify most 
 British head mistresses. 
 
 There is a movement in favor of coeducation, especi- 
 ally in elementary education, because, owing to the in- 
 adequate supply of schools, the girls tend to be left out 
 altogether unless they can go to the same school as the 
 boys. The first time I met Professor and Mrs. Dewey 
 was at a banquet in Chang-sha, given by the tuchun. 
 When the time came for after-dinner speeches, Mrs. 
 
HIGHER EDUCATION IN CHINA 
 
 237 
 
 Dewey told the tuchun that his province must adopt co- 
 education. He made a statesmanlike reply, saying that 
 the matter should receive his best consideration, but he 
 feared the time was not ripe in Hunan. However, it 
 was clear that the matter was within the sphere of 
 practical politics. At the time, being new to China and 
 having imagined China a somewhat backward country, I 
 was surprised. Later on I realized that reforms which 
 we only talk about can be actually carried out in 
 China. 
 
 Education controlled by missionaries or conservative 
 white men cannot give what Young China needs. After 
 throwing off the native superstitions of centuries, it 
 would be a dismal fiasco to take on the European super- 
 stitions which have been discarded here by all progres- 
 sive people. It is only where progressive Chinese them- 
 selves are in control that there is scope for the renais- 
 sance of the younger students, and for that free spirit of 
 skeptical inquiry by which they are seeking to build a 
 new civilization as splendid as their old civilization in 
 its best days. 
 
 While I was in Peking, the government teachers 
 struck, not for higher pay, but for pay, because their 
 salaries had not been paid for many months. Accom- 
 panied by some of the students, they went on a deputa- 
 tion to the government, but were repulsed by soldiers 
 and policemen, who clubbed them so severely that many 
 had to be taken to the hospital. The incident produced 
 such universal fury that there was nearly a revolution, 
 and the government hastened to come to terms with the 
 teachers with all possible speed. The modern teachers 
 
238 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 have behind them all that is virile, energetic, and public- 
 spirited in China; the gang of bandits which controls 
 the government has behind it Japanese money and Eu- 
 ropean intrigue. America occupies an intermediate 
 position. One may say broadly that the old traditional 
 education, with the military governors and the British 
 and Japanese influence, stands for conservatism; 
 America and its commerce and its educational institu- 
 tions stand for liberalism ; while the native modern edu- 
 cation, practically though not theoretically, stands for 
 socialism. Incidentally, it alone stands for intellectual 
 freedom. 
 
 The Chinese are a great nation, incapable of per- 
 manent suppression by foreigners. They will not con- 
 sent to adopt our vices in order to acquire military 
 strength; but they are willing to adopt our virtues in 
 order to advance in wisdom. I think they are the only 
 people in the world who quite genuinely believe that 
 wisdom is more precious than rubies. That is why the 
 West regards them as uncivilized. 
 
 Sc C p Cj Xh! $ 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA 
 
 C HINA is as yet only slightly industrialized, but the 
 industrial possibilities of the country are very 
 great, and it may be taken as nearly certain that there 
 will be a rapid development throughout the next few 
 decades. China’s future depends as much upon the 
 manner of this development as upon any other single 
 factor; and China’s difficulties are very largely con- 
 nected with the present industrial situation. I will 
 therefore first briefly describe this situation and then 
 consider the possibilities of the near future. 
 
 We may take railways and mines as the foundation 
 of a nation’s industrial life. Let us therefore consider 
 first the railways and then the mines, before going on 
 to other matters. 
 
 When railways were new, the Manchu government, 
 like the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (which it 
 resembled in many ways), objected to them, and did all 
 it could to keep them at a distance. 1 In 1875 a short 
 line was built by foreigners from Shanghai to Woosung, 
 but the central government was so shocked that it caused 
 it to be destroyed. In 1881 the first permanent rail- 
 
 i For the history of Chinese railways, see Tyau, op. tit., pp, 
 183 ff. 
 
 239 
 
240 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 way was constructed, but not very much was accom- 
 plished until after the Japanese War of 1894-95. The 
 powers then thought that China was breaking up, and 
 entered upon a scramble for concessions and spheres of 
 influence. The Belgians built the important line from 
 Peking to Hankow; the Americans obtained a conces- 
 sion for a Hankow-Canton railway, which, however, has 
 only been constructed as far as Changsha. Russia built 
 the Manchurian Railways, connecting Peking with the 
 Siberian Railway and with Europe. Germany built the 
 Shangtung Railway, from Tsingtau to Tsinanfu. The 
 French built a railway in the south. England 
 sought to obtain a monopoly of the railways in the 
 Yangtze Valley. All these railways were to be owned 
 by foreigners and managed by foreign officials of the 
 respective countries which had obtained the concessions. 
 The Boxer rising, however, made Europe aware that 
 som^ caution was needed if the Chinese were not to be 
 exasperated beyond endurance. After this, ownership 
 of new railways was left to the Chinese Government, but 
 with so much foreign control as to rob it of most of its 
 value. By this time, Chinese public opinion had come 
 to realize that there must be railways in China, and that 
 the real problem was how to keep them under Chinese 
 control. In 1908, the Tientsin-Pukow line and the 
 Shanghai-Hangchow line were sanctioned, to be built by 
 the help of foreign loans, but with all the administra- 
 tive control in the hands of the Chinese Government. 
 At the same time, the Peking-Hankow line was bought 
 back by the government, and the Peking-Kalgan line 
 was constructed by the Chinese without foreign financial 
 
INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA 
 
 241 
 
 assistance. Of the big main lines of China, this left not 
 much foreign control outside the Manchurian Railway 
 (Chinese Eastern Railway) and the Shantung Railway. 
 The first of these is mainly under foreign control and 
 must now be regarded as permanently lost, until such 
 time as China becomes strong enough to defeat Japan 
 in war; and the whole of Manchuria has come more or 
 less under Japanese control. But the Shantung Rail- 
 way, by the agreement reached at Washington, is to be 
 bought back by China — five years hence, if all goes well. 
 Thus, except in regions practically lost to China, the 
 Chinese now have control of all their more important 
 railways, or will have before long. This is a very hope- 
 ful feature of the situation, and a distinct credit to Chi- 
 nese sagacity. 
 
 Putnam Weale (Mr. Lennox Simpson) strongly urges 
 — quite rightly, as I think — the great importance of 
 nationalizing all Chinese railways. At Washington re- 
 cently, he helped to secure the Shantung Railway award, 
 and to concentrate attention on the railway as the main 
 issue. Writing early in 1919, he said: 2 
 
 The key to the proper control of China and the building-up 
 of the new Republican State is the railway key. . . . The revo- 
 lution of 1911, and the acceptance in principle of Western 
 ideas of popular government, removed the danger of foreign 
 provinces being carved out of the old Manchu Empire. 
 There was, however, left behind a more subtle weapon. This 
 weapon is the railway. Russia with her Manchurian Railway 
 scheme taught Japan the new method. Japan, by the Treaty 
 of Portsmouth in 1905, not only inherited the richer half of 
 
 2 “China in 1918.” Published by the “Peking Leader,” pp. 
 45-6. 
 
242 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 the Manchurian railways, but was able to put into practice a 
 new technique, based on a mixture of twisted economics, police 
 control, and military garrisons. Out of this grew the latter- 
 day highly developed railway zone which, to all intents and 
 purposes, creates a new type of foreign enclave , subversive of 
 the Chinese State. The especial evil to-day is that Japan has 
 transferred from Manchuria to Shantung this new technique, 
 which . . . she will eventually extend into the very heart of 
 intramural China . . . and also into extramural Chihli and 
 Inner Mongolia (thus outflanking Peking) unless she is sum- 
 marily arrested. At all costs this must he stopped. The 
 method of doing so is easy: It is to have it laid down cate- 
 gorically, and accepted hy all the Powers, that henceforth all 
 railways on Chinese soil are a vital portion of Chinese sover- 
 eignty and must he controlled directly from Peking hy a 
 National Pailway Board ; that stationmasters, personnel and 
 police, must he Chinese citizens, technical foreign help being 
 limited to a set standard ; and that all railway concessions 
 are henceforth to he considered simply as building concessions 
 which must he handed over, section by section, as they are 
 built, to the National Pailway Board. 
 
