This paper presents the deliberate views of the foreign representatives on
the condition of affairs in China arrived at after very full and frequent
consideration of the points involved. It is difficult to summarize the
contents of this important document, but a brief reference may be made to
its salient points.
It asserts that the outrages against and attacks upon foreign lives and
property in China which, since the middle of May last, have taken place are
the result of a systematic course of hostility instigated by the literary,
class; that this hostility is exemplified by corrupt publications; that the
Chinese authorities have done almost nothing to prevent the dissemination of
this infamous literature; that the foreign office asserts that the authors
and propagators of these libels on Christians can not be punished, because
they are unknown; that the local authorities have proved themselves in the
recent difficulties to be mostly hostile to foreigners, and some of them
have issued proclamations denouncing foreigners; that little has been done
to punish the rioters; that the foreign office has acted reluctantly,
ungraciously, and only under strong pressure in issuing orders to protect
foreigners; that the imperial edict of June 13, demanded by the foreign
representatives on May 25, was retarded and has been insufficiently
circulated; that reports of punishments inflicted on the rioters have not
been published in the Peking Gazette; that energetic action has not been
taken in repressing the riots; that new riots break out day by day and are
still to
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be apprehended; that the
foreign representatives can under existing circumstances put no faith in the
assurances of the Chinese Government; that on the Yangtse, at Shanghai and
Canton, foreigners can not be safe unless protected by foreign men-of-war;
that the native Christian has been ruthlessly persecuted and should, in
accordance with the treaties, be protected; that the situation is
exceedingly serious, if not actually critical; and that, unless the Chinese
are impressed with the fact that the foreign powers are in earnest in their
intentions to protect their citizens, further outrages and attacks may be
expected, which may lead to graver complications. This paper was agreed to
on the 9th instant, but some delay ensued in its preparation and circulation
and in its being copied. I respectfully call your earnest attention
thereto.
[Inclosure in No. 1389.]
Protocol.
The undersigned, representatives of Belgium, the French Republic, the
German Empire, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, and the
United States, having met to consider the state of affairs existing in
China at the present time and the danger which it carries with it for
the interests of foreign governments and subjects, have arrived at the
following conclusions:
The outrages against and attacks upon foreign lives and property which,
since the middle of May of this year, have taken place in the valley of
the Yangtse and elsewhere, and of which the last instance so far has
been the riot at Ichang on the 1st instant, are not so much the outcome
of deep-rooted animosity on the part of the lower classes toward
Christianity and Christians, which the yamên pretends to believe and
wishes the foreign representatives to believe is the case, as the result
of a systematic course of hostility instigated by antiforeign and
anti-Christian members of the literary class, whose headquarters and
center must be considered to be the province of Hunan, but whose
acolytes are distributed over the whole Empire and are reprersented even
among the highest officials of the realm.
It is only necessary to refer to the part the pamphlet entitled “A
Deathblow to Corrupt Doctrines” played in the antiforeign and
anti-Christian movement that terminated in the massacre at Tien-Tsin in
1870 to understand the influence which the unceasing and unfriendly
activity of the literati must have upon the masses. For some years this
activity has been less apparent, but during the last two years the
valley of the Yangtse and most of the provinces of China have been
absolutely inundated with the foulest and most infamous publications in
the form of pamphlets and placards.
In scarcely any instance have the Chinese authorities done anything to
suppress the production of this literature or to prevent its
dissemination through the country. Even where the attention of the
Government or of the provincial or local authorities has been drawn to
incendiary pamphlets and placards, the utmost that has been done has
been the removal of some placards; but in not a single instance have the
authors, printers, or promulgators been punished. It has eyen happened
that local officials who were instructed to remove such placards have
reproduced them in their entirety in the proclamations issued to
announce the reception of orders for their suppression, while the
highest provincial officials, amongst others the governor-general and
the Tartar general of Szechuen, have not hesitated to issue
proclamations openly accusing and vilifying the Christian missionaries
and native converts; and in none of these cases have the Central
Government or the higher provincial authorities taken any measures to
inform the great mass of the population of their disapproval of such
acts and of the punishment inflicted for their commission.
The tsung-li yamên, having been appealed to to take steps to suppress
such infamous publications by punishing the authors and propagators
thereof, have declared officially their inability to do so under pretext
that the publications in question were always anonymous.
While, thus, nothing has been done to suppress the source of the evil,
the Central Government, as well as the provincial and local authorities,
have been equally remiss in preventing the effects calculated to be
produced by these scurrilous productions.
