MISSIONARY PROBLEM--TIENTSIN MASSACRE OF 1870.
Importance of missionary question long foreseen by Consul
Alcock--Introduction of missionaries under two French
treaties--Toleration of Christians under treaties of 1858--Forced
upon China--Ardour of missionary spirit uncontrollable--Negligence
of treaty-makers in providing no regulations for admission of
the propaganda--Contrasted with the care bestowed on trade
regulations--Religious toleration of the Chinese--Christian
intolerance--Surreptitious article in French Convention of
1860--Giving large privileges to missionaries in the interior--Its
abuse complained of by Chinese--Enforced restitution of old
property--Bitter injustice--Disintegrating action of the
propaganda--Abuses of extra-territoriality--Interference in
local affairs--Detaching natives from their allegiance--Causes of
strife--Chinese Government culpable in permitting abuses--Disputes
about land and houses--Chinese official laxity compensated
for by unofficial illegitimate methods--Attacks on missions
fomented thereby--No remedy possible without the unanimous
consent of the Powers--Each having different objects--Fruits
of widespread hostility to missions appeared in 1868--Riot and
outrage--Culminated in Tientsin massacre of 1870--Details of the
occurrence--Treated cavalierly by Imperial Government--Culpability
of officials--Pressure by foreign Ministers induces Chinese
to execute sixteen criminals--Apologetic mission of Chunghou
to France--Suspicions of his complicity unfounded--Causes of
the hostility to foreigners--Government fear of reprisals
by France--They begin to take the missionary question
seriously--Issue an important circular--Badly received by the
Powers.
No subject more seriously engaged the attention of Sir Rutherford Alcock
during his whole term of service than that of the Christian propaganda.
While it was yet in embryo, and long before the untoward consequences now
so familiar had declared themselves, the evil to come formed the theme of
many anxious despatches. For, with the exception of Mr T. T. Meadows, he
was the only one of the early consuls who attempted to read the horoscope
of China with a conscious participation in the responsibility for its
welfare. Their warnings were, of course, wasted on the desert air, for
statesmen whose hands are on the lever of events are like the signalmen on
a busy railway, recking nothing of the origin or destination of the train,
careful only that it pass their own "point" in safety. The thin end of the
entering wedge destined to split China into fragments, unless anticipated
(as in fact it has been) in its disruptive work by some ruder allied
agency, was clearly discerned by Consul Alcock while at Shanghai. Under
cover of the first French treaties in 1844 and 1846 missionaries effected
a legal lodgment on the coast of China, from which they cast longing
eyes on the vast interior of the country. Rivalry between the Christian
sects brought fresh pressure to bear on the plenipotentiaries, and the
"toleration clause" was introduced into all the treaties negotiated at
Tientsin in 1858, and in the German treaty of 1861.
Russia led the way, followed by the United States, Great Britain, and
France. The "clause" was substantially the same in all, the toleration
of Christianity being based on its moral character exclusively--"Hommes
de bien qui ne cherchent pas d'avantages matériels" (Russian); "Teaching
men to do good, and to do to others as they would have others do to
them" (American); "Inculcates the practice of virtue, and teaches man
to do as he would be done by" (English); "Ayant pour objet essentiel de
porter les hommes à la vertu" (French).[16] Yet this apparent unanimity
concealed essential differences in aim and motive. Russia, France, and the
United States, to leave England out of the account, each meant something
specifically distinct from the other by the practically identical clause.
What the Chinese would have said, had they been free to discuss the
demand made upon them, we can hardly conjecture; but in the position in
which they actually found themselves they would have subscribed to any
form of words submitted to them, their sole anxiety then being to get
rid of the barbarians on any terms. Had the preamble run, "Whereas the
Christian religion as practised for 1800 years has not brought peace but a
sword upon the earth, has set the father against the son, nation against
nation, instigated crimes without number, sided with the oppressor and
the unrighteous judge, and is daily prostituted for political ends,"
the Chinese would have signed the toleration clause just the same. The
phraseology was nothing to them, whence it follows that the responsibility
for the consequences rests on the Powers who imposed the form as well
as the substance of the obligations. These Powers placed themselves in
a self-contradictory position both towards China and the Church, for
the only ground on which they claimed protection for missionaries in the
framing of the treaty is the one which they cannot so much as consider in
the fulfilment of it. The ethical and religious side of the propaganda
is to the executive official a negligible quantity, while he can take
cognisance only of that aspect of Christianity which was studiously kept
out of sight in the treaty--its political character, the temper of the
missionaries and of the people among whom they work, and all that makes
for good or bad relations between them.
