BRITISH SERVICES: DIPLOMATIC, CONSULAR, AND JUDICIAL.
Necessity for administrative and judicial control over
British subjects--Consular courts--Supreme court for China and
Japan--_Personnel_ of the consular service--Functions of the
diplomatic representatives--Absence of distinction explained by
apathy of Home Government--Need of reform.
The frequent references throughout this work to the part played by British
agents in the development of intercourse with China seem to call for a
short account of the character and status of the official machinery which
served for so many years as the principal working joint between the two
opposed systems of civilisation.
The relations between Great Britain and China were necessarily at first
experimental. The consuls appointed to the five ports were selected with
no special training, and the chief superintendent, to whom they looked
for guidance, was scarcely better furnished than themselves. Yet, as has
been shown, the remoteness of the consuls from their chief, and of both
from the Government they served, threw them much upon their own resources.
How the demand for independent initiative was responded to by some of the
individuals concerned has been incidentally noticed in previous chapters.
From the time when it assumed direct relations with China, the need of an
effective control over British subjects resorting to that country weighed
heavily on the British Government; for in exempting them from native
jurisdiction the Government took on itself the responsibility for the good
behaviour of its people. The exercise of this control was necessarily
tentative, proceeding step by step as occasions arose. The unceasing
solicitude of the Government for the orderly conduct of its subjects in
China is testified by a long series of Orders in Council conferring on
the consuls and their superintendent an almost despotic authority over the
persons of the British residents. The operation of this arbitrary system
was more satisfactory than could have been expected, thanks to the high
character of the parties concerned and the common-sense which governed
their mutual relations. In their double capacity, however, of protectors
of Chinese and foreigners against the inroads of British subjects, and of
the latter against the inroads of the Chinese, the consuls soon discovered
that the one part of their duty was easy and the other difficult; and
it is no matter for wonder, therefore, if, following the line of least
resistance, some of them should have leaned to the side of repression
rather than to that of the encouragement of their countrymen. This was
noticeable even in judicial proceedings, where the consul was supreme
over his own nationals, but had no authority over their opponents. Some
check on the consequences of consular idiosyncrasies and defective legal
knowledge was maintained by a supreme court in Hongkong, independent
alike of the superintendent of trade and of the governor of the colony,
to which court appeals lay from consular decisions. This prerogative
of the colonial court was not unnaturally irksome to the diplomatic and
consular servants of the Foreign Office, and was doubtless one cause of
the coolness, not to say antipathy, with which the colony has generally
been regarded by them.
The treaties of 1858 and 1860 were followed by a great development
in all three services--diplomatic, consular, and judicial. Some years
previously the China consular service began to be treated as a career for
which special preparation was required, the entry being by competitive
examination, through which a certain number of students were annually sent
out to China, there to complete their education and then take their part
in executive work. When additional ports were opened, therefore, making
about twenty in all, in 1861, there was the full complement of qualified
men ready to occupy the new consular posts, each of them competent to be
his own interpreter. Diplomatic functions were at the same time withdrawn
from Hongkong, where they had been merely nominal for eighteen years,
and became centred in the Chinese capital. A few years later the judicial
authority, so far as it related to the communities at the Chinese ports,
was also withdrawn from Hongkong, and was conferred upon the Supreme Court
for China and Japan, having its headquarters in Shanghai, established by
the Queen's Order in Council of 1864. The new court was inaugurated by
Sir Edmund Hornby, who brought to the work practical experience gained in
the Levant, the assistant judge being Mr C. W. Goodwin, Barrister of the
Inner Temple. This establishment has furnished a solvent for many of the
difficulties connected with British residence in the Far East. Adapted
with judgment to local circumstances, the court has proved of immense
assistance to the consuls, who, subordinated judicially to the chief
judge, could now obtain from him proper guidance in their difficulties,
a facility of which they availed themselves freely.
Although a great advance on what preceded it, the Supreme Court could
not of course escape from all the drawbacks which affected the consular
courts. As between British subjects, it enjoyed the full powers of law
courts in the mother country; but as between British subjects on the one
hand, and the natives of the country, or non-British residents, on the
other, the authority of the British court could only be exercised over the
former. This one-sided action has been to some extent compensated in later
times by the judicial qualifications of consuls representing other Western
nationalities, who administer their own laws with the same impartiality
as the British courts do theirs. But as regards the Chinese no such
compensation operates, for although the treaties make provision for the
judicial action of the Chinese authorities, their conceptions of equity
and forms of procedure being wholly alien to those of the Western nations,
their decisions seldom satisfy the foreign litigant. An attempt to supply
a connecting-link between two radically different juridical ideals was
made in the setting up of mixed courts for the purpose of dealing with
petty cases between natives and foreigners within the settlements of
Shanghai. These courts have been occasionally presided over by honest and
competent judges, assisted by able foreign assessors; but as the native
magistrates, being men of low rank, could always be overruled by the local
executive, they lacked the power to make their decisions effective.
