Chapter C: T. Wong, graduated from Yale University, 1909 (1)

Admiral Chin Yao Huan, visited New York on _Hai Chi_; became republican December, 1911.

General Lau Tien Wei, republican general in Manchuria, 1911; visited West Point, 1912.

Wu Chung Lin, progressive Chinese minister at Rome, 1912.

E. M. Sah, American educated; authority on municipal government; son of Admiral Sah.

Hsuing Hsi Ling, Finance Board.

Chow Tsze Chi, Finance Board.

General Chang Cho Lin, Manchuria, victor over Mongols, 1912.

The old leaders who go down to defeat are the following, and of the many who are called in the reorganization, some of the following will be found worthy, and some of the disappointed ones may possibly be found leading the discontented at times.

Chang Ming Chi, imperial Viceroy at Canton; fled to Hongkong, 1911.

Chao Ehr Hsun, Viceroy Mukden, strong but uncertain.

General Wong Yin Chat, imperialist leader Fourth Brigade at Hankau, 1911.

General Tsen Chun Hsuan, Viceroy and stern imperial leader; enlightened.

Wei Kuang Tao, Viceroy Hupeh, Canton, etc.; modern.

Prince Ching, elderly dean of Manchus; long head of Privy Council; modern.

Na Tung, Vice-President of old Manchu Council; modern.

Hsu Shih Chang, progressive Chinese member of Manchu Council; turned General-in-chief of republicans.

Chao Ping Chun, progressive Minister of Peking Police, and Department of Interior.

Shih Tao, progressive Mongol Prince; Vice-President of National Assembly, Peking, 1911.

Admiral Sah Chen Ping, imperial Admiral who joined republicans; entertained American fleet at Amoy, in 1908.

Admiral Jui Cheng, imperial Admiral.

Luk Yuk Lim, Minister to Britain, 1911; progressive.

Prince Kung, able Mongol leader, Peking, 1911.

Liang Tun Yen, American educated; head Foreign Board (Wai Wu Pu), Peking, 1911; protégé of famous Chang Chi Tung, of Wuchang.

Hu Wei Teh, progressive Vice-President of Foreign Board, 1911; Minister to Russia, etc.

Liang Ju Hao, Vice-President Railway Board, Peking, 1911.

Nang Shih Cheng, Board of War, Peking, 1911.

Tien Wen Tih, Board of War, Peking, 1911.

Shen Chih Pen, Board of Justice, Peking, 1911.

Liang Chih Chiao, famous old reformer of 1898 coup d’état.

Tang Ching Chung, Board of Education, Peking, 1911; literary chancellor Kiangsu province, 1904; learned in old and new.

Prince Chun, deposed Manchu Regent, 1911; brother of Emperor Kwang Hsu.

Lu Chuan Ling, Privy Councilor, Peking, 1911; modern.

Prince Pu Lun, first President Peking Parliament, 1911; visited St. Louis Exposition; a most dignified progressive; familiar with Hongkong.

Prince Tsai Tse, Manchu head Finance Board, Peking, 1911; visited America, Britain, etc., 1905.

Prince Tsai Tao, Manchu head of Army; visited America; brother of Emperor Kwang Hsu.

Prince Tsai Su, Manchu head of Navy; visited America; Interior Board also.

Prince Tsai Hsun, Manchu head of Navy; visited America, 1909; brother of famous Manchu Emperor Kwang Hsu, first reform Emperor of China.

Chang Jen Chung, Viceroy defense of Nanking; stubborn; enlightened; holder of first exposition in China; well known to Americans.

General Yin Chang, Manchu General-in-chief; director Nobles College; Minister to Germany, 1901–5; a superior theoretical man, but not a brave leader in battle.

Liu Ju Lin, Secretary to Washington Legation; Vice-President Foreign Board.

Chang Yin Tang, Minister to America, 1910.

Sheng Kung Pao, leading defender of nationalization of railways, Peking, 1910.

Sheng Tah Jen, leading defender of nationalization of railways, Peking, 1910.

Liang Shih Yi, manager Northern Railways of China.

Chen Tung Liang, Minister to Britain, 1904; educated in America.

Li Ching Mai, grandson of illustrious Li Hung Chang; visited America, 1909; a bright man.

Chen Kwein Lung, Governor Pechili, 1910.

Tong Kai Son, President Ambassadors’ College, Peking, 1910; educated at Yale.

Hu Wei To, Minister to Hague, Russia, Japan, etc.

Liu Shih Hsun, Minister to France, etc.

Ku Hung Ming, able editor of “standpats”.

Chow Chang Ling, manager North China Railways, 1909.

Chen Chao Chang, Governor of Kirin, Manchuria, 1909.

Hsu Chen Pang, educated at Hartford, America; Naval Board, 1910.

Chang Yu Chuan, Foreign Office, 1910; educated at Yale.

Tan Tien Chih, University of California; Superintendent Railway College, Peking, 1910.

Wu Kwei Lin, Cornell; Railway Board, 1910.

Tsai Ting Kan, Yale; Supreme Court, Tientsin.

Chien Shao Cheng, visited America; Department of Prisons, Peking, 1910.

Wen Tsung Yao, Amban at Lhasa; helped to drive out Dalai Lama, the Pope of Buddhism.

Tam Hao Heng, Cantonese; Navy Board, Peking, 1910.

Prince Yu Lang, Grand Councilor; Board of Police; organizer of Imperial Guard; Army Board, Peking, 1911.

Chou Chi Lai, Assistant Foreign Minister, Peking, 1911; progressive.

Shao Chang, Minister Justice, Peking, 1911; Secretary Foreign Board, 1901.

Shou Chi, Minister Dependencies, Peking, 1911; Minister of Mongolia, 1900; Captain of Hatamen Octroi (Customs) Gate, Peking, 1909; an amusing type of old-style effective revenue man.

Lu Jun Hsiang, Grand Secretary, Peking, 1910; head of Opium Suppression Board, 1911: a really effective man, representing the best traditions of old China.

