THE DICTATOR AT WORK
(FROM THE COUP D"ETAT OF THE 4TH NOVEMBER, 1913, TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE WORLD-WAR 1ST AUGUST, 1914)
With the Parliament of China effectively destroyed, and the turbulent Yangtsze Valley dragooned into sullen submission, Yuan Shih-kai"s task had become so vastly simplified that he held the moment to have arrived when he could openly turn his hand to the problem of making himself absolutely supreme, _de jure_ as well as _de facto_. But there was one remaining thing to be done. To drive the last nail into the coffin of the Republic it was necessary to discredit and virtually imprison the man who was Vice-President.
It is highly characteristic that although he had received from the hero of the Wuchang Rising the most loyal co-operation--a co-operation of a very arduous character since the Commander of the Middle Yangtsze had had to resist the most desperate attempt? to force him over to the side of the rebellion in July, 1913, nevertheless, Yuan Shih-kai was determined to bring this man to Peking as a prisoner of state.
It was just the fact that General Li Yuan-hung was a national hero which impelled the Dictator to action. In the election which had been carried out in October, 1913, by the National a.s.sembly sitting as a National Convention, in spite of every effort to destroy his influence, the personal popularity of the Vice-President had been such that he had received a large number of votes for the office of full President--which had necessitated not one but three ballots being taken, making most people declare that had there been no bribery or intimidation he would have probably been elected to the supreme office in the land, and ousted the ambitious usurper. In such circ.u.mstances his complete elimination was deemed an elementary necessity. To secure that end Yuan Shih-kai suddenly dispatched to Wuchang--where the Vice-President had resided without break since 1911--the Minister of War, General Tuan Chi-jui, with implicit instructions to deal with the problem in any way he deemed satisfactory, stopping short of nothing should his victim prove recalcitrant.
Fortunately General Tuan Chi-jui did not belong to the ugly breed of men Yuan Shih-kai loved to surround himself with; and although he was a loyal and efficient officer the politics of the a.s.sa.s.sin were unknown to him. He was therefore able to convince the Vice-President after a brief discussion that the easiest way out of the ring of intriguers and plotters in which Yuan Shih-kai was rapidly surrounding him in Wuchang was to go voluntarily to the capital. There at least he would be in daily touch with developments and able to fight his own battles without fear of being stabbed in the back; since under the eye of the foreign Legations even Yuan Shih-kai was exhibiting a certain timidity. Indeed after the outcry which General Chang Cheng-wu"s judicial murder had aroused he had reserved his ugliest deeds for the provinces, only small men being done to death in Peking. Accordingly, General Li Yuan-hung packed a bag and accompanied only by an aide-de-camp left abruptly for the capital where he arrived on the 11th December, 1913.
A great sensation was caused throughout China by this sudden departure, consternation prevailing among the officers and men of the Hupeh (Wuchang) army when the newspapers began to hint that their beloved chief had been virtually abducted. Although cordially received by Yuan Shih-kai and given as his personal residence the. Island Palace where the unfortunate Emperor Kw.a.n.ghsu had been so long imprisoned by the Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi after her _coup d"etat_ of 1898, it did not take long for General Li Yuan-hung to understand that his presence was a source of embarra.s.sment to the man who would be king. Being, however, gifted with an astounding fund of patience, he prepared to sit down and allow the great game which he knew would now unroll to be played to its normal ending. What General Li Yuan-hung desired above all was to be forgotten completely and absolutely--springing to life when the hour of deliverance finally arrived. His policy was shown to be not only psychologically accurate, but masterly in a political sense. The greatest ally of honesty in China has always been time, the inherent decency of the race finally discrediting scoundrelism in every period of Chinese history.
The year 1914 dawned with so many obstacles removed that Yuan Shih-kai became more and more peremptory in his methods. In February the young Empress Lun Yi, widow of the Emperor Kw.a.n.ghsu, who two years previously in her character of guardian of the boy-Emperor Hsuan Tung, had been cajoled into sanctioning the Abdication Edicts, unexpectedly expired, her death creating profound emotion because it snapped the last link with the past. Yuan Shih-kai"s position was considerably strengthened by this auspicious event which secretly greatly delighted him; and by his order for three days the defunct Empress lay in State in the Grand Hall of the Winter Palace and received the obeisance of countless mult.i.tudes who appeared strangely moved by this. .h.i.therto unknown procedure. There was now only a nine-year old boy between the Dictator and his highest ambitions. Two final problems still remained to be dealt with: to give a legal form to a purely autocratic rule, and to find money to govern the country. The second matter was vastly more important than the first to a man who did not hesitate to base his whole polity on the teachings of Machiavelli, legality being looked upon as only so much political window-dressing to placate foreign opinion and prevent intervention, whilst without money even the semblance of the rights of eminent domain could not be preserved. Everything indeed hinged on the question of finding money.
