northwest, would appear to be a very simple, honest life, industrious,
methodical, patient in poverty. The men, even of the lowest classes, are
courteous to a degree that would shame a Frenchman. I have seen my two
soldiers, who earned ten or twenty cents, Mexican, a day, greet my cook
with such grace and charm of manner that I felt like a crude barbarian as
I watched them. The simplicity and industry of this life, as it presented
itself to me, seemed directly opposed to any violence or outrage. Yet only
seven years ago Shansi Province was the scene of one of the most atrocious
massacres in history, modern or ancient. During a few weeks, in the summer
of 1900, one hundred and fifty-nine white foreigners, men, women, and
children, were killed within the province, forty-six of them in the city
of T'ai Yuan-fu. The massacre completely wiped out the mission churches
and schools and the opium refuges, the only missionaries who escaped being
those who happened to be away on leave at the time. The attack was not
directed at the missionaries as such, but at the foreigners in general. It
was widely believed among the peasantry that the foreign devils made a
practice of cutting out the eyes, tongues, and various other organs of
children and women and shipping them, for some diabolical purpose, out of
the country. The slaughter was directed, from beginning to end, by the
rabid Manchu governor, Yue Hsien, and some of the butchering was done by
soldiers under his personal command. But the interesting fact is that the
docile, long-suffering people of Shansi did some butchering on their own
account, as soon as the word was passed around that no questions would be
asked by the officials.
Apparently, the Shansi peasant can be at one time simple, industrious,
loyal, and at another time a slaying, ravishing maniac. The Chinaman
himself is the greatest paradox of all. He is the product of a
civilization which sprang from a germ and has developed in a soil and
environment different from anything within our Western range of
experience. Naturally he does not see human relations as we see them. His
habits and customs are enough different from ours to appear bizarre to us;
but they are no more than surface evidences of the difference between his
mind and ours. Thanks to our strong racial instinct, we can be fairly
certain of what an Anglo-Saxon, or even a European, will think in certain
deeply human circumstances--in the presence of death, for instance. We
cannot hope to understand the mental processes of a Chinaman. There is too
great a difference in the shape of our heads, as there is in the texture
of our traditions.
But we can see quite clearly that the imperial government of China is,
while it endures, a strong and effective government. It is significant
that the Chinese people rarely indulge in massacres on their own account.
Why not? The hatred of foreigners must be always there, under the placid
surface, for these people rarely fail to turn into slaying demons once the
officials let the word be passed around. There have been thirty-five
serious anti-foreign riots and massacres in China within thirty-five
years, besides the Boxer uprising of 1900; and among these there was
probably not one which the mandarins could not have suppressed had they
wished. The Boxer trouble was worked up by Yue Hsien while he was governor
of Shantung Province. When the foreign powers protested he was transferred
to Shansi, which had scarcely heard of the Boxer Society, and almost at
once there was a "Boxer" outbreak and massacre in Shansi. The Peking
government meanwhile carried on Yue Hsien's horrible work at Peking and
Tientsin. The siege of the legations at Peking was conducted by imperial
soldiers, not by mobs. During all the trouble of that bloody summer, Yuan
Shi K'ai, who succeeded to the governorship in Shantung, seemed to have no
difficulty in keeping that province quiet, though it was the scene of the
original trouble.
Chang Chi Tung, "the great viceroy," subdued the Upper Yangtse provinces
with a firm hand, though the Boxer difficulty there was complicated by the
ever-seething revolution. In a word, the officials in China seem perfectly
able to control their populace and protect foreigners. As Dr. Ferguson, of
Shanghai, put it to me, "No other government in the world can so
effectively enforce a law as the Chinese government--when they want to!"