Jung Ching, President Board of Ceremonies, Peking, 1911; remarkable type of thorough-going conservative.

Sheng Yun, irreconcilable imperial Governor of Shensi and Shansi provinces, 1911–12.

Prince Tuan, irreconcilable “Boxer” Manchu; exiled in Kansu, and father of Pretender to Throne, “Ku Kwei”, 1912.

Hsun Pao Oi, Governor of Shangtung province, 1912.

Tong Chao Chuen, progressive; Railway and Finance Boards.

Shum Chun Hsun, experienced Viceroy of various provinces.

King Yu Yuet, Principal Law College, Nanking.

Chan Ki Me, Governor of Shanghai.

Chan Kwang Ming, experienced; progressive Governor.

X

CHINA’S INTERNATIONAL POLITICS.

The treaties and international notes which hold China in obligations to the outside world (Wai Ih, outside foreigners), and which the republicans promise to observe, are in part as follows. The “most favored nation” clause admits nations which did not participate in the original treaty.

1842. Nanking Treaty--Nanking, Canton, Amoy, Fuchau, Ningpo and
Shanghai opened.

1858. Tientsin-British--Newchwang, Chifu, Swatow, Kiangchow
opened.

1860. Tientsin-French Treaty--Tientsin opened.

1861. German Treaty--Chinkiang, Hankau opened.

1876. Chifu Convention--Ichang, Wuhu, Wenchow, Pakhoi opened.

1881. Russia-China--Russian commercial influence in Ili,
Mongolia, Manchuria; consulates and extraterritoriality
provided for.

1890. Chungking Convention--Chungking opened.

1895. Japan Treaty--Suchow, Hangchow opened.

1896. Russia-China Treaty--Russia given railway and other
privileges in Manchuria; this brought on the war with Japan in
1904.

1897. West River Ports--Samshui, Wuchow, etc., opened.

1899. Russia-China--China not to build railways north of Peking
without Russia’s consent.

1902. British Commercial Treaty (Mackay)--Changsha, Ngan-king,
Wan Hsien, Waichou opened. Likin to be abolished and customs
possibly raised from five per cent. to twelve per cent. ad
valorem.

1905. Japan-China--Grants to Japan by treaty what war with
Russia won for Japan; i. e., military, commercial, mining and
railway dominance in South Manchuria, and Japan to have power
to nullify Chinese or other foreign railway schemes.

TREATIES AFFECTING CHINA

1899. Britain-Russia--Britain not to interfere with Russia
north of great wall, and Russia not to interfere in Yangtze
valley.

1899. America to Powers (John Hay’s Note)--“Open door” for all
in China, and preservation of territorial integrity.

1905. Portsmouth Treaty (Russia-Japan)--Japan takes Korea and
part of Manchuria.

1905. Britain-Japan--Alliance and assuring integrity of China.

1907. Russia-Japan--Recognize territorial integrity of China.

1907. Britain-Russia--Britain to support China in Tibet.

1908. America-Japan--Open door in China; integrity of China.

1910. America to Powers--Internationalize Manchurian railways;
rejected by Russia and Japan.

1910. Russia-Japan--Secret convention to reject America’s
financial and commercial plans in Manchuria; Russia and Japan
to divide Manchuria in spheres of influence and trade.

These treaties sound very well, but mean very little, excepting this, that if Japan or Russia persistently breaks them and invades China, Britain and America have a cause before the world, to thrash, if it is necessary, the offender’s navy, and cut Japan off from Korea and Manchuria. The treaties are a confusion. They all specify that the “open-door” theory is acknowledged, but Russia and Japan have forced China to assent to their visé on any proposed railway schemes in Manchuria and Pechili. Despite the Britain-Japan Treaty of 1905, wherein the “integrity of China” is specified as a promise to the nations, the London _Times_ confesses as follows: “The grim facts of the economic gravitation of Manchuria toward Russian and Japanese control are beyond remedy, treaties and agreements notwithstanding.” Yet at one time the thunderer would bring on a war for the sake of a straw! If Russia continues to offend there is no way to stop her except that America and Britain shall send their navies to pound her Baltic gates until she behaves in Manchuria, Mongolia, etc., which she soon would do in fear of her Duma on the inside of the Baltic gates. Britain never again can use Japan to pound Russia, for Japan and Russia have agreed to take the Manchurian spoil, as Japan did in the case of Korea, whenever the opportunity offers through dissension among the powers. Japan and Russia are high-tariff countries, and wherever they establish themselves, Britain, America, Germany and France will knock in vain for trade entry. China, like Britain, is a low-tariff country (at present five per cent., and even the proposed twelve per cent. would be low), and the manufacturing nations therefore desire the “open door” maintained, which can only be done on America’s and Britain’s reiterated treaty stipulations of the “integrity of China”. America must always keep a Pacific fleet stronger than Japan’s. A fight is unnecessary, for Japan is checkmated at once by this policy. Britain and America, and, if possible, Germany, must work together in the Far East to watch both Russia and Japan, and see that China gets the “square deal” in having reserved for her expansion her immemorial preserves of Manchuria, Mongolia and Turkestan. In Premier Yuan’s difficulties, the irreconcilable former Manchu major general, Yin Tchang, fled to Dalny, where he ran a bureau which plotted for the overthrow of the republic.

China made a beginning in 1911 in the agitation for the retrocession of some of the foreign colonies. Prince Ching then suggested that commissioners should be appointed by the Cabinet to discuss with Britain the retrocession of Wei-Hai-Wei. There are other nations which hold vastly more territory than do America and Britain, whether in concessions, settlements or colonies. The other nations have done comparatively little for China as compared with America and Britain, and Prince Ching might have approached this worthy subject in proportionate order. Until China is on her feet, foreign concessions at all her ports are the best object lesson she could have in municipal government and improvements, but foreign colonies, as large as Germany’s Kiaochou and Japan’s and Russia’s spheres of occupation in Manchuria, are unjust to her.

