Peking Dust

PART II. Letters Written February and March, 1917

LETTERS WRITTEN FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1917

I THE RETURN TO PEKING 115

II THE OPIUM SCANDAL 124

III THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER 132

IV CHINA'S COURSE CLEAR 139

V FEAR OF THE PLUNGE 145

VI A DUST-STORM 150

VII A BOWL OF PORRIDGE 164

VIII FROM A SCRAP-BOOK 172

IX THE GERMAN REPLY 182

X DUST AND GOSSIP 189

XI DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BROKEN 198

XII WALKING ON THE WALL 202

XIII MEETING THE PRESIDENT OF CHINA 208

XIV GREAT BRITAIN'S TWELVE DEMANDS 220

XV CONCLUSION 229

APPENDIXES 231

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Loading coolies at Wei-Hei-Wei Frontispiece

FACING PAGE Map 3

Coolies 20

Camel caravan, Peking 21

Peking cart 32

Fruit stall in the bazaar 33

Entrance gate to compound of Chinese house 84

Compound of Chinese house 85

Chinese funeral 120

Chinese funeral 121

Vice-President Feng Kuo-Chang 128

View of Peking 129

Village outside walls of Peking 204

Fortune teller 205

President Li Yuan-Hung 216

Entrance to Winter Palace 217

PART I. [illustration: Sketch Map of China Showing Spheres of Influence]

PEKING DUST

POOR OLD CHINA

When I came away last August, you said you wanted me to tell you about our travels, particularly about China. Like most Americans, you have a lurking sentimental feeling about China, a latent sympathy and interest based on colossal ignorance. Very well, I will write you as fully as I can. Two months ago my ignorance was fully as overwhelming as yours, but it is being rapidly dispelled. So I'll try to do the same for you, as you said I might. Rash of you, I call it.

I'll take it that you have just about heard that China is on the map, and occupies a big portion of it. You know that she has a ruler of some kind in place of the old empress dowager who died a few years ago. Come to think of it, the ruler is a president, and China is a republic. Vaguely you may remember that she became a republic about five years ago, after a revolution. Also, in the same vague way, you may have heard that the country is old and rich and peaceful, with about four hundred million inhabitants; and beyond that you do not go. Sufficient. I'll go no further, either.

After six weeks in Japan, we set out for Peking, going by way of Korea. On the boat from Kobe to Shimonoseki, passing through the famous Inland Sea of Japan,--which, by the way, reminds one of the eastern shore of Maryland,--we met a young Englishman returning to Shanghai. We three, being the only first-class passengers on the boat, naturally fell into conversation. He said he had been in the East for ten years, engaged in business in Shanghai, so we at once dashed into the subject of Oriental politics. Being quite ignorant of Eastern affairs, but having heard vaguely of certain phases of them, we asked if he could tell us the meaning of "sphere of influence." The Orient seems full of spheres of influence, particularly China.

"How do the European nations acquire these 'spheres of influence' in China?" I asked. "Do they ask the Chinese Government to give them to them?--to set apart certain territory, certain provinces, and give them commercial and trading rights to these areas?"

"Ask the Chinese Government?" repeated the young man, scornfully. "Ask the Chinese? I should say not! The European powers just arrange it among themselves, each decides what provinces it wants, agrees not to trespass upon the spheres of influence of one another, and then they just notify China."

"Just notify China?" I exclaimed. "You mean they don't consult China at all and find out whether she's willing or not? You mean they just decide the matter among themselves, partition out the country as they like, select such territory as they happen to fancy, and then just notify China?"

"That's the idea," he returned; "virtually that's all there is to it. Choose what they want and then just notify China."

"Dear me!" said I.

I'm glad we met that young man. I like things put simply, in words of one syllable, within range of the understanding. Moreover, incredible as it seems, what he told us is true. Oh, of course, as I've found out since, there are treaties and things to be signed after China has been notified. She is then compelled to ratify these treaties or agreements; it looks better. Forced to sign them at the pistol's point, as it were. However, this ratification of treaties is more for the benefit of the European powers than for China. Having staked out their claims, they officially record them; that's all. And you know what used to happen in our country during the good old days of the "forty-niners" if some one jumped another's claim.