 If the Shangtung Railway agreement is loyally 
 carried out, this reform — as to whose importance I quite 
 agree with Putnam Weale — will have been practically 
 completed five years hence. But we must expect Japan 
 to adopt every possible means of avoiding the carrying 
 out of her promises, from instigating Chinese civil war 
 to the murdering of Japanese employees by Japanese 
 secret agents masquerading as Chinese. Therefore, un- 
 til the Chinese actually have complete control of the 
 Shantung Railway, we cannot feel confident that they 
 will ever get it. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the Chinese run railways 
 
INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA 
 
 243 
 
 badly. The Kalgan Railway, which they built, is just 
 as well built as those constructed by foreigners ; and the 
 lines under Chinese administration are admirably man- 
 aged. I quote from Mr. Tyau 3 the following statistics, 
 which refer to the year 1919 : Government railways, in 
 
 operation, 6027 kilometers ; under construction, 383 kilo- 
 meters, private and provincial railways, 773 kilo-meters ; 
 concessioned railways, 3780 kilometres. Total, 10,963 
 kilometers, or 6852 miles. (The concessioned railways 
 are mainly those in Manchuria and Shantung, of which 
 the first must be regarded as definitely lost to China, 
 while the second is probably recovered. The problem 
 of concessioned railways has therefore no longer the im- 
 portance that it had, though, by detaching Manchuria, 
 the foreign railway has shown its power for evil). As 
 regards financial results, Air. Tyau gives the following 
 figures for the principal state railways in 1918: — 
 
 Name of Line. 
 
 Kilometres 
 
 Operated. 
 
 Year 
 
 Completed. 
 
 Per cent, earned 
 on Investment. 
 
 Peking-Mukclen . . 
 
 987 
 
 1897 
 
 22.7 
 
 Peking-Hankow . . 
 
 1306 
 
 1905 
 
 15.8 
 
 S hanghai-N anking 
 
 327 
 
 1908 
 
 6.2 
 
 Tientsin-Pukow . . 
 
 1107 
 
 1912 
 
 6.2 
 
 Peking-Suiyuan . . 
 
 490 
 
 1915 
 
 5.6 
 
 Subsequent years, for which I have not the exact figures, 
 have been less prosperous. 
 
 I cannot discover any evidence of incompetence in 
 Chinese railway administration. On the contrary, much 
 3 Op. tit., Chap. XI. 
 
244 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 has been done to overcome the evils due to the fact that 
 the various lines were originally constructed by dif- 
 ferent powers, each following its own customs, so that 
 there was no uniformity, and goods trucks could not 
 be moved from one line to another. There is, how- 
 ever, urgent need of further railways, especially to open 
 up the west and to connect Canton with Hankow, the 
 profit of which would probably be enormous. 
 
 Mines are perhaps as important as railways, for 
 if a country allows foreign control of its mineral re- 
 sources it cannot build up either its industries or its 
 munitions to the point where they will be independent 
 of foreign favor. But the situation as regards mining 
 is at present far from satisfactory. 
 
 Mr. Julean Arnold, American commercial attache at 
 Peking, writing early in 1919, made the following state- 
 ment as regards China ’s mineral resources : 
 
 China is favoured with a wonderful wealth in coal and in 
 a good supply of iron ore, two essentials to modern industrial 
 development. To indicate how little China has developed its 
 marvellous wealth in coal, this country imported, during 1917, 
 
 14.000. 000 tons. It is estimated that China produces now 
 
 20.000. 000 tons annually, but it is supposed to have higher 
 resources in coal than has the United States which, in 1918, 
 produced 650,000,000 tons. In iron ore it has been estimated 
 that China has 400,000,000 tons suitable for furnace reaction, 
 and an additional 300,000,000 tons which might be worked 
 by native methods. During 1917, it is estimated that China’s 
 production of pig iron was 500,000 tons. The developments 
 in the iron and steel industry in China are making rapid 
 strides, and a few years hence it is expected that the produc- 
 
INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA 
 
 245 
 
 tion of pig iron and of finished steel will be several millions 
 of tons annually. ... In antimony and tin China is also 
 particularly rich, and considerable progress has taken place 
 in the mining and smelting of these ores during the past few 
 years. China should jealously safeguard its mineral wealth, 
 so as to preserve it for the country’s welfare . 4 
 
 The “China Year Book” for 1919 gives the total Chi- 
 nese production of coal for 1914 as 6,315,735 tons, and of 
 iron ore at 468,938 tons. 5 Comparing these with Mr. 
 Arnold’s figures for 1917, namely 20,000,000 tons of coal 
 and 500,000 tons of pig iron (not iron ore), it is evi- 
 dent that great progress was made during those three 
 years, and there is every reason to think that at least 
 the same rate of progress has been maintained. The 
 main problem for China, however, is not rapid develop- 
 ment, but national development. Japan is poor in 
 minerals and has set to work to acquire as much as 
 possible of the mineral wealth of China. This is im- 
 portant to Japan, for two different reasons: first, that 
 only industrial development can support the growing 
 population, which cannot be induced to emigrate to 
 Japanese possessions on the mainland; secondly, that 
 steel is an indispensible requisite for imperialism. 
 
 The Chinese are proud of the Kiangnan dock and 
 engineering work at Shanghai, which is a government 
 
 * “China in 1918,” p. 26. There is perhaps some mistake .in 
 the figures given for iron ore, as the Tayeh mines alone are 
 estimated by some to contain 700,000,000 tons of iron ore. Cole- 
 man, op. cit., p. 51. 
 
 5 Page 63. The 1922 “Year Book” gives 19,500,000 tons of 
 coal production. 
 
246 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 concern, and has proved its capacity for ship-building’ 
 on modern lines. It built four ships of 10,000 tons each 
 for the American Government. Mr. S. G. Cheng says : 6 
 
 For the construction of these ships, materials were mostly 
 supplied by China, except steel, which had to be shipped from 
 America and Europe (the steel produced in China being so 
 limited in quantity, that after a certain amount is exported to 
 Japan by virtue of a previous contract, little is left for home 
 consumption). 
 
 Considering how rich China is in iron ore, this state 
 of affairs needs explanation. The explanation is valu- 
 able to any one who wishes to understand modern poli- 
 tics. 
 
 The “ China Year Book” for 1919 7 (a work as little 
 concerned with politics as ‘‘Whitaker’s Almanack”) 
 gives a list of the five principal iron mines in China, 
 with some information about each. The first and most 
 important are the Tayeh mines, worked by the Hanyehp- 
 ing Iron and Coal Co., Ltd., which, as the reader 
 may remember, was the subject of the third group in the 
 Twenty-one Demands. The total amount of ore in sight 
 is estimated by the “China Year Book” at 50,000,000 
 tons, derived chiefly from two mines, in one of which 
 the ore yields 65 per cent, of iron, in the other 58 to 63 
 per cent. The output for 1916 is given as 603,732 tons 
 (it has been greatly increased since then). The “Year 
 Book” proceeds: “Japanese capital is invested in the 
 
 Company, and by the agreement between China and 
 
 6 “Modem China,” p. 265. 
 
 7 Pages 74-5. 
 
INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA 
 
 247 
 
 Japan of May 1915 [after the ultimatum which enforced 
 the revised Twenty-one Demands], the Chinese Govern- 
 ment undertook not to convert the Company into a 
 State-owned concern nor to compel it to borrow money 
 from other than Japanese sources.” It should be added 
 that there is a Japanese accountant and a Japanese tech- 
 nical adviser, and that pig-iron and ore, up to a speci- 
 fied value, must be sold to the imperial Japanese works 
 at much below the market price leaving a paltry resi- 
 due for sale in the open market. 8 
 
 The second item in the 4 ‘China Year Book’s” list is 
 the Tungkuan Shan mines. All that is said about these 
 is as follows: “Tungling district on the Yangtze, 55 
 miles above Wuhu, Anhui province. A concession to 
 work these mines, granted to the London and China 
 Syndicate (British) in 1904, was surrendered in 1910 
 for the sum of £52,000, and the mines were transferred 
 to a Chinese Company to be formed for their exploita- 
 tion.” These mines, therefore are in Chinese hands. 
 I do not know what their capacity is supposed to be, 
 and, in view of the price at which they were sold, it 
 cannot be very great. The capital of the Hanyehping 
 Co. is $20,000,000, which is considerably more than 
 £52,000. This was the only one of the five iron mines 
 mentioned in the “Year Book” which was not in 
 Japanese hands at the time when the “Year Book” was 
 published. 
 