The New China party bears as a thorn in its flesh the awful burden of 1900, the old Russian and the Japanese indemnities. America alone, under President Roosevelt’s administration, remitted her share of the 1900 (Boxer) indemnity. These punitive indemnity payments prevented China from offering relief in the terrible pneumonic plague epidemic in Manchuria in 1911, and in the famines which followed the floods in 1911 and 1912 in the central and eastern provinces. Half a million people starved to death, and China has not forgotten that the funds which the starving people needed were taken by the rich European nations as indemnity payments. Britain, however, did return part of her indemnity on condition that it should be applied to the Shansi University at Taiyuan, of which Doctor Timothy Richards was president.

China’s helpless position without a navy could not be more eloquently shown than by the following case: In the Mexican revolution of 1911, Chinese lives and property were destroyed to the estimated amount of $33,000,000. China put in a claim to satisfy the heirs and claimants, but no attention has been paid to it. How different it was when Germany and Britain held Venezuelan claims only a short time previously!

In the interim, before the establishment of an effective diplomacy and parliaments or congresses in China, the guilds, with their boycott, have to a degree acted as the foreign office of the people in obtaining concessions which armies, navies and courtiers were not yet powerful enough to obtain. Their effective boycotts are a proof that the people really ruled in China, and without the expense of armies and navies. They, moreover, proved that the Chinese people can think together, and keep their word of faith so fixedly that it is seldom necessary for the central committee of the guilds to put in effect the heavy money penalties involved. There is this conclusion among others to be drawn from the interesting history of guilds and boycotts in China, especially in the last fifteen years, that the provincial and central parliaments, or congresses, which began work in 1909 and 1910, will remain, and with some improvement each year reach ever higher toward the standards of liberty and righteousness, or, in expressive American slang, the “square deal”.

Who will gainsay that the Chinese is a long-suffering being even in his own land? I quote the following from the Hongkong _Telegraph_ of September 1, 1911: “At 6.00 P. M., on August 25, a German in the employ of a British company, and an Italian priest went into a shop at Shek Ki (near Canton). The German, who disliked the demeanor of the shop employé, dealt the man a nasty cut on the head. The foreigners afterward left the shop and went to a money changer’s. As the changer was slow, the German snatched a lamp from a table, and smashed it on the ground. The German assaulted two chair coolies. A riot developed. The two foreigners rushed into the dwelling of a missionary lady doctor.” Such abuse as this leads to international troubles, and the consuls at the ports, to whom the patient Chinese turn over foreign offenders, should be more severe than they are. These foreign offenders should really be brought back to the village where they create a disturbance, and in the presence of the consul, and Chinese taotais and mandarins, should pay to the headman of the village sufficient damages. Then the Chinese would know that the foreigner is sincere in his legal measures. Thoughtless or drunken action, like that of the German, often leads to missionary and other riots before the resentment of the indignant natives cools. One brutal fool of this kind, _violens in vino_, can place at jeopardy the lives of thousands of foreigners and the peace of the nations. We must scrupulously show China that we are sincere. She has some cause to feel that when we established our extraterritorial courts we meant to cheat her of justice. We shall later hear from Wu Ting Fang on this subject, as he is making a specialty of codifying the laws.

The British government introduced to the foreign office (Tsung Li Yamen and Wai Wu Pu) for many years, Sir Walter Hillier, as adviser, but since his appointment was to a degree forced he had less influence than in the case of the voluntary appointments of the Americans, Dennison and Stevens, as advisers in the foreign offices of Japan and Korea, respectively. The four-nations bankers will have foreign advisers on the Chinese Finance and Foreign Boards, and great tact and patience with China’s difficulties will at all times be required.

Long before the revolution, as well as after it, the masses of the Chinese had commenced to think of national and international politics. Whenever missionaries opened new “tan” (preaching or “talk” halls, as the Chinese call churches) the auditors listened respectfully for a while to the “doctrine” or “tao” (way). When the missionary came down from the platform, and joined the audience on the benches for a familiar “tan” (chat), religious subjects were not the first spoken of, the following questioning being common:

“Our first question is, what is your name, age and number of children?”

“Did you come from your country by railway or steamship?”

“How far is it and what was the cost?”

“What is your real business outside of your kindly avocation of achieving merit by temporarily talking about Jesus?”

“How long have you been in this province of China?”

“Were your clothes made in a China port, or in America, and at what cost?”

“You do not shave your head and face or change your outer clothes often, so we suppose you do not bathe often.”

“What do you think of this talk of republics, foreign loans, centralized government, armies and railways?”

There is no sycamore tree for Zacchæus to climb; he must come down. They know you are peaceful as an amateur, but they insist on your professional opinion, and they believe your profession is something more practical than talking religion. Are you a doctor, a government employé, a farmer, a soldier, a spy, an artisan, a merchant? If so, you must know about these practical things, and can answer the questions propounded.

The emigration treaties now stand in almost a humorous attitude in one respect. To save Japan’s “face” (the Oriental idiom for pride), Japan is granted permission to land coolies, but Japan by a secret postscriptum agrees not to let her coolies make the slightest use of this permission, as she has room for them in Korea, Manchuria, the navy, etc., at present. China is not permitted to land her coolies, but land some of them she does by the “underground”, which runs via Canada, Mexico, Central America, Cuba, etc. Our Pacific coast is correct, notwithstanding the exigencies of diplomacy, that she can not and will not absorb Oriental labor, any more than we foist Occidental labor on the Orient. The Pacific coast is quite consistent for the “square deal”, though it took her some time to trust the signing of the 1911 Japan Treaty, the immigration clause of which it is secretly understood is not to be taken advantage of. America can not welcome too many Chinese students and travelers, and a certain number of specialized merchants, agriculturalists, agents, artisans and artists, whom we can well accept as our tutors in their specialties.