Amid mixed and perverted motives there is doubtless in all sections of
the propaganda a residuum of pure zeal in a holy cause. The medieval
solicitude for "saving the heathen" survives, and men and women, fired
with the conviction that they are engaged in such a godlike enterprise,
constitute an ever-living force with which statesmen have to lay their
account. It can neither be reasoned with nor turned aside, and is the more
intractable in that the logical effect of its inspiration is to place
it above civil law, but under a divine law of its own interpreting, the
interpretation varying indefinitely with the divisions of the force, each
division, and sometimes each individual, selecting such portions of the
code and bending them to such meaning as may support the objects and the
methods of the sect. To introduce such a complex ferment into the Chinese
body politic was a psychological experiment on a colossal scale, and also
irrevocable. It was, therefore, an experiment which demanded the kind of
precaution used in handling dangerous chemicals.
Yet absolutely no thought was bestowed on the subject; the explosive was
imported with less ceremony than is bestowed on a bale of long cloth, and
left to spread according to its own laws in the living tissue into which
it was injected. So far at least as the English treaty was concerned,
we have it on the authority of the actual negotiator that the Christian
clause was an after-thought "shoved in" at the last moment. The same
authority adds, "The treaty was left to carry out itself"--in other
respects besides that of the missionary question. Sir Rutherford Alcock
speaks of "the futility of grafting on to a treaty of commerce, forced
upon the Chinese under circumstances which left them no power to refuse, a
proselytising agency for the conversion of the nation to Christianity....
Whatever aims at these ends under the stipulation of a treaty of commerce
and amity introduces a cause of distrust and an element of disturbance.
This we have done, and are now reaping the fruit." But a rose-cutting
would not be grafted with the insouciance with which this spiritual
element was incongruously inserted in a commercial treaty. Commenting
directly upon the toleration clause itself, Sir Rutherford wrote: "It is
only necessary to read carefully the words of the article to be aware that
in the whole range of the treaty, from the 1st to the 56th article, there
is nothing stipulated for so difficult to secure as the fulfilment in its
integrity of this one clause."
The foreign Powers generally seemed to court the very "disturbance"
apprehended by "leaving the treaty to carry out itself," washing their
hands of their own careless work. We have seen what pains were taken to
allow the treaty to operate smoothly in its main purpose by elaborating
a scheme of trade regulations far more complete than the treaty itself.
But as foreign trade had been carried on by the Chinese for centuries,
and the merchants of the respective countries were thoroughly at home
with each other, commerce was the least likely source of friction. Of
the new dynamic element introduced into the treaties, it seems never to
have occurred to the negotiators that any regulation was necessary at
all. Missionaries were permitted to enter and settle in the interior,
where everything was strange, for practical purposes beyond the orbit
of their countries' laws, while protected against the jurisdiction of
the Government under which they were to live. Men who could withstand
the temptation offered by such a state of things are not born every day.
Without rule of conduct save their individual judgment, with no previous
understanding with the Chinese provincial officials as to relative
rights and duties, they were left to find such accommodation to their
surroundings as their several idiosyncrasies and the untried conditions
of Chinese social life might determine. The missionary in the interior
had thus all the qualities of a "foreign body" setting up irritation in
the organism,--a state of things, however, which his absolute faith in
the sanctity of his mission perhaps prevented him from comprehending.
One trait in the national character was highly favourable to the
reception of a foreign religion. The Chinese were of all nations the
most tolerant of opinion. They had already accepted and assimilated two
foreign religions--Buddhism and Mohammedanism; indeed they had also, two
hundred years before, accepted and retained Christianity until it was
expelled in convulsions provoked by the foreign missionaries themselves.
Its second advent need not have caused convulsions had it come as the
others had done, with clean hands, as a religion and nothing else. The
tolerance of the Chinese has been referred to materialism and contemptuous
apathy, which is by no means an exhaustive account of the matter.
They were not, any more than Hindus, naked savages without language
or literature: if anything, they were over-civilised. Proud they were,
indeed, and conceited, and in its religious aspect they affected to regard
Christianity as but a wave breaking on a rock. Their rock was a unique
philosophy, scarcely to be called a system, which stands for religion,
differing from other philosophic systems in eschewing speculation and
attending to the ethics of common life,--the only philosophy that may be
said ever to have transfused itself into the blood of a people.
The culture of the Chinese, however, was merely an obstacle to the
realisation of the Catholic ideal of saving the heathen, as the grandest
natural scenery was regarded merely as a hindrance to medieval travel.
