Part 5 (1/2)
VI
SOWING THE WIND IN CHINA--TIENTSIN AND HONGKONG
If you could avoid the suburbs of mud huts and walled compounds, and step directly down from an airs.h.i.+p on the broad piazza of the Astor House at Tientsin (no treaty port is complete without its Astor House), you might also imagine yourself in a thriving English town. Set about this piazza are round tables, in bowers of potted plants, where sit Britishers, Germans, and Americans, with a gay sprinkling of soldiery. Across the street there is a green little park, where plump British babies are wheeled about and children romp among the shrubbery, and where the Sikh band plays on Sundays. There is nothing, unless it be the group of rickshaw coolies at the curb, or the fat Chinese policeman in the roadway, to recall China to the mind.
Yet Tientsin dominates all Northern China much as Shanghai dominates the mighty valley of the Yangtse. The railways and waterways (including the Grand Ca.n.a.l) all lead to Tientsin. It is Peking's seaport. The viceroy of the Northern Provinces makes it his seat of government. The chief point of contact between these Northern Provinces and Western civilization, it is through Tientsin that the new ideas which are stirring the sluggish Chinese mind to new desires and to a new purpose filter into one hundred million Mongoloid heads.
The foreign settlement is simply a polyglot cl.u.s.ter of nationalities, each with its ”concession” or allotment of land wrung from a browbeaten empire, each with its separate munic.i.p.al government ruled by its own consul-general, and the whole combined, for purposes of defense and aggression, into a loosely knit city of seven or eight thousand whites under the general direction of a dozen consulates. The British have their polo, golf, and racing grounds; the French have their wealthy church orders and their Parisian moving pictures; the Germans have their beer halls and delicatessen shops. The j.a.panese, the Russians, the Italians, the Austrians, all the powers, in fact, excepting the United States--which holds no land in China--contribute their lesser shares to the colour and the activity of this extraordinary place. And only a mile or two away, further up the crooked river, lies the huge, sprawling Chinese city, where nine hundred and fifty thousand blue-clad celestials--nearly a round million of them--ceaselessly watch the squabbling groups of foreigners, and by means of newspapers, travelling merchants, and the thousand and one other instruments for the spreading of gossip, tell all Northern China what they see.
Tientsin, then, like Shanghai, is a potent, an electric, force in its influence on China. Whatever the Chinese are to become in their struggle towards the light of day will be in some measure due to the example set by these two cities, the only samples of Western civilization which the Chinaman can scrutinize at close range. The missionary tells him of the G.o.d of the Western peoples, and of how His Spirit regenerates humankind; the Chinaman listens stolidly, and then turns to look at the samples of regenerated peoples that fringe his Coast. What he actually sees will stick in his mind long after what he merely hears shall have pa.s.sed out at the other ear. And these impressions that stick in the Chinaman's mind are precisely the highly charged forces that are revolutionizing China to-day.
While still at Peking, I had picked up more or less gossip which seemed to indicate that the Tientsin foreign concessions were setting an unfortunate example in the matter of opium. In several of the concessions there are thousands of Chinese traders who have crowded in the white man's territory, in order to make a living. These Chinese districts demand their opium, and they have always been allowed to have it. The opium shops and dens are licensed, as are our saloons, and the resulting revenue is cheerfully accepted by the various munic.i.p.alities. When the Chinese officials set out to fight opium last winter and spring, they asked the foreign consuls to cooperate with them. This could be no more than a friendly request, for the concessions are foreign soil, that have pa.s.sed wholly out of China's control; but it was obviously of no use to close the dens of the native city if smokers could continue to gratify their desire by simply walking down the road.
This request bothered the consuls. The Chinese had adroitly placed them in a difficult position. A failure to cooperate would look bad; but revenue is revenue, on the Chinese Coast as elsewhere. More, if they could play for time, the enforcement in the native city, by driving the smokers over into the concessions, would actually increase the revenue. So the consuls played for time. They spread the impression ”back home” that they were going to close the dens. When? Oh, soon--very soon. There were matters of detail to attend to. The licenses must run out. Then, too, perhaps the Chinese proposals were ”insincere”--a little time would show.
The British concession boasted proudly that it had no opium dens. This was true. The concession is wholly taken up with British shops and British homes, and there is no room for Chinese residents. The German concession had so few natives that it closed some of its dens and took what credit it could. The j.a.panese quietly put on the lid. But all the other concessions remained ”wide open.”