On the subject of Asiatic immigration, the authority on American naval and foreign affairs, Admiral Mahan, writes as follows: “A large preponderance of Asiatics in a given region is a real annexation, more effective than the political annexations against which the Monroe doctrine was formulated. Free Asiatic immigration to the Pacific coast in its present condition of sparse population would mean Asiatic occupation--Asia colonized in America. This the United States government can not accept because of the violent resistance of the Pacific states, if for no other reason.”

In a former book I have recommended the immigration of a number of Chinese into the Philippines. The Straits Settlements cover only a small area. Their population is 300,000 Malays, who are akin to the Filipino. Four hundred thousand Chinese were brought in, and the little colony in 1911 exported $200,000,000 of tin and other products. Sir Frank Swettenham, the famous governor of the settlement in its formative period up to 1904, says of the Chinese: “The industrial development of the country is entirely due to the Chinese. They are the only people in the peninsula who can be depended upon. They tolerate no interruptions in the performance of their daily labor, and save their money to make prudent investments. Without the Chinese nothing would have been done in the Malay states. No progress would have been made, and the enormous natural resources of the country would still be lying dormant.” A remarkable instance of the orderliness of the Chinese was exhibited in the deportation in 1908 of 60,000 Chinese emigrants from the Transvaal gold mines to China. Such a body of any other labor would have shown many signs of rebellion against their removal from the scenes to which they had grown attached, and where they were prospering, and against the hot journey of 8,000 miles, made the more unpleasant because of the crowded quarters on shipboard. No friction or disturbance marked this unusual industrial event. Coolies though they were, they kept their word like statesmen, and said: “We promised the colony that we would only substitute black labor for four years, and as the blacks now are ready to return to the field, we are going.”

The nations should get together, and permit China to levy a provisional import duty of twelve per cent. instead of five per cent., and not keep her government helpless because of starvation. If she had an army and navy like Japan, she would not need to ask the permission of others to allow her own government to live. Advice should be given to her, as in the Mackay Treaty, to strike away the inter-provincial and inter-district fetters of likin (transit taxes) and export tax, by which method the provinces raise much of their revenue; and the government should divide up the customs receipts between the provinces, or permit the provinces to keep all their land tax.

France, which owns the only railway to Yunnan at present, is imposing an unjust transit tax of ten per cent. on American, British and German goods, shipped from Hongkong to Yunnan, or vice versa, and which must cross French China. Canada in the same situation bids for American freights by making no transit tax, and indeed quoting lower freight rates; this is intelligent modernism. China and the three commercial nations should have this Indo-Chinese tax removed, and demand equal rates on French railways. This rate equalization is what America has demanded of Japan and Russia on railways in Manchuria. It is the same thing that Germany, at the point of the _Panther’s_ cannon, demanded of France in the Agadir incident in Morocco. In other words, the “square deal”, and it must be put in effect, say the Chinese people and the nations which advocate the “open door”.

Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

The Gothic type of architecture introduced by the French; the
Catholic cathedral on Caine Road, on the slope of Hongkong.
Chinese contractors erect these buildings.
]

Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

Nan-Tang cathedral (French) towering over native roofs at Canton.
Up to the revolution, this offended the feng-shui superstition of
old China, and was a constant source of difficulty.
]

Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

Cement hill roads, South China, Kwangtung province. Bamboo
water-buckets. Note luxuriant vegetation, in a moist hot climate;
fern, rubber, tamarind, banyan, mulberry trees.
]

The political economists of Japan are beginning to denounce the exportation of coal, and recommend the reservation of the fields as a war supply. The proposition is to use foreign coal in manufacturing. Accordingly, measures have been taken to develop the Manchurian, Korean, Saghalien and Formosan fields, as well as purchasing from the rich Chinese supplies. This conservation method will certainly be followed by Australia, England, Germany and America, as the years go by. The export of coal is not a benefit; it is an impoverishment. The Japanese make into briquettes the anthracite coal of Ping Yang, Korea, so as to produce a smokeless navy coal.

An interesting aftermath of the Boxer massacres in 1900 was the strange disappearance of the Manchu prince, Liang Chow, who was condemned to be strangled in private with the silver cord, which two unseen friends were to tighten behind two holes bored in a wall. Prince Liang fled to America, where he became a pauper, and was buried in the Alamosa, Colorado, cemetery. At the request of the Manchu throne his body was exhumed on November 25, 1910, and started on its way to China to the tombs of the Manchu emperors west of Peking (not the Ming tombs, which are northwest). A splendid, dragon-gilded coffin was furnished, and the Manchus sent magnificent mandarin robes, a yellow jacket, peacock feather and pearl button of honor. The Chinese whom Prince Liang found in America were not Manchus, but republican Cantonese of southern Kwangtung province.

Hongkong, the dean of foreign settlements, Shanghai, Tientsin, Singapore, Hankau, Harbin, etc., all have volunteer military companies and inter-port rifle matches. Every man in a settlement can be impressed for the protection of life and property. All these uniformed companies have seen hard active service in the taking of Kowloon, the various riots at Shanghai, the Peking Relief Expedition and the revolution which broke out at Hankau in October, 1911. The companies cover infantry, machine and field gun, bicycle and garrison corps trained in the use of cannon. Hongkong’s uniformed contingent at King George’s coronation in London attracted much attention for the smartness of their swinging march. “We didn’t think the jaded tropics could turn out such ambition,” was the remark of many onlookers.

The English historian, Creasy, who lived in the Far East, in writing his book, _Decisive Battles of the World_, as early as 1852 recognized the importance of America’s mission across the Pacific. These are his words: “The conquests of China and Japan by the fleets and armies of the United States are events which many now living are likely to witness. Compared with the magnitude of such changes in the dominion of the old world, the certain ascendancy of the Anglo-Americans over central and southern America seems a matter of secondary importance.” If we change Creasy’s favorite idea of physical conquest to that of moral, educational and commercial, with physical power only as an auxiliary in the case of the heinous jealousy of those not concerned, we shall agree with him as to America’s advance across the Pacific. It was nevertheless a wonderful prophecy, made as long ago as 1852, when the tide of America’s western advance, with the exception of one meager settlement, had not yet risen over the Rockies. All the Chinese leaders, republican and conservative, look for the growing evidence of America’s interests across the Pacific, and American affairs and history are keenly studied.

