But on looking back one appreciates the skill and constancy with which H. E. has met a most serious crisis and done his duty to Chinese and foreigners alike.  It is no small thing for a Chinese statesman and scholar to risk popularity, position, and even life in a far-seeing resistance to the apparent decrees of a court to which his whole training enforces blind loyalty and obedience.  His desire to secure the personal safety of the Empress Dowager on account of her long services to the Empire is natural enough; nor need he be blamed for supplying some military aid to his sovereign, even though he may have guessed that it would be used against those foreign nations with whom he himself steadfastly maintains friendship and against whose possible attack he has not mounted an extra gun.”

[Page 242] POSTSCRIPT NO.2

TUAN FANG OF THE HIGH COMMISSION

During Chang’s long absence, Tuan Fang, Governor of Hupeh, held the seals and exercised the functions of viceroy.  He was a Manchu—­one of those specimens, admirable but not rare, who, in acquiring the refinement of Chinese culture, lose nothing of the vigour of their own race.  “Of their own race,” I say, because in language and habits the Manchus are strongly differentiated from their Chinese subjects.

In the Boxer War Governor Tuan established an excellent record.  Acting as governor in Shensi, instead of killing missionaries, as did the Manchu governor of the next province, he protected them effectually and sent them safely to Hankow.  One day when I was at his house a missionary came to thank him for kindness shown on that occasion.

Mentioning one of my books I once asked him if he had read it.  “You never wrote a book that I have not read,” was his emphatic reply.  He was a pretty frequent visitor at my house, punctually returning all my calls; and when he was transferred to the governorship of Hunan he appeared pleased to have the Yale Mission commended to his patronage.  He has a son at school in the United States; and his wife and daughters have taken lessons in English from ladies of the American Episcopal Mission.

Governor Tuan (now viceroy) is a leading member of a commission recently sent abroad to study and report on the institutions of the Western world.  Its [Page 243] departure was delayed by the explosion of a bomb in one of the carriages just as the commission was leaving Peking.  The would-be assassin was “hoist with his own petard,” leaving the public mystified as to the motive of the outrage.

[Page 244] CHAPTER XXXI

ANTI-FOREIGN AGITATION

American Influence in the Far East—­Officials and the Boycott—­Interview with President Roosevelt—­Riot in a British Concession—­Ex-territoriality—­Two Ways to an End—­A Grave Mistake—­The Nan-chang Tragedy—­Dangers from Superstition

So far from being new, an anti-foreign spirit is the normal state of the Chinese mind.  Yet during the year past it has taken on new forms, directed itself against new objects, and employed new methods.  It deserves therefore a conspicuous place among the new developments in the China of the twentieth century.