So ran the Peking gossip. It seemed to me worth while to follow it up; for if it should prove true that the concessions were actually profiting, like Shanghai, by the native prohibition, that fact would be significant. It would leave little to say for the representatives of foreign civilization in China.
There was a particular reason why the prohibition should be made effective in and about Tientsin. The one official who stood before his country and the world as the anti-opium leader, who personified, in fact, the reform spirit which is leavening the Chinese ma.s.s, was Yuan s.h.i.+ K'ai, the Northern viceroy. Tientsin was his viceregal capital. Before he could hope to convince the cynical observers of Britain and Europe that the anti-opium crusade was really on, he had to make good in his own city.
Yuan s.h.i.+ K'ai is a remarkable man. Unlike some of his colleagues who have travelled and studied abroad, he has never, I believe, been over the sea; yet no Chinese official shows a firmer grasp on his biggest and most bewildering of the world's governmental problems. Practically a self-made man (his father was a soldier), he worked up from rank to rank, himself a part and a product of the antiquated absolutism of his country, until he emerged at the top, a red-b.u.t.ton mandarin, a viceroy, with a personality towering above the superst.i.tious, tradition-ridden court, and yet sufficiently able and skillful to work with and through that court. We have seen, in an earlier chapter, how Yuan, then a governor, kept Shantung Province quiet during the Boxer outbreak. It is he who is building up the ”new army” with the aid of German and j.a.panese drill-masters. It is he who succeeded in introducing the study of modern science into the education of the official cla.s.ses. He is committed to the abolition of the palace eunuch system. He has, during the past year, made great headway with his bold plan to remodel this land of fossilized ideas into a const.i.tutional monarchy, with a representative parliament. But first, and above all else, he places the opium reforms. Unless this curse can be checked, and at least partially removed, there is no hope of progress.
Throughout this magnificent struggle for a new China, Viceroy Yuan has radically opposed the very spirit and genius of his race; but far from ostracizing himself or splitting the government, he has grown steadily in power and influence, until now, as a sort of prime minister, he appears to hold the substance of imperial authority in his hands. Try to imagine a self-made, reform politician outwitting and beating down the traditions of Tammany Hall in New York City, multiply his difficulties by a thousand or two, and you will perhaps have some notion of the sheer ability of this great man, who has risen above the traditions, even above the age-old prejudices of his own people. There are many Europeans in his retinue--physicians, military men, engineers, educators--all of whom apparently look up to him as a genuine superior. An _attache_ summed up for me this feeling which Yuan inspires in those who know him: ”You forget to think of him as a Chinaman,” said this _attache_, ”as in any way different from the rest of us.”
The viceroy took a personal hand in the Tientsin situation. On December 2, 1906, he issues the following doc.u.ment to the North and South Police Commissioners of Tientsin native city. Rather than altar the quaint wording, I quote just as it was translated for me:
”I have just received instructions from the cabinet ministers enjoining me to act according to the regulations which they presented to the throne, and which received their Majesties' consent. The evil effects of opium are known to all. It is the duty of us all to act according to the regulations, and do our utmost to get rid of them.
”The North and South police commissioners are authorized to close the opium dens, which have been the refuge of idle hands and young people who are not allowed to smoke at home. The said dens are to be closed at the end of the Tenth Moon (December 14th), at the same time notifying the keepers of restaurants and wine shops not to have opium-smoking instruments or opium prepared for their customers, nor are their customers allowed to take opium and smoke there.
”As to the concessions, the Customs Taotai is authorized to open conference with the different consuls, asking them to close the opium dens within a limited time.”
The two police commissioners at once made the proclamation public; and, as is evident from the following ”Reply to a pet.i.tion,” met with difficulties in enforcing it:
”It is impossible to change the date of closing dens. What is said in the pet.i.tion, that the keepers cannot square their accounts with their customers, may be true, but the viceroy's order must be obeyed. The dens shall be closed at the specified time.”