There was none in China, at least none for the government. Financial chaos still reigned supreme in spite of the great Reorganization Loan of 25,000,000, which had been carefully arranged more for the purpose of wiping-out international indebtedness and balancing the books of foreign bankers than to inst.i.tute a modern government. All the available specie in the country had been very quietly remitted in these troubled times by the native merchant-guilds from every part of China to the vast emporium of Shanghai for safe custody, where a sum not far short of a hundred million ounces now choked the vaults of the foreign banks,--being safe from governmental expropriation. The collection of provincial revenues having been long disorganized, Yuan Shih-kai, in spite of his military dictatorship, found it impossible to secure the proper resumption of the provincial remittances. Fresh loans became more and more sought after; by means of forced domestic issues a certain amount of cash was obtained, but the country lived from hand to mouth and everybody was unhappy. Added to this by March the formidable insurrection of the "White Wolf" bandits in Central China--under the legendary leadership of a man who was said to be invulnerable--necessitated the mobilization of a fresh army which ran into scores of battalions and which was vainly engaged for nearly half a year in rounding-up this replica of the Mexican Villa. So demoralized had the army become from long licence that this guerrilla warfare was waged with all possible slackness until a chance shot mortally wounded the chief brigand and his immense following automatically dispersed. During six months these pests had ravaged three provinces and menaced one of the most strongly fortified cities in Asia--the old capital of China, Hsianfu, whither the Manchu Court had fled in 1900.
Meanwhile wholesale executions were carried out in the provinces with monotonous regularity and all attempts at rising ruthlessly suppressed.
In Peking the infamous Chih Fa Chu or Military Court--a sort of Chinese Star-Chamber--was continually engaged in summarily dispatching men suspected of conspiring against the Dictator, Even the printed word was looked upon as seditious, an unfortunate native editor being actually flogged to death in Hankow for telling the truth about conditions in the riverine districts. These cruelties made men more and more determined to pay off the score the very first moment that was possible. Although he was increasingly pressed for ready money, Yuan Shih-kai, by the end of April, 1914, had the situation sufficiently in hand to bring out his supreme surprise,--a brand-new Const.i.tution promulgated under the euphonious t.i.tle of "The Const.i.tutional Compact."
This precious doc.u.ment, which had no more legality behind it as a governing instrument than a private letter, can be studied by the curious in the appendix where it is given in full: here it is sufficient to say that no such hocuspocus had ever been previously indulged in China. Drafted by an American legal adviser, Dr. Goodnow, who was later to earn unenviable international notoriety as the endorser of the monarchy scheme, it erected what it was pleased to call the Presidential System; that is, it placed all power directly in the hands of the President, giving him a single Secretary of State after the American model and reducing Cabinet Ministers to mere Department Chiefs who received their instructions from the State Department but had no real voice in the actual government. A new provincial system was likewise invented for the provinces, the Tutuhs or Governors of the Revolutionary period being turned into Chiang Chun or Military Officials on the Manchu model and provincial control absolutely centralized in their hands, whilst the Provincial a.s.semblies established under the former dynasty were summarily abolished. The worship at the Temple of Heaven was also re-established and so was the official worship of Confucius--both Imperialistic measures--whilst a brand-new ceremony, the worship of the two t.i.tulary Military G.o.ds, was ordered so as to inculcate military virtue! It was laid down that in the worship of Heaven the President would wear the robes of the Dukes of the Chow dynasty, B.C. 1112, a novel and interesting republican experiment. Excerpts from two Mandates which belong to these days throw a flood of light on the kind of reasoning which was held to justify these developments. The first declares:
... "In a Republic the Sovereign Power is vested in the people, and the main principle is that all things should be determined in accordance with the desires of the majority. These desires may be embraced by two words, namely, existence and happiness. I, the President, came from my farm because I was unable to bear the eternal sufferings of the innocent people. I a.s.sumed office and tried vainly to soothe the violent feelings. The greatest evil nowadays is the misunderstanding of true principles. The Republicans on the pretext of public interest try to attain selfish ends, some going so far as to consider the forsaking of parents as a sign of liberty and regarding the violation of the laws as a demonstration of equality. I will certainly do my best to change all this."
In the second Mandate Yuan Shih-kai justifies the re-establishment of the Confucian worship in a singular way, incidentally showing how utterly incomprehensible to him is the idea of representative government, since he would appear to have imagined that by dispatching circular telegrams to the provincial capitals and receiving affirmative replies from his creatures all that is necessary in the way of a national endors.e.m.e.nt of high const.i.tutional measures had been obtained.
... "China"s devotion to Confucius began with the reign of the Emperor Hsiaowu, of the Han dynasty, who rejected the works of the hundred authors, making the six Confucian cla.s.sics the leading books. Confucius, born in the time of the tyranny of the n.o.bility, in his works declared that after war disturbances comes peace, and with peace real tranquillity and happiness. This, therefore, is the fountain of Republicanism. After studying the history of China and consulting the opinions of scholars, I find that Confucius must remain the teacher for thousands of generations. But in a Republic the people possess sovereign power. Therefore circular telegrams were dispatched to all the provinces to collect opinions, and many affirmative answers have already been received. Therefore, all colleges, schools, and public bodies are ordered to revive the sacrificial ceremony of Confucius, which shall be carefully and minutely ordained." ...
