18th July. In the "Spectator" of the 2nd of June there is a very good article with the above title, in which the writer foresees the trouble coming in China, and makes some suggestions that show that he has given a good deal of intelligent attention to the news which has reached him at that date. He begins by saying that the Boxer movement may die away as so many Chinese insurrections die away, "but the people against the foreigner which it is quite as probable that the rising of
we have so long predicted as certain before China submitted to her fate has at last commenced." It is a source of some satisfaction to know that notwithstanding the strong temptation held out to them, there has not so far been a general rising of the people against foreigners, nor is there any reason to fear it. There are plenty of rowdies and bullies and loafers in every Chinese town ready, if they think it not too dangerous, to join in the destruction of a chapel, for the sake of the fun and the plunder: but we do not thi that these outrages are really due to any deep-seated and general hatred of foreigners as such. There is undoubtedly in Shantung, the original home of the Boxers, a good deal of feeling against foreigners, on account of the loss of Weihaiwei and Kiaochou Bay, which does not exist in other provinces. The "Spectator " says We have never doubted that the governing class of China, including the Manchu generals and the Empress-Dowager herself, detested the insolent intruders, and would take the first opportunity that offered of wreaking their vengeance on them for countless insults, How should ithe other wise? roudest of pagan Asiatics, with a rooted. belief that"they alone are civilised, the Chinese have been bullied. threatened, fined, and menaced with partition by men whom they regard as immeasurably their inferiors in all but the possession of brute force. They do not believe, any more than Europeans do, that the proper penalty for a riot is the cession of half a province, and regard the constant demand for punishment on Mandarins very much as we should regard a demand from Mr. Kruger for the dismissal of Sir Alfred Milner and the execution of Mr. Rhodes. Finding their Government absolutely impotent, or possibly suspecting it of complicity, they have fallen back on the regular national device, a secret society, and the secret society has commenced' action in the regular national way by extirpating the offenders and all who sympathise with them. All scattered Europeans, missionaries, miners, or railway engineers, are murdered, dative Christians, who ate supposed to favour the foreigners, are massacred wholesale, and any Chinese troops sent against them are attacked, or more probably corrupted. Directed, it seems plain, by some one with a clearer head than most Chinese agitators, they ure making a spring at the seat of authority, and are advancing from Shantung straight upon Peking. That they have friends there goes without saying, the great officials are either favourable or perplexed, and it is very doubtful if the vixenish Dowager Empress is wholly opposed to ich, if they succeeded, she would prove' with her whole heart. She may know how to guard her throne with a "Boxer" general in Pekin. She relies for her protection on the ultra-Tories of her Empire, who are of necessity antiforeign, she is sick of receiving orders from the Embassies, she knows that her soldiers are also anti-foreign, and though she has probably the regular feeling of Monarchs towards all who endeavour to force their hands, she certainly will not act against the Boxers" with any heart.
The writer of the above, has, it will be seen, diagnosed the complaint in Shantung very accurately, considering the information he has received, but he does not seem to have understood how important it was to the Boxer movement that it should be fostered, as it was, by the then Governor of Shantung, the Manchu Hsien. Had Yuan Shih-kai been then the Governor and not had his hands tied by orders from Peking, he would very soon have suppressed the Boxers in Shantung, and would never have allowed them to spread into Chihli and to Peking. After all, it comes back to this, that it was the ignorant, anti-foreign feeling of the Empress-Dowager and the gang }of Manchus of whom, as we have often said, she was the tool as well as the leader, that allowed Yi Hsien to foster the Boxers in Shantung, that prevented the weak Viceroy Ya Lu from suppressing them in Chibli, and that welcomed them to Peking. The Boxers are much more formidable than Chinese rebels have usually been by their belief in their own magical arts, and there is very little doubt that the ignorant Manchus believe that the Boxers do really possess magical powers. This is a delusion which will, of course, die out in time, but not before thousands of deluded countrymen have aid with their lives for their creduity and fanaticism.
"The " Spectator " realised that the Empress Dowager, notwithstanding her obtrusive friendliness to the foreign ladies of the Legations who twice attended her receptions, was anti-foreign at heart. It says: "If the Empress is really favourable to the Boxers, Europe may be face to face with an Imperial Government resolved on war; while if they are acting without collusion with her, they may defeat or corrupt her troops, occupy Peking, and set up a stronger Government pledged to an antiforeign policy. It must not be forgotten that the Chinese Court, though semi-barbarian and fettered by its fear of keeping a regular army, is still a Court controlled by subtle statesmen, who may imagine that the two Powers they dread most, Russia and Great Britain, are disabled from action by foreign difficulties—Great Britain by her war in South Africa, and Russia by her fear of a premature quarrel with the Japanese." After some account of the preparation made by Japan, and a prophecy that the ations to a practical test, the " Spectator" urges our making an agreement with Russia, by which we can "control and guide the Empress Dowager, and even, in ease of extreme need, protect the dynasty in its.possession of Peking." We must not, says the "Spectator," take the side of Japan if Russia and Japan quarrel, because that will be "betraying the cause of all white men," which seems to require a little more explanation. Is the recognition of Japan as the equal of the Western Powers only skin-deep after all? The imagination of the " Spectator" was not far-seeing enough for it to conceive of Japan—not Russia—coming forward as -the saviour of civilisation in North China. The reinforcements that Japan has sent to Tientsin have not unlikely saved the evacuation of that point by the allies, and it is on the expedition that sapan is sending from Shanhaikuan that we are relying for the capture of Peking. In the " Specta-for" of the 9th of June there is another article on the China question headed "The Situation in Peking," but this we must leave for another occasion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.