CHINA AND HER RULERS.
Longevity of the State--Government by prestige--Necessity
of adaptation to European ideas--The Empress-dowager--Prince
Kung--Wênsiang--Hu Lin-yi--Tsêng Kwo-fan--Tso Tsung-tang--Chang
Chih-tung--Li Hung-chang--His long and consistent career--Efforts
at reorganising national forces.
The long continuance of a State more populous than any other on record is
a phenomenon which to thoughtful minds can hardly fail to evoke a feeling
akin to reverence. De Quincey declared if he met a Chinaman he would
make obeisance to him, saying, "There goes a man 2000 years old." Be the
causes of this national longevity what they may, the fact should make us
pause to consider on what foundation does this great vital national system
rest? The most realistic word-painter of China represents the country as
a collection of villages, each being a unit of self-government,[29] and
in describing "village life" in minute detail, seems to depict the great
empire, of which each village is a pattern in miniature. Dynasties may
come and dynasties may go, but the Chinese families, their industries
and their customs, go on for ever. It is remarkable with what ease the
people adapt themselves to changes in their ruling powers, regardless
of race or origin; indeed it is a noteworthy fact that the rulers have
for many centuries been more often foreign than native.[30] Foreign,
however, not quite in the sense in which the word is so easily translated
"barbarian" by the Chinese, and applied by them to the hated Aryans of
the West. The rulers of China have been of cognate races, more or less
imbued with the same generic ideas as the Chinese themselves, and with
tastes akin to theirs. How this succession of dynasties, each established
by violence, has coexisted with the continuity of the grand national
idea of the emperor being the Son of Heaven can only be explained by the
very practical character of the race, who accept the usurper as divinely
appointed from the moment he has proved himself successful. What holds,
and has held together from ancient times, this great aggregate of mankind
in common usages and ideas is naturally a mystery to Occidentals, the
cohesive principle not being perceptible to them. China occupies the
unique position of a State resting on moral force,[31] a conception almost
as alien to the Western mind as material progress is to the Eastern, hence
the proposition is apt to be received with amused contempt. Yet a State
administered without police, and ruled without an army, is a something
which cannot be explained away. Government by prestige is, other things
being equal, surely the most economical as well as the most humane of all
species of government; but an obvious consequence is that in emergencies
the Government is beholden to volunteers, and is often driven to enlist
the services of banditti and other forces proscribed by the law. Imperial
prestige, which embraces the relations of the surrounding tributaries,
is but an expansion of the authority of the head of the family and of
the elders of the village, which rests on moral sanction only. The first
collision, however, with the material forces of Christendom proved that
in the system of the modern world the Chinese principle of government
was an anachronism, and that moral must succumb to physical force. Yet
in the midst of the world's triumph in the pricking of the great Chinese
bubble, it had been well to reflect what the kind of bubble was that was
being pricked. China with her self-contained, self-secreted knowledge,
could not be expected to foresee how the impact of the West was likely to
affect her ancient polity. She had nothing wherewith to compare herself,
and no criterion of good or evil except her own isolated experience; nor
did she know aught of human development except what was, so to speak,
forcibly injected into her, but never assimilated. What, then, could she
do to be saved but to take herself entirely to pieces like a house that
has to be rebuilt on a new plan, and so fit herself for the companionship
and competition of the worldly Powers, from whose pressure she could by
no means escape? She had to put away the wisdom of ages, the traditions
of a civilisation unbroken for thousands of years, and convert herself
into a mechanical, scientific, and military Power. Something more radical
than reform is involved in such a root-and-branch change: it was not
improvement but transformation that was demanded.
That some such essential changes are necessary to the preservation of
the Chinese empire is probably recognised by all who interest themselves
in the subject--including a large ever-increasing number of the Chinese
themselves; but the gravity of the revolution may well cause misgivings
both as to its possibility and its incalculable effects. Who among the
Chinese rulers is sufficient for such things?