With the formal promulgation of the Const.i.tutional Compact the situation had become bizarre in the extreme. Although even the child-mind might have known that powers for Const.i.tution-making were vested solely in the National a.s.sembly, and that the re-division of authority which was now made was wholly illegal, because Yuan Shih-kai as the bailiff of the Powers was able to do much as he pleased; and at a moment when Liberal Europe was on the eve of plunging into the most terrible war in history in defence of right against might, reaction and Prussianism of the most repulsive type were pa.s.sed by unnoticed in China. In a few loosely drafted chapters not only was the governance of the country rearranged to suit a purely dictational rule, but the actual Parliament was permanently extinguished and replaced by a single Legislative Chamber (_Li Fa Yuan_) which from its very composition could be nothing but a harmless debating Society with no greater significance than a dietine of one of the minor German States. Meanwhile, as there was no intention of allowing even this chamber to a.s.semble until the last possible moment, a Senate was got together as the organ of public opinion, ten Senators being chosen to draft yet another Const.i.tution which would be the final one. Remarkable steps were taken a little later in the year (1914) to secure that the succession to the dictatorship should be left in Yuan Shih-kai"s own hands. An elaborate ritual was contrived and officially promulgated under the t.i.tle of the Presidential Succession Law on the 29th December whereby the Chief Executive selected three names which were placed in a gold box in a Stone House in the grounds of the Palace,--the gold box only to be opened when death or incapacity deprived the nation of its self-appointed leader. For the term of the presidency was openly converted into one of ten years and made subject to indefinite renewal by this precious instrument which was the work of the puppet senate. In case of the necessity of an election suddenly arising, an Electoral College was to be formed by fifty members drawn from the Legislative Chamber and fifty from the Senate, the Presidential candidates consisting of the President (if he so desired) and the three whose names were in the gold box in the Stone House in the Palace grounds. It is not definitely known to whom these provisions were due, but it is known that at least they were not the work of the American adviser.
His responsibility, however, was very great; for the keynote of all this scheme, according to Dr. Goodnow[12], was "centralization of power," a parrot-like phrase which has deluded better men than ever came to China and which--save as a method necessary during a state of war--should have no place in modern politics. But it was precisely this which appealed to Yuan Shih-kai. Although as President he was _ex officio_ Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, he now turned this office into a direct and special organization installed within the precincts of the Imperial City. The flags of this new dictatorship constantly floated over his palace, whilst scores of officers were appointed to scores of departments which were directly concerned with centralizing the control of every armed man in the country in the master"s hands. Meanwhile in order to placate provincial commanders, a "Palace of Generals," was created in Peking to which were brought all men it was held desirable to emasculate. Here, drawing ample salaries, they could sit in idleness the livelong day, discussing the battles they had never fought and intriguing against one another, two occupations in which the product of the older school of men in China excels. Provincial levies which had any military virtue, were gradually disbanded, though many of the rascals and rapscallions, who were open menaces to good government were left with arms in their hands so as to be an argument in favour of drastic police-rule. Thus it is significant of the underlying falseness and weakness of the dictator"s character that he never dared to touch the troops of the reprobate General Chang Hsun, who had made trouble for years, and who had nearly embroiled China in war with j.a.pan during the so-called Second Revolution (July-August, 1913) by ma.s.sacring some j.a.panese civilians in the streets of Nanking when the city was recaptured. So far from disbanding his men, Chang Hsun managed constantly to increase his army of 30,000 men on the plea that the post of Inspector-General of the Yangtsze Valley, which had been given to him as a reward for refusing to throw in his lot with the Southern rebels, demanded larger forces. Yuan Shih-kai, although half afraid of him, found him at various periods useful as a counterweight to other generals in the provinces; in any case he was not the man to risk anything by attempting to crush him. As he was planted with his men astride of the strategically important Pukow railway, it was always possible to order him at a moment"s notice into the Yangtsze Valley which was thus constantly under the menace of fire and sword.
Far and wide Yuan Shih-kai now stretched his nets. He even employed Americans throughout the United States in the capacity of press-agents in order to keep American public opinion favourable to him, hoping to invoke their a.s.sistance against his life-enemy--j.a.pan--should that be necessary. The precise details of this propaganda and the sums spent in its prosecution are known to the writer; if he refrains from publishing them it is solely for reasons of policy. England it was not necessary to deal with in this way. Chance had willed that the British Representative in Peking should be an old friend who had known the Dictator intimately since his Korean days; and who faithful to the extraordinary English love of hero-worship believed that such a surprising character could do little wrong. British policy which has always been a somewhat variable quant.i.ty in China, owing to the spasmodic attention devoted to such a distant problem, may be said to have been non-existent during all this period--a state of affairs not conducive to international happiness.