As it was impossible to set up a separate judicial establishment at
each treaty port where there was but a handful of residents, the consuls
had to continue to perform magisterial duty with all the inconveniences
attending their double function. Efforts were made by the Home Government
to minimise these disadvantages by infusing a modicum of legal knowledge
into the service, for which purpose they offered inducements to consular
officials who should qualify as barristers. Notwithstanding all this,
however, the simple fact that a consul is bound in his administrative
capacity to take a part in matters which may afterwards come before him as
a judge perpetuates an element of incongruity demanding an uncommon degree
of tact on the part of the official. Some of the worst consequences to be
apprehended from this state of things are partially obviated by the judge
or assistant judge of the Supreme Court going on circuit, when important
cases in the consular districts require it; but that expedient is only
possible at rare intervals.
The wisdom with which the Supreme Court has been directed is attested
by the absence of incident in its history, and by the universal tacit
approval of its proceedings. Its success, indeed, soon came to be accepted
so much as a matter of course that the true source of it was forgotten.
It was, however, recalled vividly to the public memory by a certain
retrograde movement. After a quarter of a century of satisfactory working
her Majesty's Government took a step which was equivalent to pulling out
the corner-stone of the edifice--the absolute independence of the bench.
In order to effect an economy in salaries, it was ordained that the two
incompatible offices--the judicial and political--should be merged into
one, making the chief judge consul-general, and the assistant judge consul
for Shanghai. By this move the judges became subordinate to the Legation
in Peking, and the Supreme Court itself was subjected to all the evils of
the dual function under which the consuls had been labouring. Thanks to
the exceptional qualities of the holders of the double office, no glaring
scandal arose out of the unnatural combination; but the protests of the
community, and of the incumbent of the two offices himself, were strong
enough to induce the Foreign Office, after a few years' trial, to retrace
their false step and restore the judge to his independence.
* * * * *
The twenty consular establishments in China on which the Select Committee
of the House of Commons reported in 1872 were manned by forty "effectives
on duty," besides a considerable contingent on furlough. The ten posts
subsequently created employ on an average twenty more. Two complete
generations of officials have passed through the consular mill in fifty
years, which may be moderately reckoned at two hundred men, all of them
selected by a competitive examination only one degree less stringent
than that for the Indian Civil Service, and nearly all of them men
of varied accomplishments. They have been placed in every part of the
wide empire of China, and during their career have been shifted about
so that every one has had chances of interesting himself in localities
strongly contrasted with each other, both as regards official labour
and personal recreation and study. From a body of highly educated men
so situated, it was naturally to be expected that much enlightenment
would be obtained concerning China and its people, and considerable
progress made in the promotion of amiable intercourse between them and
foreigners. These expectations have not been disappointed. In the period
immediately following the peace of 1860 remarkable activity was shown
by British consular officers. The names of Meadows, Markham, Alabaster,
Oxenham, recall many exploits of exploration in the interior during
very troublous times. Swinhoe, Baber, Hosie, Bourne, Spence, Davenport,
Parker, have continued the work and greatly extended its area. Others
have distinguished themselves in the held of literary research, and
some have found their appropriate reward in honourable appointments in
English universities. On the whole, there has been lack of neither energy
nor capacity in the British consular service; and yet it is a matter of
common remark, even by its members themselves, that in their primary duty
of promoting and defending the interests of British commerce they have
been unsuccessful. Treaty rights, they admit, have not been safeguarded
at the Chinese ports, and this in spite of every apparent incentive to
exertion in their defence. A distinction, however, must be drawn between
an apparent incentive which is general and remote, such as the patriotic
desire for the advancement of their country's interests, and those
influences which are nearer and more personal. The attitude of the China
consuls can only be fairly estimated in its relation to that of their
chief, and his again in relation to that of the Home Government. "Like
master, like man," is an adage which fits the case, and it is to Peking
and to London we must look for the key to the character of the consular
rank and file.
* * * * *
The British Ministers at Peking have been selected without any fixed
rule. The first of the series was taken from the diplomatic circle. The
succeeding three, whose term of office covered a period of twenty years,
were chosen from among the veterans of the consular service. The next
two were taken from the junior ranks of diplomacy, and the seventh was a
military officer from Africa. The appointment of Sir Robert Hart in 1885,
which was cancelled by his wish, afforded further illustration of the
extreme catholicity of the Government's elective faculty.
