Chapter IX: Consuls, Correspondents and Others

Every British subject who attempts any business in China is handicapped by the apathy of British consuls to individual interests. Owing to their training they seem to live in a different atmosphere to that inhabited by the ordinary residents in the treaty ports, are shut off from the ideals of the people of the settlement in which they live, have aspirations of quite a dissimilar character, and are absolutely out of touch with the more enterprising of their own nationals.

For them, the individual, unless he be an offender, does not exist. They serve some abstract creation of their own imagination, to which they give the name of Crown, or British empire; their objects in life appear to be the possession of a mastery over the Chinese language, and some practice in diplomatic pursuits. They are always gentlemen, usually men of brains, and occasionally men possessing some force of character. But they belong to a well-defined high social caste; they are sinologues, and so full of Chinese, that not only their sympathies, but their proclivities even, are tinged with the tone pervading the Celestial empire.

There are no consulates in China possessing the aloofness which characterizes the British; all Consuls but the British consider the needs of the individual out in China; they guard the interests of their nationals, and do all they possibly can to push ahead their enterprises, and so help the individual to become wealthy and influential, and thus valuable to the country to which he owes allegiance. The American Consulates are in marked contrast to the British, because the American representatives are first of all American citizens, men who have a knowledge of the world and its ways, who look upon commerce and business as things deserving interest, attention, and development. American Consuls have not even a nodding acquaintance with the Chinese language, and know next to nothing of Chinese customs, laws, literature, or ideals; but they do know quite well what the American citizens need, and they do their utmost to secure for their nationals all they are justified in obtaining. No business is too small for their attention, no enterprise too great or too daring for their consideration. It is because of the aid they are to business men and to commerce that American trade has advanced so rapidly in the markets of China. People are anxious to be in American businesses, or to have Americans in business with them, because of the assistance the American consular service extends to those of their nationals who are engaged in lawful commerce, and the American Consul no less heartily than the British penalizes those of his compatriots who abuse the people of the country in which they live. I was told that in one treaty port, in so short a time as two months, more than fifty British subjects had applied to the American Consul for advice or assistance, or to inquire in what manner they could become American citizens, or acquire the right to the protection and support of the American flag.

The reason for the preference is appreciated at once by those who have had experience of both. If you call on the American Consul, there is no one to bar your way; you walk straight through into the office and sit down; if you speak English, no other passport or introduction is required, and you start right in and talk to a man who does understand your position, does know what you want to do, for he knows men, and the world, and life, and has not been reared in a cold storage establishment grappling all his days with Mandarin Chinese and fine print. And being a man, he is interested in you and in what you say. Then he says: “I can’t advise you, because you are a British subject; but if you were an American citizen, I should tell you to do what you want to do, and you would get through, because, if any Chinese official wanted to stop you, I should see he didn’t.”

If you call upon a big British Consul on business, it is as well to be sure that you have all your identification papers on your person, for you are liable to want them before you reach an inner door. At the Consulate you are confronted by an array of stalwart Chinese in gaudy uniforms, and flaunting the red cockade of official employ. There are corridors and passages, and boards with printed notices thereon; and doors painted “Private,” and “Judge’s Entrance,” with other legends forbidding your progress; there is a real British constable, and men in khaki, and a waiting-room like that of a club doctor’s surgery. You wait. The place suggests in turn a petty sessions court, a railway station waiting-room, and the vestry of a Nonconformist Chapel. You expect to see horse-hair wigs, and horse-hair furniture, and wonder which is the way to the cells, and whether the Consul has the “Black Cap,” and if so, where that is kept. After the usual formalities you may see the Consul; as likely as not he will seem old and careworn, and look as though it were Sunday and he was not where he ought to be, but you had caught him. He will fidget with a monocle and shuffle papers, and gaze round at the plainest of plain official furniture as though searching for the logograms which his eyes love. And you will see that his hours of sunshine have been spent under an umbrella poring over books, and his evenings in gazing at the dust a few feet in front of a bicycle wheel. And the man will be stiff, and frigid, and metaphorically covered with the dust of ages, but only metaphorically, for from the way of him you know that he washes in cold water many times a day. You know that he goes to bed early, and to most things has a conscientious objection, and to all enterprise is a passive resister. You will bore the consul--and he will bore you, for he knows not your world, nor is he acquainted with the age you live in. He awes you. It may be 120° F. outside in the sun, but this office and its occupant produce a soul-chill; you get up and steal silently away before something breaks, and you emerge into the sunlight with the same feeling you have when you get out of your cold bath after having remained in it half an hour too long. When you are really outside and hastening away, you turn to see if the motto under the British coat-of-arms over the doorway does not read “_Non possumus_,” and you wonder what the Consul does besides sentencing British subjects to deportation, and why they are deported, and how, and when, and whether it is done in public like a Chinese execution. And if you can help it, you do not go to that dreadful place again ever.