Slowly the problem developed in a shiftless, irresolute way. Unable to see that China had vastly changed, and that government by rascality had become a physical and moral impossibility, the Legations in Peking adopted an att.i.tude of indifference leaving Yuan Shih-kai to wreak his will on the people. The horde of foreign advisers who had been appointed merely as a piece of political window-dressing, although they were allowed to do no work, were useful in running backwards and forwards between the Legations and the Presidential headquarters and in making each Power suppose that its influence was of increasing importance. It was made abundantly clear that in Yuan Shih-kai"s estimation the Legations played in international politics much the same role that provincial capitals did in domestic politics: so long as you bound both to benevolent neutrality the main problem--the consolidation of dictatorial power--could be pushed on with as you wished. Money, however, remained utterly lacking and a new twenty-five million sterling loan was spoken of as inevitable--the acc.u.mulated deficit in 1914 being alone estimated at thirty-eight million pounds. But although this financial dearth was annoying, Chinese resources were sufficient to allow the account to be carried on from day to day. Some progress was made in railways, building concessions being liberally granted to foreign corporations, this policy having received a great impetus from the manner in which Dr. Sun Yat Sen had boomed the necessity for better communications during the short time he had ruled at a National Railway Bureau in Shanghai, an office from which he had been relieved in 1913 on it being discovered that he was secretly indenting for quick-firing guns. Certain questions proved annoying and insoluble, for instance the Tibetan question concerning which England was very resolute, as well as the perpetual risings in Inner Mongolia, a region so close to Peking that concentrations of troops were necessary. But on the whole as time went on there was increasing indifference both among the Foreign Powers and Chinese for the extraordinary state of affairs which had been allowed to grow up.
There was one notable exception, however, j.a.pan. Never relaxing her grip on a complicated problem, watchful and active, where others were indifferent and slothful, j.a.pan bided her time. Knowing that the hour had almost arrived when it would be possible to strike, j.a.pan was vastly active behind the scenes in China long before the outbreak of the European war gave her the longed for opportunity; and largely because of her the pear, which seemed already almost ripe, finally withered on the tree.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] It is significant that Dr. Goodnow carried out all his Const.i.tutional studies in Germany, specializing in that department known as Administrative Law which has no place, fortunately, in Anglo-Saxon conceptions of the State.
CHAPTER V
THE FACTOR OF j.a.pAN
(FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE WORLD-WAR, 1ST AUGUST, 1914, TO THE FILING OF THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS, 18TH JANUARY, 1915)
The thunderclap of the European war shattered the uneasy calm in China, not because the Chinese knew anything of the mighty issues which were to be fought out with such desperation and valour, but because the presence of the German colony of Kiaochow on Chinese soil and the activity of German cruisers in the Yellow Sea brought the war to China"s very doors.
Vaguely conscious that this might spell disaster to his own ambitious plans, Yuan Shih-kai was actually in the midst of tentative negotiations with the German Legation regarding the retrocession of the Kiaochow territory when the news reached him that j.a.pan, after some rapid negotiations with her British Ally, had filed an ultimatum on Germany, peremptorily demanding the handing-over of all those interests that had been forcibly acquired in Shantung province in the great leasing-year of 1898.
At once Yuan Shih-kai realized that the Nemesis which had dogged his footsteps all his life was again close behind him. In the j.a.panese attack on Kiaochow he foresaw a web of complications which even his unrivalled diplomacy might be unable to unravel; for he knew well from bitter experience that wherever the j.a.panese sets his foot there he remains. It is consequently round this single factor of j.a.pan that the history of the two succeeding years revolves. From being indisputably the central figure on the Chinese canvas, Yuan Shih-kai suddenly becomes subordinate to the terror of j.a.panese intervention which hangs over him constantly like a black cloud, and governs every move he made from the 15th August, 1914, to the day of his dramatic death on the 6th June, 1916. We shall attempt to write down the true explanation of why this should have been so.