"Unhappy infidels, who spend their lives in smoke and their eternity in
flames," was Father le Jeune's epigrammatic summary of the whole case in
Quebec. So deep-rooted is the tradition of the reprobation of the heathen,
that it generally requires many years' experience before a foreign
missionary is led by contact with facts to see that Chinese ethics form
the natural basis for the Christian superstructure. Some missionaries,
indeed, go so far as to use the writings of Confucius as a text-book.
Before reaching this ripe stage, however, the foreign missionary has it
in his power to do more mischief than he can perhaps ever undo.
There was one treaty stipulation which has not been left to chance for its
fulfilment--the additional article inserted in the French Convention of
Peking in 1860. An astute missionary, acting as interpreter to Baron Gros,
managed to interpolate in the Chinese text a clause of his own which had
no place in the French--the ruling version--and was quite unknown to the
French Envoy.[17] By that clause full permission was accorded to French
missionaries to purchase land and erect buildings thereon throughout
the empire; and further, all churches, schools, cemeteries, lands, and
buildings which had been owned by persecuted Christians (Chinese) in
previous centuries were to be paid for, and the money handed to the
French representative in Peking for transmission to the Christians in
the localities concerned. This astounding demand, in our eyes at once so
truculent and so impracticable, seems to have been to the Chinese neither
more nor less oppressive than the rest of the treaty, and they signed
without demur, under the usual mental reservation. But it was in germ an
official recognition of a French protectorate over Chinese Christians,
and of corporate communities of Christians held qualified to be served
heirs to those who had been persecuted in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries--a germ which might be cultivated with greater or less success,
according to the skill of those who had the care of it. Some effort
of imagination is required in order to realise what is implied in this
surreptitious article.
We must suppose [wrote Sir Rutherford Alcock] a French army
entering London and there dictating the conditions of peace, and
among others one that all Church property confiscated by Henry
VIII. should forthwith be restored to the Roman Catholic Church by
the present holders, however acquired, and without compensation,
and that the French Government could be appealed to in order to
enforce the rigorous execution of the stipulation.
How the stipulation was enforced is thus described by Prince Kung in his
circular of 1871, more fully noticed below:--
During the last few years the restitution of chapels in every
province has been insisted upon without any regard for the feeling
of the masses, the missionaries obstinately persisting in their
claims. They have also pointed out fine handsome houses (belonging
to, or occupied by, the gentry or others) as buildings once used
as churches, and these they have compelled the people to give up.
But what is worst, and what wounds the dignity of the people,
is that they often claim as their property _yamêns_, places of
assembly, temples held in high respect by the literates and the
inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Buildings which were once used
as chapels have been in some cases sold years ago by Christians;
and, having been sold and resold by one of the people to another,
have passed through the hands of several proprietors. There is
also a large number of buildings which have been newly repaired
at very considerable expense, of which the missionaries have
insisted on the restitution, refusing at the same time to pay
anything for them. On the other hand, there are some houses which
have become dilapidated, and the missionaries put in a claim for
the necessary repair. Their conduct excites the indignation of
the people whenever they come in contact with each other, and it
becomes impossible for them to live quietly together.[18]
Bitter consequences have resulted from the enforced operation of the
interpolated clause, for the French Government, as is shown above, took
full advantage of the pious fraud. Neither did the Chinese themselves,
on discovering the truth, openly resent this example of how the foreign
religion "porte les hommes à la vertu." The fraud was more than condoned
by missionaries of all nations and sects, whose legal title to residence
in the interior of China, distant from all authority, rests solely on the
interpolated French clause, the benefit of which accrues to them under
the most-favoured-nation privilege. British Protestant missionaries, not
altogether satisfied with this tainted title, in a long letter to their
Minister, Sir Rutherford Alcock, claimed the right of inland residence
on another ground. They adduced the public declaration of Mr Burlingame,
that "China invites Protestant missionaries to plant the shining Cross on
every hill and in every valley"; to which the answer was simple, that the
Chinese Government disavowed the promises of the envoy, and repudiated the
implied obligation. The British Government disapproved of the claim under
the French treaty, though in rather ambiguous terms, because it rested
"on no sound foundation, but on an interpolation of words in the Chinese
version alone in the French treaty with China." Since then, however, the
pretensions of the French missionaries have been vindicated less by the
interpolated clause itself than by the vigorous exercise of all the rights
conferred by it, and very much more. The clause thus lent material force
to the spiritual ferment, accelerating by many degrees its disintegrating
action. It may be alleged, in palliation of the light-heartedness with
which the whole subject was treated by the negotiators of the treaties,
that they could not have foreseen such a development of their innocent
toleration clause; but the circumstance only emphasises the urgent need
there was for a clear definition of what was really meant by it.