 Next comes the Taochung Iron Mine, Anhui province. 
 “The concession which was granted to the Sino- Japanese 
 Industrial Development Co. will be worked by the 
 
 8 Coleman, op. tit., Chap. XIV. 
 
248 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 Orient Steel Manufacturing Co. The mine is said to 
 contain 60,000,000 tons of ore, containing 65 per cent, 
 of pure iron. The plan of operations provides for the 
 production of pig iron at the rate of 170,000 tons a 
 year, a steel mill with a capicity of 100,000 tons of 
 steel ingots a year, and a casting and forging mill to 
 produce 75,000 tons a year.” 
 
 The fourth mine is at Chinlingchen, in Shantung, 
 ‘‘worked in conjunction with the Hengshan Colliery by 
 the railway.” I presume it is to be sold back to China 
 along with the railway. 
 
 The fifth and last mine mentioned is the Penhsihu 
 Mine, “one of the most promising mines in the nine 
 mining areas in South Manchuria, where the Japanese 
 are permitted by an exchange of Notes between the 
 Chinese and Japanese Governments (May 25, 1015) 
 to prospect for and operate mines. The seam of this 
 mine extends from near Liaoyang to the neighborhood 
 of Penhsihu, and in size is pronounced equal to the 
 Tayeh mine.” It will be observed that this mine, also, 
 was acquired by the Japanese as a result of the ultima- 
 tum enforcing the Twenty-one Demands. The “Year 
 Book” adds “The Japanese Navy is purchasing some 
 of the Penhsihu output. Osaka ironworks placed an 
 order for 15,000 tons in 1915 and the arsenal at Osaka 
 in the same year accepted a tender for Penhsihu iron.” 
 
 It will be seen from these facts that, as regards iron, 
 the Chinese have allowed the Japanese to acquire a 
 position of vantage from which they can only be ousted 
 with great difficulty. Nevertheless, it is absolutely im- 
 perative that the Chinese should develop an iron and 
 
INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA 
 
 249 
 
 steel industry of their own on a large scale. If they do 
 not they cannot preserve their national independence, 
 their own civilization, or any of the things that 
 make them potentially of value to the world. It should 
 be observed that the chief reason for which the Japanese 
 desire Chinese iron is in order to be able to exploit and 
 tyrannize over China. Confucius, I understand, says 
 nothing about iron mines ; 9 therefore the old-fashioned 
 Chinese did not realize the importance of preserving 
 them. Now that they are awake to the situation, it is 
 almost too late. I shall later come back to the question 
 of what can be dne. For the present, let us continue 
 our survey of facts. 
 
 It may be presumed that the population of China 
 will always be mainly agricultural. Tea, silk, raw 
 cotton, grain, the soya bean, etc., are crops in which 
 China excels. In production of raw cotton, China is 
 the third country in the world, India being the first 
 and the United States the second. There is, of course, 
 room for great progress in agriculture, but industry is 
 vital if China is to preserve her national independence, 
 and* it is industry that is our present topic. 
 
 To quote Mr. Tyau: “At the end of 1916 the num- 
 
 ber of factory hands was officially estimated at 560,000 
 and that of mine workers 406,000. Since then no official 
 
 9 It seems it would be inaccurate to maintain that there is 
 nothing on the subject in the Gospels. An eminent American 
 divine pointed out in print, as regards the advice against laying 
 up treasure where moth and rust doth corrupt, that “moth 
 and rust do not get at Mr. Rockefeller’s oil wells, and thieves 
 do not often break through and steal a railway. What Jesus 
 condemned was hoarding wealth.” See Upton Sinclair, “The 
 Profits of Religion,” 1918, p. 175. 
 
250 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 returns for the whole country have been published . . . 
 but perhaps a million each would be an approximate 
 figure for the present number of factory operatives and 
 mine workers. ’ 1 10 Of course, the hours are very long 
 and the wages very low ; Mr. Tyau mentions as specially 
 modern and praiseworthy certain textile factories where 
 the wages range from 15 to 45 cents a day. 11 (The cent 
 varies in value, but is always somewhere between a 
 farthing and a halfpenny.) No doubt as industry 
 develops socialism and labor unrest will also develop. 
 If Mr. Tyau is to be taken as a sample of the modem 
 Chinese governing classes, the policy of the government 
 toward labor will be very illiberal. Mr. Tyau’s out- 
 look is that of an American capitalist', and shows the 
 extent to which he has come under American influence, 
 as well as that of conservative England (he is an L.L.D. 
 of London). Most of the Young Chinese I came across, 
 however, were socialists, and it may be hoped that the 
 traditional Chinese dislike of uncompromising fierce- 
 ness will make the government less savage against labor 
 than the governments of America and J apan. 
 
 There is room for the development of a great textile 
 industry in China. There are a certain number of 
 modern mills, and nothing but enterprise is needed to 
 make the industry as great as that of Lancashire. 
 
 Ship-building has made a good beginning in Shanghai, 
 and would probably develop rapidly if China had a 
 flourishing iron and steel industry in native hands. 
 
 The total exports of native produce in 1919 were just 
 
 10 Page 237. 
 
 11 Page 218. 
 
INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA 
 
 251 
 
 under £200,000,000 (630,000,000 taels), and the total 
 imports slightly larger. It is better, however, to con- 
 sider such statistics in taels, because currency fluctua- 
 tions make the results deceptive when reckoned in ster- 
 ling. The tael is not a coin, but a certain weight of 
 silver, and therefore its value fluctuates with the value 
 of silver. The “China Year Book” gives imports and 
 exports of Chinese produce for 1902 as 325 million taels 
 and 214 million taels respectively; for 1911, as 482 and 
 377 ; for 1917, as 577 and 462 ; for 1920, as 762 and 541. 
 (The corresponding figures in pounds sterling for 1911 
 are sixty-four millions and fifty millions; for 1917, 124 
 millions and 99,900,000.) It will thus be seen that, al- 
 though the foreign trade of China is still small in pro- 
 portion to population, it is increasing very fast. To a 
 European it is always surprising to find how little the 
 economic life of China is affected by such incidents as 
 revolutions and civil wars. 
 
 Certain principles seem to emerge from a study of 
 the Chinese railways and mines as needing to be adopted 
 by the Chinese Goverment if national independence is to 
 be preserved. As regards railways, nationalization is 
 obviously desirable, even if it somewhat retards the 
 building of new lines. Railways not in the hands of 
 the government will be controlled, in the end if not in 
 the beginning, by foreigners, who will thus acquire a 
 power over China which will be fatal to freedom. I 
 think we may hope that the Chinese authorities now 
 realize this, and will henceforth act upon it. 
 
 In regard to mines, development by the Chinese them- 
 selves is urgent, since undevelopment by foreigners 
 
252 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 makes it possible to keep China enslaved. It should 
 therefore be enacted that, in future, no sale of mines 
 or of any interest in mines to foreigners, and no loan 
 from foreigners on the security of mines, will be recog- 
 nized as legally valid. In view of extraterritoriality, it 
 will be difficult to induce foreigners to accept such legis- 
 lation, and consular courts will not readily admit its 
 validity. But, as the example of extraterritoriality in 
 Japan shows, such matters depend upon the national 
 strength ; if the powers fear China, they will recognize 
 the validity of Chinese legislation, but if not, not. In 
 view of the need of rapid development of mining by 
 Chinese, it would probably be unwise to nationalize all 
 mines here and now. It would be better to provide every 
 possible encouragement to genuinely Chinese private 
 enterprise, and to offer the assistance of geological and 
 mining experts, etc. The government should, however, 
 retain the right (a) to buy out any mining concern at a 
 fair valuation; (&) to work minerals itself in cases 
 where the private owners fail to do so, in spite of ex- 
 pert opinion in favor of their being worked. These 
 powers should be widely exercised, and, as soon as min- 
 ing has reached the point compatible with national 
 security, the mines should be all nationalized, except 
 where, as at Tayeh, diplomatic agreements stand in the 
 way. It is clear that the Tayeh mines must be recovered 
 by China as soon as opportunity offers, but when or 
 how that will be it is as yet impossible to say. Of 
 course I have been assuming an orderly government es- 
 tablished in China, but without that nothing vigorous 
 can be done to repel foreign aggression. This is a point 
 
INDUSTRIALISM IN CHINA 
 
 253 
 
 to which, along with other general questions connected 
 with the industrializing of China, I shall return in my 
 last chapter. 
 
