Kansas City daily journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1892-1897, 1896-12-01
Lii Hung Chang and China.

FROM HarperS w eekly.
That was a strange collocation of a sin
gle days dispatches which told how Lii
Hung Chang. upon his arrival at Peking,
had been made minister of foreign affairs,
and had been reprimanded for omitting one
or more of the proper forms in paying his
respects to the dowager empress. 1t was
known before that the old lady was great
stickier for etiquette, though in this she
does not differ from some Christian sover-
eigns of her sex. She is a great stickler
also for more substantial things, and is
believed to have done her full share to-
wards getting the Middle Kingdom into its
recent scrapes. The conjunction of repri-
mand and promotion would not be very
credible anywhere else but it is no more
incredible in China than things that have
induh!tably happened, as, for example, the
quick Succession of the priyatlon of the yel-
low jacket and its restoration, followed by
the bestowal of confidential mission
which anywhere else would denote a man
whom the king delighted to honor.
1t is quite hopeless for an Occidental TO
attempt 20 penetrate the mysteries of Chi
nese politics. The more the kingdom is
laid open by conquering invaders the less
do We understand what is disclosed. This
want of apprehension seems to be shared
by men who have given their lives TO un-
derstanding. For a generation or so Great
Britain has been conciltating China and
treating Japan with contempt, upon the
theory that China was a valuable ally
against Russian aggression. When Great
Britain had succeeded in alternating Japan
in the supposed interest of China. and
Japan had conquered China, it suddenly
appears that it is Russia which gets the
ultimate benefit of all the proceedings For
there does not seem to be any doubt that
the concession of Chinese outlet for the
Siberian railway has in fact been made.
There Is reason to doubt, however. that
Ii Hung Chang has been made minister of
foreign affairs. In the first place there is
no such minister and, indeed no such
ministry; and in China that is rather more
than iesail. OF the administrative
boards, which among them mismanaee the
empire, not one is specifically department
of foreign affairs, and If there were it
would be a board and not an individual
Abroad is as much ignored in all Chi
nese official arrangements as Mr.. Mckin-
change. or Mr.. Bryan in finance. In the
next place. the report does not take ac-
count of the dead weight of inertia that
the mandarin class can and does oppose to
any attempt to assimulate their country to
the rest of the world. or to put 1t in line
with modern progress. The contempt of
mere ignorance, such as the untutored
Chinaman exhibits for foreigners, is moth
ing to the contempt of Cinnamon tutored
after the Chinese mode of education. Ii
Hung Chang IS an energetic person. but
he is quite helpless against this inert re-
sistance. We may be quite sure that a
Chlnaman who believes that the isolation
of China ought to be modified is looked
upon either as a harmless visionary or a
dangerous radical. Ii Hung Chang cannot
be put in the former class, and so he must
belong to the latter In the course of his
voyage round the world he has expressed
himself in favor of fuller and freer trade
with his own country. and this is to the
mandarins sentiment alarming and revo-
lutionary. Though the innovator is an old
man in the scale of human life, he is
mere boy in that of Chinese civilization
selves some 200 years older, and conse-
Quently wiser. than he.