These orders were carried out. It is one of the advantages of a patriarchal form of government that orders can be carried out. There were no injunctions, no writs to show cause, no technical appeals. The few den keepers who dared to violate the prohibition were mildly punished on the first offense--most of them receiving two full weeks at hard labour. The real responsibility was placed upon the owners of the property rented out to the den keepers. It was recognized that these owners were the ones who really profited by the vice. They were given an opportunity to report any violations occurring on their property; but if a violation occurred, and the owner failed to report, his property was promptly confiscated. Here we see successfully employed a method which we in this country have been unable as yet to put into effect. The futility of punis.h.i.+ng engineers and switchmen for the sins of railroad corporations, of punis.h.i.+ng clerks for the offenses of bank directors, of punis.h.i.+ng keepers of disorderly houses in cases where we know that the real profit goes, in the form of a high rental, to the respectable owner of the property, has long been recognized among us. In China, while we see much that seems intolerable in the enforcement of law, we must admit that it is refres.h.i.+ng to find laws really enforced, and to see responsibility sometimes put where it belongs.
We of the United States are far ahead of the Chinese in all that goes to make up what we call civilization. But we have, among others, a law forbidding the sale of liquor on Sundays in New York City. We couldn't enforce the law if we tried; and we haven't enough moral courage to strike it off the books for the dead letter it is.
Yes, the Tientsin situation has its refres.h.i.+ng side. Yuan s.h.i.+ K'ai--a Chinaman,--set about it to close the opium dens that supplied this swarming cityful of Chinamen, and succeeded. He solved that most difficult problem which confronts human governments everywhere--in every climate, under every sky--the problem of moral regulation. He drove the manufacturers of opium and of opium accessories out of business. He cut his way through a tangle of ”interests,” vested and otherwise, not so different in their essence from the liquor interests of this country.
Thanks to his own character and resource, thanks to the cheerful directness of Chinese methods of governing (when directness and not indirectness is really wanted), he ”got results.” And not only in Tientsin native city, but also in Peking, and Pao-ting-fu, and all Chili Province, and throughout Shansi Province, and over large portions of Shantung, Shansi, and Manchuria. It was not a case of Maine prohibition, or Kansas prohibition, or New York excise regulation. He closed the dens!
While he was accomplis.h.i.+ng this result, and while the native Chamber of Commerce was appropriating a sum of money to found a hospital for the cure of opium victims, the ”Customs Taotai,” obeying the viceroy's instructions, courteously requested the consuls, as rulers of the foreign city, to help along by closing the dens in their munic.i.p.alities. It was mainly to see whether or not the consuls were ”helping” that I went down to Tientsin. There was no need to ask questions or to burrow among statistics. The opium dens of the concessions were either or they were not. Accordingly, I set out from the Astor House at nine o'clock one evening, by rickshaw. For interpreter I had Mr. Sung, the secretary of the Native Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, and with us went a young Englishman who spoke the language. This test seemed a fair one to apply, for it was April 23d, nearly five months after Viceroy Yuan's proclamation, and several weeks after the closing of the last dens in the native city.
We began with the French concession; and our first glimpses of the thriving opium business of the little munic.i.p.ality astonished us. The Taiku Road, the main street, where one finds churches, mission compounds, offices, and shops, displayed a row of red lights. Our three rickshaws pulled up at the first and we went in.
An opium den usually takes up one floor of a building. Against the walls is a continuous wooden platform, perhaps two feet high and extending over seven or eight feet into the room. This platform is divided at intervals of five or six feet by low part.i.tions, sometimes but a few inches in height, into compartments, each of which accommodates two smokers, with one lamp between them. Sometimes a rug or a bit of matting is laid on this hard couch, sometimes not; for the Chinaman, accustomed to sleeping on bricks, prefers his couches hard. A man always lies down to smoke opium; for the porous pill, which is pressed into the tiny orifice of the pipe, cannot be ignited, but is held directly over the lamp and the flame drawn up through it.
The first den we entered was on the second floor of a rickety building. We climbed the steep, infinitely dirty stairway, crossed a narrow hall, and opened a door. At first I found it difficult to see distinctly in the dim light and through the thick blue haze; and the overpowering, sickish fumes of the drug got into my nose and throat and made breathing a noticeable effort. There was a desk by the door, behind which sat the keeper of the den, with a litter of pipes and thimble-like cups before him. In a corner of the desk was a jar of opium, a thick, sticky substance, dark brown in colour, in appearance not unlike mola.s.ses in January. There were twenty smokers on the couches, some preparing the pellet of opium by kneading it and pressing it on the pipe-bowl, some dozing off the fumes, and a few smoking. An attendant moved about the room with fresh supplies of the drug. For each thimbleful, enough for one or two smokes, the price was fifteen cents (Mexican).