s were extorted by force, and their
loans imposed by force, since they exacted from China what are
ironically called "indemnities" which she could not pay except by
borrowing from those who were robbing her. If Europeans could remember
and realise these facts they would perhaps cease to complain that China
continues to evade their demands by the only weapon of the
weak--cunning. When you have knocked a man down, trampled on him, and
picked his pocket, you can hardly expect him to enter into social
relations with you merely because you pick him up and, retaining his
property, propose that you should now be friends and begin to do
business. The obliquity of vision of the European residents on all these
points is extraordinary. They cannot see that wrong has been done, and
that wrong engenders wrong. They repeat comfortable formulae about the
duplicity and evasiveness of the Chinese; they charge them with
dishonesty at the very moment that they are dismembering their country;
they attach intolerable conditions to their loans, and then complain if
their victims attempt to find accommodation elsewhere. Of all the Powers
the United States alone have shown some generosity and fairness, and
they are reaping their reward in the confidence of Young China. The
Americans had the intelligence to devote some part of the excessive
indemnity they exacted after the Boxer riots to educating Chinese
students in America. Hundreds of these young men are now returned to
China, with the friendliest feeling to America, and, naturally, anxious
to develop political and commercial relations with her rather than with
other Powers. British trade may suffer because British policy has been
less generous. But British trade, I suppose, would suffer in any case.
For the British continue to maintain their ignorance and contempt of
China and all things Chinese, while Germans and Japanese are travelling
and studying indefatigably all over the country. "We see too much of
things Chinese!" was the amazing remark made to me by a business man in
Shanghai. Too much! They see nothing at all, and want to see nothing.
They live in the treaty ports, dine, dance, play tennis, race. China is
in birth-throes, and they know and care nothing. A future in China is
hardly for them.

V

THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD

To write from China about the Englishman may seem an odd choice. But to
see him abroad is to see him afresh. At home he is the air one breathes;
one is un