Some of the Chinese proverbs on international politics are the following:

“He who doesn’t follow up his words with deeds is no more terrible than the wind on painted water.”

“If you have to guess at roads, the middle one will average up best.”

“Go slow; only the turtle is equipped to draw his head in suddenly.”

“Don’t cross a river with your feet in two boats.”

XI

CHINESE INTERNAL POLITICS

Almost the oldest book in China, the _Chou Li_, provided for village management at the same time that sacrifices were instituted, thousands of years before the Christian era. The oldest man of the clan-village, bearing the title of “hsiang lao” (village old-one) takes charge at a salary of about one hundred and fifty dollars a year, and hires say twenty police in the smaller villages. This “hsiang lao”, when necessary, deals with the district “siunkian”, who is the government’s lowest mandarin. The people express their views in an open “hsiang” meeting, which is the same as the old town meeting of New England, on which present democratic institutions in America are based; an “open primary”, for that matter.

In the guild councils of the cities, the more experienced tradesmen have had political experience in their dealings with the “taotai”, a higher class of mandarin. From “hsiang” and guild meetings, the next step was to send delegates to viceroys, or even delegates to the Board of Censors at Peking, accusing viceroys. China, therefore, had some experience in politics before the reformers of 1898 induced the impressionable young Emperor Kwang Hsu to issue his famous edicts, which started a wave that rolled on, lifting provincial assemblies, parliaments, and revolutionists into view; and the wave is rolling onward still. Kwang Hsu as early as 1891 issued an edict praising and protecting missionaries. He was never permitted to travel, but learned from books, brought to him by Kang Yu Wei and the other new spirits, what was going on in the outside world. In 1894 Kwang Hsu sent to the American Bible Society at Peking a request for copies of the two Testaments, “such as are sold to THE PEOPLE”. His immortal edicts began to appear in the Peking _Gazette_ on June 23, 1898, and ended in September of that year, when he was imprisoned by the empress dowager and Yuan Shih Kai. During the issuance of the edicts the dowager was at the summer palace, eight miles northwest of Peking, where she was preparing her reactionary plans. The edicts covered the following:

1. New learning for much of the old classical essays. This
reform is in force.

2. Modern army, navy, railways, telephone, telegraph. The slow
progress of the Lu-Han (Peking to Hankau) Railway was commented
on. These reforms are under way, and full of promise.

3. Publicity of national and provincial figures of receipt
and expenditure; i. e., a budget. This reform was instituted
by the National Assembly in 1911, and will be adopted by the
republicans.

4. All citizens to have the privilege of memorializing the
Throne independent of the Censor Board.

5. Extension of mail service. This is being brought about by
the extension of the railway service, and the government taking
over private post routes of guilds.

6. Prince Ching to secure assistance from foreigners in
establishing a national university, with branches in provincial
capitals. Departments of universities at Peking, Canton,
Shanghai, Nanking, Paoting, Tientsin, Hankau, etc., have been
established. The English universities, acting under the
suggestions of Sir Robert Hart and Lord Cecil, will assist,
as will also America. This is secular education. The mission
schools are, of course, extending to many new cities.

Let us step into one of the meetings of the first partially formed Parliament, which opened in 1910. We would call it a Senate. They called it Tzu Cheng Yuan; that is, Property Laws Assembly, or Taxing Assembly. The Parliament buildings at Peking, not being completed, the Congress met in the law hall of the Peking University. This hall is a two-story western style building, the only Chinese feature being the heavy tiled roof. The windows are square and have modern sashes. The door is Roman and not Chinese in curve. The Lower House was not yet formed. In the front row of two hundred members were Mongol princes, Manchu princes, viceroys, governors, mandarins, appointed by the Crown, and farther back were men sent up by the provincial assemblies. The great Prince Pu Lun of the royal blood, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Hongkong, and who was commissioner to the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, most affable, stout and progressive, opens the assembly with bland dignity. Shen Chia Pan, the temporary vice-president, sits on his left. The debate at once opens like the small fire of machine guns. It takes up appeals by the provincial assemblies on the actions of the provincial governors. Education, foreign loans, provincial versus nationalized railways, pensions to Manchus, suppression of opium, acts of departmental secretariates, the leakage in tax collection, the corruption of courts, the police to serve the people and not against the people, high tax rate against the poor and low tax rate against the rich, taxation without representation, foreign aggression in Manchuria and Turkestan, insults to the flag abroad, nepotism, etc., are discussed, and the secretariates have a lively time defending themselves from the critical, eloquent pure Chinese Cantonese; the independent Hunanese who have many Cromwells among them, and who are foremost for running Chinese mines and railways without foreign money; the tradition-loving Szechuen men; the literati and capitalists from Kiangsu; the traveled bankers from Shansi province; the cosmopolitan men from the imperial province of Pechili and Shangtung; the rough-rider Mongols from far west Shensi and Kansu provinces; and the Patrick Henrys from turbulent Fukien province. The Throne is compelled to promise a Lower House in 1913 instead of 1915, and at last, in its edict, gives all credit to the crushed reformer, Emperor Kwang Hsu, who learned reform from the Bible and other western books surreptitiously introduced despite the eunuch spies of the reactionary Empress Dowager Tse Hsi. This preliminary Senate stormily sends a suggestion to the oligarchic Grand Council of the Regent that reform shall be evidenced by the regent and the infant Emperor Pu Yi having their queues cut off. Thus the spirited debate rolled back and forth between the old Grand Council and the new Congress or Parliament, until the guns of the impatient revolution thundered at Hankau, like Cromwell on the doors of the Long Parliament.