But if toleration be the note of Chinese polity--concerning not
religion alone, but almost every matter affecting government--it may
be asked, What is it in the propagation of Christianity that excites
the hostility of people and rulers? It is that the missionaries present
themselves to Chinese view as the instruments of powerful nations bent
on the ruin of the empire. They enter the country with a talisman of
extra-territoriality; their persons are sacred; the law of the land cannot
lay hands on them. That is the first stage. The second is, that they seek
to extra-territorialise their converts also, whose battles they fight
in the provincial courts and in the rustic communes, and so make it of
material advantage to the people to bear the banner of the Cross. Many
missionaries are really zealous in the work of alienating the Chinese from
their natural allegiance, and of encouraging them to seek the protection
of foreign Powers as against the native authorities. Thus a revolution
of the most vital nature is in progress, and is being pushed on with all
the energy which Christian, combined with ecclesiastical and political,
zeal can throw into the work. Village is set against village, clan against
clan, family against family, and a man's foes in China are too often they
of his own household.[19]
No doubt the Chinese Government are to blame for having allowed such a
state of things to grow up; but it is part and parcel of their drifting
attitude towards everything. It is not that their apprehensions are not
aroused, but that they lack initiative to avert the danger which they
fear. While in theory they do not admit the claim of any foreign Power
to protect Chinese subjects, yet in practice the thing goes on, and
is acquiesced in. So formidable, indeed, have the foreign missionaries
become, that most of the provincial authorities are afraid as well as
jealous of them; and peace-loving viceroys give the simple injunction
to their prefects and magistrates that on no account must they permit
dispute with foreigners or native Christians. This means that the Chinese
Christian must be upheld, right or wrong, and the Christian would be very
un-Chinese if he did not take advantage of such a privilege to trounce
his heathen neighbours.
The right given in the French treaty of acquiring land and building houses
in the interior is one of the most constant causes of local quarrel. Real
estate in China, being held not on personal but on family tenure, can
only be rightfully alienated by the common consent. A dissentient member
holding out, or reviving his claim for purposes of extortion after assent
has been given and transfer made, may become a convenient instrument
in the hands of agitators against the foreigners; and where there is no
such dissentient it is not unusual for the local authorities to create
one by forcible means. A case in point may be mentioned in illustration.
A building was made over to the Baptist Missionary Society by a Chinese
family, every precaution being taken to obtain the unanimous consent of
its various branches. When the deed had been signed by the head of the
family and other responsible members, the local magistrate examined the
chief of the clan, denounced him, and punished him severely by bastinado.
Two of the signatories, thus intimidated, disowned their own act, thereby
invalidating the deed by non-unanimity.
Nearly all the attacks on missionaries proceed in one form or another
from that fecund nursery of feuds, the land question. Whatever the merits
of the dispute, the foreigner is _prima facie_ in the wrong; for he is
an alien, an intruder, and he erects buildings which are outlandish,
offensive to taste, and of sinister influence; and whosoever, albeit
the most disreputable member of a family of three or four generations,
proclaims a grievance by which he has lost his birthright, is sure of
a sympathetic following. Thus without taking into account individual
indiscretions, or infirmities of temper, open attacks on time-honoured
customs, and so forth, there is a perennial root of bitterness in
missionary enterprise in the interior of China, which throws out shoots
culminating in murder and fiendish ferocity; and all this without even
a distant approach to the kernel of Christianity which lies behind the
outworks.
For what the Chinese authorities have failed to do by the legitimate means
at their command, their underlings and the circle of gentry that surrounds
each provincial centre attempt to do by illegitimate and criminal methods.
Hatred of missions and converts shows itself by violent outbreaks in
which innocent and guilty suffer a common fate; mobs are excited by false
suggestions, scholars write inflammatory placards filled with the foulest
calumnies, and the higher officials "let it work"--secretly applauding,
but ready, if called to account, to exculpate themselves and blame the
poor ignorant people.
The charges which form the staple of these attacks turn largely upon the
murder of children in order to make use of eyes, members, blood, &c.,
in certain Christian rites; and they are so extravagant and absurd that
foreigners are apt to doubt that even the most ignorant among the people
really believe in the crimes which are alleged against Christians. The
best authorities, however,--as, for example, the late Sir Thomas Wade,--do
not question the sincerity of the popular belief; and indeed if we compare
these charges with those made against the Jews by influential sections of
Christians in Europe, we shall be surprised at their practical identity.