It is a deplorable state of things in any British settlement to have British residents dislike meeting their Consul, to be uneasy in his presence, dissatisfied with his work, and, for practical business purposes, regardless of his existence. Every one out East knows that the British consular service needs remodelling, modernizing, and vitalizing with a new spirit--the spirit with which the British nation of to-day is imbued. It is useless blaming the system, or the men, or attempting to tinker with the existing service. In the State as in factories to retain and attempt to work with worn-out tools is false economy, and gives an advantage to better equipped competitors. We advise our manufacturers to throw their old-fashioned machinery on to the scrap heap, and start in with new machines and new methods, as being the only sensible way in which to attain success. So with the Chinese consular service, we cannot expect these men to adapt themselves to new conditions, to cut out their high faluting with international high diplomacy, and come down to brass tacks.

Fortunately for British newspaper correspondents, Consul-General Miller, the United States representative at Newchwang, was of the right type, and drew no fine distinctions between British subjects and American citizens. War correspondents of both nationalities seemed equally welcome, and both stayed in his house. His exertions on their behalf were so strenuous and constant that had he made any marked difference because of nationality alone, those correspondents who were British subjects might as well have left Newchwang. Only one of the many correspondents he worked for so hard succeeded in exhausting his patience. This was an American, a man of tireless energy and unlimited push, who was first on one side, then on the other, and consequently continuously in hot water, and needing his Consul’s interference. Said the Consul one day: “You will not follow my advice, you do what you know you ought not to attempt; so henceforth I wash my hands of you entirely; I do not know you, and I will not interfere again on your behalf.” And the journalist answered, “Consul, you cannot be rid of your responsibilities so easily. If I am in any difficulty here with either the Russian or the Japanese authorities, I shall be brought to your consulate, and as an American citizen I shall claim your protection, and you will refuse it at your peril.” And he got into trouble again, and was taken to the consulate, and the Consul helped him. Would a British Consul have done so for one of his own nationals in similar circumstances?

The doyen of the consular corps at Newchwang was the British Consul, Mr. H. E. Fulford, C.M.G., and the difference between British and American consular methods is afforded by the _Fawan_ incident. Early in the war the _Chicago Daily News_ chartered a British steamer, the _Fawan_, as a press dispatch boat, and she cruised in the Yellow Sea. In April she approached the Liao river, and, as required then by the regulations of the port of Newchwang, lay to, off the outer bar, for inspection by the Russian authorities. After being twenty-six hours at anchor there, the Russian launch came off, boarded her, and finding that she was a press boat, informed the correspondents that Newchwang being then under martial law their boat could not proceed up the river. But the Russians ascertained that there were two Japanese on board, engaged in the capacity of cabin boys. Thereupon they declared that they seized the boat, and ordered her captain to follow them up the river. The captain wished to take a pilot, but this request was not granted, the officer in command of the launch stating that the launch would pilot the _Fawan_. Soon the Russian launch ran on to a sandbank and remained fast; the _Fawan_ also ran ashore, but got off again quickly, and continued her voyage up stream. She landed the two correspondents, Mr. Washburn and Mr. Little, and they proceeded to the British Consul to place particulars of their case before him, as the boat was under the British flag, and, though complying with the port regulations, had been arrested, and they feared that the same fortune would be theirs, and they had been informed that the cabin boys might be treated as spies, and possibly shot.