It is not always possible to locate the nervous centre of any Government
in the West, whether its form be autocratic or representative. With
regard to that of China we may safely say it is never possible--at
least for any foreigner. The attempts which have been from time to time
made to assign acts of Government to the will or influence of certain
individuals have in general proved in the sequel to have been far from
hitting the mark. The monarch under whose authority the whole machine
moves is not necessarily the directing will: indeed he is very often
little better than a puppet. "The eunuchs, concubines, and play-actors,
who constituted the Court of the late Emperor Hsien-fêng, the father of
the present young emperor, had more influence probably in bringing on
the war that led the Allies to Peking than any of the high officers or
Ministers," wrote Sir Rutherford Alcock in 1871. Another writer put it in
a more paradoxical form: "There is in China something more powerful than
the Emperor, and that is the Viceroy; more powerful than the Viceroy,
and that is the Taotai; more powerful than the Taotai, and that is the
Weiyuen," meaning that the power of obstruction, extending through every
grade of officialdom, is most widely diffused at the base. Official
responsibility and moral responsibility do not therefore coincide--men
in highest positions being unable to do the things they would, while the
things they would not they are often obliged to do. The Government is
consequently carried on by continual compromise beyond the limits to which
we are accustomed in Western Governments, because it is not confronted
with outspoken opposition with which it can reason, but with a network
of secret machinations which can only be met by correlative tactics. But
though Government in China may seem by this state of things to be reduced
to an almost passive condition, yet the individuality of statesmen is
not altogether destroyed. In some respects, indeed, the circumstances
we have noted rather favour the influence of men of mark; for where the
complicated machine is held in a state of equilibrium by innumerable
neutralising checks, it would appear that any determined will could set
it in motion in a given direction. The character of Chinese statesmen,
therefore, is not a factor to be ignored in considering either the present
or the future of China, although the very partial knowledge of them which
is accessible to Europeans must constantly lead to erroneous conclusions.
* * * * *
Of the statesmen who have appeared since the opening of Peking in 1860,
it would probably be fair to consider the two emperors as negligible
quantities. The potent personage in the empire during that period is
no doubt the Empress-dowager, who has, in so far as any one can be
said to have done so, ruled China for forty years. Apart from ethical
considerations, which have less to do with matters of government than
could be wished, the empress's characteristics are clearness of purpose,
strength of will, a ready accommodation of means to ends, and frank
acceptance of the inevitable. There are no signs of the bigot or the
doctrinaire about her. Mundane in her objects, she is practical in seeking
them; and if to hold an entirely anomalous position of authority opposed
to legitimacy and the traditions of the dynasty and the empire be evidence
of success, then the empress-dowager must be admitted to be a successful
woman. In the position she has occupied, and still occupies, she would
appear to be the principal force in the State. Whatever may be her power
of initiative, which is so attenuated in the high State functionaries,
her power of veto probably stands pre-eminent.
The anomalous relations which have subsisted between the empress-dowager
and her imperial nephew are too intricate for us to attempt to unravel
them. But the facts resulting from them, which are patent to the world,
point to conditions which are not without danger to the empire. Indeed
the Emperor himself constituted such a danger from the moment when as
an infant he was placed on the Dragon Throne by usurped authority. His
personal imperfections added materially to that danger, and his final
efforts to free himself from the leading-strings of his patroness have
indefinitely enhanced the evil by destroying the personal prestige
of the sovereign. For what can be thought of a Son of Heaven who has
his prerogatives doled out to him and again withdrawn by the will of
another, and where is the force to meet the crisis in the State which
may yet result from the illegitimacy of the emperors succession? The
worship accorded throughout the empire to the Son of Heaven may indeed be
transferred unimpaired to a new possessor of that dignity. But a reigning
emperor shorn of his governing faculty must, one would think, put the
allegiance of the people to a severe strain. How far such considerations
may go in weakening the ties of loyalty in the provinces and in letting
loose the spectre of rebellion cannot be known, but it may be guessed and
feared.