 It is said by Europeans who have business experience 
 in China that the Chinese are not good at managing 
 large joint-stock companies, such as modern industry 
 requires. As every one knows, they are proverbially 
 honest in business, in spite of the corruption of their 
 politics. But their successful businesses — so one gathers 
 — do not usually extend beyond a single family; and! 
 even they are apt to come to grief sooner or later through 
 nepotism. This is what Europeans say; I cannot speak 
 from my own knowledge. But I am convinced that 
 modern education is very quickly changing this state 
 of affairs, which was connected with Confucianism and 
 the family ethic. Many Chinese have been trained in 
 business methods in America; there are colleges of com* 
 merce at Woosung and other places; and the patriotism 
 of Young China has led men of the highest education to 
 devote themselves to industrial development. The 
 Chinese are no doubt, by temperament and tradition, 
 more suited to commerce than to industry, but contact 
 with the West is rapidly introducing new aptitudes and 
 a new mentality. There is, therefore, every reason to 
 expect, if political conditions are not too adverse, that 
 the industrial development of China will proceed 
 rapidly throughout the next few decades. It is of vital 
 importance that that development should be controlled 
 by the Chinese rather than by foreign nations. But that 
 is part of the larger problem of the recovery of Chinese 
 independence, with which I shall deal in my last chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA 
 
 I N this chapter I propose to take, as far as I am able, 
 the standpoint of a progressive and public-spirited 
 Chinese, and consider what reforms, in what order, I 
 should advocate in that case. 
 
 To begin with, it is clear that China must be saved 
 by her own efforts, and cannot rely upon outside help. 
 In the international situation, China has had both good 
 and bad fortune. The Great War was unfortunate, 
 because it gave Japan temporarily a free hand; the 
 collapse of Czarist Russia was fortunate, because it put 
 an end to the secret alliance of Russians and Japanese; 
 the Anglo-Japanese alliance was unfortunate, because it 
 compelled us to abet Japanese aggression even against 
 our own economic interests; the friction between Japan 
 and America was fortunate ; but the agreement arrived 
 at by the Washington conference, though momentarily 
 advantageous as regards Shantung, is likely, in the long 
 run, to prove unfortunate, since it will make America 
 less willing to oppose Japan. For reasons which I set 
 forth in Chapter X, unless China becomes strong, either 
 the collapse of Japan or her unquestioned ascendancy in 
 the Far East is almost certain to prove disastrous to 
 China ; and one or other of these is very likely to come 
 about. All the great powers, without exception, have 
 
 254 
 
THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA 
 
 255 
 
 interests which are incompatible, in the long run, with 
 China’s welfare and with the best development of 
 Chinese civilization. Therefore the Chinese must seek 
 salvation in their own energy, not in the benevolence 
 of any outside power. 
 
 The problem is not merely one of 'political indepen- 
 dence, a certain cultural independence is at least as 
 important. I have tried to show in this book that the 
 Chinese are, in certain ways, superior to us, and it 
 would not be good either for them or for us if, in these 
 ways, they had to descend to our level in order to pre- 
 serve their existence as a nation. In this matter, how- 
 ever, a compromise is necessary. Unless they adopt 
 some of our vices to some extent, we shall not respect 
 them, and they will be increasingly oppressed by foreign 
 nations. The object must be to keep this process within 
 the narrowest limits compatable with safety. 
 
 First of all, a patriotic spirit is necessary — not, of 
 course, the bigoted anti-foreign spirit of the Boxers, but 
 the enlightened attitude which is willing to learn from 
 other nations while not willing to allow them to dom- 
 inate. This attitude has been generated among edu- 
 cated Chinese, and to a great extent in the merchant 
 class, by the brutal tuition of Japan. The danger of 
 patriotism is that, as soon as it has proved strong enough 
 for successful defense, it is apt to turn to foreign aggres- 
 sion. China, by her resources and her population, is 
 capable of being the greatest power in the world after 
 the United States. It is much to be feared that, in the 
 process of becoming strong enough to preserve their 
 independence, the Chinese may become strong enough 
 
256 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 to embark upon a career of imperialism. It cannot be 
 too strongly urged that patriotism should be only de- 
 fensive, not aggressive. But with this proviso, I think 
 a spirit of patriotism is absolutely necessary to the re- 
 generation of China. Independence is to be sought, 
 not as an end in itself, but as a means toward a new 
 blend of Western skill with the traditional Chinese vir- 
 tues. If this end is not achieved, political independence 
 will have little value. 
 
 The three chief requisites, I should say, are: (1) the 
 establishment of an orderly government; (2) industrial 
 development under Chinese control; (3) the spread of 
 education. All these aims will have to be pursued con- 
 currently, but on the whole their urgency seems to me 
 to come in the above order. We have already seen how 
 large a part the state will have to take in building up 
 industry, and how impossible this is while the political 
 anarchy continues. Funds for education on a large 
 scale are also unobtainable until there is good govern- 
 ment. Therefore good government is the prerequisite 
 of all other reforms. Industrialism and education are 
 closely connected, and it would be difficult to decide the 
 priority between them; but I have put industrialism 
 first, because, unless it is developed very soon by the 
 Chinese, foreigners will have acquired such a strong 
 hold that it will be very difficult indeed to oust them. 
 These reasons have decided me that our three problems 
 ought to be taken in the above order. 
 
 1. The Establishment of an Orderly Government. 
 At the moment of writing, the condition of China is as 
 anarchic as it has ever been. A battle between Chang- 
 
THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA 
 
 257 
 
 tso-lin and Wu-Fei-Fu is imminent; the former is usu- 
 ally considered, though falsely according to some good 
 authorities, the most reactionary force in China; Wu- 
 Pei-Fu, though 4 ‘The Times ” calls him “the Liberal 
 leader,” may well prove no more satisfactory than 
 “Liberal” leaders nearer home. It is of course possible 
 that, if he wins* he may be true to his promises and 
 convoke a Parliament for all China; but it is at least 
 equally possible that he may not. In any case, to de- 
 pend upon the favor of a successful general is as preca- 
 rious as to depend upon the benevolence of a foreign 
 power. If the progressive elements are to win, they 
 must become a strong organized force. 
 
 So far as I can discover, Chinese Constitutionalists 
 are doing the best thing that is possible at the moment, 
 namely, concerting a joint program, involving the con- 
 voking of a parliament and the cessation of military 
 usurpation.. Union is essential, even if it involves 
 sacrifice of cherished beliefs on the part of some. Given 
 a program upon which all the Constitutionalists are 
 united, they will acquire great weight in public opinion, 
 which is very powerful in China. They may then be 
 able, sooner or later, to offer a high constitutional posi- 
 tion to some powerful general, on condition of his ceas- 
 ing to depend upon mere military force. By this means 
 they may be able to turn the scales in favor of the man 
 they select, as the student agitation turned the scales in 
 July, 1920, in favor of Wu-Pei-Fu a-gainst the An Fu 
 party. Such a policy can only be successful if it is com- 
 bined with vigorous propaganda, both among the civilian 
 population and among the soldiers, and if, as soon as 
 
258 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 peace is restored, work is found for disbanded soldiers 
 and pay for those who are not disbanded. This raises the 
 financial problem, which is very difficult, because for- 
 eign powers will not lend except in return for some fur- 
 ther sacrifice of the remnants of Chinese independence. 
 (For reasons explained in Chapter X, I do not accept 
 the statement by the American consortium bank- 
 ers that a loan from them would not involve control 
 over China’s internal affairs. They may not mean con- 
 trol to be involved, but I am convinced that in fact it 
 would be.) The only way out of this difficulty that I 
 can see is to raise an internal loan by appealing to the 
 patriotism of Chinese merchants. There is plenty of 
 money in China, but, very naturally, rich Chinese will 
 not lend to any of the brigands who now control the 
 Government. 
 