You soon learn, in China, that you can trust a Chinaman to carry through
anything he agrees to do for you. When I reached T'ai Yuan-fu I handed my
interpreter a Chinese draft for $200 (Mexican), payable to bearer, and
told him to go to the bank and bring back the money. I had known John a
little over a week; yet any one who knows China will understand that I was
running no appreciable risk. The individual Chinaman is simply a part of a
family, the family is part of a neighbourhood, the neighbourhood is part
of a village or district, and so on. In all its relations with the central
government, the province is responsible for the affairs of its larger
districts, these for the smaller districts, the smaller districts for the
villages, the villages for the neighbourhoods, the neighbourhoods for the
family, the family for the individual. If John had disappeared with my
money after cashing the draft, and had afterwards been caught, punishment
would have been swift and severe. Very likely he would have lost his head.
If the authorities had been unable to find John, they would have punished
his family. Punishment would surely have fallen on somebody.
The real effect of this system, continued as it has been through
unnumbered centuries, has naturally been to develop a clear, keen sense
of personal responsibility. For, whatever may occur, somebody is
responsible. The family, in order to protect itself, trains its
individuals to live up to their promises, or else not to make promises.
The neighbourhood, well knowing that it will be held accountable for its
units, watches them with a close eye. When a new family comes into a
neighbourhood, the neighbours crowd about and ask questions which are not,
in view of the facts, so impertinent as they might sound. Indeed, this
sense of family and neighbourhood accountability is so deeply rooted that
it is not uncommon, on the failure of a merchant to meet his obligations,
for his family and friends to step forward and help him to settle his
accounts. It is the only way in which they can clear themselves.
All these evidences would seem to indicate that the Chinese people, on the
one hand, have an innate fear of and respect for their government and
their law, such as they are; and that the government, on the other hand,
is, in the matter of enforcing the traditional law, one of the most
powerful governments on earth. None but an exceedingly well-organized
government could deliberately incite its people to repeated riots and
massacres without losing control of them. The Chinese government has
seemed to have not the slightest difficulty in keeping the people
quiet--when it wanted to. The story of Shantung Province makes this clear.
It was driven into what appeared to be anarchy by a rabid governor. But
only a few months later this governor's successor had little difficulty in
keeping the entire province in almost perfect order while the adjoining
province was actually at war with the allied powers of the world and was
overrun with foreign troops. No; a government which has within it the
power, on occasion, to carry through such an achievement as this, can
hardly be called weak.
We begin, then, by admitting that the Chinese government has the strength
and the organization necessary to carry out any ordinary reform--if it
wants to. The putting down of the opium evil is, of course, no ordinary
reform. It is an undertaking so colossal and so desperate that it staggers
imagination, as I trust I have made plain in the preceding articles. But
setting aside, for the moment, our doubts as to whether or not the Chinese
government, or any other government on earth, could hope to check so
insidious and pervading an evil, we have to consider other doubts which
arise from even a slight acquaintance with that puzzling organism, the
Chinese official mind. If the Chinese business man is, as many think, the
most honest and straightforward business man on earth, the Chinese
official, or mandarin, is about the most subtle and bewildering. His
duplicity is simply beyond our understanding. He has a bland and childish
smile, but his ways are peculiar. Most of us know that our own state
department has a neat little custom of issuing letters to travellers
ordering our diplomatic and consular representatives abroad to extend
special courtesies, and sending, at the same time, a notice to these same
representatives advising them to take no notice of the letters. In Chinese
diplomacy everything is done in this way, but very much more so. Documents
issued by the Chinese government usually bear about the same relation to
any existing facts or intentions as a Thanksgiving proclamation does. You
must be very astute, indeed, to perceive from the speech, manner, or
writing of a mandarin what he is really getting at. Motive underlies
motive; self-interest lies deeper still; and the base of it all is an
Oriental conception of life and affairs which cannot be so remodelled or
reshaped as to fit into our square-shaped Western minds. No one else was
so eloquent on the horrors of opium as the great Li Hung Chang, when
talking with foreigners; yet Li Hung Chang was one of the largest
producers of opium in China. When the Chinese army, under imperial
direction, was fiercely bombarding the legations in Peking, the imperial
government was officially sending fruit and other delicacies, accompanied
by courteous notes, asking if there was not something they could do for
the comfort of the hard-pressed foreigners.