For this deplorable state of things no one has been able to suggest a
remedy. What has been done cannot be undone. To mend it even would require
such united action among the Great Powers as it is hardly possible in
the present state of the world to conceive. France, indeed, on the morrow
of the Tientsin massacre, did appeal to the co-operative principle as a
protection to all foreign interests in China. The French ambassador in
London addressed the Foreign Office in these terms:--
Bien que les victimes de ces attentats soient presque
exclusivement des Français, on ne saurait contester que des
faits pareils révèlent l'existence de dangers qui menacent
indistinctement tous les étrangers résidant en Chine. C'est en
considérant leurs intérèts comme solidaires dans ces contrées de
l'extrême Orient que les Puissances européennes peuvent arriver à
assurer à leurs nationaux les garanties et les sécurités stipulées
dans les traités.
In the subsequent action of France in China, however, there has been no
trace of regard for any such principle of solidarity. Indeed, were the
Powers ever so amicably disposed towards each other on other questions,
they could not agree in this, the objects of their policy being absolutely
irreconcilable.
"We cannot doubt," wrote Sir Rutherford Alcock, "that the missionary
question is the main cause of disturbance in our relations with China,
and of danger to the Chinese Government itself no less than to all
foreigners resident in the country, missionaries and laymen alike." He
recommended in 1868 that "the treaty Powers should, if possible, come
to some understanding on the religious and missionary question as the
necessary preliminary to any united action for the common benefit, the
acquisition of increased facilities for trade, &c." And he says, "As
regards Chinese converts, any attempt to extend a protectorate over them
would of necessity either fail or be subversive of the whole government of
China." But in the same paper he states that "France, with no trade in the
East, is ambitious of a protectorate over Roman Catholic missions"; and
that "with regard to converts protection has been partially extended to
them under the ægis of the French Government, and that persistent efforts
were being made to make that protection effectual." These efforts have
been still more persistent during the generation that has since passed.
With France the protectorate over native Christians is the great objective
of her Chinese diplomacy--not the ultimate end, indeed, but the lever
by which that end may be attained. To suggest to France, therefore, the
abandonment of this policy would be about as hopeless as asking her to
give up her colonies as the preliminary to an international conference.
And while France protects the proselytising machinery of the Roman
Catholic Church and its consequent usurpation of the Chinese authority, it
would seem of little avail to place other missionaries under restriction.
* * * * *
The fruits of this war of the social elements began to be harvested in
1868, as Sir Rutherford Alcock observed; but that was only the beginning
of a long series of conflicts which have marked the progress of missionary
work in China up to the present day. Riot, outrage, and massacre are its
regular landmarks. The outbreaks have so much in common that it would
serve no useful purpose to trace them in detail, or attempt to apportion
praise or blame to this or that individual or sect. The one which has
left the reddest mark on history, and, being enacted in the presence of a
foreign mercantile community, brought the several factors in the question
into a clearer light than can ever be thrown upon outrages in remote parts
of the interior, is the Tientsin massacre of 21st June 1870. This occurred
six months after Sir Rutherford Alcock left China, while Mr Wade was
_chargé d'affaires_ for Great Britain, and Count Rochechouart for France,
in Peking.
The massacre of sixteen French Sisters of Charity, including an Irish
girl, Alice Sullivan, a French consul, and several French subjects,
also--unwittingly, according to the imperial edict treating of the
occurrence--a Russian merchant and his wife, was the work of an organised
band, led by the city fire brigade, under the direction of the civic
authorities. The crime had been planned for some time: it was preceded
by the murder of an isolated English missionary, Mr Williamson, near
Tientsin, and by an attempted anti-foreign rising in Nanking, which
was promptly suppressed by the viceroy, Ma, who was soon after himself
assassinated. (He was a Mohammedan.) The impending outrage in Tientsin
was foreseen, and warning given, several days before. An Englishman was
attacked on the 19th for no reason. The official highest in rank on the
spot--not, however, a territorial authority--was Chunghou, a Manchu,
holding the office of Imperial Commissioner for Trade, and very friendly
to foreigners. Admiral Keppel says of him that he was the most finished
Chinese gentleman he had ever met, with the exception of the viceroy of
Canton (probably meaning Kiying). The governor of the province was Tsêng
Kwo-fan, whose capital was Paoting-fu, some 100 miles in the interior;
and his subordinates, the prefect and magistrate, were the authorities at
Tientsin immediately responsible for the massacre. Chunghou had warned the
Peking Government several weeks before of the progress of the agitation
against the French mission.