Confucius himself was a politician. He lived in an age of able prime ministers of some ten highly civilized, equal states, fighting generally by diplomacy for mastery, on the pretext of the right to monopolize the succession to perform the sacred rites of the parent Chou state, which alone was weak. These prime ministers were all abler men than were the titular rulers of the states. Confucius studied diplomacy in the writings of Kwan Tsz, premier-philosopher of the adjoining Tsi state. Kwan Tsz’ writings are sometimes published with Lao Tsz’ works, but should not be confounded with them. Confucius was also influenced by his friend, the great diplomat, Shuh Hiang, prime minister of the Tsin state, which was situated far to the northwest of his native state of Lu; also by the very able minister Tsz Chan of the state of Cheng, which lay west of Lu. He had to keep his wits awake to save the small and weaker Lu state from succumbing to the policies of the ambitious Yen Tsz, prime minister of the Tsi state, which was situated immediately north of Lu, and from falling before the intrigue of Kupeh Yu, prime minister of Wei state, lying to the northwest. This last state afforded Confucius a long exile, when his vicious, ungrateful, new prince hounded him for fourteen years by an ancient system of “Black List” out of his positions with some thirty states, content neither to use his eminent services, nor to let him live that other states might avail of them. He knew too much about law-breaking by those who occupied the “seats of the mighty”; and “such men are dangerous”! Devoted as they are to the study of Confucius’ life, the Chinese thereby imbibed politics.

History throws light on some of the insidiousness of ancient Chinese intrigue. As long ago as 626 B. C. the ruler of the Chinese principality of Ts’in, which state was oppressed by the manly Tartars, sent to the Tartar chief two companies of singing girls “that he might be too weak to ride the saddle at the head of his cavalry”. In 486 B. C. the prince of Tsi state, lying to the north of Lu state, sent to the prince of Lu state, Confucius’ master, a company of singing girls to ensnare manliness in the lap of debauchery, with the result that Confucius in disgust left the service of his prince and became a hounded exile, laughed out of his court by the powerful who for the time were above the law. Where have been that most venerable family on earth, the Kungs of Shangtung province, who have lived at Kufu near Yenchow, in all the recent turbulence in China? We have heard of Manchu princes, of leaders of the Chinese like Kang and Sun, Yuan, General Li, and Wu Ting Fang; of descendants of the old Ming emperors, etc., but why have not the lineal descendants of Confucius put forward a man able to handle politics, war and literature as did their great ancestor? What an opportunity they have had recently. What an opportunity they have yet to put forward a man for the presidency, whom all China and all the world will be delighted to accept if he is only one-twentieth as able as his immortal ancestor.

The secret society, too, has played a great part in internal politics. It is not so necessary now as it was. The pitiless publicity of a democracy or constitutional monarchy makes secret duplicity unnecessary. The Kao Ming Tang was Yuan Shih Kai’s and Prince Ching’s society. At the other extreme was the Kao-lao-Hwei and other anti-Manchu secret societies. It was the union of the Triad secret society with the Taiping rebels that made that revolution powerful enough to spread from Canton to Nanking. In the Boxer days of 1900 the Buddhist secret society, Tsai Li Hwei, extended its scope to cover the new movement. Their watchword was: “Store grain for war; collect forage; revolt”. The Sia Hwei (reform association), Tung Men Hwei (sworn brother), and other secret societies established in China and throughout the world by Sun Yat Sen, had much to do with the successful preliminary work that made the revolution possible.

The old lines of political demarcation are passing away, and new lines will be drawn in some instances. The powerful viceroys of the fourteen main provinces were located and named as follows:

“Viceroy of Pechili” province, at Tientsin.

“Viceroy of Shen Kan” (i. e. Shensi and Kansu provinces), at Singan.

“Viceroy of Kiangnan” (i. e. Kiangsu, Nganhwei and Kiangsi provinces), at Nanking.

“Viceroy of Hu Kwang”, or “Viceroy of Liang Hu” (i. e. Hunan and Hupeh provinces), at Wuchang.

“Viceroy of Min Che” (i. e. Chekiang and Fukien provinces), at Fuchau.

“Viceroy of Liang Kwang” (i. e. Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces), at Canton.

“Viceroy of Yun Kwei” (i. e. Yunnan and Kweichou provinces), at Yunnan.

The favorite retreats for these retired officials are the five cities of cultured Kiangsu province: Shanghai, Suchow, Chinkiang, Yangchow and Nanking; and one city in adjoining Chekiang province, Hangchow. If the clubs of these cities could by a dictograph breathe what they have heard, volumes of wonderful interest would keep a score of publishers busy. China has entered the world arena because of her human interest on a vast scale.

The Manchu may try to come back, as the irreconcilable Major General Yin Tchang has been plotting from Japanese Dalny. The doctrine of sacred right, as strongly as the Hohenzollern has enunciated it, has been preached before in China. The Manchu, with this in view, would not abdicate until he was assured that in him would lie the ancient right to pay the sacred Chou sacrifices, which are 4,000 years old. The builder of the Great Wall, the Emperor Tsin, 200 B. C., said “Shao Ming Yu Tien” (Heaven gives me my decree to reign). Sunyacius and the republicans of 1911 said: “Tien Ming Wu Chang” (The divine right lasts not forever).

Some of the political proverbs of the people are the following:

“An oligarchic government bites harder than a tiger.”

“A good hearer knows twice as much as a foolish talker, for he knows himself and he knows the talker, too.”

“The great statesman makes public opinion his opinion.”

“When the whale gets out of his element, even minnows can safely laugh.”

“In the rise and decline of his country, each man has his share.”

Chang Chih Tung, the famous viceroy of Wuchang in 1909, used to say, “Treachery can turn fame to everlasting stench.” May the New China not be a traitor to progress. Chang was the progressive who established, among many other modern plants, the wonderfully successful Hanyang steel plant, whose products are used in Europe, both coasts of America, Japan and in China on the roadbed from Canton to Harbin, 2,000 miles of shining steel, in that “Celestial” land that is beginning to find that it has a grand terrestrial future.