* * * * *
Leaving out the Camarilla of the Court, of whom nothing certain can
be predicated, the executive statesmen who have to outward appearance
directed the public affairs of the Chinese empire for forty years may
almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. Prince Kung, the highest in
station and nearest to the throne, was rather a moderating than an active
force in the State, and his attention was very much divided between public
affairs and those of more personal concern. His colleague, Wênsiang, was a
more energetic character. By common consent he was the most conscientious
as well as the most liberal-minded statesman that China has produced
during the sixty years of foreign intercourse. Mr Adkins, who knew him
intimately in the early days, says: "He was courteous in manner and a
lively conversationalist. He once told me over the teacups that, if he
could have his will, every brick and stone of Hongkong city should be torn
down and thrown into the sea." This was not the kind of language he held
at a later period; for, in a private interview with Sir Rutherford Alcock
in 1869, while admitting the hostility of his class and that he himself
had originally shared all their prejudices, he declared that his long and
intimate relations with the foreign Legations had opened his eyes to the
favourable side of the foreign character and progressive policy. Perhaps
the best account of this Manchu statesman is that given by Sir Rutherford
Alcock himself in an article in 'Fraser's Magazine,' 1871:--
Wênsiang is by far the most distinguished, both from his superior
knowledge and his intellectual grasp of the position occupied
by China in its relations with foreign States.... As a member of
the Grand Secretariat, and vested with other high functions, his
influence is very great, both personal and official--subject,
nevertheless, to such attenuation as the active hostility of a
very powerful party of anti-foreign functionaries within and
without the palace can effect. This party, if party that can
properly be called which is composed of nearly the whole of
the educated classes of the empire--officials, literati, and
gentry--are unceasing in their opposition to all progressive
measures, whether emanating from the Foreign Board or elsewhere.
But Wênsiang is held in especial hatred as the known advocate of a
policy of progressive improvement with foreign aid and appliances.
The failure of the Lay-Osborn fleet very nearly effected his ruin,
and that of his patron the prince [Kung] also, and has ever since
told against his influence. The cost and humiliation of that most
disastrous experiment were all visited on his head, and it has no
doubt tended not solely to impair his power, but also to render
him more timid and less disposed to make any further venture in
the same direction. He has the reputation among his own people of
being honest, and foreigners know him to be patriotic and earnest
in what he believes to be for the good of his country, while
far in advance of all his contemporaries in enlightened views
as to how in the actual situation of affairs that end may best
be served. Upon occasions he can be both bitter and sarcastic,
and speaks out his mind plainly enough against the pretensions
of foreigners to shape everything to their own ends in China. He
nevertheless gets little credit from the opposite faction for
patriotism or a disinterested love of his country, and of late
there has been remarked, with failing health, an expression of
weariness, as if he were losing heart and hope, and began to feel
unequal to any further struggle. With the ever-increasing demands
for better execution of treaties--in things often materially and
legally impossible in the present state of affairs, for larger
facilities and increased privileges on the foreign side, and
the gathering of hostile elements in front and all round him
proceeding from the Chinese national party, who would refuse
everything, and, if left to themselves, precipitate the country
into another war with the Western Powers, he may well feel weary.
Wênsiang, in short, suffered the fate of those who are too liberal and
too far advanced for their surroundings, and became a martyr to his own
disappointment. Old before his time, and overwhelmed with difficulties
which he was unable to surmount, his mind became depressed, and his death
in 1876 cost China the ablest, the best, and most devoted of her public
men. No doubt there have been good and well-meaning men since his time,
both in the Tsungli-Yamên, the Great Council, and in the provincial
governments; but none of them has shown any quality of leadership, and
all have for the most part been content with the maxim, "Sufficient for
the day is the evil thereof."