This indirection would seem to be the result of a constant effort, on the
part of everybody in authority, to shirk the responsibility for difficult
situations. Under a system which holds a man mercilessly accountable for
carrying through any undertaking for which he is known to be responsible,
he naturally tries to avoid assuming any responsibility whatever. An
official is punished for failure and rewarded for success in China, as in
other countries. And the official on whom is saddled the extremely
difficult job of pleasing, at one time, an empress who believes that a
Boxer can render himself invisible to foreign sharpshooters by a little
mumbling and dancing, a set of courtiers and palace eunuchs who are
constantly undermining one another with the deepest Oriental guile, a
populace with little more understanding and knowledge of the world than
the children of Israel in the Sinai Peninsula, and a hostile band of keen,
modern diplomats with trade interests and "concessions" on their tongues
and machine guns and magazine rifles at call in their legation compounds,
is not in for an easy time.
It hardly seems, then, as if we should blame the Chinese official too
harshly if his whole career appears to be made up of a series of
"side-steppings" and "ducks"--of what the American boxer aptly calls "foot
work." On the other hand, it is not difficult to sympathize with the
foreign diplomat who has, year after year, to play this baffling game. He
is always making progress and never getting anywhere. He has his choice of
going mad or settling down into a confirmed and weary cynicism. In most
cases he chooses the latter, and ultimately drifts into a frame of mind in
which he doubts anything and everything. He takes it for granted that the
Chinese government is always insincere. It is incredible to him that a
Chinese official could mean what he says. And so, when the Chinese
government declared against the opium evil, the cynical foreign diplomats
and traders at once began looking between and behind the lines in the
effort to find out what the crafty yellow men were really getting at. That
they might mean what they said seemed wholly out of the question. But what
deep motive might underlie the proposal was a puzzle. At first the gossips
of Peking and the ports ran to the effect that the real scheme was to
arouse the anti-opium public opinion in England, and force the British
Indian government to give up its opium business. Very good, so far. But
why? In order that China, by successfully shutting out the Indian opium,
might set up a government monopoly of its own, for revenue, of the
home-grown drug? This was the first notion at Peking and the ports. I
heard it voiced frequently everywhere. But it proved a hard theory to
maintain.
In the first place, the Chinese government could set up a pretty effective
government opium business, if it wanted to, without bothering about the
Indian-grown drug. Opium is produced everywhere in China. The demand has
grown to a point where the Indian article alone could not begin to supply
it. But, on the other hand, the stopping of the importation is necessarily
the first step in combating the evil; for, if the Chinese should begin by
successfully decreasing their own production of opium, the importation
would automatically increase, and consumption remain the same.
In the second place, if it is wholly a "revenue" matter to the Chinese
government, why give up the large annual revenue from customs duties on
the imported opium? In asking the British to stop their opium traffic the
Chinese are proposing deliberately to sacrifice $5,000,000 annually in
customs and _liking_ duties on the imported drug, or between a fifth and a
sixth of the entire revenue of the imperial customs.
One very convincing indication of the sincerity of the Chinese government
in this matter, which I will take up in detail a little later, is the way
in which the opium prohibition is being enforced by the Chinese
authorities. But before going into that, I should like to call attention
to two other evidences of Chinese sincerity in its war on opium. The
first is the patent fact that public opinion all over China, among rich
and poor, mandarins and peasants, has turned strongly against the use of
opium. I have had this information from too many sources to doubt it.
Travellers from the remotest provinces are reporting to this effect. The
anti-opium sentiment is found in the highest official circles, in the
army, in the navy, in the schools. Within the past year or so it has been
growing steadily stronger. Opium-smoking used to be taken as a matter of
course; now, where you find a man smoking too much, you also find a group
of friends apologizing for him. I have already explained that
opium-smoking is not tolerated in the "new" army. There is now a rapidly
growing number of officials and merchants who refuse to employ
opium-smokers in any capacity.