It is extremely hard to discuss the question of j.a.pan for the benefit of an exclusively Western audience in a convincing way because j.a.panese policy has two distinct facets which seem utterly contradictory, and yet which are in a great measure understandable if the objects of that diplomacy are set down. Being endowed with an extraordinary capacity for taking detached views, the Statesmen of Tokio long ago discerned the necessity of having two independent policies--an Eastern policy for Eastern Asia and a Western policy for Western nations--because East and West are essentially ant.i.thetical, and cannot be treated (at least not yet) in precisely the same manner. Whilst the Western policy is frank and manly, and is exclusively in the hands of brilliant and attractive men who have been largely educated in the schools of Europe and America and who are fully able to deal with all matters in accordance with the customary traditions of diplomacy, the Eastern policy is the work of obscurantists whose imaginations are held by the vast projects which the Military Party believes are capable of realization in China. There is thus a constant contradiction in the att.i.tude of j.a.pan which men have sought in vain to reconcile. It is for this reason that the outer world is divided into two schools of thought, one believing implicitly in j.a.pan"s _bona fides_, the other vulgarly covering her with abuse and declaring that she is the last of all nations in her conceptions of fair play and honourable treatment. Both views are far-fetched. It is as true of j.a.pan as it is of every other Government in the world that her actions are dictated neither by altruism nor by perfidy, but are merely the result of the faulty working of a number of fallible brains and as regards the work of administration in j.a.pan itself the position is equally extraordinary. Here, at the extreme end of the world, so far from being in any way threatened, the principle of Divine Right, which is being denounced and dismembered in Europe as a crude survival from almost heathen days, stands untouched and still exhibits itself in all its pristine glory. A highly aristocratic Court, possessing one of the most complicated and jealously protected hierarchies in the world, and presided over by a monarch claiming direct descent from the sacred Jimmu Tenno of twenty-five hundred years ago, decrees to-day precisely as before, the elaborate ritual governing every move, every decision and every agreement. There is something so engaging in this political curiosity, something so far removed from the vast world-movement now rolling fiercely to its conclusion, that we may be pardoned for interpolating certain capital considerations which closely affect the future of China and therefore cannot fail to be of public interest.
The j.a.panese, who owe their whole theocratic conception to the Chinese, just as they owe all their letters and their learning to them, still nominally look upon their ruler as the link between Heaven and Earth, and the central fact dominating their cosmogony. Although the vast number of well-educated men who to-day crowd the cities of j.a.pan are fully conscious of the bizarre nature of this belief in an age which has turned its back on superst.i.tion, nothing has yet been done to modify it because--and this is the important point--the structure of j.a.panese society is such that without a violent upheaval which shall hurl the military clan system irremediably to the ground, it is absolutely impossible for human equality to be admitted and the man-G.o.d theory to be destroyed. So long as these two features-exist; that is so long as a privileged military caste supports and attempts to make all-powerful the man-G.o.d theory, so long will j.a.pan be an international danger-spot because there will lack those democratic restraints which this war has shown are absolutely essential to secure a peaceful understanding among the nations. It is for this reason that j.a.pan will fail to attain the position the art-genius and industry of her people ent.i.tle her to and must limp behind the progress of the world unless a very radical revision of the const.i.tution is achieved. The disabilities which arise from an archaic survival are so great that they will affect China as adversely as j.a.pan, and therefore should be universally understood.
j.a.panese history, if stripped of its superficial aspects, has a certain remarkable quality; it seems steeped in heroic blood. The doctrine of force, which expresses itself in its crudest forms in Europe, has always been in j.a.pan a system of heroic-action so fascinating to humanity at large that until recent times its international significance has not been realized. The feudal organization of j.a.panese society which arose as a result of the armed conquest of the islands fifteen hundred years ago, precluded centralizating measures being taken because the Throne, relying on the virtues of Divine Ancestors rather than on any well-articulated political theory, was weak in all except certain quasisacerdotal qualities, and forced to rely on great chieftains for the execution of its mandates as well as for its defence. The military t.i.tle of "barbarian-conquering general," which was first conferred on a great clan leader eight centuries ago, was a natural enough development when we remember that the autochthonous races were even then not yet pushed out of the main island, and were still battling with the advancing tide of j.a.panese civilization which was itself composed of several rival streams coming from the Asiatic mainland and from the Malayan archipelagoes. This armed settlement saturates j.a.panese history and is responsible for the unending local wars and the glorification of the warrior. The conception of triumphant generalship which Hideyoshi attempted unsuccessfully to carry into Korea in the Sixteenth Century, led directly at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century to the formal establishment of the Shogunate, that military dictatorship being the result of the backwash of the Korean adventure, and the greatest proof of the disturbance which it had brought in j.a.panese society. The persistence of this hereditary military dictatorship for more than two and a half centuries is a remarkable ill.u.s.tration of the fact that as in China so in j.a.pan the theocratic conception was unworkable save in primitive times--civilization demanding organization rather than precepts and refusing to bow its head to speechless kings. Although the Restoration of 1868 nominally gave back to the Throne all it had been forced to leave in other hands since 1603, that transfer of power was imaginary rather than real, the new military organization which succeeded the Shogun"s government being the vital portion of the Restoration. In other words, it was the leaders of j.a.pan"s conscript armies who inherited the real power, a fact made amply evident by the crushing of the Satsuma Rebellion by these new corps whose organization allowed them to overthrow the proudest and most valorous of the Samurai and incidentally to proclaim the triumph of modern firearms.
Now it is important to note that as early as 1874--that is six years after the Restoration of the Emperor Meiji--these facts were attracting the widest notice in j.a.panese society, the agitation for a Const.i.tution and a popular a.s.sembly being very vigorously pushed. Led by the well-known and aristocratic Itagaki, j.a.panese Liberalism had joined battle with out-and-out Imperialism more than a quarter of a century ago; and although the question of recovering Tariff and Judicial autonomy and revising the Foreign Treaties was more urgent in those days, the foreign question was often pushed aside by the fierceness of the const.i.tutional agitation.