The comparatively early death of Hu Lin-yi, a Hunanese, Governor of the
province of Hupei, who, in conjunction with Kuanwen, the Governor-General
of the Hu provinces, originated the scheme for repressing the Taiping
rebellion, prevented him from receiving the credit of that notable
achievement. The institutions of the country paralysed its defence, for
a provincial army was an object of dread to the Manchu rulers, while they
possessed no imperial organisation to cope with the calamity. No attempt,
therefore, could be made to organise a force to resist the rebellion,
and so the devastation was allowed to spread from province to province
without check. Hu Lin-yi set himself to overcome this difficulty, and
thought out a scheme by which the rebellion might be overcome. Before
taking any action, however, it was necessary that he should bring the
Peking Government to his views, which he accomplished by first converting
the Governor-General, who was a Manchu. The two thereupon joined in a
memorial to the throne, praying that they might be permitted to raise in
the Central Provinces a mobile military force to repel the invasion of
the insurgents.
The nucleus of this force already existed in the province of Hunan, where
volunteer levies under the leadership of Tsêng Kwo-fan, the father of the
late Marquis Tsêng, Minister to Great Britain, had done good service in
several small engagements with the rebels. The execution of the general
scheme of defence against the rebels fell naturally, therefore, to the
lot of Tsêng, who during his subsequent governor-generalship of the Lower
Yangtze had the honour of putting an end to the ravages of the Taipings.
No man was held in higher esteem among the counsellors of the Chinese
empire than this sagacious statesman. At once moderate and resolute, he
perceived the need of accommodation to the exigencies of the new time, and
though he would have resisted the ingress of foreigners to the uttermost,
he had the wisdom to see that this was no longer possible, and the advice
tendered to his sovereign, while tempered to the susceptibilities of the
Court, was distinctly in favour of respecting the treaties and avoiding
conflict with foreign nations.
A contemporary of Tsêng Kwo-fan, and his equal in rank and authority,
was Tso Tsung-tang, best known as the Conqueror of Kashgar, where he was
credited with military exploits which history will scarcely ratify. He
was a thoroughgoing man, blunt in manner, but straightforward, and loyal
to his engagements. He was somewhat rash and uncompromising, seeking the
end sometimes without considering the means, and his opinion on matters of
State would have carried no weight but for his reputation for exemption
from the prevailing vice of his class--financial corruption. This
character obtained him toleration for many originalities. On one occasion
he camped outside the walls of Peking for several days because he refused
to pay the customary exactions of the officials in charge of the gates,
so that his audience of the emperor seemed likely to be indefinitely
postponed. But high officials in China of austere views have usually a
man of business in attendance who oils the wheels while saving the face
of their master. Tso's money matters were in the hands of a very politic
gentleman of this class, and so the Grand Secretary's entry into the city
was duly arranged. Tso had a lofty idea of the dignity of his country,
and of the necessity for its defending itself against all enemies.
To this end he threw his energies into the development of the arsenal
and shipbuilding-yard at the Pagoda anchorage in the Foochow river. He
was generally considered an opponent of his younger contemporary, Li
Hung-chang, the one being held to stand for the old conservatism of China,
and the other for its liberalisation. They were for many years the two
chief provincials, the one being Imperial Commissioner for the southern
and the other for the northern ports of China. It was customary for the
emperor to refer important questions connected with foreign affairs to
these two advisers, whose opinions must very often have neutralised each
other. In the end Tso recognised the necessity for a change of policy for
the preservation of the empire, but being himself too old to change he
recommended his rival, Li Hung-chang, to the Throne as the fitting man to
introduce needed innovations. If the records are to be implicitly trusted
Tso would appear to have undergone a sort of death-bed repentance, for
in his political testament, a document which is regarded with a kind of
sacred authority in China, he recommended to the throne the improvements
he had steadfastly opposed, including even the introduction of railways
into the country.