To show to what extent poor old China is under the "influence" of the great European powers, I shall have to give you a few statistics; otherwise you won't believe me. The total area of the Chinese Republic is about 4,300,000 square miles. The spheres of influence of some of the important nations are as follows:

Square miles

England: Tibet 533,000

Szechuen 218,000

Kwan'tung 86,000

Provinces of Yangtse Valley 362,000

Total 1,199,000 or 27.8%

Russia: Outer Mongolia 1,000,000

Che-Kiang 548,000

Three-quarters of Manchuria 273,000

Total 1,821,000 or 42.3%

France: Yunnan 146,700 or 3.4%

Germany: Shan-tung 55,000 or 1.3%

Japan: South Manchuria 90,000

Eastern Inner Mongolia 50,000

Fu-kien 46,000

Total 186,000 or 4.3%

Total area under foreign influence 79%

Don't forget these figures; turn back to them from time to time to refresh your memory. But remember one thing: it is not customary to speak of anything but of Japanese aggression. Whenever Japan acquires another square mile of territory, forestalling some one else, the fact is heralded round the world, and the predatory tendencies of Japan are denounced as a menace to the world. But publicity is not given to the predatory tendencies of other powers. They are all in agreement with one another, and nothing is said; a conspiracy of silence surrounds their actions, and the facts are smothered, not a hint of them getting abroad. The Western nations are in accord, and the Orient--China--belongs to them. But with Japan it is different. So in future, when you hear that Japan has her eye on China, is attempting to gobble up China, remember that, compared with Europe's total, Japan's holdings are very small indeed. The loudest outcries against Japanese encroachments come from those nations that possess the widest spheres of influence. The nation that claims forty-two per cent. of China, and the nation that claims twenty-seven per cent. of China are loudest in their denunciations of the nation that possesses (plus the former German holdings) less than six.

Our first actual contact with a sphere of influence at work came about in this wise: After we had spent two or three weeks in Korea, we took the train from Seoul to Peking, a two-days' journey. In these exciting days it is hard to do without newspapers, and at Mukden, where we had a five-hours' wait, we came across a funny little sheet called "The Manchuria Daily News." It was a nice little paper; that is, if you are sufficiently cosmopolitan to be emancipated from American standards. It was ten by fifteen inches in size,--comfortable to hold, at any rate,--with three pages of news and advertisements, and one blank page for which nothing was forthcoming. Tucked in among advertisements of mineral waters, European groceries, foreign banking-houses, and railway announcements was an item. But for our young man on the boat, I shouldn't have known what it meant. We read:

ALLIES PROTEST TO CHINA

Great Britain, France and Russia have lodged their respective protests with China on the ground that the Sino-American railway loan agreement recently concluded, infringes upon their acquired rights. The Russian contention is that the construction of the railway from Fengchen to Ninghsia conflicts with the 1899 Russo-Chinese Secret Treaty. The British point out that the Hangchow-Wenchow railway under scheme is a violation of the Anglo-Chinese Treaty re Hunan and Kwanghsi, and that the proposed railway constitutes a trespass on the British preferential right to build railways. The French Government, on behalf of Belgium, argues that the Lanchow-Ninghsia line encroaches upon the Sino-Belgian Treaty re the Haichow-Lanchow Railway, and that the railway connecting Hangchow with Nanning intrudes upon the French sphere of influence.

There you have it! China needing a railway, an American firm willing to build a railway, and Russia, England, France, and even poor little Belgium blocking the scheme. All of them busy with a tremendous war on their hands, draining all their resources of both time and money, yet able to keep a sharp eye on China to see that she doesn't get any improvements that are not of their making. And after the war is over, how many years will it be before they are sufficiently recovered financially to undertake such an expenditure? China must just wait, I suppose.

On each side of the rocking railway carriage stretched vast arid plains, sprinkled with innumerable villages consisting of mud houses. The fields were cut across in every direction by dirt roads, unpaved, full of deep ruts and holes. At times these roads were sunk far below the level of the fields, worn deep into the earth by the traffic of centuries; so deep in places that the tops of the blue-hooded carts were also below the level of the fields. Yet these roads afford the only means of communication with the immense interior provinces of China--these sunken roads and the rivers.

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