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In most of the cases of recent riots the local authorities, if not openly
hostile to foreigners and Christians, have proved themselves at the
least lukewarm protectors of those confided to their care; their
influence, if it has made itself felt, has done so only after lives had
been sacrificed, property destroyed, and foreign missionaries and native
Christians driven from their homes.
In only two instances, would native troops appear to have contributed to
the maintenance of peace and order, namely, at Soochow and Kiukiang; but
in the latter place the crews of three foreign gunboats were ready to be
landed for the protection of the foreign settlement, and it may be
therefore fairly supposed that to the presence of these vessels and to
the determined attitude of their commanders the greater energy shown in
this particular instance by the native authorities was mainly due.
If little or nothing has been done by the Chinese authorities to prevent
an outbreak or to protect foreigners and native Christians against the
consequences of it, not much more has been done to punish the rioters
and the ringleaders.
While in more than twenty places foreign lives have been placed in
jeopardy and foreign property ruthlessly destroyed, hardly as many
persons have hitherto been punished—to the knowledge of the undersigned
at least—and yet thousands of rioters took part in the disturbances. The
punishments which have been meted out so far must be considered as being
neither adequate nor in accordance with the prescriptions of the Chinese
criminal code, if the four capital punishments inflicted be excepted;
but here again it must not be forgotten that grave doubts are
entertained as to the participation in the riots of the two persons
executed at Wuhu, the length of the hair on the exposed heads seeming to
warrant the supposition that the criminals executed had been kept in
prison for a longer time than would have been the case had they been
arrested only after the Wuhu riots.
The tsung-li yamên itself has been not less remiss in providing for the
protection of foreigners and their property; what has been done by that
body has been done reluctantly, ungraciously, and only under strong
pressure, and as, moreover, it has been incompletely executed, the
effects which the undersigned had a right to expect from the measures
they had urgently pressed upon the yamên have not been produced.
The issue of the imperial edict demanded by the undersigned for the first
time on May 25 and repeatedly insisted upon did not take place until
June 13, while its subsequent publication in the interior was
undoubtedly retarded by the fact that, instead of being forwarded by
telegraph, it was sent by other and slower means of conveyance. In fact,
the edict did not appear anywhere in the provinces until thirty days
after its publication in the Peking Gazette. In some cases the delay
amounted to from forty to fifty days, and in many parts of the Empire
easily reached within two or three weeks it has not yet been published
at all. In other instances it has been published in an imperfect form,
important portions of it having been omitted entirely.
The contention of the yamên that imperial edicts can not be forwarded by
telegraph is contradicted by continually recurring statements in the
Peking Gazette of imperial edicts having been thus transmitted. But,
even if such precedents had not existed, it seems that the gravity of
the present situation might well have warranted the Government in making
use of the most rapid mode of conveyance at their disposal, in order to
bring the expression of the imperial will as soon as possible to the
knowledge of the officials and of the great masses of the
population.
The publication of the memorial of the yamên to the Throne soliciting the
issuance of the edict of June 13 was delayed still longer, and it was
only on the 18th of July, i. e., thirty-five days
after it had been handed in, that it was published in the manuscript
Peking Gazette and some time later in the printed one.
Notwithstanding the repeated demands that the punishments so far
inflicted upon officials guilty of connivance or negligence or upon
rioters should be published in the Peking Gazette, in order that the
hands of the officials might be strengthened and the rioters deterred
from the commission of further crimes, the yamên have absolutely refused
to accede to those demands, alleging that only the reports from the
provincial authorities could be published, and that those reports, made
only after the complete termination of an affair, had not yet reached
the Government; that telegrams could be made neither the subject of a
report to the Throne nor of a publication in the Gazette; and, finally,
that the yamên had not the power to order anything to be published in
the Gazette.
These statements of the tsung-li yamên are not in accordance with
facts.
For instance, during the negotiations preceding the settlement of the
Franco-Chinese difficulty in 1885 telegrams formed not only the subject
of memorials to the Throne, but imperial edicts were issued upon them
and were promulgated in the Gazette.
The statement that no reports referring to the punishment of persons
connected with the riots had so far reached the Throne, or could have
reached it, is equally
[Page 442]
incorrect. Already in the last August numbers of the Gazette the edicts
referring to the dismissal of several officials connected with the
outbreaks have been published, although without any other reference
being made to the cause of these dismissals than that the officials in
question were idle and stupid.