Although out of the chronological order, we may mention here another
eminent official, distinguished by many of the characteristics of
Tso Tsung-tang, who has been Governor of the province of Shansi,
Governor-General of the Canton provinces, and is now Governor-General of
the central provinces. Wherever he has been, Chang Chih-tung has proved
himself bold and original. His open mind has led him to take up schemes
warmly without counting the cost, and under his inspiration immense sums
have been spent in both his viceroyalties for which but little return
was obtained, and of which indeed it was scarcely possible to render a
clear account. His reputation for purity, however, has saved him from
the consequences of his recklessness, both in the eyes of the people and
of the Government, and enabled him to hold office long enough to show
some results of his expensive enterprises. The great ironworks which he
set up in Hanyang, with very little consideration as to how they were to
become effective, have at last produced iron of a quality sufficient to
make inferior rails, thus giving an earnest of the ultimate realisation
of his dream of rendering China independent of foreign countries. Chang's
literary power is of a very high order, his style is terse and incisive,
and this is a weapon which renders him formidable in a country which
cultivates literature as a religion. To say that Chang Chih-tung is
the opponent of foreigners is merely to credit him with the ordinary
patriotism of his countrymen. But though he often treats strangers with
the studied discourtesy which characterised the older generation of
Chinese officials, he has never allowed his prejudices to stand in the
way of free intercourse with any foreigner whom he thought he could make
subservient to some purpose of his own. As a statesman Chang Chih-tung has
failed through intensity and want of comprehensiveness. In fact he is not
a statesman, but a sciolist, and a trenchant essayist, unaccustomed to
accommodate his ideas to the circumstances of actual life. He, too, has
been a bitter opponent of Li Hung-chang, which, however, did not hinder
him from composing a most fulsome panegyric on that statesman on the
occasion of his seventieth birthday, in which he was credited with all
the attributes of all the heroes of Chinese mythology. The many fantastic
schemes which Chang has originated would in any Western country have
relegated their author to the custody of the Commissioners of Lunacy.
One of these was to prevent foreign ships entering the Gulf of Pecheli
by sinking tiers of junks between Shantung and Talien-wan; another was
to catch the Japanese soldiers in a gigantic locust-trap, consisting of a
deep trench to be dug at their supposed landing-place near Shanhai-kwan,
and the fact of this proposal being seriously adopted and some miles
of the trench actually dug by the Chinese soldiers reveals more of the
military impotence of China than the most voluminous dissertations.
Without carrying the exhaustive process further, it is safe to say that
whatever concrete statesmanship there has been in China during the past
generation has been embodied in the person of Li Hung-chang. He alone has
a continuous record, has followed a definite line, and kept his ideals,
like a captive balloon, strictly attached to the earth on which he had
to work. He also was a literate of distinction, having taken the highest
degree, that of the Hanlin College. But though his literary tastes have
not been left wholly uncultivated, they have never intruded themselves
into his conduct of affairs, so that an estimate of his position cannot
be based upon his writings, but only on his actions. He indulged in no
speculations, propounded no theories, but was eminently a man of fact.
Contrary to all Chinese tradition he laid himself out for personal
intercourse with foreigners, from whom he was never weary of learning, and
in doing so he braved the odium of his peers, and incurred the charge of
treason as a truckler to barbarians. Living in the eyes of the world, both
of his own and foreign countries, for a period of nearly forty years, he
has been the one familiar figure in modern China. His accessibility has
afforded to travellers and visitors endless opportunities of delineation,
so that if ever a Chinese of rank was known throughout the world it must
be Li Hung-chang.
