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^ DIES* , C"-^^ i"^^' SIGNS AND PORTENTS IN THE FAR EAST thp: bi.ack-hattkd statue in the heart of canton SIGNS AND PORTENTS IN THE FAR EAST BY EVERARD COTES WITH THIRTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS SECOND EDITION METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON I907 ' February ' • First Puhlished . ^^^^ ^^^^ • ' • Second Edition TO MY WIFE PREFACE of to-day in the Far East are EVENTSposters for to-morrow. No white man can wander, as the writer of these pages did last summer, through China, Manchuria, Korea, and Japan, without having forced upon his sight some of the inscriptions which these posters bear. The impressions here set down are those of an Anglo-Indian journalist who does not apologise for his point of view, since the potentialities of India as the coadjutor of Great Britain in the future of the Far East can hardly be over-estimated. That future is perhaps the most serious problem of the twentieth century. So immediate and dramatic, so big with possi- bilities and crowded with incident, is the new situation, that the writer publishes his report believing that the evidence of an eye-witness cannot fail to be of value where Anglo-Saxon interests are so closely concerned and so plainly threatened. London February^ igoj vii CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE , . I . vii CHAPTER I. THE CASE FOR ENQUIRY .... I II. CHINESE IN BRITISH TERRITORY. M III. IN . THE SITUATION CANTON / . .21 IV. THE ANTI-FOREIGN MOVEMENT IN MIDDLE CHINA . 3 1 V. THE MISSIONARY ... .47 VI. THE NEMESIS OF THE MIXED MOTIVE . .57 VII. HANKOW AND ITS FACTORIES ... 79 VIII. TO PEKING BY RAIL . .91 IX. THE PEKING OF TO-DAY . 103 X. THE COOLIE TRAFFIC IN CHIHLI . II7 XI. PORT ARTHUR AS IT IS . I31 XII. NORTHWARDS IN MANCHURIA . .145 XIII. AT MUKDEN . .155 XIV. ACROSS SOUTH-EAST MANCHURIA . l6r XV. DIFFICULTIES IN KOREA . .173 ix X SIGNS AND PORTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XVI. THE FUTURE OF KOREA . IQI XVII. THE JAPANESE COEFFICIENT . 203 XVIII, CONTRADICTIONS IN THE JAPANESE CHARACTER .217 XIX. I-IMITATIONS TO JAPANESE EFFICIENCY . 227 XX. THE NEW AND THE OLD IN TOKYO . 237 XXI. INDIA AS A LEVER IN THE FAR EAST . 253 XXII. THE OUTLOOK ...... 263 XXIII. APPENDICES : — a. THE ANGLO-JAPANESE TREATY . 285 b. THE PORTSMOUTH TREATY . 288 C. THE JAPANESE-KOREAN PROTOCOL . 295 d. THE PEKING TREATY .... 297 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE BLACK -HATTED STATUE IN THE HEART OF CANTON ........ Frontispiece FACING PAGE YELLOW COLLEAGUES AND . ; THE MAINLAND OF JOHORE l8 THE JETTIES, FACTORIES, AND DOCKS OF THE CITY HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE ACTIVE .... 32 A HOT MORNING SPENT IN INTERVIEWING SMILING CHINESE OFFICIALS ....... 42 From a Photograph by Mr. S. Yamamoto, Peking A HIGHER MORALITY THAN THAT WHICH EXISTS AROUND THEM ...... 52 A MORE HARMLESS-LOOKING SET OF PEOPLE WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE . .64 A CENTRE OF INDUSTRIES WHICH PROFOUNDLY AFFECT THE ENTIRE COUNTRY ...... 80 AND STEEL IRON IN , WORKS MIDDLE CHINA . .84 WHERE GREY KEEPS AND BATTLEMENTS TOWERED . I02 From a Photograph by Mr. S. Yamamoto, Peking THE BROAD THOROUGHFARE WHICH TARTAR CONQUERORS DROVE THROUGH THE PACKED CAPITAL THEY FOUND . I04 From a Photograph by Mr. S. Yamamoto, Peking xi XII SIGNS AND PORTENTS FACING PAGE I WAS IN TIME TO INSPECT ONE OF THE LAST OF THE GANGS OF COOLIES TO BE DESPATCHED TO SOUTH AFRICA . .118 THE SWAMPY HARBOUR OF NEUCHWANG . .128 IN PORT ARTHUR TO-DAY . '140 OUTSIDE THE CITY; A LOAD OF MANCHURIAN MILLET . 150 IN THE STREETS OF MUKDEN . 156 LOCOMOTION IN MUKDEN . 158 SUDDENLY THE WAY WAS PAVED WITH BIG SQUARE BLOCKS 1 60 DAYLIGHT SAW US AGAIN IN THE TRAIN . 168 IN HOMELY VOLUMINOUS WHITE PETTICOAT . 180 YELLOW CARDBOARD ROOMS OF THE DEAD QUEEN'S • • . 186 QUARTERS . BENEATH THE WALLS OF AN OLD KOREAN CITY . 202 DOCKYARDS IN KOBE AND OSAKA WHERE GUNBOATS WERE BEING MANUFACTURED FOR THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT 2o6 TO SEE THE LACQUER AND GILT TEMPLES . 228 From a Photograph by Mr. Tamamuro, Kobe AN EMERALD AND SAPPHIRE TRAINING GROUND FOR JAPANESE SEAMEN ...... 