In face of all these facts, it is hard to realise that the allied powers should precipitately have left China. Yet the reason is plain. England and the United States each had a war upon its hands. The Chinese difficulty happened at a most inopportune time, and when the United States inaugurated and persisted in a movement of abandonment of China, England was reluctantly forced to give up her convictions and to join in the retrograde march. Had England been entirely free to act, no doubt she would have forced a different settlement. The McKinley administration exhibited a natural weakness in its policy. It had to fight shy of the imperialistic cry, which had been dinned in its ears _ad nauseam_ with respect to the Philippine possessions; it feared another broadside from opposition newspapers, which was imminent if it pursued a strong policy in China, and hence one was hit upon of apparent magnanimity towards the Chinese, but which was at once superficial, weak, and misleading, and withal the worst measure for China which could be imagined. The allied powers { 22} entered China without a studied or concerted plan, and they left it without a clear solution or settlement of the questions involved. Their going in was as their coming out--hasty, ill-conceived, and impolitic. The commencement and the conclusion were both befogged. No sooner were the allied troops removed than internal dissensions appeared, and the weakness, wretchedness, and incompetence of the Chinese government was soon more plainly revealed than ever. By abandoning China, the United States played directly into the hands of Russia. England and Germany must have seen this, but they could not combat a plan of action which seemed on its face so magnanimous to a fallen people, especially with France co-operating with Russia.
The whole business must be gone over again. The weakness of China will soon be revealed in plots and revolutions all over the Empire; indignities will be again perpetrated upon foreigners, and armed intervention will follow.
I cannot leave this question without a separate word about France. The _real_ position of France should be isolation--waiting, watching, improving. The figure which she presents to-day as an ally of Russia is false and unnatural. Let me speak of France with candour and without reserve. Her national progress is stopped, and an internal decay has set in, which will sooner or later seriously affect her influence as a first-class power. The reasons which impel me to reach this painful conclusion are the following: The effort to establish { 23} a republican government in France, while not a failure, is far from being a success. No student who has conscientiously studied the history of the past one hundred years can truthfully say that she has made real progress in government. The attempt to sustain a republic in France has been almost grotesque. The great, central, pivotal point of any serious government is stability, which she has never even approached. Ministries are blown over like card houses, by the mere ebullition of political passion, and not as the result of a principle. The people are genuinely surprised if a ministry lasts six months. In the effort to establish a republic, two great fundamental mistakes--among others--are made. First, the French congress and government are held and administered in Paris, the very centre of boiling passions and the hotbed and school of every conflicting "ism" that arises to confound the good sense and prudence of mankind. The seat of government in a republic must be located away from the cosmopolitan influences of large cities. It must be held in a place where calmness--and quiet prevail, and where the officials of the government, and the legislators, are removed from the intimidating noises and the unhealthy influences of metropolitan journalism.