The interest attaching to this statesman consists in his having in his
own person, and without a party, stood between the Old World and the
New, having devoted his life to working out in practice a _modus vivendi_
between them. His methods have been wholly empirical and opportunist, and
hence no synthesis of his plan of operations is available, except such as
we may compose out of the facts themselves. A few cardinal principles,
nevertheless, stand out clearly in the life-work of this statesman. One
is that of reorganising the defensive forces of the empire in accordance
with the lessons learned from foreign raids; a second has been so to
observe the treaties made with foreigners as to afford them no ground
for complaint; and a third, when causes of difference arose, whether
by inadvertence or by design, to agree with the adversary quickly. The
following out of the first two might very well have entailed upon Li the
reproach of favouring foreigners; the following out of the third may with
greater justice have earned for him the character of a peace-at-any-price
man. So consistently did he follow the line of action dictated by these
principles, that no attacks on foreigners or on Christian missions have
ever been tolerated within his jurisdiction. During the twenty-four years
of his governor-generalship of Chihli, whose population is one of the most
turbulent in the empire, there was not a single missionary outrage, his
instructions to his district officials being peremptory, that, right or
wrong, they must have no questions with foreigners. Had the other viceroys
been similarly minded and equally resolute, no attacks on missionaries
would have been recorded throughout the Chinese Empire. Though Li
Hung-chang was as much anti-foreign at heart as every true Chinaman
must be, he endeavoured, crudely following the example of the Japanese,
to employ foreign men and appliances in order the more effectually to
resist them. His pacific tendencies were no proof of pusillanimity, but
rather of a deep consciousness, derived from personal experience, of the
incapacity of China to resist foreign attack. Li Hung-chang's external
policy, therefore, may be defined as the strengthening of the country to
meet invasion, and the avoidance, while such preparations were being made,
of every cause of collision with foreigners. These cardinal points had to
be kept in view, like guiding stars, amid the exigencies of daily affairs,
which alone were sufficient to fill up the measure of one man's capacity.
The administration of two populous provinces, the superintendency of the
maritime trade of half the empire, and incessant consultations concerning
imperial affairs generally, constituted a burden which no one man could
bear. While to these were added the whole details of national defence,
naval and military reorganisation, the construction of a navy on foreign
lines, the whole of which was undertaken by Li Hung-chang, working not
only without a party but practically without a staff, and at the mercy of
technical advisers who owed him no allegiance. The briefest recapitulation
of the duties so undertaken would be enough to stagger the credulity of
the most active administrator of the West; the recital would suffice,
without any proof from experience, to show that these labours of Hercules
could never, in fact, be performed. But the difference between performance
and non-performance marks the chasm which divides the Chinese from the
Western world, and distinguishes the order of ideas and practice which
make for the preservation, from those which tend to the disintegration,
of the Chinese empire itself. The task from which the mass of Chinese
statesmen have recoiled, and which has only been attempted in a persistent
manner by Li Hung-chang himself, was probably beyond the power of any man
and of any party.
* * * * *
But here the inquiry suggests itself, why a strong-headed and
practical-minded man should have devoted a lifetime to impossible
achievements, and why in a nation of great intellects the task should
have been virtually relegated to one man? The Chinese are not fools;
their mental capacity is second to that of no other race. Their culture is
excessive, though narrow; and if we find them exhibiting in great national
affairs no more intelligence than that shown by children in building
castles of sand, it is natural to conclude that there is some fundamental
misconception either on their part or on ours of the problem before them.
But if we consider the Chinese as belonging to the world of moral force,
then their misconception of all that belongs to the world of physical
force is not only explicable, but it is inevitable; for between the two
there is no common ground on which even a compromise might be effected,
and the one must eternally misunderstand the other.
The burden of the memorials of the Chinese high functionaries on this
subject have been that the Middle Kingdom being overcome by the brute
force of the rebellious barbarians, the obvious way to restore the
lapsed authority of the empire was to acquire the instruments of foreign
strength. This they diligently set themselves to do, but apparently
without the slightest comprehension of the secret of the strength of the
foreigners. The Chinese being what they were, could no more win the secret
of the Western power by buying its weapons than a musical tyro could hope
to rival the greatest artistes by possessing himself of a Stradivarius.
Guns, ships, explosives of the latest type, are worse than dummies without
the organised human force that gives them life. The element which would
have infused vitality into the new organisation was the one thing beyond
their imagination, and so far as they did comprehend it, it inspired them
with aversion and awe, for it meant in their eyes delivering the keys of
power into the hands of strangers. What was needed to regenerate the army,
to create a navy, to reform the finances, was the liberal importation
of men. This necessity was no doubt partially perceived by Li Hung-chang
and his like, but never entirely even by him; for he remained throughout
the one-eyed man among the blind, groping after something which he could
only guess at. Teachers from Europe and America were employed in the
country, and natives were sent to foreign countries to be instructed;
but the spirit of the new instruction was never allowed to vitalise the
organisation, and consequently all the knowledge that was acquired by both
methods remained barren and unfruitful. Thus Li Hung-chang's efforts fell
short of their object, and China continued to be the land of moral force
for the iron-shod physical forces to trample on.