The witnesses examined before the Select Committee of the House of
Commons in 1872 were unanimous in insisting on the necessity for long and
special training for the office of consul in China, and this principle
has been strictly followed by the Government. But for the higher post of
superintendent of all the consuls the Government has, at least since 1885,
acted on the theory that no such qualification is necessary. But the task
of a Minister to China is by no means an easy one. It may be left undone,
or it may be done so badly that it were better not to be done at all, but
to discharge the duties of the office in a creditable manner requires not
only high training but large capacity. The Minister has to conduct his
own diplomatic duties in the capital, in which not the Chinese alone but
all or nearly all his foreign colleagues are openly or secretly thwarting
him. He has at the same time to direct the proceedings of twenty or thirty
officers placed at great distances, whom he has never seen, and every one
of whom is superior to himself in the knowledge of the conditions to be
dealt with. For such a duty it is obvious that an officer sent from Europe
must be incompetent, the circumstances of the service in China differing
essentially from those prevailing elsewhere. The new incumbent, unless
he were a born genius, could never get beyond the elementary lessons of
experience before, overtaken by promotion, he shakes the Chinese dust off
his feet for ever. Much might of course be learned by personal observation
at the consular ports and conference with local officials and people in
the provinces, but it is somewhat singular that this obvious source of
intelligence has been taken advantage of almost exclusively by those of
the British Ministers who stood the least in need of it. Indeed the only
one of them who made it a rule to visit the treaty ports at intervals
was Sir Rutherford Alcock, whose long experience convinced him of the
necessity of constantly refreshing and extending his knowledge of local
circumstances and people.
A service dispersed over such a large area as the Chinese empire, carried
on by despatches between parties who were strangers to each other, and
one of whom at least had no personal knowledge of the subjects treated,
must have been characterised by an absence of reality, and must have
tended more and more towards a perfunctory routine. For this, however,
the system of appointing Ministers who were strangers to the country
was not wholly responsible. Long before the Ministers were so selected
the secretaries began to be sent from European schools, and thus the
consular service, disheartened by inadequate pay and a constant menace
of further diminution, saw the few prizes of their profession withdrawn
from their reach. To serve his time quietly, therefore, to earn his
pension and retire without a stain on his character, became more or less
the consular ideal. Ambition was starved among those who had to bear
the burden and heat of a thirty years' residence in China, when they saw
good posts thrown away upon men imported for two or three years, who were
almost useless, and who themselves deplored their enforced idleness. The
disadvantages attending these exotic importations have been often insisted
upon. An old member of the consul staff comments upon it in the following
practical manner:--
In every country administered by the British Crown, or at
every Court at which there is a British representative, the
administrator or envoy has from the moment of his entering
on the duties of his office the assistance of an experienced
staff, well versed in the local history and traditions, or finds
himself in the midst of a society the language and usages of
which are familiar to him. In China, where we have been fighting
and negotiating for over fifty years, we are not so fortunate.
A Minister proceeds there, and on his arrival finds himself in
a new and to him unknown country, the staff which he may bring
with him being like himself utterly unacquainted with the East
and its peoples. The Minister is obliged either to grope his way
unassisted, or to rely on the aids and advice of experienced (but
not always disinterested) outsiders. Under these circumstances his
only wise course is to put himself entirely in the hands of the
permanent local staff, which, for this purpose, means the Chinese
Secretary. That officer, the real motive force of the Legation,
occupies a position of greater importance than that of the nominal
head of the mission, but, with an irony which is not uncommon in
Government administration, he is the least appreciated member of
the staff. His salary is that of the junior ranks in the consular
service, and yet it is to him that the seniors in that service
look for instructions which he is incompetent to give them: the
result may be imagined. Why should these things be? The Indian
Government has in its service many men of brilliant attainments,
and of knowledge gained in long years of service in the East,
who might be called upon to fill the post of Minister which would
be suitable and congenial to them. And there is an abundance of
choice of junior Legation officers in the well-trained consular
service. Would it not be very advantageous if the working hands in
the Legation were chosen from the most competent Chinese scholars
in the consular service?
Considering their initial qualifications, their social standing, and their
great opportunities, it must be admitted that the men of distinction
who have emerged from the consular service during the last fifty years
seems disproportionately small. It is perhaps invidious to mention
names in this connection, but in response to inquiries addressed to
veterans in the service, four men only are placed in the first rank as
the best representatives of the consular training school. These are Sir
Harry Parkes, Mr T. T. Meadows, Mr H. N. Lay, and Mr W. F. Mayers. Sir
Robert Hart, it should be mentioned, left the service so early, and Sir
Rutherford Alcock joined it so late, in life, that their distinguished
careers can scarcely be claimed as the product of the consular nursery.