It was not, however, until 1889 that a Const.i.tution was finally granted to the j.a.panese--that instrument being a gift from the Crown, and nothing more than a conditional warrant to a limited number of men to become witnesses of the processes of government but in no sense its controllers. The very first Diet summoned in 1890 was sufficient proof of that. A collision at once occurred over questions of finance which resulted in the resignation of the Ministry. And ever since those days, that is for twenty-seven consecutive years, successive Diets in j.a.pan have been fighting a forlorn fight for the power which can never be theirs save by revolution, it being only natural that Socialism should come to be looked upon by the governing cla.s.s as Nihilism, whilst the mob-threat has been very acute ever since the Tokio peace riots of 1905.
Now it is characteristic of the ceremonial respect which all j.a.panese have for the Throne that all through this long contest the main issue should have been purposely obscured. The traditional feelings of veneration which a loyal and obedient people feel for a line of monarchs, whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, are such that they have turned what is in effect an ever-growing struggle against the archaic principle of divine right into a contest with clan-leaders whom they a.s.sert are acting "unconst.i.tutionally" whenever they choose to a.s.sert the undeniable principles of the Const.i.tution. Thus to-day we have this paradoxical situation; that although j.a.panese Liberalism must from its very essence be revolutionary, _i.e._, destructive before it can hope to be constructive, it feigns blindness, hoping that by suasion rather than by force the principle of parliamentary government will somehow be grafted on to the body politic and the emperors, being left outside the controversy, become content to accept a greatly modified rule.
This hope seems a vain one in the light of all history. Militarism and the clans are by no means in the last ditch in j.a.pan, and they will no more surrender their power than would the Russian bureaucracy. The only argument which is convincing in such a case is the last one which is ever used; and the mere mention of it by so-called socialists is sufficient to cause summary arrest in j.a.pan. Sheltering themselves behind the Throne, and nominally deriving their latter-day dictatorship from the Imperial mandate, the military chiefs remain adamant, nothing having yet occurred to incline them to surrender any of their privileges. By a process of adaptation to present-day conditions, a formula has now been discovered which it is hoped will serve many a long year. By securing by extra-legal means the return of a "majority" in the House of Representatives the fiction of national support of the autocracy has been re-invigorated, and the doctrine laid down that what is good for every other advanced people in the world is bad for the j.a.panese, who must be content with what is granted them and never question the superior intelligence of a privileged caste. In the opinion of the writer, it is every whit as important for the peace of the world that the people of j.a.pan should govern themselves as it is for the people of Germany to do so. The persistence of the type of military government which we see to-day in j.a.pan is harmful for all alike because it is as antiquated as Tsarism and a perpetual menace to a disarmed nation such as China. So long as that government remains, so long must j.a.pan remain an international suspect and be denied equal rights in the council-chambers of the Liberal Powers.
If the situation which arose on the 15th August, 1914, is to be thoroughly understood, it is necessary to pick up threads of Chino-j.a.panese relations from a good many years back. First-hand familiarity with the actors and the scenes of at least three decades is essential to give the picture the completeness, the brilliancy of colouring, and withal the suggestiveness inseparable from all true works of art. For the Chino-j.a.panese question is primarily a work of art and not merely a piece of jejune diplomacy stretched across the years.
As the shuttle of Fate has been cast swiftly backwards and forwards, the threads of these entwining relations have been woven into patterns involving the whole Far East, until to-day we have as it were a complete Gobelin tapestry, magnificent with meaning, replete with action, and full of scholastic interest.