XII

SOME PUBLIC WORKS IN OLD CHINA

Will the spirit which instituted the ancient notable public works of China revive again? That is the question. The greatest irrigation work in the world, 2,100 years old, is in China at Chingtu. It was invented by Li Ping, the engineer-governor, B. C. 250. A plain seventy-five miles by forty miles is irrigated. It supports nearly 4,000,000 people. The water is taken from the Min River at Kwan Hien above Chingtu in April, and is permitted to run in the thousands of channels until November. Then the great banks of the Min are restored, as the rains are sufficient, and the river runs in its old bed to join the “father of waters”, the Yangtze River, at Sui Fu. The dikes are made of iron, cement, stone, timber and bamboo cradles. Li left this message, which is cut in the stones of his tomb outside the walls of Chingtu: “Shen Tao Tan Ti Tso Yen” (Dig deep the bars, keep low the dikes). The Chinese are going to use these works to produce power and light as well as irrigation.

At Li Ling, over the Lu Ho River in southeast Hunan province, is a high wooden cantilever bridge of six spans, four hundred and eighty feet long and twenty feet wide, paved with cobbles, and covered with an awning. The substructure is masonry, and the cantilever principle is obtained by increasing the length of the pier timbers as they are laid on one another. I want to describe a beautiful suspension bridge over the Yang Ti River near Tali in Yunnan province, which shows that engineering ability was generally spread throughout the provinces to reach thus far in the extreme southwest. The double piers on each side of the stream rise in great strength, and the arch is joined and roofed over most artistically in characteristic Chinese style, like a temple. Eight suspended iron chains make the floor of the bridge, which is anchored half-way up the stone piers, under the arch. From the chains arises a bamboo fence, which is kept from spreading by stanchions, under which you must stoop at regular distances. There is a commemoration statue of a recumbent water buffalo at the foot of one of the pairs of piers. It and the bridge are all that remain of the forgotten assemblage of orators, patrons, troops and society which ages ago graced the occasion, another triumph of the doers over the talkers. The engineer and the architect alone build their own monuments. As in the case of Christopher Wren at St. Paul’s, “_Si monumentum requiris, circumspice_.”

China thinks more of the engineer than we credit her with thinking; otherwise she would not have criticized the Manchu so much of late. Between high banks over the River Lou, in west Szechuen province, is the famous Lou Ting Haio bridge, built in 1700. It is one hundred and ninety-two feet long and has nine suspended iron chains, with loose planks laid across. At Chow Chu, near Swatow, there is a beautiful stone pier bridge over the Han River. Shops are established at each pier, and the floor of the shop protrudes, and is supported with great poles that retreat back to the piers. A daily fair is held upon the bridge, because it is the most central point for the travelers from many villages. Each village of the district has its own day for its fair. At Changchow, near Amoy, is a wonderful bridge, from engineering and artistic points of view. The great Chah Siang built it eight hundred years ago from voluntary subscriptions. It is one thousand yards long. There are one hundred and twenty piers, and the height above the water is forty feet. Five stones of one hundred tons each, twenty feet long, compose the roadway, each stone being several feet wide. The piers up-stream are made with a cutwater bow. At Kweiyang, the capital of Kweichau province, a massive stone bridge of ten piers, with cutwaters, shows what ancient China could execute in masonry. Near the rich coal mines at Ping Hsiang, in Kiangsi province, there is a high five-arched, pier-pinnacled, balustraded bridge, which is singularly beautiful. There are shrines on the piers, which also have cutwaters. Chinese engineers discovered the principles of the true arch; that is, a complete ring of voussoirs, and not the succession of protruding corbels invented by the Hindus. The Chinese are just discovering western industry and inventions, but we are just discovering Chinese engineering, with engineers like their Yu and Chah Siang, and the modern “Jeme”, which will cause not a little surprise and enthusiasm in the practical Occidental world.

At Yangchow, on the Yangtze River, there is a remarkable pavilion bridge. The heaviest part of the stone bridge is in the middle of the stream, which is let through the masonry in a number of half and full arch tunnels. Over these tunnels rises the heavy masonry pile, topped with an artistic balustrade. On this is a superstructure of five beautiful pavilions, with prominent up-curling eaves. The bridge descends on each side to the banks along a sloping abutment. It is an exceptional structure even for varied China, both from an artistic and engineering standpoint. The ancient Liu Ko stone bridge over the Hun River north of Peking is famous for its lion-pier terminals, its carved stone balustrade which is in the ornate style. After leaving Szechuen province, on the road into Yunnan, over the Niu Lan River, at Kiang Ti, is a noted suspension bridge, hung between two heavy piers in a gorge, the piers being surmounted with curve-roofed pavilions. The carvings of monkeys, lions, etc., are very fine. The bridge, which is one hundred and fifty feet by twelve feet, is made of iron chains, pulled very taut, showing the unusual strength of the anchorage. There is also a hand chain. The pavilions are, as usual, used as a restaurant and an inn for travelers.

The two most famous suspension bridges are over the Mekong River in Yunnan province, between Tali and Yungchang, and over the Salween River on the main road to Burma. These chain bridges are hung from heavy piers deep down in the vast gorges, and show that men were mighty enough in those old days to tackle so mighty a problem. The Ban Chiao bridge at Yungchang is worthy of the famous engineers of that province. Strong stone piers are sunk down into the swift stream and anchored to the high banks. A secure bridge has been laid down over this support. The abutments are raised and roofed with a glorious double pagoda, the ridge, curling eaves, flying supports and ornaments all being splendidly carved. The bridge itself is protected with a balustrade, and is roofed with tiles throughout. It is both an artistic and a substantial structure. So much for the beautiful bridges of the old régime, nearly all it will be noted in the native Chinese section of the country. Herr Dorpmuller and other German engineers are teaching the Chinese the revival of stone bridges by the massive structures which they have erected on the line of the Tientsin-Pukow railway.