 When the time comes to draft a permanent constitu- 
 tion, I have no doubt that it will have to be federal, 
 allowing a very large measure of autonomy to the prov- 
 inces, and reserving for the central Government few 
 things except customs, army and navy, foreign relations 
 and railways. Provincial feeling is strong, and it is 
 now, I think, generally recognized that a mistake was 
 made in 1912 in not allowing it more scope. 
 
 While a constitution is being drafted, and even after 
 it has been agreed upon, it will not be possible to rely 
 upon the inherent prestige of Constitutionalism, or to 
 leave public opinion without guidance. It will be neces- 
 sary for the genuinely progressive people throughout 
 the country to unite in a strongly disciplined society, 
 arriving at collective decisions and enforcing support of 
 
THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA 
 
 259 
 
 those decisions upon all its members. This society will 
 have to win the confidence of public opinion by a very 
 rigid avoidance of corruption and political profiteering ; 
 the slightest failure of a member in this respect must be 
 visited by expulsion. The society must make itself ob- 
 viously the champion of the national interest as against 
 all self-seekers, speculators, and toadies to foreign powers. 
 It will thus become able authoritatively to commend or 
 condemn politicians and to wield great influence over 
 opinion, even in the army. There exists in Young China 
 enough energy, patriotism, and honesty to create such a 
 society and to make it strong through the respect which 
 it will command. But, unless enlightened patriotism is 
 organized in some such way, its power will not be equal 
 to the political problems with which China is faced. 
 
 Sooner or later, the encroachments of foreign powers 
 upon the sovereign rights of China must be swept away. 
 The Chinese must recover the treaty ports, control of 
 the tariff, and so on; they must also free themselves 
 from extraterritoriality. But all this can probably be 
 done, as it was in Japan, without offending foreign 
 powers (except perhaps the Japanese). It would be a 
 mistake to complicate the early stages of Chinese re- 
 covery by measures which would antagonize foreign 
 powers in general. Russia was in a stronger position 
 for defense than China, yet Russia has suffered terribly 
 from the universal hostility provoked by the Bolsheviks. 
 Given good government and a development of China’s 
 resources, it will be possible to obtain most of the needed 
 concessions by purely diplomatic means; the rest can 
 wait for a suitable opportunity. 
 
i 
 
 260 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 2. Industrial Development. On this subject I 
 have already written in Chapter XIV ; it is certain gen- 
 eral aspects of the subject that I wish to consider now. 
 F or reasons already given, I hold that all railways ought 
 to be in the hands of the state, and that all successful 
 mines ought to be purchased by the state at a fair valua- 
 tion, even if they are not state-owned from the first. 
 Contracts with foreigners for loans ought to be care- 
 fully drawn so as to leave the control to China. There 
 would not be much difficulty about this if China had a 
 stable and orderly government ; in that case, many 
 foreign capitalists would be willing to lend on good 
 security, without exacting any part in the management. 
 Every possible diplomatic method should be employed 
 to break down such a monopoly as the consortium seeks 
 to acquire in the matter of loans. 
 
 Given good government, a large amount of state en- 
 terprise would be desirable in Chinese industry. There 
 are many arguments for state socialism, or rather what 
 Lenin calls state capitalism, in any country which is 
 economically but not culturally backward. In the first 
 place, it is easier for the state to borrow than for a 
 private person; in the second place, it is easier for the 
 state to engage and employ the foreign experts who are 
 likely to be needed for some time to come ; in the third 
 place, it is easier for the state to make sure that vital 
 industries do not come under the control of foreign 
 powers. "What is perhaps more important than any of 
 these considerations is that, by undertaking industrial 
 enterprise from the first, the state can prevent the 
 growth of many evils of private capitalism. If China 
 
THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA 
 
 261 
 
 can acquire a vigorous and honest state, it will be pos- 
 sible to develop Chinese industry without, at the same 
 time, developing the overweening power of private capi- 
 talists by which the Western nations are now both op- 
 pressed and misled. 
 
 But if this is to be done successfully, it will require 
 a great change in Chinese morals, a development of 
 public spirit in place of the family ethic, a transference 
 to the public service of that honesty which already exists 
 in private business, and a degree of energy which is at 
 present rare. I believe that Young China is capable of 
 fulfilling these requisites, spurred on by patriotism; 
 but it is important to realize that they are requisites, 
 and that, without them, any system of state socialism 
 must fail. 
 
 For industrial development, it is important that the 
 Chinese should learn to become technical experts and 
 also to become skilled workers. I think more has been 
 done toward the former of these needs than toward 
 the latter. For the latter purpose, it would probably 
 be wise to import skilled workmen — say from Ger- 
 many — and cause them to give instructions to Chinese 
 workmen in any new branch of industrial work that it 
 might be desired to develop. 
 
 3. Education. If China is to become a democracy, 
 as most progressive Chinese hope, universal education is 
 imperative. Where the bulk of the population cannot 
 read, true democracy is impossible. Education is a good 
 in itself, but is also essential for developing political con- 
 sciousness, of which at present there is almost none in 
 rural China. The Chinese themselves are well aware of 
 
262 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 this, but in the present state of the finances, it is impos- 
 sible to establish universal elementary education. Until 
 it has been established for some time, China must be, in 
 fact, if not in form, an oligarchy, because the unedu- 
 cated masses cannot have any effective political opinion. 
 Even given good government, it is doubtful whether the 
 immense expense of educating such a vast population 
 could be borne by the nation without a considerable in- 
 dustrial development. Such industrial development as 
 already exists is mainly in the hands of foreigners, and 
 its profits provide war-ships for the Japanese, or man- 
 sions and dinners for British and American millionaires. 
 If its profits are to provide the funds for Chinese educa- 
 tion, industry must be in Chinese hands. This is 
 another reason why industrial development must 
 probably precede any complete scheme of education. 
 
 For the present, even if the funds existed, there would 
 not be sufficient teachers to provide a schoolmaster in 
 every village. There is, however such an enthusiasm 
 for education in China that teachers are being trained 
 as fast as possible with such limited resources; indeed 
 a great deal of devotion and public spirit is being shown 
 by Chinese educators, whose salaries are usually many 
 months in arrears. 
 
 Chinese control is, to my mind, as important in the 
 matter of education as in the matter of industry. For 
 the present, it is still necessary to have foreign instruc- 
 tors in some subjects, though this necessity will soon 
 cease. Foreign instructors, however, provided they are 
 not too numerous, do no harm, any more than foreign 
 experts in railways and mines. What does harm is for- 
 
THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA 
 
 263 
 
 eign management. Chinese educated in mission schools, 
 or in lay establishments controlled by foreigners, tend 
 to become denationalized, and to have a slavish attitude 
 toward Western civilization. This unfits them for tak- 
 ing a useful part in the national life, and tends to under- 
 mine their morals. Also, oddly enough, it makes them 
 more conservative in purely Chinese matters than the 
 young men and women who have had a modern educa- 
 tion under Chinese auspices. Europeans in general are 
 more conservative about China than the modern Chinese 
 are, and they tend to convey their conservatism to their 
 pupils. And of course their whole influence, unavoid- 
 ably if involuntarily, militates against national self-re- 
 spect in those whom they teach. 
 
 Those who desire to do research in some academic sub- 
 ject will, for some time to come, need a period of resi- 
 dence in some European or American university. But 
 for the great majority of university students it is far 
 better, if possible, to acquire their education in China. 
 Returned students have, to a remarkable extent, the 
 stamp of the country from which they have returned, 
 particularly when that country is America. A society 
 such as was forshadowed earlier in this chapter, in 
 which all really progressive Chinese should combine, 
 would encounter difficulties, as things stand, from the 
 divergencies in national bias between students returned 
 from, say, Japan, America, and Germany. Given time, 
 this difficulty can be overcome by the increase in purely 
 Chinese university education, but at present the dif- 
 ficulty would be serious. 
 
