The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1900-06-17
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THE CHINESE VIEW OF 1T.
Rather Startling Look at "Th<
other side"

A Rather Startling Look at "The
other Side"
Letter to New York Tribune.
Well. now that we are all agreed upon
the Chinese question-as we all are. war
for wars sake men. and peace at any
price men, Little Americans and imperial
ist expansionists, Anglophobes and An
glophiles. all fully agreed that the Box
ers must be exterminated; that the Dow
ager Empress is a compound of Mesa
lima, Bloody Mary and Catherine of Rus
STA, who must be deposed, il not put to
death; that the Chinese governments is
wholly inefficient and corrupt. and must
be radically shakenfup by unlimited out
side Powers, and in brief that men with
pigtails and bias cut eyes have no rights
that men with short hair and straight
cut eyes are bound TO respect-now that
we are all so perfectly agreed upon these
things, from our own superior and infal-
ltble point of view, suppose we try for
a moment to look at the subject from the
point of view Of those very low-born, I'M
worthy and altogether disgraceful people
the Chinese themselves. We may not be
able to do 1t perfectly. Our initiative
faculties are not as highly developed as
those of the yellow folk whom we so much
condemn. But at least We may try.
In the first place, we shall have to CON
slider the Dowager Empress to be a par
tlcularly patriotic and astute severe en-.
For patriotism is love of country. ard
protection of 1t and its institutions asai s,
foreign assaults, whether open or ms d.
ious There can be no doubt that Tsu
Hsi loves China, according to her lights,
and is trying, and has for years teen
trying, at no matter what cost, 10 defend
the empire against alien aggression. From
her and her peoples point of view, indus
trial, commercial, social and religious ag
gression is just as full of menace mill
tary aggression, and is just as much to
be restricted. So she opposes it all con-
| sistently and perSistently. Perhaps she
has erred in so doing. Perhaps she has
| been blind to the best interests of China.
| Perhaps she has been folish In resisting
| an irresistible power. Perhaps II would
| have been far better for her ana for
China II she had let China be Americana
ed or Europeanized or RussiaIlized. Those.
! however, are matters for her and not fer
outsiders to judge. Neither America ror
| Europe, nor even Russia is fond of hav-
! ing outsiders dictate its domestic policy.
| And, at worst is 1t an objectionable fault
| for a patriot to make such mistakes
| through excess of patriotic zeal? Then
many of the worlds most honored pa
triots were grievous sinners.
We must also, as we have said, deem
her astute in craftsmanship, in spite of
|
has been menaced by foreign Powers,
any one of them too strong for her 90
| withstand. She has played them the one
against the other, and so maintained a
balance of rivalry between them as to
! prevent any one of them from attacking
| her In a Bismarck or a Francis Jo-
| seph we consider that consummate genius.
| Why should we esteem it less highly
when it is practised by an almond eyed
Monaghan? Again. in the last desperate
| extremity, when alien aggression has be-
| come most formidable and menacing and
| her tactful quiescence before 1t has arous-
| ed distrust and disaffection among her
| own subjects and provoked revolt
! against her and the dynasty what does
! she do? With consummate skill, she
| transforms the anti-dynastic movement
into an anti-foreign movement, with her
self as it's rallying point. and rouses the
popular enthusiasm of the Chinese mil
! lions in support of the dynasty as II has
not been reused before in this generation.
In Louise OF Prussia the world epplauds
and reveres such tactics. But In Tsu
| Hsi of China?
OF course, the Chinese are heathens
and all that And they have acted very
badly toward our missionaries and trav-
elers and traders. But history is by no
means silent on the subject Of the in1po-
sition of the opium trade, and of legisla-
ton dictated from the Sand Lots. and of
thousand other abominable outrages In
ficted upon those benighted heather by
civilized Christians. Perhaps Ii was all
for their good. Eels are much more use
full after thay are skinned than before,
but that fact seldom reconciles
them to the skinning. The simple
fact is that the Occidental Pow
ers - England. France, Russia and
the United States-have for many years
been treating China and the Chinese very
bady--as badly from the Chimes point OF
view, as the Chinese have treated the
strangers who have, unlimited, intruded
themselves within her gates. We have
heard some Of the most eminent and ex-
perienced American missionaries to China.
at the time of some of the worst Chinese
anti-mission riots. declare that they did
not wonder a bit at the conduct of the
Chinese, and, on the ground of the natural
lex talionis. did not greatly blame them.
We are going on, however, to coerce
China into submission to our ways. We
are all agreed that 1t is our right and our
duty to do so. We cannot permit that
vast empire to be shut against US. There
Is too vast a prospect OF profit In the de-
velopment OF it's resources and in the sale
of our goods to its inhabitants. Why, II
China were as well supplied with rail-
roads as Is the United States, II would
have at least two million miles. We have
simply got to go In and build those roads
and make 30 per cent. dividends on their
stock IL It takes all the smokeless powder
in the world to do II. But what a wretch
ed travesty upon sense and justice II Is
TO approve and urgently promote such
campaign against China, which Is, or
should be, as independent a sovereign
state as there is in the world, and at the
same time to cavil at the suppression OF
instruction and brigandage In the Phil
ippines, which by every principle of inter-
national law and natural morals are SUBJ
ject to our sovereignty and to control
which is legally and morally our duty as
well as our right w. F. J.
Brooklyn, June 49,