Let us follow some of the tracery. It has long been the habit to affirm that the conflict between China and j.a.pan had its origin in Korea, when Korea was a va.s.sal state acknowledging the suzerainty of Peking; and that the conflict merited ending there, since of the two protagonists contending for empire j.a.pan was left in undisputed mastery. This statement, being incomplete, is dangerously false. Dating from that vital period of thirty years ago, when Yuan Shih-kai first went to Seoul as a general officer in the train of the Chinese Imperial Resident (on China being forced to take action in protection of her interests, owing to the "opening" of Korea by the American Treaty of 1882) three contestants, equally interested in the balance of land-power in Eastern Asia were constantly pitted against one another with Korea as their common battling-ground--Russia, China and j.a.pan. The struggle, which ended in the eclipse of the first two, merely shifted the venue from the Korean zone to the Manchurian zone; and from thence gradually extended it further and further afield until at last not only was Inner Mongolia and the vast belt of country fronting the Great Wall embraced within its scope, but the entire aspect of China itself was changed. For these important facts have to be noted. Until the Russian war of 1904-05 had demonstrated the utter valuelessness of Tsarism as an international military factor, j.a.pan had been almost willing to resign herself to a subordinate role in the Far East. Having eaten bitter bread as the result of her premature attempt in 1895 (after the Korean war) to become a continental power--an attempt which had resulted in the forced retrocession of the Liaotung Peninsula--she had been placed on her good behaviour, an att.i.tude which was admirably reflected in 1900 when her Peking Expeditionary Force proved itself so well-behaved and so gallant as to arouse the world"s admiration. But the war with Russia and the collapse of the Tsar"s Manchurian adventure not only drew her back into territory that she never hoped to see again, but placed her in possession of a ready-made railway system which carried her almost up to the Sungari river and surrendered to her military control vast gra.s.slands stretching to the Khingan mountains. This Westernly march so greatly enlarged the j.a.panese political horizon, and so entirely changed the j.a.panese viewpoint, that the statesmen of Tokio in their excitement threw off their ancient spectacles and found to their astonishment that their eyes were every whit as good as European eyes. Now seeing the world as others had long seen it, they understood that just as with the individuals so with nations the struggle for existence can most easily be conducted by adopting that war-principle of Clausewitz--the restless offensive, and not by writing meaningless dispatches. Prior to the Russian war they had written to Russia a magnificent series of doc.u.ments in which they had pleaded with sincerity for an equitable settlement,--only to find that all was in vain. Forced to battle, they had found in combat not only success but a new principle.
The discovery necessitated a new policy. During the eighties, and in a lesser degree in the nineties, j.a.pan had apart from everything else been content to act in a modest and retiring way, because she wished at all costs to avoid testing too severely her immature strength. But owing to the successive collapses of her rivals, she now found herself not only forced to attack as the safest course of action, but driven to the view that the Power that exerts the maximum pressure constantly and unremittedly is inevitably the most successful. This conclusion had great importance. For just as the first article of faith for England in Asia has been the doctrine that no Power can be permitted to seize strategic harbours which menace her sea-communications, so did it now become equally true of j.a.pan that her dominant policy became not an Eastern Monroe doctrine, as shallow men have supposed, but simply the Doctrine of Maximum Pressure. To press with all her strength on China was henceforth considered vital by every j.a.panese; and it is in this spirit that every diplomatic pattern has been woven since the die was cast in 1905. Until this signal fact has been grasped no useful a.n.a.lysis can be made of the evolution of present conditions. Standing behind this policy, and constantly reinforcing it, are the serried ranks of the new democracy which education and the great increase in material prosperity have been so rapidly creating. The soaring ambition which springs from the sea lends to the attacks developed by such a people the aspect of piracies; and it is but natural. In such circ.u.mstances that for Chinese j.a.pan should not only have the aspect of a sea-monster but that their country should appear as hapless Andromeda bound to a rock, always awaiting a Perseus who never comes....
The Revolution of 1911 had been entirely unexpected in j.a.pan. Whilst large outbreaks had been certainly counted on since the Chinese Revolutionary party had for years used j.a.pan as an asylum and a base of operations, never had it been antic.i.p.ated that the fall of an ancient Dynasty could be so easily encompa.s.sed. Consequently, the abdication of the Manchus as the result of intrigues rather than of warfare was looked upon as little short of a catastrophe because it hopelessly complicated the outlook, broke the pattern which had been so carefully woven for so many years, and interjected harsh elements which could not be a.s.signed an orderly place. Not only was a well-articulated State-system suddenly consigned to the flames, but the ruin threatened to be so general that the balance of power throughout the Far East would be twisted out of shape. j.a.panese statesmen had desired a weak China, a China which would ultimately turn to them for a.s.sistance because they were a kindred race, but not a China that looked to the French Revolution for its inspiration. To a people as slow to adjust themselves to violent surprises as are the j.a.panese, there was an air of desperation about the whole business which greatly alarmed them, and made them determined at the earliest possible moment to throw every ounce of their weight in the direction which would best serve them by bringing matters back to their original starting-point. For this reason they were not only prepared in theory in 1911 to lend armed a.s.sistance to the Manchus but would have speedily done so had not England strongly dissented from such a course of action when she was privately sounded about the matter. Even to-day, when a temporary adjustment of j.a.panese policy has been successfully arranged, it is of the highest importance for political students to remember that the dynastic influences in Tokio have never departed from the view that the legitimate sovereignty of China remains vested in the Manchu House and that everything that has taken place since 1911 is irregular and unconst.i.tutional.