The British Consul listened to the facts, and stated that he could not do anything in the matter. It was true that the _Fawan_ was a British ship flying the British flag; it was true that Great Britain had a treaty of alliance with Japan, but he thought the correspondents ought not to have brought the _Fawan_ where they did; and he thought that, as they stated, the Russians would arrest them, and possibly send them home by way of Moscow; that they would confiscate the _Fawan_, and might treat the two cabin boys as spies. He thought the Russians would be within their rights if they did as the correspondents feared they might do; and if they did do so, he could not interfere.

The correspondents went next to the American consulate. Mr. Miller obtained release for the correspondents from arrest, the _Fawan_ was set free, the correspondents were on board her when she left Newchwang, and the two Japanese were allowed to proceed to their own country by the usual route.

Shortly after this incident closed Mr. Fulford was promoted to the post of Acting Consul-General at Tientsin. It is usual in North China, when any resident leaves a settlement, for the Chinese and others to let off many crackers, and to gather at the point of departure to wish him a safe and prosperous journey. This is more particularly the case when a resident leaves a locality on promotion to higher office. At Yingkow I have several times seen the railway platform crowded when a European has been going simply on leave, or for a change of air. On the occasion of Mr. Fulford’s departure the only persons present to wish him “Good luck and God speed” were a clerk from his office and myself. I was astonished at this lack of courtesy, but soon I was to meet the Consul again.

At this time there were about twenty correspondents at Newchwang, and naturally each of us who had any item of news was jealous of it, and guarded the secret carefully until some hours after it had been cabled away. Both Etzel and myself were aware of a leakage somewhere, but we were unable to discover in what way news we believed to be ours only had proved to be commonly known elsewhere. We adopted every precaution, had the privacy of the telegraph room respected as far as we were able, and Etzel went to two relay stations to investigate conditions there; messages were forwarded from different places, and the usual means adopted to have exclusive news got through to its destination at the earliest possible moment. I have already stated that any Chinese coolie taking a message could be made to show it to a European who offered a sufficient bribe or threatened bobbery, but this does not indicate the general lack of secretiveness amongst the Europeans resident in North China. It is a common practice to send round an “express,” or open letter, by a Chinese carrier, who shows it to any and every European who is minded to read its contents. This possibly has something to do with the general publicity given to all matters in China. It does not account for some of the practices of the Europeans themselves. For instance, in Chifu ship-masters who had undertaken to deliver messages at a given address offered to sell the news these messages contained to news correspondents stationed in that port; men entrusted with messages to wire from within the Great Wall would open them in the presence of correspondents and read aloud the news the other correspondent was dispatching. The whole business was beset with difficulties, and neither belligerent would permit code or cipher messages to be dispatched.

Early in June I had occasion to visit Tientsin, and on the afternoon of my arrival I met Mr. Archibald, of _Collier’s Weekly_, who told me that he had just seen in the telegraph office a notice directing copies of all cables to be sent to a resident in Tientsin. Whatever may be the law and usage in China, I had always regarded the contents of a telegram once in the office for transmission as secret. It seemed to me that the case was equivalent to the conveyance of animals or goods; the owner was responsible for their safe keeping until delivery had been made to the carriers, when his liability ceased, and that of the carriers commenced. This Chinese method of dealing with messages was new to me; Dr. Morrison had never mentioned its existence.

Subsequently we two correspondents were joined in Tientsin by Mr. Richard Little, representing the _Chicago Daily News_, and together we went to the head office of the Imperial Chinese Railway Telegraphs, where we saw in the instrument-room the notice directing that a copy of telegrams from Yingkow and other places, intended for the Eastern Telegraph Company was to be sent to Mr. Fenton, of the _Tientsin Press_. The notice was signed by Mr. N. F. Huang, who is the director of telegraphs, and it is a striking instance of the laxity of Chinese Railway Telegraph administration.