A beginning has been made in erecting iron truss bridges. The very long pier bridge carrying the Peking-Hankau (Belgian built) railway across the Yellow River is well known, and has stood longer than it was thought it would because of the shifting foundation. The eight-pier steel bridge over the Hwei River on the line of the Tientsin-Pukow railway was erected by the Wright-Headson Company, of Motherwell, Scotland. At Shanghai there is the wide Garden bridge. A steel bridge has been erected over the Yellow River at Lanchow, the capital of remote Kansu province, and at Tientsin is the Chin Kung truss bridge. At Chungking a structure has been erected across the Yalung River. The Hongkong-Canton, Tientsin-Nanking, Peking-Hankau, North China and Kiachou-Tsinan railways of course have many steel culvert bridges. There are already a considerable number of remarkable steel truss bridges of eighteen to twenty-four spans over Liao, Nu Erh, Hsiao, Taling, Sha, Tawen, Yellow and other great rivers of China. The French railway, from Haiphong to Yunnan City, is built over one hundred small bridges in the crossing of the Red River, Namti and Song River valleys.

From Peking to Tungchow, at the head of navigation from the coast, about twenty miles, runs a broad road paved five hundred years ago by the Ming kings with immense blocks, three feet square by two feet thick. The road sadly needs resetting, but one can readily imagine what a splendidly substantial road it once was in those spacious days of the last of the pure Chinese kings. The Ming thought of art and public works. The Manchu has thought more of intrigue and private dinners since he gave up riding horses and living in tents. One of the strongest charges against the Manchu was that he threw the great public works which he inherited into ruin. This Tungchow Road is the road over which commerce, invasion and many a dignified embassy have gone during the recent strenuous centuries.

The Che Ling Road runs from Chinchow, in Hunan province, to Canton. This is the road the new railway will take. The foot road is fifteen feet wide and composed of great stone blocks one foot thick. Before traffic was gathered at Hankau and Canton by steamships, the traffic on the Che Ling foot road was very heavy, and shops lined the long stone highway. Another famous road, the Mei Ling, also composed of stone blocks, climbs the great Nan Shan (Southern Mountains) and connects Nangan in Kiansi province and Canton. This is the road that Abbé Huc took in 1849 when he made his daring journey from Tibet to Chingtu, Chungking, Hankau, Kowkiang, Nanchang, up the Kan River to Canton and Macao. There is a famous imperial road from Peking to Jehol, through Kupikan pass, where the Manchus may finally be segregated. The road from Peking to the Ming tombs is paved with a course of large stones. The “Great Road” runs from Peking to Canton along the coast, and answers to the old Japanese “Tokkaido”, which runs from Tokio to Kioto. It was a Mongol road, dating back to the Great Wall. The best Chinese roads, however, were made in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries A. D., during the Sung dynasty, whose capital was Hangchow.

In 1890 the province of Szechuen built sixty-five miles of a mountain river road in the gorges of the Yangtze River, starting from Kwei-chow and running eastward. The road is from one hundred to five hundred feet above high water and is cut six feet wide and eight feet high into the limestone cliffs, truly a splendid revival of the noble works of the Ming kings, and in a sublime situation not to be equaled anywhere. The Szechuen people boast that their “road goes where a monkey couldn’t hang”. The road was planned and executed entirely on Chinese initiative. The best known road in China, and considering its length, the best conditioned road in the empire, runs for four hundred miles in Szechuen province from Wan Hsien on the Yangtze River, overland to Chingtu City, the capital. It is called the Siao Pen Lu (smaller north road), and is paved to the width of six feet. It has many wonderful staircases cut up mountain faces. The road could be shortened one hundred miles if bridges were built at the gorges. An internationally owned railway was planned for this route. From Chungking to Chingtu in Szechuen province, up hill and down, and across fields and marshes, runs a traveled road paved much of the way with large stone slabs. From Chungking to Sui Fu, along the Yangtze River for two hundred miles runs a notable stone road five feet wide. Along all these old roads the freight of 400,000,000 people has been carried on the backs of men and women, and even children, whether by barrow or shoulder load, during the long quiet centuries, at an awful cost of money; for too large a proportion of the nation has been engaged in the transportation as compared with the producing department, and this is one reason why China has been poor so long.

Wells have been sunk by contractors, with whom the mayor of the village (hsiang lao) dealt. A brick caisson, fitted on a bamboo frame, is dug under and sunk. On this caisson the upper wall is built. Sometimes iron-pointed bamboo pipes are driven through the bottom of the well. These old methods will give way to the new, and windmills will begin to hum in old China.

The modern water-works of Peking take the water from the Sha Ho, a clear stream in the Western Hills. There are settling tanks, pumping stations, stand-pipes, etc. One hundred and thirty thousand families are supplied from the mains. The same concession to labor has been made as at Hongkong, in that the cleaning of the filter sand and gravel is done by hand instead of by machine. Nearly all the treaty ports are putting in modern water-works, which have been sorely needed. China’s death rate is decreasing, and it is not necessary, even from a Chinese point of view, that there should be so many births or dual wives any more.

Electric light plants are in operation at nearly all the coast treaty ports, as well as at some of the Yangtze treaty ports and West River ports inland. In the Occident, intellectual and spiritual light preceded lighted roads and the light of science, but as everything is opposite in China, it seems that science is preceding intellectual and spiritual light. But “these twain shall meet in one equator round the globe”.

The Lighthouse Department of the National Customs is employing foreign engineers in harbor and channel work, and some improvements have been made on the coast and along the rivers, the provincial authorities making a special tax wherever possible to foot the bills. Often the boatmen, merchants’ and bankers’ guilds are required to subscribe.

The first systematized attempt to handle public works scientifically was undertaken by the provincial assemblies of Nganhwei and Kiangsu provinces in the summer of 1911, during the awful famines, which followed the great floods. America has sent large contributions of flour and money for rice. The assemblies put the men, whom the floods withheld from their fields, on railway building, canal dredging, bridge building, and road making. It was along these roads that the triumphant right wing of the republicans marched, headed by Generals Hsu and Ling, in the memorable attack on Nanking, which broke the imperial resistance, and threw the Manchu over the yamen wall!