Now, why is the public opinion of China setting so strongly against opium?
Even apart from moral considerations, bringing the matter down to a
"practical" basis, why is this so? I will venture to offer an answer to
the question. Said one Tientsin foreign merchant, an American who has had
unusual opportunities to observe conditions in Northern China: "If the
Chinese do succeed in shutting down on opium, it may mean the end of the
foreigners in China. Opium is the one thing that is holding the Chinese
back to-day."
Ten or twelve of the legations at Peking now have "legation guards" of
from one hundred to three hundred men each. In all, there are eighteen
hundred foreign soldiers in Peking, "a force large enough," said one
officer, "to be an insult to China, but not large enough to defend us
should they really resent the insult."
Twelve hundred miles up the Yangtse River, above the rapids, there is a
fleet of tiny foreign gunboats, English and French, which were carried up
in sections and put together "to stay." At every treaty port there are one
or more foreign settlements, maintained under foreign laws. The Imperial
Maritime Customs Service of China is directed and administered throughout
by foreigners; this, to insure the proper collection of the "indemnity"
money. Foreign "syndicates" have been gobbling up the wonderful coal and
iron deposits of China wherever they could find them. And so on. I could
give many more illustrations of the foreign grip on China, but these will
serve. And back of these facts looms the always impending "partition of
China." The Chinese are not fools. They have sat tight, wearing that
inscrutable smile, while the foreigners discussed the cutting up of China
as if it were a huge cake. They have seen the Japanese, a race of little
brown men, inhabiting a few little islands, face the dreaded bear of
Russia and drive it back into Siberia. Now, at last, these patient
Chinamen are picking up some odds and ends of Western science. They are
building railroads, and manufacturing the rails for them. They are talking
about saving China "for the Chinese." In 1906 they mobilized an army of
30,000 "modern" troops for manoeuvres in Honan Province. If they are to
succeed with this notion, they must begin at the beginning. Opium is
dragging them down hill. Opium will not build railroads. Opium will not
win battles. Opium will not administer the affairs of the hugest nation on
earth. Therefore, no matter what it costs in revenue, no matter how
staggering the necessary reform and reorganization, opium must go.
China may be a puzzling land. The Chinese officials may be capable of the
most baffling duplicity. But we are forced to believe that they are
"sincere" in putting down the opium traffic. It appears, for China, to be
a case of sink or swim.
The next question would seem to be, if the Chinese are really trying to
put down the opium traffic, how are they succeeding? We will pass over
that part of the problem which relates to Great Britain and the Indian
opium trade, with the idea of taking it up in a later chapter. Let us
consider now what China, flabby, backward, long-suffering China, is
actually doing in this tremendous effort to cure her disorder in order
that she may take a new place among the nations. We will deal here with
the enforcement of the edict in Shansi Province, taking up in later
chapters the results of the prohibition movement in the other provinces.
The plan outlined in the edicts prohibiting opium is clear, direct,
forcible. It was evidently meant to be effective. It provides (first) that
the governors of the provinces shall ascertain, through the local
authorities, the exact number of acres under poppy cultivation. The area
of the land used for this purpose shall then be cut down by one-ninth part
each year, "so that at the end of nine years there will be no more land
used for such purposes, and the land thus disused"--I am quoting here from
the Chinaman who translated the regulations for me--"shall never be used
for the said purposes again. Should the owners of such lands disobey the
decree, their lands shall be confiscated. Local officials who make special
efforts and be able to stop the cultivation of poppy before the said time,
they shall be rewarded with promotions."
The plan provides (second) that "all smokers, irrespective of class or
sex, must go to the nearest authorities to get certificates, in which they
are to write their names, addresses, profession, ages, and the amount of
opium smoked each day." Latitude is allowed smokers over sixty years of
age, but those under sixty "must get cured before arriving at sixty years
of age. Persons who smoke or buy opium without certificates will be
punished. No new smokers will be allowed from the date of prohibition. The
amount of opium supplied to each smoker must decrease by one-third each
year, so that within a few years there will be no opium smoked at all."