At the date the notice was signed there were in Yingkow L. L. Etzel, of the _Daily Telegraph_; W. O. Greener, the _Times_; F. MacCullagh, _New York Herald_; Dr. G. E. Morrison, the _Times_; Lieut.-Col. C. Norris-Newman, the _Daily Mail_, besides Reuter’s representative and three correspondents of Continental newspapers. During the three months and upwards it had been posted over the receiving clerk’s desk representatives of all the great newspapers in England and America had visited Yingkow, and the number of cables dispatched from there and “other places” must have amounted to hundreds, for the transmission of which thousands of dollars had been accepted.

We acquired that notice before we left the offices, and after it had been photographed I took it to the British consulate, and showed it to Mr. H. E. Fulford, H.B.M.’s Acting Consul-General at Tientsin. I explained to him where I had seen the notice, and reminded him that when he was at Newchwang there were upwards of a dozen special correspondents dispatching messages from Yingkow.

He asked me what I wished him to do.

I told him that I should like him to advise me what to do, as it was a serious matter for correspondents. He answered testily that he could not advise me. I then asked him to be good enough to make a note of the document. This he said he did not want to do, and the notice he returned to me without any comment upon the affair, but with expressions of annoyance at my appearance. In his words, I “looked as though I owned the consulate,” and not wishing to dispute proprietary rights with the man in possession, I withdrew. It was the first time I had been in Tientsin; I knew that this matter was one which would be viewed by all special correspondents as affecting their interests vitally, and it was clear that the British Consul was disinclined to interfere actively in the business, or advise me how to proceed against the powerful and influential Chinese corporation, with which H. E., the Viceroy Yuan-shi-kai himself, is directly connected.

At the same time it was clear to us three correspondents that the Chinese authorities must be impressed, to a greater extent than they had shown, with our view of the inviolability of telegrams entrusted to their care. In this we thought that the local representative of the cable company might be able to render us some assistance.

Mr. Fenton, in addition to being the representative of Reuter’s agency, was the director of the Tientsin Press, a company owning a daily newspaper, the _Peking and Tientsin Times_. The local manager of the Eastern Cable Company, the assistant-superintendent of the Chinese Imperial Telegraphs, and the assistant-editor of the _Peking and Tientsin Times_, all messed with Mr. Fenton--practically they all lived together--as they had a perfect right to do, whatever correspondents might think, or wish to have otherwise.

We three correspondents were equal to the occasion. On three different dates we returned to the north. The local manager of the Cable Company was transferred to Chifu, and the assistant-superintendent of the Imperial Telegraphs to Peking. The _Peking and Tientsin Times_, from being indubitably pro-Russian, showed signs of wavering, and at once the _China Review_, a new daily paper, was started to voice Russian opinion in Tientsin.

I have been told that the Russian authorities are claiming a heavy indemnity from the Imperial Railway Telegraphs; and if any one can obtain an indemnity, the Russians of all people are most likely to succeed.

As correspondent of the _China Times_, a daily newspaper published in Tientsin, I was able to get news of the capture of Newchwang into Tientsin before the Japanese authorities received any official notification of the event, and in reporting the subsequent movements of the Japanese in the north-east, the _China Times_ was so far in advance of other announcements that I was able to satisfy myself that there was no leakage of news in the telegraph offices at Tientsin.

The British residents in the Far East are very British, have all the old-fashioned British insular prejudices, and amongst these they cherish dearly the dislike of unknown acquaintances. The etiquette of the settlement is an extension of the etiquette of railway travelling in Great Britain. The first passenger to occupy a seat in a compartment resents the intrusion of a stranger; and if two strangers are going a long journey, half the distance will probably be covered before they speak to each other; then possibly they get so interested in each other that both regret they did not start the acquaintance earlier. That is the China coast. The new-comer, a stranger, a sort of interloper, must be watched, and taught that there was some one in the country before he arrived. In the course of time, perhaps not long before he leaves the country and its residents for ever, he is one of them. He is an old timer, a Shanghai-lander himself. He forgets then the icy chilliness of his reception, and becomes as the others. How often you hear your fellow-passenger on the railway say, “We do not want any one else in here!” as he assumes his most formidable aspect, and frowns through the window, glaring at the would-be passengers seeking for seats. And sometimes people will even give a tip to the railway servants, so that they themselves “shall not be disturbed.” And the China coast men do not want new settlers--except the officials Government imposes; they do not want to be disturbed; do not want Americans, or Germans, or any other settlers, not even British, and they have a law, long since abolished in England, by which the British Consul can exile, or banish, or deport any British subject from the settlement. It is the hoary penalty of the ancients; it is the practice of Russia, and its survival amongst British people in their own settlement is an anomaly.