 To overcome this difficulty, two things are needed : in- 
 
264 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 spiring leadership, and a clear conception of the kind 
 of civilization to be aimed at. Leadership will have to 
 be both intellectual and practical. As regards intellec- 
 tual leadership, China is a country where writers have 
 enormous influence, and a vigorous reformer possessed 
 of literary skill could carry with him the great majority 
 of Young China. Men with the requisite gifts exist in 
 China ; I might mention, as an example personally known 
 to me, Dr. Hu Suh. 1 He has great learning, wide cul- 
 ture, remarkable energy, and a fearless passion for re- 
 form ; his writings in the vernacular inspire enthusiasm 
 among progressive Chinese. He is in favor of assimilat- 
 ing all that is good in Western culture, but by no means 
 a slavish admirer of our ways. 
 
 The practical political leadership of such a society as 
 I conceive to be needed would probably demand different 
 gifts from those required in an intellectual leader. It 
 is therefore likely that the. two could not be combined 
 in one man, but would need men as different as Lenin 
 and Karl Marx. 
 
 The aim to be pursued is of importance, not only to 
 China, but to the world. Out of the renaissance spirit 
 now existing in China, it is possible, if foreign nations 
 can be prevented from working havoc, to develop a new 
 civilization better than any that the world has yet 
 known. This is the aim which Young China should set 
 before itself : the preservation of the urbanity and cour- 
 tesy, the candor and the pacific temper, which are 
 characteristic of the Chinese nation, together with a 
 
 i An account of a portion of his work will be found in Tyau, 
 op. cit.y pp. 40 ff. 
 
THE OUTLOOK FOR CHINA 
 
 265 
 
 knowledge of Western science and an application of it 
 to the practical problems of China. Of such practical 
 problems there are two kinds: one due to the internal 
 condition of China, and the other to its international 
 situation. In the former class come education, democ- 
 racy, the diminution of poverty, hygiene and sanitation, 
 and the prevention of famines. In the latter class come 
 the establishment of a strong government, the develop- 
 ment of industrialism, the revision of treaties and the 
 recovery of the treaty ports (as to which Japan may 
 serve as a model), and, finally, the creation of an army 
 sufficiently strong to defend the country against Japan. 
 Both classes of problems demand Western science. But 
 they do not demand the adoption of the Western philos- 
 ophy of life. 
 
 If the Chinese were to adopt the Western philosophy 
 of life, they would, as soon as they had made themselves 
 safe against foreign aggression, embark upon aggres- 
 sion on their own account. They would repeat the cam- 
 paigns of the Han and Tang djuiasties in Central Asia, 
 and perhaps emulate Kublai by the invasion of Japan. 
 They would exploit their material resources with a view 
 to producing a few bloated plutocrats at home and 
 millions dying of hunger abroad. Such are the results 
 which the West achieves by the application of science. 
 If China were led astray by the lure of brutal power, 
 she might repel her enemies outwardly, but would have 
 yielded to them inwardly. It is not unlikely that the 
 great military nations of the modern world will bring 
 about their own destruction by their inability to abstain 
 from war, which will become, with every year that 
 
 
266 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 passes, more scientific and more devastating. If Cliina 
 joins in this madness, China will perish like the rest. 
 But if Chinese reformers can have the moderation to 
 stop when they have made China capable of self-defense, 
 and to abstain from the further step of foreign conquest ; 
 if, when they have become safe at home, they can turn 
 aside from the materialistic activities imposed by the 
 powers, and devote their freedom to science and art 
 and the inauguration of a better economic system — then 
 China will have played the part in the world for which 
 she is fitted, and will have given to mankind as a whole 
 new hope in the moment of greatest need. It is this 
 hope that I wish to see inspiring Young China. This 
 hope is realizable; and, because it is realizable, China 
 deserves a foremost place in the esteem of every lover 
 of mankind. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 HILE the above pages were going through the 
 
 Press, some important developments have taken 
 place in China. Wu-Pei-Fu has defeated Chang-tso-lin 
 and made himself master of Peking. Chang has re- 
 treated toward Manchuria with a broken army, and pro- 
 claimed the independence of Manchuria. This might 
 suit the Japanese very well, but it is hardly to be sup- 
 posed that the other powers would acquiesce. It is, 
 therefore, not unlikely that Chang may lose Manchuria 
 also, and cease to be a factor in Chinese politics. 
 
 For the moment, Wu-Pei-Fu controls the greater part 
 of China, and his intentions become important. The 
 British in China have, for some years, befriended him, 
 and this fact colors all press telegrams appearing in our 
 newspapers. According to “The Times/ ’ he has pro- 
 nounced in favor of the reassembling of the old all- 
 China Parliament, with a view to the restoration of con- 
 stitutional government. This is a measure in which the 
 South could concur, and if he really adheres to this in- 
 tention he has it in his power to put an end to Chinese 
 anarchy. “The Times” Peking correspondent, tele- 
 graphing on May 30, reports that “Wu-Pei-Fu declares 
 that if the old Parliament will reassemble and work in 
 national interests he will support it up to the limit, and 
 fight any obstructionists.” 
 
 267 
 
268 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF CHINA 
 
 On May 18, the same correspondent telegraphed that 
 “Wu-Pei-Fu is lending his support to the unification 
 movements, and has found common ground for action 
 with Chen Chiung Ming,” who is Sun’s colleague at 
 Canton and is engaged in civil war with Sun, who is 
 imperialistic and wants to conquer all China for his 
 government, said to be alone constitutional. The pro- 
 gram agreed upon between ¥u and Chen Ching Ming 
 is given in the same telegram as follows: 
 
 Local self-government shall be established and magistrates 
 shall be elected by the people; District police shall be created 
 under District Boards subject to Central Provincial Boards; 
 Civil governors shall be responsible to the Central Govern- 
 ment, not to the Tuchuns; a national army shall be created, 
 controlled and paid by the Central Government; Provincial 
 police and gendarmerie , not the Tuchuns or the army, shall be 
 responsible for peace and order in the provinces; the whole 
 nation shall agree to recall the old Parliament and the restora- 
 tion of the Provisional Constitution of the first year of the 
 Republic; Taxes shall be collected by the Central Government, 
 and only a stipulated sum shall be granted to each province 
 for expenses, the balance to be forwarded to the Central Gov- 
 ernment as under the Ching dynasty; Afforestation shall be 
 undertaken, industries established, highways built, and other 
 measures taken to keep the people on the land. 
 
 This is an admirable program, but it is impossible to 
 know how much of it will ever be carried out. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sun Yat Sen is still at war with Wu-Pei- 
 Fu. It has been stated in the British press that there 
 was an alliance between Sun and Chang, but it seems 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 269 
 
 there was little more than a common hostility to Wu. 
 Sun’s friends maintain that he is a genuine constitu- 
 tionalist, and that Wu is not to be trusted, but Chen 
 Chiung Ming has a better reputation than Sun among 
 reformers. The British in China all praise Wu and 
 hate Sun; the Americans all praise Sun and decry Wu. 
 Sun undoubtedly has a past record of genuine patriot- 
 ism, and there can be no doubt that the Canton govern- 
 ment has been the best in China. What appears in our 
 newspapers on the subject is certainly designed to give 
 a falsely unfavorable impression of Canton. For ex- 
 ample, in “The Times” of May 15, a telegram appeared 
 from Hong-Kong to the following effect : 
 
 I learn that the troops of Sun Yat Sen, President of South 
 China, which are stated to be marching north from Canton, 
 are a rabble. Many are without weapons and a large per- 
 centage of the uniforms are merely rags. There is no disci- 
 pline, and gambling and opium-smoking are rife. 
 
 Nevertheless, on May 30, “The Times” had to con- 
 fess that this army had won a brilliant victory, captur- 
 ing “the most important stronghold in Kiangsi,” to- 
 gether with forty field-guns and large quantities of 
 munitions. 
 
 The situation must remain obscure until more detailed 
 news has arrived by mail. It is to be hoped that the 
 Canton government, through the victory of Chen Chiung 
 Ming, will come to terms with Wu-Pei-Fu, and will be 
 strong enough to compel him to adhere to the terms. 
 It is to be hoped also that Chang’s proclamation of the 
 
270 THE PROBLEM OP CHINA 
 
 independence of Manchuria will not be seized upon by 
 Japan as an excuse for a more complete absorption of 
 that country. If Wu-Pei-Fu adheres to the declaration 
 quoted above, there can be no patriotic reason why Can- 
 ton should not cooperate with him; on the other hand, 
 the military strength of Canton makes it more likely 
 that Wu will find it prudent to adhere to his declara- 
 tion. There is certainly a better chance than there was 
 before the defeat of Chang for the unification of China 
 and the ending of the tuchuns’ tyranny. But it is as 
 yet no more than a chance, and the future is still prob- 
 lematical. 
 