252 From a Photograph by Mr. Tamamuro, Kobe SIGNS AND PORTENTS IN THE FAR EAST CHAPTER I THE CASE FOR ENQUIRY time has now elapsed since the SUFFICIENTconclusion of the war in Manchuria to permit some opinion to be formed of the nature of the changes in the Far East which began when Russia was defeated by an Oriental power. Even earlier than that it had become hard to realise that it was ever possible to dismiss Japan with a fan and a tea-cup. About the same time, for most people, the wooden bullets and sand-filled shells of another campaign began to retreat into Chinese mythology. " Those of us who saw that happy fantasy, The Mikado," upon the stage of twenty years ago have in the memory an inimitable and quite unique pos- session. Its gaiety and charm have vanished in the clash of arms, and nobody can altogether feel them now. Indeed the days of comic opera for the presentation of these peoples are over. We look 2 THE CASE FOR ExNQUIRY rather for their alien appearance in the Concert of it be an Europe, and hope that will not interruption. of Four years ago Russia was in firm possession of Manchuria the rich Chinese province ; Germany was pushing westwards from her base at Tsingtao, and threatened to absorb the entire Chinese penin- sula of France was northwards Shangtung ; creeping in was in Middle China Tonking ; Belgium engaged in railway enterprises designed to link the French in the south with their allies, the Russians, in the north. England and America, the only European be to mark time powers whose policy appeared to in China, saw their influence and their markets everywhere threatened by their more aggressive on the of neighbours. To-day, aggression part all white nations is in abeyance. Everybody is marking time. The dismemberment of China which the world Russia had thought so imminent has been arrested. limb. has been driven, snarling, from one lacerated France and Germany are slackening their grip upon two other members. The mandarin is upon his feet. He understands the mortal danger he has of his and escaped so narrowly, and by no virtue own, and vast brute apparendy begins to realise the bulk to the world. strength that render him formidable and who He regards Japan, Great Britain, America, less have been his preservers, with only one degree he has for the enemies suspicion and hostility than from whom they have saved him. He is cramming revolvers and cartridges into his waistbelt. His THE CASE FOR ENQUIRY 3 factories at Hanyang are busy making mausers and modern field-pieces. His viceroys are drilling and arming a hundred thousand followers. He is rudely refusing to grant more concessions to European exploiters, and makes no secret of his determination to manage his own affairs, and to assimilate just so much of the white man's science and civilisation as shall enable him to bid defiance to the white man himself. Japan has turned from the brilliant demonstration of her capacities before the world to the less con- spicuous task of their consolidation. She is developing her conquests, turning to new purposes the powers of organisation and attention to detail which enabled her to defeat Russia. She is by no means resting upon her laurels, but having measured her strength by a severe standard, is now taking steps to maintain and increase it. With admirable self-denial Japan is labouring to place her finances in a position of stability. It is now plain that she proposes to win commercial supremacy in the Far East. Her military preponderance is enabling her to foster the industrial enterprises of her own people in Manchuria and Korea. She is exercising ingenuity to lessen European, American, and Chinese competition in these countries while still respecting, as far as may be compulsory, the letter of the treaties she has signed. Her agents are penetrating into every part of China, as military experts, as professors, and as traders. Manchuria, sullen in the misery of newly stained 4 THE CASE FOR ENQUIRY battlefields, watches others exploit the marvellous riches of her grain-fields and coal-measures. Korea is in disorder, but it is the disorder of an awakening. The little vassal empire is moving, clumsily and painfully, but surely, out of her humiliating past, as an appendage of China, into a more hopeful future of incorporation with Japan. The potential energy of Manchuria is still bound and inert in the pro- tection of international jealousies and uncertain claims; but that of Korea is now at the disposal, manhood and markets, of one of the principals in the situation, a considerable increase of power and resources. Attention centres upon the principals. Already the cotton mills of Osaka and Wuchang rattle defiance at those of Manchester and Lowell, and the blast furnaces of the Yangtse and Kiusiu are depriving those of Sheffield and Pittsburg of many profitable contracts. The shipbuilding yards of the Inland Sea and of the Shanghai estuary now appro- priate a share in work that London and Glasgow once monopolised. Togo and Kuroki have proved that naval skill and military science are confined no to nations and across the Yellow longer European ; Sea, Yuan-Shih-Kai and Chan-Chi-Tung are demon- strating that Chinese can be armed and drilled to emulate Japanese troops. The recent boycott of American goods in the Nanking and Kwantung provinces has made it impossible to deny that the Chinese share the Japanese capacity for concerted action. As to the direction of that action, the THE CASE FOR ENQUIRY 5 indications seem clear.

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