For the time being, however, two dissimilar circ.u.mstances demanded caution: first, the enthusiasm which the j.a.panese democracy, fed by a highly excited press, exhibited towards the Young China which had been so largely grounded in the Tokio schools and which had carried out the Revolution: secondly--and far more important--the deep, abiding and ineradicable animosity which j.a.panese of all cla.s.ses felt for the man who had come out of the contest head and shoulders above everybody else--Yuan Shih-kai. These two remarkable features ended by completely thrusting into the background during the period 1911-1914 every other element in j.a.panese statesmanship; and of the two the second must be counted the decisive one. Dating back to Korea, when Yuan Shih-kai"s extraordinary diplomatic talents constantly allowed him to worst his j.a.panese rivals and to make Chinese counsels supreme at the Korean Court up to the very moment when the first shots of the war of 1894 were fired, this ancient dislike, which amounted to a consuming hatred, had become a fixed idea. Restrained by the world"s opinion during the period prior to the outbreak of the world-war as well as by the necessity of acting financially in concert with the other Powers, it was not until August, 1914, that the longed-for opportunity came and that j.a.pan prepared to act in a most remarkable way.
The campaign against Kiaochow was unpopular from the outset among the j.a.panese public because it was felt that they were not legitimately called upon to interest themselves in such a remote question as the balance of power among European nations, which was what British warfare against Germany seemed to them to be. Though some ill-will was felt against Germany for the part played by her in the intervention of 1895, it must not be forgotten that just as the j.a.panese navy is the child of the British navy, so is the j.a.panese army the child of the German army--and that j.a.panese army chiefs largely control j.a.pan. These men were averse from "spoiling their army" in a contest which did not interest them. There was also the feeling abroad that England by calling upon her Ally to carry out the essential provisions of her Alliance had shown that she had the better part of a bargain, and that she was exploiting an old advantage in a way which could not fail to react adversely on j.a.pan"s future world"s relationships. Furthermore, it is necessary to underline the fact that official j.a.pan was displeased by the tacit support an uninterested British Foreign Office had consistently given to the Yuan Shih-kai regime. That the Chinese experiment was looked upon in England more with amus.e.m.e.nt than with concern irritated the j.a.panese--more particularly as the British Foreign Office was issuing in the form of White Papers doc.u.ments covering Yuan Shih-kai"s public declarations as if they were contributions to contemporary history. Thus in the preceding year (1913) under the nomenclature of "affairs in China" the text of a _dementi_ regarding the President of China"s Imperial aspirations had been published,--a doc.u.ment which j.a.panese had cla.s.sified as a studied lie, and as an act of presumption because its working showed that its author intended to keep his back turned on j.a.pan. The Dictator had declared:--
... From my student days, I, Yuan Shih-kai, have admired the example of the Emperors Yao and Shun, who treated the empire as a public trust, and considered that the record of a dynasty in history for good or ill is inseparably bound up with the public spirit or self-seeking by which it has been animated. On attaining middle age I grew more familiar with foreign affairs, was struck by the admirable republican system in France and America, and felt that they were a true embodiment of the democratic precepts of the ancients. When last year the patriotic crusade started in Wuchang its echoes went forth into all the provinces, with the result that this ancient nation with its 2,000 years of despotism adopted with one bound the republican system of government.
It was my good fortune to see this glorious day at my life"s late eve; I cherished the hope that I might dwell in the seclusion of my own home and partic.i.p.ate in the blessings of an age of peace.
But once again my fellow-countrymen honoured me with the pressing request that I should again a.s.sume a heavy burden, and on the day on which the Republic was proclaimed I announced to the whole nation that never again should a monarchy be permitted in China. At my inauguration I again took this solemn oath in the sight of heaven above and earth beneath. Yet of late ignorant persons in the provinces have fabricated wild rumours to delude men"s minds, and have adduced the career of the First Napoleon on which to base their erroneous speculations. It is best not to inquire as to their motives; in some cases misconception may be the cause, in others deliberate malice.
The Republic has now been proclaimed for six months; so far there is no prospect of recognition from the Powers, while order is far from being restored in the provinces. Our fate hangs upon a hair; the slightest negligence may forfeit all. I, who bear this arduous responsibility, feel it my bounden duty to stand at the helm in the hope of successfully breasting the wild waves.
But while those in office are striving with all their might to effect a satisfactory solution, spectators seem to find a difficulty in maintaining a generous forbearance. They forget that I, who have received this charge from my countrymen, cannot possibly look dispa.s.sionately on when the fate of the nation is in the balance. If I were aware that the task was impossible and played a part of easy acquiescence, so that the future of the Republic might become irreparable, others might not reproach me, but my own conscience would never leave me alone.
My thoughts are manifest in the sight of high heaven. But at this season of construction and dire crisis how shall these mutual suspicions find a place? Once more I issue this announcement; if you, my fellow countrymen, do indeed place the safety of China before all other considerations, it behooves you to be large-minded.
Beware of lightly heeding the plausible voice of calumny, and of thus furnishing a medium for fostering anarchy. If evilly disposed persons, who are bent on destruction, seize the excuse for sowing dissension to the jeopardy of the situation, I, Yuan Shih-kai, shall follow the behest of my fellow-countrymen in placing such men beyond the pale of humanity.
A vital issue is involved. It is my duty to lay before you my inmost thought, so that suspicion may be dissipated. Those who know have the right to impose their censure. It is for public opinion to take due notice.