I have now to call your particular attention to the interesting special
report contained in the southern coast reports on the Santuao native
customs, which shows native methods of administration in the native
customs of Santauo (near Foochow) and the result of honest foreign
management of the same.
[Inclosure.]
[The North China Daily News—Impartial, not
neutral.]
the foreigner in china.
We published yesterday an interesting report by Mr. F. W. Carey,
acting commissioner of customs at Santiago, reproduced from the I.
M. C. returns of trade. The description therein given of native
methods would have been [Page 287]
extremely interesting and valuable at any time, but it comes with
peculiar fitness at the present juncture, critical to an extent
which few foreigners realize, in the development of what is commonly
called the national movement in China. We earnestly commend Mr.
Carey’s report to the careful attention of the diplomatic and
consular authorities who have to deal with the peculiar difficulties
of the existing situation; we commend it also to the chamber of
commerce, the China association, and all local bodies whose duty it
is to maintain the foreigner’s political and commercial rights in
the country.
Our readers will remember that lately we reproduced, from a native
paper published in Tientsin, the arguments put forward by the young
China party in favor of replacing the foreign staff of the imperial
maritime customs by suitably educated Chinese. The writer, after
giving details of the numbers and salaries of foreigners employed in
the collection of the Chinese revenue, and naively comparing the
salary of the inspector-general with that of viceroy or governor,
expressed the opinion that no good reason exists for debarring
Chinese from filling the highest posts in the service, and that only
education is required to make thousands eligible for these posts.
The essential qualification of administrative honesty was entirely
overlooked in this document, the writer apparently taking it for
granted and confining himself to the claim, undeniable in theory,
that Chinese should be employed, rather than foreigners, in the
service of their country. But it is just in this matter of
administrative honestly that lies the crux of the whole question
which the “patriotic” Chinese are now raising. Mr. Carey’s report
proves conclusively the fact, which those most in sympathy with the
national movement are unable to deny, namely, that the corruption of
the official class in China shows no signs of diminution. We might
go further and say with truth that all experience up to the present
shows that education on western methods rather aggravates than
diminishes the peculiar disposition of Chinese officials to enrich
themselves at the expense of the state they profess to serve. Any
discussion of the question of China’s sovereign rights which
overlooks this central truth is, therefore, certain to lead China
into further difficulties and to preclude any reasonable hope of
maintaining the authority and credit of the central government.
Competent observers see in the present movement an appeal, on the one
hand, by the mandarin class to those patriotic instincts which have
undoubtedly been organized by the spread of western literature and
the energies of the native press; on the other hand, an equally
evident intention to use the results of this movement for the
immediate benefit of the mandarins and of the agitators at their
back. The attempts persistently made by Chinese officials during the
past year to obtain control of the administration of this settlement
at and through the mixed court have precisely the same ultimate
object as the attempt to obtain a footing in the imperial maritime
customs; that object is, undoubtedly, in the first instance, an
aggressive policy on the part of China and the suppression of the
foreigner. Those who advocate this policy are quite prepared to see
both the maritime customs and the foreign settlement revert to that
state of things which existed in the native customs at Santuao until
1901, which Mr. Carey has so graphically described. It is nothing to
them that 600 officials should be required for the collection of
revenue which yields the sum of $11,000 per annum to the imperial
exchequer; it is nothing that the collection should be accompanied
by every form of corruption and hindrance to trade. Similarly, it
would be nothing to those who hope to batten on the wealth of this
settlement that the administration of the mixed court should be
accompanied by native yamen abuses.
It were well that we should clearly recognize this essential fact.
Those who are now urging railway construction throughout the country
by provincial bureaus are attempting to persuade the gentry and
people of the excellence of their own motives and the wealth that
lies before all concerned. It does not require, however, any deep
knowledge of Chinese affairs to realize that the state is not likely
to profit greatly by railway construction in the hands of officials
of the type already appointed to take charge of certain bureaus. The
first results are even now apparent—provision of sinecures for
thousands of hungry officials, levying of taxes and subscriptions
from the people, of which money not one-tenth will ever go into
railway work.
Those who wish to see the system of native administration working out
its effect should take a trip on the railway from Canton to Sanshui;
even the British-financed northern railway under the practical
control of the Cantonese party (which has obtained a free hand under
Viceroy Yuan Shih-kai) is showing unmistakable signs of that swift
descent from efficient administration to native [Page 288] chaos, which is the inevitable end
of management by mandarins. The immediate remedy for these things is
not apparent, inasmuch as western education appears to be of no
effect. Pending discovery of a solution, Mr. Carey’s report should
give pause to those who are inclined to place implicit reliance upon
the eloquent protestations of the young China party.