The British residents tell you they are there for business, and not for their health; they are intent on making money, and in making money there are methods practised in the Far East which would not be tolerated in Great Britain; but neither would banishment, nor hundreds of things accepted as correct in China. Their love for the home country is purely sentimental; it does not enter into business matters. I was talking trade with a big importing commission merchant one day, a respected British resident, and I asked him why, as a Briton, he did not sell, or try to sell, more British manufactures, and so help the people at home, who are struggling against poverty because they cannot get work. His reason I had never heard adduced by any one. “I should like to handle more British manufactured goods, and so would we all, but we cannot prevail upon British manufacturers to make goods of such bad quality as Germans and others make. We are commission merchants; we want as many transactions as we can get. We are not going to sell English stuff goods, because they will not wear out soon enough; nor English-made goods, because they do not break. If English manufacturers will put in rotten material, and make flimsy articles, so that very soon after the buyers use them they are finished, and the buyers want more, then we will purchase English goods, but not until they do! We buy German, Belgian, and even American products in preference.”

Perhaps those experts who are so constantly advising the British manufacturer to produce goods the foreign buyer wants, will tell him now not to attempt good work, but give shoddy and Brummagem goods, and thus increase British exports, and make trade flourish.

The foreign resident renders less to Great Britain than he takes from her. He contributes nothing in the way of taxes; he expects to have a British gunboat, or the British fleet, to protect his property whenever it is threatened, and the use of British subsidized steamers for the regular conveyance of his mails and himself, and bring him foreign-made goods, and take home tea, which competes with British produce, and a lot of other things we do not find necessary either to our comfort or our existence.

The foreign residents, even of British nationality, take the Russian side in this war; they believe in a white race; they have a decided bias against the “yellow man”; they do not and cannot understand the Japanese victories.

In April the German Consul-General went to Newchwang to advise his nationals on their attitude during the war. He was asked as to the protection of the property the German subjects there possessed, and if it would be possible to obtain compensation for damages sustained during the war. He answered that if the damage to German property resulted from Japanese action, then he thought compensation would be obtained, because Japan, being the weaker Power, could be coerced into indemnifying German subjects for such losses as they might sustain. But if the damage was due to Russian action, then in his opinion it would be a much more difficult matter to obtain any compensation. After his departure the British flag over various properties was lowered, and the German ensign hoisted in its place.

In neutral territory one had opportunities for the study of human character, of observing the policies of both belligerents, gauging the temperament of the Chinese, and noting the peculiarities of the foreign residents. Taken altogether, the newspaper correspondents themselves were more interesting from the point of view of the student than were the men of any one class. For the newspaper men had more individuality, wider experience, and deeper sympathies. There was more to them than to men of any other category. It is said, playfully perhaps, that the _Times_ men form a distinct class; that in no possible circumstance can one be quite an ordinary individual or ever act as one. However this may be, the men themselves do not much resemble each other, and afford strong contrasts. Dr. Morrison, essentially the schoolmaster, never forgetful of the dignity of his position and faithful to commonest conventions; Captain L. James, dashing, adroit, robust, so intent on his work that he forgets self; but Kand. J. Hoeck possesses a spirit cast in a different mould. Few persons could carry his learning without losing their individuality, but it merely enhances his characteristics. Kand. J. Hoeck is the only correspondent I met who could perceive clearly and instantly the result of every occurrence; who could look beyond the war to its effects upon Russians, Japanese, Chinese, foreign residents and upon the inhabitants of Europe and America. He perceived the stirring events of the great struggle; from them he could appraise the ultimate issue. And Kand. Hoeck, of all the men, was most likely not only to be right, but to champion the cause of right through thick and thin as long as he lived, however unpopular and derided that cause might be. A man to whom conventions were idle as the wind that blows, a man with whom human nature is the only thing that counts. Personal predilections, tastes, preferences, theories, all went down before Kand. Hoeck’s reasoning like corks on a pool table. He discounted individual idiosyncrasies and seized the tendency of the aggregate of a class, a race, a group of nations and not one--individual, race, or group of nationalities--but he would be ready to uplift, to urge onward to better things, to higher and more humane civilizations--a man to whom the world will yet listen attentively. By the side of Kand. Hoeck other men appeared superficial, they faded into insignificance, their very _raison d’être_ seemed trivial in the extreme.

