Conclusion
When every month brings some change in the political position in China, and the daily press is full of more or less contradictory rumours as to what is going on at Pekin, it is impossible to come to any real decision on the many vexed questions under discussion. One great fact, however, emerges distinctly from out of the chaos of conflicting data, and that is, that it will be Russia, with her wonderful faculty for working steadily onwards towards a definite aim, who will secure the lion’s share in the spoliation of the Celestials, whilst her Trans-Siberian railway, which already pays its way, creating trade wherever it passes, and in another four years will connect St. Petersburg with Port Arthur, will be one of the most important factors in changing the course of the commerce of the world.
Shut in as she is on the East by the English in Burmah and the French in Cochin-China, threatened on the West by the Germans and the Japanese, and dominated on the north by Russia, the Celestial Empire finds herself compelled to awake from her long stupor, and to arouse herself to action of some kind. With no real army, no longer an efficient fleet, however, what can she do? She can only choose what seems to her the least of the evils hemming her in on every side, and elect from among the many competitors for the post, the protector best able to save her not only from her outside enemies, but from herself.
IMPORTANCE OF RUSSIA
As has been very aptly said, Russia is of all the Western Powers the most imbued with Oriental ideas, and she combines, with the energy and ambition of a first-rate power of the future, a sympathy with the Celestials altogether wanting to France, Germany, or Great Britain. There is, in fact, an actual affinity of race between the Chinese and the inhabitants of the northern steppes, and there is therefore far more hope of real amalgamation between them than there can be in any other case. The English, the French, the Germans, the Italians, if they win the concessions they are now in their turn clamouring for, will always be aliens in the districts they acquire, and there will never, to use a homely but expressive phrase, be any love lost between them and the natives.
Li-Hung-Chang, one of the most enlightened statesmen who have ever arisen in China, came to Europe in 1896 with a view to ascertaining by personal observation, which of the western nations would be likely to be the best friend for his distracted country, in the enfeebled condition to which the war with Japan had reduced her. He saw quickly enough that it would not be England, nor Germany, nor France, but that it would be Russia. It was therefore with Russia that a treaty was eventually made, and ratified in 1897; this treaty, in addition to other privileges, giving to the great northern power. Port Arthur, with the right of making it a coaling station, and in case of war of concentrating troops in its harbour. “The Russians and the Chinese,” said Mitchie, writing more than thirty years ago, “are peculiarly suited to each other... the Russians meet the Chinese as Greek meets Greek... they understand each other’s character thoroughly, because they are so closely alike.” Recent events have proved how true was the insight of this astute observer, and it is evident that whilst the other Powers will have to content themselves with their various spheres of influence, Russia alone will obtain real political control of the Celestial Empire as a whole. There remains now no hope that the disintegrating forces at work in the once powerful nation will be arrested from within, in spite of the fact that again and again China has risen in the past from apparent dissolution into a greater nation than before, absorbing her conquerors and converting them into patriots, ready to dare all for their adopted country. The saving force must now come from without, and when once more there is a strong hand directed by a strong brain at the head of affairs, the resources of the unhappy land will be found to be practically inexhaustible. With a prolific soil, vast mineral wealth, and a teachable population, there is indeed no limit to what China, which has been called the India of the future, may become.
In the imminent partition of China into spheres of influence, should that partition finally supersede the more generous policy of the opening of the whole country on equal terms to the trade of all the European nations, the Yang-tse basin, with its populous towns of Nanking, Hankow, Fuchan, and others, will be the field of action of Great Britain; whilst Shantung, a rich sea-bound province, will be that of Germany; and the French, who already occupy Tonking on the south, will obtain concessions in the neighbouring districts. On every side railways are now being projected, and the probability is that ere the century just about to open has run half its course, the whole of China will be intersected by them.
In the Blue Book on Chinese affairs, issued on the 14th March of the current year (1899), the following significant statistics of the railway concessions granted to foreigners in the Celestial Empire are given, showing that Great Britain is more than equal to Russia in the actual amount of mileage secured, whilst Germany, France, Belgium, and America have among them less than Great Britain alone:
TELEGRAPHS IN CHINA
| British | railways | 2,800 | miles |
| Russian | ″ | 1,530 | ″ |
| German | ″ | 720 | ″ |
| Belgian | ″ | 650 | ″ |
| French | ″ | 420 | ″ |
| American | ″ | 300 | ″ |
More important still, as breaking up finally the isolation on which China has prided herself for so many centuries, is the fact that already pretty well all the important towns of the vast Empire are connected by telegraph with each other, and with the outside world. The search-light of publicity is in fact turned full upon the land once so fraught with mystery, and before long there will be no hidden thing connected with either court or country which will not be revealed to the inquisitive gaze of all the world.
The End