Officials who overstep the law are to be deprived of their rank. In the
case of common people, "their names will be posted up thoroughfares, and
will be deprived of privileges in all public gatherings."
Opium dens, as also all restaurants, hotels, and wine-shops which provide
couches and lamps for smokers were to be closed at once. If any regular
opium den was found open after the prohibition (May, 1907), the property
would be confiscated. No new stores for the sale of opium could be opened.
"Good opium remedies must be prepared. Multiply the number of anti-opium
clubs. If any citizens who can, through their efforts, get many people
cured, they will be rewarded.... All officials, and the officers of the
army and navy, and professors of schools, colleges, and universities, must
all get cured within six months." And further, it was decided to "open
negotiations with Great Britain, arranging with that power to have less
and less opium imported into China each year, till at the end of nine
years no opium will be imported at all." The Chinese, it is evident, are
not wanting in hopeful sentiment. Reading this, it is almost possible to
forget that India needs the money.
"There is another drug, called morphia, which has done (thus my Chinaman's
translation) or is doing more harm than opium. The custom authorities
are to be instructed to prohibit strictly the importation of it, except
for medical uses."
[Illustration: ENFORCING THE EDICT AT SHANGHAI
Burning Opium Pipes of Ivory and Costly Woods
Breaking the Opium Lamps]
A clean-cut programme, this; apparently meant to be effective. It was with
no small curiosity that I looked about in Shansi Province to see whether
there seemed any likelihood of enforcement. The time was ripe. It was
April; in May the six months would be up. Opium had ruled in Shansi: could
they hope to depose it before the final havoc should be wrought?
The nub of the situation was, of course, the limiting of the crop.
Theoretically, it should be easier to prohibit opium than to prohibit
alcoholic drinks. Wines and liquors are made from grains and fruits which
must be grown anyway, for purposes of food. It would not do to attempt to
prohibit liquor by stopping the cultivation of grains and fruits. The
poppy, on the other hand, produces nothing but opium and its alkaloids. In
stopping the growth of the poppy you are depriving man of no useful or
necessary article. The poppy must be grown in the open, along the
river-bottoms (where the roads run). It cannot be hidden. As government
regulating goes, nothing is easier than to find a field of poppies and
measure it. The plans of the Shansi farmers for the coming year should
throw some light on the sincerity of the opium reforms. Were they really
arranging to plant less opium? Yes, they were. Reports came to me from
every side, and all to the same effect. West and northwest of T'ai Yuan-fu
many of the farmers had announced that they were planting no poppies at
all. This, remember, was in April: planting time was near; it was a
practical proposition to those Shansi peasants. In other regions men were
planting either none at all, or "less than last year." The reason
generally given was that the closing of the dens in the cities had
lessened the demand for opium.
The officials were planning not only to make poppy-growing unprofitable to
the farmers, they were planning also to advise and assist them in the
substitution of some other crop for the poppy. But here they encountered
one of the peculiar difficulties in the way of opium reform, the
transportation problem. All transportation, off the railroads, is slow and
costly. No other product is so easy to transport as opium. A man can carry
several hundred dollars' worth on his person; a man with a mule can carry
several thousand dollars' worth. That is one of the reasons why opium is
a more profitable crop than potatoes or wheat. But the law descends
without waiting for solutions of all the problems involved. The closing of
the opium dens all over Shansi had the immediate effect of limiting the
crop. It also had the effect of driving out of business a great many firms
engaged in the manufacture of pipes and lamps. Sixty-two manufacturing
houses in one city, Taiku, either went out of business altogether during
the spring months, or turned to new enterprises. I add an interesting bit
of evidence as to the effectiveness of the enforcement. It is from a
missionary.