The Imperial Government immediately on the occurrence issued an edict
describing the massacre as "a quarrel between the people and the
missionaries resulting in a fight," but were promptly driven from that
position and pressed, not only by the French, but by all the foreign
representatives, to investigate and do justice in the case, Count
Rochechouart demanding the capital punishment of the three mandarins
who had instigated the massacre. On this the Chinese Government
remarked in a secret edict, "Rochechouart, with boundless arrogance,
demands the execution of the Fu and Hsien, a demand ten thousand times
to be rejected." Under pressure, however, the Government ordered the
governor-general, Tsêng, to proceed to the spot and investigate. After
a protracted journey he reached Tientsin and commenced to take evidence,
not of the crime committed, but of the suspicions which had been excited
against the Sisters of Mercy, whom, after ransacking their cemeteries
for mutilated children, he eventually acquitted. He then suspended the
magistrates _pro formâ_, and spoke of sending for troops to catch the
rioters! On receiving the viceroy's report another imperial decree was
issued repeating the original falsehoods, and causing much disappointment
to the foreign Ministers. Renewed pressure from them, not without hints
of stronger measures, resulted in the offer of fifteen of the mob to be
executed, which, being unanimously rejected, the Chinese Government,
apparently thinking it was the number that was inadequate, threw in
five more, making twenty in all. Sixteen were actually beheaded, the
remaining four being saved by the timely arrival of the Russian Minister,
who protested against the execution of the men accused of murdering the
Russians, because he did not believe in their guilt. Compensation was paid
by the Chinese officials to the families of the executed men, which, with
the honours done to their dead bodies, showed that they were sacrificed
not for crime, but for reasons of State. Of course pecuniary compensation
was made on account of the victims of the massacre, the Chinese Government
being never hard to deal with where money is concerned. The prefect and
the magistrate who had busied themselves after the tragedy in torturing
Christians, in order to extort from them confessions which would justify
the massacre, were nominally banished, though it was perfectly understood
that this was a pure matter of form.
[Illustration: RUINS OF FRENCH CATHEDRAL AT TIENTSIN, BURNED JUNE 20,
1870.]
As part of the reparation for the massacre the Imperial Commissioner for
Northern Trade, Chunghou, was despatched in the early part of 1871 on
a mission to France to express the regret of the Chinese Government for
what had occurred. This official, the first man of rank who was ever sent
out of China, received but an indifferent reception from the President of
the French Republic. Being the highest authority in Tientsin at the time
of the massacre, and having known of the preparations for an outbreak
of some kind, Chunghou was severely blamed by Europeans on the coast of
China, who alleged that the massacre could have been prevented had he put
forth his authority. Meetings were even held on the subject in Shanghai,
and remonstrances were sent to Europe against Chunghou's being received
anywhere as an ambassador until he should exonerate himself from all share
in the Tientsin atrocity. These representations, no doubt, had something
to do with the attitude of the French Provisional Government, which, on
other grounds also, was probably little disposed in that year to occupy
itself with the affairs either of the Church or of China.
There is reason to believe, however, that Chunghou's conduct during the
affair of Tientsin was not inconsistent with innocence; for although he
was a man in authority, it was only as superintendent of trade, having
no control whatever over the hierarchy of territorial officials, who
were under the orders of the viceroy, Tsêng Kwo-fan. Beyond his personal
attendants it is not probable that Chunghou could move a corporal's guard
in Tientsin, and his position was such that the local authorities and
their myrmidons looked with the keenest jealousy on any departure of the
superintendent of trade from the strict line of his own functions. He
dared not, in fact, move a finger against officers who owed allegiance
to the viceroy, and in apprising the Peking Government of the rumours
which were current, Chunghou probably considered that he had gone as
far as public duty warranted. These somewhat anomalous relations between
two high dignitaries of the empire were put an end to when Li Hung-chang
succeeded Tsêng Kwo-fan as viceroy of Chihli; for he was appointed also
the successor of Chunghou as superintendent of trade, and resided for the
most part of his time in the commercial port, Tientsin. The two offices
continue to be combined in one person.
Most of the typical features of a missionary outrage were in this case
exemplified--ferocious placards and brochures, circulation of calumnies
against the missionaries, guilt of the local authorities, their immunity
from punishment, and the official publication of travestied versions of
the occurrence. There was also, we may add, a lurking disposition on the
part of foreign Governments to give credit to the Chinese charges against
the missionaries. Finding themselves unable by pressure on the Chinese
to obtain satisfaction for past or security against future outrages, they
were seldom indisposed to cover their impotence by throwing the blame on
their own people.