It is equally incorrect that the yamên is not in a position to cause
anything to be published in the Peking Gazette. Most of the foreign
representatives have had occasion to demand the insertion of something
or other in the Gazette, which has been invariably agreed to by the
yamên without reference to the necessity of obtaining the imperial
sanction for such publication; for instance, the insertion of the fact
that the foreign representatives had been received in audience by His
Majesty the Emperor was informally demanded by the doyen and as
informally agreed to by Prince Ching in March of this year.
It is possible that the so-called cabinet may be the board which has to
decide about the admission of papers into the Gazette, but, two members
of the yamên being also members of the cabinet, it seems that no
difficulties could arise from the existence of that rule.
It is only in one direction that the tsung-li yamên and the provincial
authorities have shown some activity, i. e., in
the settlement of the indemnities due for the destruction of foreign
property by direct negotiation with the missionaries; but they have done
so with the evident intention of depriving the foreign representatives
of any pretext for interference in a matter which the Chinese Government
was anxious to treat, and have treated, as a simply local affair, to be
settled on the spot by the local authorities without any intervention on
the part of the higher Chinese or foreign officials of the respective
governments.
But while the yamên have thus done little or nothing to protect the lives
and property of foreigners residing in China under treaty, they seem
very anxious to avail themselves of the opportunity offered by the
outbreak and the apparent cause of it—i. e., the
hostility of the masses against missionaries and native Christians—to
open negotiations with the foreign powers in order to curtail the treaty
rights of missionaries and subject them to restrictions neither provided
for nor intended by the treaties.
To conclude, nothing whatever has been done to put a stop to what is the
source of the evil, namely, the publication of inflammatory and
insulting pamphlets and placards, and the Chinese Government have
declared themselves unable to prevent such publications or punish the
authors thereof. Little or nothing has been done to provide against
outrages or punish ringleaders, rioters, or guilty officials, while the
measures taken by the Chinese Government have been adopted under
pressure only and have been so incompletely executed that up to the
present moment the great mass of the Chinese population has neither the
official information nor the conviction that their Government intend to
have riots put down, if necessary, by force, and that the guilty have
been punished and will be punished according to the provisions of the
criminal code.
The Chinese Government have thus shown themselves so far neither willing
nor able to cope with the difficulty. The repeated assurances of the
tsung-li yamên that order was restored and no new riots to be
apprehended have always been belied by the facts. The statement that
order was restored contained in the yamên’s note of June 4 was
immediately followed by the outbreak at Wusueh on June 6; while on the
same day on which the undersigned received the yamên’s note of September
3, containing a similar assurance on the part of the Chinese Government,
the news of the riots at Ichang, during which not only property to a
large extent was destroyed, but several persons, Sisters of Charity and
a Catholic missionary, were seriously wounded, reached the yamên and the
foreign representatives.
Under these circumstances the undersigned can not but declare that no
faith can be put in the assurances of the Chinese Government.
They must at the same time give expression to their conviction that, for
the present and for a long time to come, the foreign communities at the
open ports on the Yangtse, at Shanghai, and at Canton can be considered
secure so long only as they are protected by foreign men-of-war.
* * * * * * *
Serious and efficacious measures against that class of literati which are
the authors of the antiforeign and anti-Christian feeling now
undoubtedly existing to a very dangerous extent, the settlement of
outstanding cases, and general instructions to the provincial and local
authorities to observe treaty stipulations by which the free and
undisturbed exercise of the Christian religion is secured to native
converts are the guaranties which, in the opinion of the undersigned,
the foreign powers, while recognizing the fact that Christian converts
remain as much subject to Chinese law as the non-Christian natives, must
insist upon before any negotiations can be opened with the yamên on the
subject of alterations to be introduced into the status of missionaries
and missionary establishments.
The undersigned can only state once more their conviction that the
situation is an
[Page 443]
exceedingly
serious, if not actually for the moment a critical, one, and that,
unless it be possible to impress upon the Chinese Government and the
people that the foreign powers are fully prepared to see their subjects
and citizens protected and the stipulations of the treaties carried out,
further outrages and attacks of much greater importance even than those
which have already taken place the last four months may be be expected
with certainty, and will in that case probably lead to graver
complications than if a determined stand were now made by all the treaty
powers conjointly as a formal warning to China that she will not be
allowed to set at naught her solemn engagements.
Peking, September 9,
1891.
- M. von Brandt.
- Charles Denby.
- John Walsham.
- K. Otori.
- A. Pansa.
- C. Kleiménow.
- G. Rlstelhueber.
- Henry Loumyer.
- J. Sta. del Arroyo.