 June 21, 1922. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Academy, Imperial, 41-42 
 Adams, Will, 94 
 Afghanistan, 184 
 Ainu, 121 
 
 America, 11, 51, 52, 61, 67, 
 152 ff., 167 ff. 
 and naval policy, 170 
 and trade with Russia, 171 
 and Chinese finance, 171-4, 
 258 
 
 and Japan, 176 ff. 
 Americanism, 233 
 Ancestor worship, 35 
 An Fu Party, 151, 217, 257 
 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 124, 
 127, 138, 143, 156, 184 
 Annam, 50 
 Arnold, Julean, 244 
 Art, 5, 6, 23, 200 
 Australia, 191 
 
 Backhouse, 46 
 Balfour, 159, 161 
 Benthamites, 78 
 Birth-rate — 
 
 in China, 71, 72 
 in Japan, 119 
 Bismarck, 116, 135 
 Bland, 46, 75 n., 109 
 Bolsheviks, 11, 12, 132, 142, 
 150, 153 ff., 184 ff., 259 
 Bolshevism, 81 
 
 in China, 185, 204, 215 
 Books, burning of, 18 ff. 
 
 Boxer rising, 51, 52, 240 
 indemnity, 52, 229 
 Brailsford, 174 
 Buddhism, 22, 26, 45, 201, 
 
 in Japan, 86, 91, 107, 178 
 Burma, 50 
 Bushido, 181 
 
 Canada, 191 
 
 Canton, 48, 66, 70, 75, 218 
 Capitalism, 188 
 Cassel agreement, 67 
 Chamberlain, Professor B. H., 
 104, 107 
 Changchun, 128 
 Chang-tso-lin, 66, 70, 75, 256, 
 257, 267 
 Chao Ki, 37 
 
 Chen Chiung Ming, 67, 268, 269 
 Chen, Eugene, 138 n. 
 
 Cheng, S. G., 52 n., 63, 140 n., 
 145 n., 246 
 
 Chien Lung, Emperor, 46 ff. 
 Chi Li, Mr., 33 
 China — 
 
 early history, 15 ff. 
 derivation of name, 19 
 population, 26-30 
 “Year Book,” 28 
 produce, 70-71 
 
 influence on Japan, 85 ff., 
 106 
 
 and the war, 140 ff. 
 post offices, 157 
 Chinese — 
 
 character of, 210-225 
 love of laughter, 199, 211 
 dignity, 213 
 pacifism, 206, 224 
 callousness, 221 
 cowardice, 222 
 avarice, 223 
 
 271 
 
272 
 
 INDEX 
 
 patience, 218 
 excitability. 223 
 Chingkiang, 59 
 C'hinlingchen mine, 248 
 Chita, 153. 162 
 Choshu, 100, 102, 104, 108 
 Chou dynasty, 17 
 Christianity in Japan, 91 IT. 
 Chuang Tze, 2, 81, 199 
 Chu Fu Tze, 40 
 Chu Hsi, 42 
 Civilization — 
 alphabetical. 33 
 Chinese, 197 If. 
 
 European, 196 
 
 Coal in China, 137 n., 244 ff. 
 Coleman, 75 n., 113, 132 n, 
 137 n. 
 
 Color prejudice. 177, 182 
 and labor, 190 ff. 
 
 Confucius, 15, 16, 18, 34, 197, 
 219 
 
 Confucianism, 30, 34 ff., 200 
 in Japan. 122 
 
 Consortium, 8, 171 ff., 188, 258 
 Cordier, Henri, 19 n., 20, 22 n., 
 24 n., 25 n., 27 n., 197 n. 
 Cotton, 74, 249 
 
 industry in Osaka, 117 
 Customs — 
 
 Chinese, 52 ff. 
 on exports, 54 
 internal, 54*55 
 
 Dairen, 127 
 
 Conferences at, 162 ff. 
 Denison, 134 
 
 Dewey, Professor. 67, 236 
 Mrs., 236 
 
 Diet, Japanese, 112 ff. 
 
 Dutch in Japan, 91 ff., 101 
 
 Education. 41 ff.. 75 ff., 204, 
 226-238, 261 ff. 
 statistics, 227 
 
 classical, 226-229 
 European and American, 229- 
 234 
 
 modern Chinese, 234 ff. 
 of women, 236-237 
 Efficiency, creed of, 11 
 “Eight Legs,” 43, 44 
 Emperor of China, 16, 36, 83, 
 87, 217 
 “First,” 18 ff. 
 
 Empress Dowager, 49 n. 
 Examination, competitive, 30, 
 41 ff., 75 
 
 “Face,” 216 
 
 Famines in China. 71, 221 
 Far Eastern Republic. 153, 161 
 Federalism in China, 69, 258 
 Feudalism — 
 
 in China, 18, 20 
 in Japan, 89 ff. 
 
 Filial Piety, 35 ff., 60 
 and patriotism, 38 
 in Japan, 122, 178 
 Foreism Trade statistics, 250- 
 251 
 
 Forestry, 79 
 Fourteen Points, 51 
 France, 50, 128 
 
 and Shantung. 143-145 
 and Japan, 165 
 Fukien, 138 
 
 Galileo, 196 
 
 Genoa Conference, 152 
 Genro. the, 91, 108 ff., 133 
 George III, 47 
 
 Germany, 25. 50, 112, 141. 181 
 property in China during 
 war, 148 ff. 
 
 Giles, Lionel, 81 n. 
 
 Giles, Professor, 18 n., 35 n., 
 40 n v 46 n., 197 n. 
 Gladstone, 165, 168 
 Gleason, 137, 140 n. 
 
 Gobi desert, 26 
 
INDEX 
 
 273 
 
 Gompers, 171 
 Great Britain — 
 and China, 49 ff. 
 and Shantung, 143 
 Great Wall, 18 
 Greeks, 196 
 Guam, 157 
 
 Han dynasty, 21 
 Hanyehping Co., 137 n., 246 
 Hart, Sir Robert, 55 
 Hayaslii, 139 n. 
 
 Hearn, Lafcadio, 100 
 Heaven (in Chinese religion), 
 18, 40 
 
 Temple of. 18 
 Hideyoshi, 86, 93, 94 
 Hirth, 16 n., 17 n., 22 n. 
 
 Hong Kong, 50, 67, 74, 218 
 Hsu Shi-chang, President, 41 
 Hughes, Premier, 190 n. 
 Hughes, Secretary, 159, 161 
 Hung Wu. Emperor, 43 
 Huns, 18, 22, 26 
 Hu Suh, 264 
 
 Ichimura, Dr., 125 
 Ideograms, 30 ff. 
 
 Immigration, Asiatic, 190 ff. 
 Imperialism. 81 
 India, 22, 24, 45, 123, 124 
 Industrialism, 196 
 in China, 74, 75, 224, 239-253, 
 260 ff. 
 
 in Japan, 117 
 Inouye, 87 
 
 Intelligentsia in China, 75 
 Iron in China, 136, 137 n., 244 ff. 
 
 Japanese control of, 246 ff. 
 Ishii, 141. See also Lansing- 
 Ishii Agreement. 
 
 Ito, 87, 112 ff. 
 
 Iyeyasu, 90, 94, 95 
 
 Japan, 8, 9, 25, 50, 51, 60, 61, 
 85-184 
 
 early history, 85 ff. 
 constitution. 112 ff. 
 war with China, 116, 126, 
 135 
 
 war with China, 116, 126, 
 135 
 
 clan loyalty, 122 
 loyalty to Allies. 142 
 hegemony in Asia, 124 
 loans to China in 1918, 150 
 Socialism in, 118, 179 . 
 Jenghis Khan, 24 ff. 
 
 Jews, 196 
 
 Kang Hsi, Emperor, 46 n. 
 Kara Korum, 25 
 Kato, 139 n. 
 