There was, consequently, readiness in certain foreign official quarters
to dwell on undefined "indiscretions." It was too easily assumed in the
beginning that the practice of the Sisters of Charity of purchasing
destitute children reasonably excited the suspicions of the people.
As a matter of fact, however, as was admitted afterwards, this alleged
practice of the Sisters was entirely imaginary. It was also assumed that
the massacre was a spontaneous act of the populace, who believed the
stories of kidnapping. But in view of the fact that these agitations arose
simultaneously in distant parts of the empire, this theory of sporadic
action could not be sustained: besides, as Tsêng Kwo-fan himself shrewdly
enough pointed out, no child had been missed from any family at Tientsin,
and the idea of a disciplined fire brigade and a great city mob being
suddenly roused to fury by the abstract idea that somewhere children had
been kidnapped by somebody is too altruistic for ordinary belief. The mob
needed an instigator, and the instigator was well known.
In the diplomatic correspondence which ensued, admitted on all hands to
be most unsatisfactory, the British _chargé d'affaires_ had occasion to
complain to Prince Kung that in the communications that passed foreign
Ministers and their Governments were spoken of as vassals, which, coming
two years after Mr Wade's warm support of the Burlingame mission, was
instructive as regards the progress in liberal ideas which had been
claimed for the Chinese.
Another consequence of this affair may be noted. The instructions to
British naval officers in China, which had been dictated by Mr Burlingame
in 1869, were virtually reversed after the Tientsin massacre.
It was the general belief at the time that, literally by the fortune
of war, the Chinese Government narrowly escaped a signal retribution
for its continued guerilla warfare against foreigners as represented by
the missionary vanguard. Information travelled slowly then. The nearest
telegraph stations to Peking were Kiachta on the Russian frontier and
Colombo, and there was only periodical communication with either, so that
it happened that the official news of the massacre reached the British
Foreign Office on July 25th. If we recall what was transpiring in the
capitals of Europe during that month of July 1870, we may permit ourselves
the speculation that events might have taken quite another turn had the
news from China reached the Tuileries a month earlier than it did. The
Chinese Government themselves were strongly imbued with this idea. In
an interesting interview which Consul Adkins had with Li Hung-chang in
October, after he had succeeded to the viceroyalty of Chihli, in which the
incident was discussed, the viceroy could not conceal his anxiety. The
pith of a Chinese interview usually lies, like that of a lady's letter,
in the postscript, and as Mr Adkins was taking leave the governor-general
asked him, "Do you think France will make war next year?" (It is worth
noting that in his report of the interview Mr Adkins expressed himself
"reassured by the governor-general's tone and manner." "I take for
granted," he wrote, "that he will not tolerate any outrage on foreigners
within his jurisdiction;" and this forecast of Mr Adkins has, we believe,
been completely borne out by the event.)
But although the Chinese had escaped a great peril, they were somewhat
shaken in their sense of security for the future. The attacks on
missionaries had no doubt gone further than was altogether safe, since
the indignation of the foreign Powers had been roused almost to the pitch
of war. The provincial authorities having had their own way so long,
threatened to be too strong for the Central Government, and were likely
to embroil them with foreign nations; while in their turn the "literati
and gentry," unemployed officials and the leaders of disorder in the great
provincial cities, were also becoming too demonstrative for the provincial
rulers. It was clear to the authorities that they were face to face with
a dangerous situation, and, contrary to their traditional practice, they
began to devise measures in order to meet it. The missionary, they now
saw, was with them for good, the hope of expelling him by intimidation
must be relegated to fanatics of the non-practical school, and it would be
imbecile to shut their eyes any longer to facts. No doubt they had allowed
things to go too far in the admission of foreigners into the interior,
trusting to the resourcefulness of the provinces in insidious means of
repression, but to retrace their steps was now impossible. They could no
longer hope to expel the missionary, but they would contrive some means to
mitigate the dangers of his presence. They would, in short, endeavour to
supply, in concert with the treaty Powers, that culpable omission in the
treaties by henceforth regulating the missions and defining their rights
and obligations.
