CHAPTER XXII.

WHAT SHOULD BRITAIN DO?

Ir may, perhaps, be said that, in pointing out the enormous difficulty of the Chinese situation, I am only saying what everybody knows, and that unless I have something to propose I had best be silent. Well, that is so, and since I am charged with none of the responsibilities that rest upon statesmen, I am quite willing to say what I would do if I were Premier of Britain, with such a majority in Parliament, and such a force of public opinion, as Lord Salisbury has. Or, rather, let me put it that I will say what I think I would do in the situation so described, for it is possible that I really might do something quite different. Each man is the product of his training and his environment, and my training and my environment obviously are different from the training and environment that go to make a Prime Minister. For a time I was a leader-writer, turning out for a morning paper of Britain about 300 a year of those articles where, in the space of one column, or a few lines more or less, each aspect of any

particular subject is understood to be fully and adequately discussed, and a definite and certain conclusion arrived at. My subjects were exceedingly various, and would range from the prospects of a general election to the condition of London bakehouses, or from the strengthening of the navy to the best means of improving the moral tone of Whitechapel. That kind of training produces a feeling of somewhat aggressive omniscience. That, however, was ten years ago, and since then I have been less accustomed to settle anything upon earth in 1,500 words (although still taking a turn at it occasionally), and have been content to regulate the policy and administer the affairs of a newspaper office in Asia. Concurrently with that, I have travelled, and I hope I have observed, and I have mixed with men of all nationalities and creeds. Still, I probably have failed to get away entirely from the self-opinionativeness born of the days of leader-writing, especially as during the last ten years I have been the absolute controller of my newspaper, without being responsible to anyone for anything, except to my partners for the production of a satisfactory yearly profit. That, as it happened, has been no very anxious responsibility, so that the disposition of the leader-writer to settle everything finally and out of hand has perhaps been increased rather than minimized by my subsequent training. Therefore when I say that if I were Prime Minister I would

do as follows, I perhaps only mean that I think I would do it. Here is what follows:

In the first place I would represent to the United States of America that it would be for the common interest of America and of Britain to maintain the whole of China, or almost the whole of it, as an open field for trading and financial adventure. I would suggest to the President of the United States that understandings for such a purpose would be of little use, not because of any suspected breach of faith, but because understandings are only suitable for such powers as Russia and Germany, where one may expect a continuous foreign policy, directed over many years by one man. I would point out that, with such constantly changing Governments as those of America and Britain, the only satisfactory course would be to record any mutual obligation in a treaty, by which, naturally, each successive Government would abide. I would, therefore, propose to America to make a treaty, to make it openly before the whole world, a treaty of which the substance would be that Great Britain and America would guarantee the integrity of China within absolute precise geographical limits, and would defend that territory precisely as they would defend their own. Necessarily, they would concurrently assume the right to control the Government of China, and they would necessarily accept the responsibility of full international responsibility for

the acts of that Government. In other words, my proposal would be that the whole of China, except such portions of it as might be given as a sop to other states, should become an Anglo-American 'Protected State.

The inducement to be offered to European nations to allow such a situation without fighting would be, in the first place, the fact that they would all obtain absolutely free commercial intercourse with protected China; and, in the second place, that by way of purchasing their assent to the treaty they would be allowed or invited to cut off from the as yet unprotected China such stray corners as they might be very determined on having. France would claim something in the south, Germany would desire to hold what she has grasped, Russia would certainly claim Manchuria, Japan would be freed from the dread of Russian domination. There would still remain a protected China containing fully 250,000,000 Chinamen, and for the orderly government of that the two Anglo-Saxon nations would make themselves responsible.

As to the precise amount of protection and interference that the two English-speaking nations might find necessary, as to the selection of officers and advisers, and the like, there need be no great difficulty in providing for all that; while if my readers turn to my chapter entitled 'The People of China,' they may see that I have already committed myself

to the opinion that there could be built up in China the finest Asiatic native administration that the world has ever seen. That would be the policy that I would attempt; but, then, as Lord Salisbury says, 'You cannot make treaties unless the other people are willing to make treaties with you.' And I can easily conceive that the United States of America might wholly refuse to entertain the gigantic proposal I have sketched. If so, I would pass to an alternative policy.

Having failed with America, I would propose a deal with Russia. I would not seek to hide the fact that I had failed with America, and I would honestly admit that the proposal I had to make to Russia was not so suitable, from the British point of view, as the proposal I had made to America. The proposal I would make to Russia would more amount to a partition of China than the proposal I had sketched to America. According to my Anglo-American scheme, the intention would be to reserve nearly the whole of China as a ' Protected Native State,' in the hope and belief that that state would some day be able to stand alone.

The proposal to Russia, on the other hand, would be that she should undertake to control, in such way as pleased her best, Manchuria, most of Mongolia, and all the North of China (including Peking), and that Britain should undertake to control the Great Plain and the Yangtsze Valley, and that Germany