Of these others, the Americans were the more interesting: as a class more frank, more generous, men of greater nature and deeper soul; and they individually varied as much as the primary colours in the spectrum. There was one, a typical journalist, experienced, clever, adept and pushful. He came to us accompanied by a telegraph operator with an instrument and gear for tapping the wires, and a scheme for the exclusive use of the telegraph lines of North China by newspaper correspondents. He met a man, the offspring of a Chinese mother and British father, who clung to his mother’s nationality, and held with success a responsible position under the Russian administration--a man of great ability and some erudition, learned in the lore of the Chinese ancients, and modern Western philosophies. The American journalist seemed to have been astounded by the antiquity of China, the remoteness of its civilization, the wondrous perfection of its scheme of corporate social life. He unburdened himself to the official, taking him for a full-blooded Chinaman of unusual cleverness and much learning. He filled that man so full of hot air that he did not know to which world he rightly belonged, so great became his own idea of his own importance. The journalist went away, and the man talked to Etzel as he had talked to the other journalist. Now Etzel was as good a friend as ever breathed, and loved everything that lived, but he had an American’s conventional ideas with reference to the proper place of yellow-skinned men in the scheme of creation, and whether Chinaman, or half-Chinaman he did not rank this man so highly as the other journalist had done. The man took offence; he persisted in pressing upon Etzel the other journalist’s reasoned-out contention of the superiority of the Chinese; he refused to be assuaged by a friendly invitation to partake of the rough-and-ready supper they were eating in the Club; he even became quarrelsome, put his hand into the fold of his waistcoat; and Etzel, thinking he was trying to find his revolver, as he had threatened to do, just put out one hand towards that man’s face, sent him sprawling backwards and senseless on to the floor by the blow, and with the other hand held out his plate for more sausage. Ten minutes later that still unconscious man was borne to his room by the Chinese boys and a friendly newspaper man.

The foreign resident in China is more prone to deteriorate, to become celestialized, than he is to uplift his Chinese associates to his manner of living, his way of thinking, his standard of civilization. And this doubtless is more common in North China, where the residents do and must speak the language of the country, than it is in the south, where English-speaking Chinese are far more numerous. Probably among no alien race does the Englishman so rapidly lose his essential characteristics as he does in China. In appearance he is the Englishman still, well clothed, spotlessly clean, groomed to perfection, affable, courteous, thorough, but _au fond_ tainted with oriental tendencies. The merchant, owing to closer intercourse and more frequent exchange of thoughts on matters of common interest, is more quickly and more thoroughly impregnated than is even the missionary--with the possible exception of those missionaries who adopt Chinese clothes and the Chinese manner of living. The intercourse is deleterious to the foreigner’s character. His children, if educated in China, are British in appearance and name--in all that makes the man, in all that differentiates the born Briton from men of other races, the China-raised resident is wanting. An impressionable personality perceives the difference immediately; he is face to face with men the like of whom he has never met. It is said that some are so thoroughly changed that a person of the opposite sex will shudder at their touch, just as one would from contact with a Chinaman. In time this sensibility is lessened; it is never caused by Englishmen not raised in China, nor by all who are, for it is possible to avoid this absorption of Chinese ideals, adoption of Chinese manners and the way of looking at all things from the Chinaman’s point of view; but it appears to be difficult to continue doing so when one lives constantly amongst the Chinese. This in my opinion is the real “yellow peril” Europe will have to fear when she is actually in close contact with masses of the pure-bred yellow-skinned race--the people who do not, will not, cannot change.