The result of these cogitations was an elaborate scheme for the control
of missions which was published in the summer of 1871, and was addressed
to the French Government, and by them communicated to the others. That the
Chinese Ministers of themselves took so unprecedented an initiative it is
not necessary to believe. The circular was attributed to that greatest of
all Chinese statesmen, Wênsiang, but the unseen hand that has done so much
to assist China out of her international difficulties may easily be traced
in this notable State Paper. In the preamble the case is stated much as
we have endeavoured to set it forth: "Trade has in no degree occasioned
differences between China and the Powers. The same cannot be said of the
missions, which engender ever-increasing abuses. Although in the first
instance it may have been declared that the primary object of the missions
was to exhort men to virtue, Catholicism, in causing vexation to the
people, has produced a contrary effect in China." The circular submitted
eight rules for the government of missionary relations with the people and
officials in the provinces. The rules referred to (1) the management of
orphanages, which it was proposed either to close altogether or to place
under severe restrictions; (2) the mixed attendance of women and men at
public worship, which, being contrary to Chinese propriety, scandalised
the people; (3) the legal status of missionaries in the interior, and the
evil consequences of the _imperia in imperio_ which had resulted through
the missionaries' separating themselves, and even their native converts,
from the jurisdiction of the local authorities; (4) the restriction of
proceedings in the case of riots to the persons actively participating
in the same; (5) the clear definition of passports, so that missionaries
should not be able to move about at will, leaving no trace; (6) the need
of strict examination into the character and antecedents of converts;
(7) the etiquette to be observed by missionaries in intercourse with
officials, the missionaries not to arrogate official style; and (8) the
reclamation of alleged sites of ancient churches to be stopped, great
injustice having been done to Chinese through their being obliged to
surrender properties which they had honestly bought and paid for.
Many things have happened since 1871, and each transaction with foreigners
has involved greater and greater encroachment on the Chinese prerogatives.
Thus the objection taken in 1871 to the missionaries' arrogating official
style has now been so completely waived that the Chinese Government
itself bestows official rank on missionaries, and has sanctioned a rule
of etiquette for their intercourse with the high Chinese authorities.
Thus "bishops are authorised to demand to see viceroys and governors of
provinces; vicars-general and archdeacons are authorised to demand to see
provincial treasurers, judges, and taotais; other priests are authorised
to demand to see prefects of the first and second class, independent
prefects, sub-prefects, and other functionaries. The various orders
of ecclesiastics are to visit and write to the corresponding orders of
Chinese officials on terms of equality, and these officials will naturally
respond, according to their rank, with the same courtesies."[20]
This famous circular of 1871 unfortunately perished at its birth: it was
roughly attacked in the foreign press, and met with a very cold reception
by the Foreign Offices. The English and American Governments seemed
satisfied with the reflection that the strictures on missionary practices
applied specially to Catholics, and pleased to be able on that account to
dismiss it from consideration. From that day to this the evils complained
of have gone on increasing and accumulating year by year, outrages and
massacres following each other without interruption, and the exacerbation
of feeling between foreign missionaries and the Chinese population going
on with accelerated speed. The political results to China have assumed
in these later years the very concrete form of territorial spoliation,
and the Chinese have had abundant experience of the religion which makes
nations strong and the people virtuous. That is not to say, however,
that there is not good seed already germinating under the snow, which may
hereafter bear the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Meanwhile the naked
unregulated forces are in open conflict, and he would be a bold prophet
who should forecast the issue.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Germany in her treaty made no profession, but simply stipulated
for toleration.
[17] M. Eugene Simon, one of the most distinguished of the French
consuls in China, in his book, 'La Cité Chinoise,' awards the
credit of this performance to M. Delamarre, "un prêtre des
Missions étrangères," who acted as Baron Gros' interpreter.
"Je tiens," says M. Simon, "le fait de plusieurs sources, et
entre autres de M. Delamarre, qui se glorifait beaucoup de sa
supercherie."
[18] Compare "Jesuits' Estates Act" in Canada, 1890, for which Mr
Mercier was decorated by the Pope.
[19] It will be understood that a concise view of the general
mission question is all that is here aimed at, no distinction
being drawn between branches of the propaganda. Important as
are their differences viewed from the foreign standpoint, they
are practically ignored by the Chinese, as we see from the
impartiality with which they visit resentment on all. Our concern
is with the impression produced by the propaganda as a whole,
gathered as far as possible from Chinese evidence and not from
the hypothetical arguments of foreign disputants. In other words,
it is the political bearing of the movement which alone we are
endeavouring to illustrate.
[20] This measure was intended by the Chinese Government to
facilitate the local settlement of disputes where the facts
were known, and so obviate incessant appeals to the Central
Government. It has not fulfilled its purpose, partly because an
important section of the propaganda declined to avail itself of
the concession offered to them. Indeed the form of the concession
implies a hierarchy which only Catholic missions possess.