9th Nov.
In the autumn of 1888, twelve years ago, some articles and letters appeared in our columns on "The Future of Shanghai," which attracted a good deal of attention at the time. In the first article it was pointed that our Settlements in China had made very little impression on the vast bulk of the Empire, "In their hearts," we said, "this ancient and persistent people regard us steadily as so many temporary intruders, whom the weakness of the Manchu dynasty has allowed a short foothold, but whose term is nothing in the long duration of the Empire. Many families who, compelled or tempted by abnormal values, have alienated their patrimony to the stranger, still retain the earliest ancient title-deeds to their ancestral halls, calmly waiting to resume their land as soon as the fleeting ' Western' shall have passed on again." The Chinese were supposed to be then already learning to do without the foreign assistance which seemed indispensable at first if their natural resources were to be developed; and it was imagined that the old idea that the Chinese are incapacitated by their character from the successful management of large commercial undertakings on the modern scale, was being rapidly dissipated. "Even," we said, "should no change for the worse occur in the West in the interval, the presence of the Western in an uncongenial climate and in a land which he can never hope to make his home and the home of his posterity, will be no longer called for; nor, handicapped as we are by our more expensive manner of living, and the practical impossibility of acquiring that knowledge of the Janguage and habits of the people, without which we must inevitably succumb in the struggle for supremacy—is it in the nature of things that our hold on the country should continue permanent?" We pointed out that the Chinese were trying to get out of our. hands the coasting trade and the carrying trade on the coast, that they were anxious to replace the foreigners in the Customs by Chinese, and that our position in Shanghai was so uncertain that we ought unanimously to strive to get the revised Land Regulations adopted, as they would give our little municipality the status which would be sadly lacking if it came to a struggle between the Chinese and the Westerners.
In writing on this article a correspondent who signed himself " Cassandra," while drawing attention to the indifference of the Home Government to the interests of foreigners in China and their rights under the treaties, made a suggestion whose adoption, he thought, would save us from our impending doom. "What we can," he said, "and, I venture to think, ought to do here, in order to prepare for the time when we shall be practically left to ' paddle our own canoes; may be briefly summed up in the word amalgamation.' By steadily keeping in view the political position in which we foreigners shall inevitably find ourselves here some day, we may so amalgamate our interests with those of the natives of this country, that a modus vivendi may then be still found for us, At present our only policy is trying to stem the tide, and so long as we stick to that policy only, so certain is it that when the change does come, it will swamp us, and Shanghai will go the way of Ningpo and other ports from which foreigners have practically disappeared. "Shanghai's position as a great distributing centre of trade will probably remain for a long time to come, unless destroyed by a railway system greatly favouring some other port, but the question is: Who will the traders here be? and how can we maintain our position amongst them? The advocates of the stem the tide' policy have had it all their own way Titherto, and anyone who opposes it only seemeth as one that beateth the air, and there are no indications that a suggestion that there is another and a better way would meet with any support or approval. It is therefore useless at present to attempt to suggest any ways in which an amalgamation' policy might be safely and wisely inaugurated, and maintained here."
In a leading article which followed and referred to Cassandra's letter, we regretted that he had not defined more clearly what he meant by amalgamation, and we urged that desirable and practical objects meanwhile were the ratification of the Land Regulations, the broadening of the basis of the Chamber of Commerce, which had then far too few members, and the establishment at home of an association of old China residents who should safeguard our interests, and "meet together for social as well as political purposes and keep themselves permanently en rapport with their successors here." In a third article a week later we took a much less desponding view of the " Future of Shanghai." "There is absolutely no fear," we said, " that we shall ever be turned out of Shanghai by any demand from below. As to the Peking Government's ever taking up the Marquis Tséng's hint that the dignity of the Empire may necessitate the withdrawal of our privileges, we need not for a long time at least be alarmed about that.... We make a great mistake, and do ourselves actual harm if we seem to think that we are here only on sufferance.... Prophets of evil there have always been, and their warnings are not entirely useless, but the fact that they are not listened to does not show that they are unanswerable, Many of us who are now here will celebrate five years hence the Jubilee of Shanghai and some of the children who now py about in the Public Garden will here to celebrate its centenary."
The prophets of evil in Shanghai in 1888 have been entirely discredited. Many people are making Shanghai their home, and the influence of Chinese in the Settlements is less than it was then, not more. Instead of our existence here being precarious, the Settlements have been enormously enlarged, and our control of them is much more assured. There is no sign now of Chinese dispensing with the services of foreigners or wresting the coasting carrying trade from foreign flags. The number of foreigners normally in China, in the interior as well as at the Treaty Ports, has very much increased, and when the present troubles are over and the construction of railways recommences, as it will, with greatly increased energy, foreigners will be found everywhere in the interior of China. Instead of the one suggested, there are now two Associations in London, as well as one in New York, keeping a watchful eye on our interests, The Jubilee of Shanghai is seven years old, and the centenary is twelve years nearer than when we wrote in 1888, and every year confirms the most sanguine
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.