 Kiangnan Dock, 245 
 Kiaochow, 50, 136, 158 
 Kieff, 24 
 
 Koo, Mr. Wellington, 56 n., 173 
 Korea, 50, 85, 124, 126, 129 
 Kublai Khan, 25 
 Kyoto, 96 
 Kyushu, 92, 94 
 
 Lama religion, 40 
 Lamont, 174 
 Lansing. 150 
 
 Lansing-Ishii agreement, 140, 
 145, 159 
 
 Lao-Tze, 40, 81, 197, 205 
 Legge, 16 n., 35 n., 81 n. 
 Lenin. 189, 264 
 Lennox, Dr., 72 n. 
 
 Literati, 19, 20, 35 ff. 
 
 Li Ung Bing, 20, 43 
 Li Yuan Hung, President, 
 146 ff. 
 
 Li Yuen, 23 n. 
 
 Lloyd George, 138, 147, 165 
 Louis XIV., 49 
 Louis, Saint, 25 
 
 Macao, 92 
 Macartney, 48 
 
274 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Maltlius, 71 
 
 Manchu dynasty, 26, 27, 40, 62, 
 63 
 
 Manchuria, 50, 66, 124, 127, 
 132, 135, 153, 161, 186, 187, 
 219 
 
 Manila, 93 
 Marco Polo, 25 
 Marcus Aurelius, 22 
 Marx, 264 
 Masuda, 93 
 McLaren, 100, 102 
 Mechanistic Outlook, 80 ff. 
 Merv, 24 
 
 Mikado, 86, 101, 108 
 worship of, 99, 104, 177 
 Militarism, 10, 39, 40 
 Millard, 139 n. ? 149, 158 n. 
 Minamoto Yoritomo, 90 
 Mines, 244 ff. 
 
 Min" dynasty, 26 
 Missionaries, 207 
 
 Roman Catholic, 45, 46 n. 
 in Japan, 92 ff. 
 
 Mongol dynasty, 23 ff., 40 
 Mongolia, 25, 40, 124, 154, 161 
 Morgan, J. P., 65, 174 
 Morphia, 158 
 Moscow, 24 
 Mukden, 135 
 
 Murdoch, 23 n., 86 n., 103, 
 105 n., 109 n. 
 
 Nationalism, 10 
 Nestorianism, 45 
 Nicolaievsk, 162 
 Nietzsche, 83, 205 
 Nishapur, 24 
 Nobunaga, 94 
 Northcliffe, Lord, 75 n. 
 
 Observatory, Peking, 25, 46 
 Okuma, 124, 126 
 Open Door, 53, 170, 189 
 Opium, 49 
 
 Panama tolls, 171 
 Peking, 25, 29, 49, 70 
 Legation Quarter, 51 
 Union Medical College, 73 n.„ 
 231 
 
 Government University, 230 
 n., 235 
 
 Girl’s High Normal School, 
 236 
 
 Penhsihu mine, 248 
 
 Perry, Commodore, 96, 101, 176 
 
 Persia, 22, 24, 184 
 
 Phonetic writing, 31 
 
 Plato, 196 
 
 Po Chui, 206 
 
 Po Lo, 82 
 
 Pooley, 125, 129, 133, 138 n. 
 Pope, the, 25, 178 
 Port Arthur, 51, 127, 135, 157, 
 184 
 
 Portsmouth, Treaty of, 110-11 
 130 
 
 Portuguese, 91 ff. 
 
 Progress, 7, 207, 213 
 Putnam Weale, 27, 29, 63, 
 150 n., 173, 241 
 
 Railways, 239 ff. 
 nationalization of, 241 ff. 
 statistics of, 243 
 Chinese Eastern, 127, 130, 
 150, 153, 241 
 Fa-ku-Men, 129 
 Hankow-Canton, 240 
 Peking-Kalgan, 240, 243 
 Peking-Hankow, 240 
 Shantung, 158 ff., 240 
 Siberian, 153, 240 
 South Manchurian, 128, 129, 
 130 
 
 Tientsin-Pukow, 240 
 Reid, Rev. Gilbert, 140 n., 
 146 n., 149 n. 
 
 Reinch, 140 n., 142 
 Restoration in Japan, 86, 
 98 ff. 
 
INDEX 
 
 275 
 
 Revolution of 1911, 26, 63 ff. 
 
 and Japan, 132 If. 
 
 Rockefeller Hospital, 231 
 Rome, 22, 48 
 Roosevelt, 110 
 Rousseau, 39 
 
 Russia, 10, 13, 14, 24, 50, 123, 
 132, 152 ff, 184 ff. 
 war with Japan, 110, 127, 135 
 secret treaty with Japan, 
 
 142 
 
 and Shantung, 143-145 
 
 Salt tax, 57, 58 
 San Felipe, 93 
 Sato, Admiral, 181 
 Satsuma, 94, 100, 102, 104, 108 
 Science, 49, 79, 80, 196, 203 
 Shank, Mr., 67 
 
 Shantung, 50, 132, 136 ff., 187 
 secret treaties concerning, 
 
 143 
 
 in Versailles Treaty, 151 
 and Washington Conference, 
 151, 158 
 
 Shaw, Bernard, 168 
 Sherfesee, 79 
 
 Shih Huang Ti. See Emperor, 
 “First” 
 
 Shi-King, 19 
 
 Shinto, 86 ff., 105, 107, 178 
 Shogun, The, 90, 100 ff. 
 Shu-King, 15, 16 n., 19 
 Simpson, Lennox. See Putnam 
 Weale 
 
 Socialism, 62, 191 ff. 
 state, 189, 260 
 in Japan, 118, 179 
 in China, 235, 250 
 Soyeda, 151 n. 
 
 Spaniards in Japan, 92 
 Student movement, 235, 257 
 Students 
 
 returned, 11, 203, 232 
 statistics of, 232 n. 
 
 Summer Palace, 49 
 Sung dynasty, 25, 42 
 Sun Yat Sen, 64, 66, 132, 147, 
 268-269 
 
 Supreme Ruler. See Heaven 
 
 Taiping Rebellion, 28, 54, 63 
 Tai-tsung, 24 n. 
 
 Tang dynasty, 23, 41 
 Taochung iron mine, 247 
 Taoism, 40, 187 ff. 
 
 Tartars, 22, 25 
 
 Tayeh mines, 254 n., 246-7 
 
 Teacher’s strike, 217, 237 
 Tenny, Raymond, P., 28 
 Tibet, 26, 40 
 Ting, Mr. V. K. 72 n. 
 Tokugawa, 100 
 
 Tong, Hollington K., 150 n., 
 215 n. 
 
 Trade Unionism, 190-8 
 in Japan, 118-119 
 Treaty Ports, 73 
 Tsing-hua College, 229 
 Tsing-tau, 136, 158 
 Tuan Chih-jui, 146 ff. 
 Tuangkuan Shan mines, 247 
 Tuchuns, 59, 65, 69, 75, 214, 
 218 
 
 Twenty-one Demands, 136 ff., 
 246, 248 
 
 Tyau. M. T. Z., 151 n., 227, 
 232 n., 235, 239 n., 243, 
 249 
 
 United States. See America. 
 
 Versailles Treaty, 51, 148, 150, 
 158 
 
 Vladivostok, 153, 161 
 Volga, 12 
 Voltaire, 234 
 
 Waley, 84, 206 
 
 War, Great, idealistic aims of, 
 147 ff. 
 
276 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Washington Conference, 10, 
 53 n., 59, 61, 132, 152, 
 156 ff., 183 
 Wei-hai-wei, 51, 157 
 White men, virtues of, 125 
 William II., 127 
 Wilson, President, 140, 148 
 Women, position of, in China, 
 236-7 
 
 Woosung College, 253 
 
 Wu-Pie-Fu, 39, 59, 67, 70, 257, 
 267-75 
 
 Yamagata, Prince, 118 n. 
 Yangtze, 50, 137 
 Yao and Shun, 15, 16 
 Yellow River. 15, 197 
 Y. M. C. A., 81. 83, 234 
 Youns China. 21, 60, 76 ff., 
 151, 175, 204, 261, 264 
 Yii, 16 
 
 Yuan Shi-k’ai, 64 ff., 134, 141 
 

 
 
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