* * * * *
It is impossible to look back over the forty years which have elapsed
since the new relations were established in China without being struck
by a certain change which passed over the character of the diplomatic
and consular services between the first decade of that period and the
second. The anxious years of the rebellion evoked much active energy on
the part of British officials. The serious opposition to the operation
of the treaties was met by very vigorous action on the part of the
consuls at the ports and of the Minister at the capital. The years 1868
and 1869 may be considered to have marked the culminating-point of the
British official effort to enforce observance of the treaties in letter
and spirit, and to protect all commercial interests. The change which
came over the diplomatic and consular services at the end of the first
decade of diplomatic relations may be likened to the rising followed by
the receding of a tide. Up till the years we have specified, whatever the
difficulties which beset their office, the consuls showed earnestness in
the defence of the interests confided to them, and acted on the conviction
that their exertions were pleasing to those who were set in authority
over them. Their sense of duty was sustained by the hope of distinction.
After 1869 the discovery was made that the situation had been undergoing
a change of which the service had been unaware. What was formerly deemed
a merit had become a demerit in consular officers, and on this discovery
zeal naturally fell to a discount. It was but a reflex of the change that
had crept over the spirit of the British Foreign Office, a change which
also had escaped notice until circumstances forced it into publicity.
This seems to have originated with the removal from the scene of Lord
Palmerston, the statesman who for forty years had stood in a general way
for what was manly and straightforward in the British national character.
Though he left a tried and trusted colleague, Lord Clarendon, in charge of
the Foreign Office, and a sturdy permanent Under-Secretary, perhaps the
last custodian of the Palmerstonian tradition, and who remained at his
post for five years longer, yet it was made evident by results that the
spirit which had animated that great department of State had vanished.
The Foreign Office became nerveless and invertebrate, sentimental
and unstable. Those who had to do with it in the time of Palmerston,
Layard, and Hammond know that since their time the officials bearing
the same titles have been of quite another calibre, have been swayed
by different influences, and above all have exhibited no such knowledge
of the affairs with which they had to deal as their predecessors of the
Palmerstonian era. Many explanations may be given for the new departure
without disparagement of the capacities of the individuals concerned.
Such explanations interest those who may desire to promote reform in the
constitution and the inspiration of the Foreign Office. It suffices us
merely to note the fact by way of accounting for some of the shortcomings
which have been laid to the charge of our representation in China. We
have seen how easily one Foreign Secretary yielded to the meretricious
solicitations of the envoy Burlingame, and how another allowed himself
to be cajoled by the Marquis Tsêng. After these, and sundry other such,
exhibitions it was impossible for any Minister serving the country in
the Far East to place the old reliance on the support of his Government.
With John Bright, the implacable opponent of Palmerston and his works,
installed at the Board of Trade, whose word was law on such matters
as Chinese commercial treaties, and apparently more anxious to undo
the work of Palmerston than to promote a trade which both he and his
department unaffectedly despised, it was not likely that the commercial
communities trading with China should cherish any hope of redress of
grievances from a Government whose face seemed set against them. Apathy,
therefore, became the principle, to keep the peace at all sacrifices the
avowed policy of British diplomacy in China. The apparent exception to
this rule in the attempted reclamations in connection with the Margary
murder in 1875 afforded in its abortive ending a new corroboration of
the rule. The diplomatic and consular establishments went on grinding out
routine despatches and publishing statistical reports, but with the tacit
understanding that whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Under
such conditions it was of little consequence how the Peking representation
might be filled, since it has not for thirty years risen above the level
of comedy, the term applied to it by those who have grown old in its
service.
* * * * *
Such was the situation of affairs when the greatest crisis in the history
of China, or of foreign relations with that country, was sprung upon
the world in 1894. A Legation equal only to clerical routine suddenly
called upon to play a part in a commotion which unhinged the policy of
the world was totally inadequate to the strain, and as a consequence of
the impotence of the Foreign Office and its agent in China, the interests
of Great Britain and, what was only second in importance, the interests
of the Chinese empire were allowed to go by default. The Chinese were,
and perhaps even still remain, unconscious of the reasons of the collapse
of their empire. Perhaps something of the same kind might be said of
the British Foreign Office in regard to the interests of Great Britain
in China. Certainly there is as yet little sign of a determination to
reform the mechanism of the country's representation, and this, perhaps,
because the preliminary step thereto would be the reform of the Foreign
Office itself. And so the Legation goes on under the nominal headship
of a Minister who must be guided entirely by his Chinese Secretary, an
official of inferior rank and position to the body of consuls whom he has
to control, and for whose authority they can never have genuine respect.
The recent upheaval has offered many new opportunities of distinction for
the consuls, especially in the interior of China. That these openings
have infused new life into the consular ranks has been shown in many
ways during the last few years; and if natural selection be allowed to
operate freely and the best men be not discouraged in their efforts for
their country's benefit by undue interferences from Peking, where there is
neither knowledge nor capacity to guide them, it is still possible that
the consular service may play a valuable part in the reconstruction of
the foreign relations of China.