From the earliest period of his career Li Hung-chang stood out far in
advance of his fellows, and in all the troubles which have beset the
empire during his time, it is he who has been thrust into the breach and
made to bear the brunt of its misfortunes. Being the only man who did
anything, he was naturally made responsible for all, and critics, both
foreign and native, have had an easy task in laying bare his failures,
which his contemporaries have escaped by confining themselves to official
routine and playing for their own safety. Though the burden of the State
has fallen upon the shoulders of Li Hung-chang more than upon any other
individual, he has never flinched from the responsibility. The occurrences
of 1894 and subsequently threw him into greater prominence than ever
before. Forced to carry on the war with Japan, during which the defences
of the empire for which he was responsible completely broke down, he
was next also forced to make peace with that Power on very humiliating
conditions. Seldom was a more pathetic scene witnessed than the virtual
controller of the Chinese empire lying at the feet of a victorious enemy
in a foreign country, with the bullet of an assassin in his cheek. More
tragic still was his return to the capital with the treaty of Shimonoseki.
An intense feeling against Li had been roused throughout the country. The
provincial officials with singular unanimity denounced his treachery as
they considered it, for the treaty was in their eyes no less disgraceful
than the conduct of the war, for both of which Li alone was deemed
responsible. The sentiment of the provinces was echoed in Peking, where
his enemies in high places had almost secured the capital punishment of
the negotiator, and failing that, his assassination, from which fate he
was only saved by the veto of Prince Kung and the subsequent protection
of the empress-dowager. He was also in an important sense under the
protection of Russia, that Power having undertaken to hold him harmless
from the consequences of his surrender to the Japanese. In order to take
him out of the way of the conspiracies in Peking, Russia requested that
an Imperial prince might be sent to the coronation ceremony in 1896.
That being impossible by the laws of the empire, which Russia very well
knew, a substitute of the highest rank had to be found, and thus Li
Hung-chang was designated, by the approval of the empress-dowager and by
the consent--reluctant it is believed--of the Emperor, for the mission
of congratulation to the Czar. After the festivities at Moscow, Li made
the tour of Europe and the United States, meeting everywhere with a
distinguished reception.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Village Life in China. By Arthur Smith, D.D.
[30] An ingenious friend, who was kind enough to read this passage
in MS., sent me the following suggestive note: "King Solomon was a
thorough Chinaman, crafty, gaining the throne although the fourth
and youngest son of his mother; killing off the kingdom-maker,
Joab, and murdering the lawful heir, Adonijah. His fondness for
pomp and joss pidjin, witness the Queen of Sheba and the Temple;
love of trade, his ventures with King Hiram to Ophir. His apathy
in military affairs, leading to the breaking up of the empire.
His love of sententious maxims, Proverbs. His truly Chinese and
non-Hebrew syncretism, worshipping Ashtoreth, Moloch, and Chemosh,
as well as Jehovah. Now David, judging by the weak characters of
his children, was, like many famous men in history, the reverse of
prepotent. Solomon was a son of erewhile widow Bathsheba. Uriah
being a Hittite, she was presumably one also. So Solomon would
be practically a Hittite--i.e., Mongolian or Tartar; a striking
example of the newly-named but long-observed phenomenon called
telegony or 'throwing back.' Solomon 'threw back' to the first
sire, Uriah."
[31] "The boasted influence that the Government of China possesses
over its subjects is almost entirely _moral_, and they really do
not possess the power to cope with a popular tumult, which is the
object of their greatest dread."--H. Parkes, at Foochow, May 1,
1846, _æt._ seventeen.