CHAPTER XXXII

A NATION STRIKES AND UNITES

The students of Peking "started something." For the first time in thousands of years public opinion was aroused and organized in China. Through the action of the students, with whom the merchants made common cause, before and after the Shantung decision, China found herself.

The Japanese papers insisted steadfastly that these student disturbances had been brought on at the "instigation of certain countries." But instigation was not needed. If foreigners had wished to make trouble in this way, they would have been kept extremely busy trying to keep pace with the Chinese themselves. You do not have to instigate a man to resist a pillager who is trying to break into his house. Those who started this tremendous movement toward nationalism--for that is what it grew into--were students in the government schools and in the private schools of Peking and Tientsin. In the beginning the students were alone in the agitation, but not for long. Throughout the agitators were referred to as "students," but this term came to be used in a broad sense; it came to mean Young China, including all of the youth of the land who had been educated in modern schools.

China is the home of the strike and the boycott; but never before had these weapons been employed on such a scale. The merchants and students of north China met during the second half of May, declared a general boycott of Japanese goods, and demanded the dismissal of the three men called traitors, the notorious agents in the Chino-Japanese negotiations. The boycott spread rapidly, a spontaneous expression of deep resentment. But the movement strove also to control and purify the action of the Chinese Government. The instrument for this was the strike--passive resistance--the stopping of the wheels of commerce and industry till the will of the people was listened to.

The popular sense of equity, which in China asserts itself naturally in strikes, responded everywhere. Unless the Government dismissed the three offenders, merchants would close their shops. Teachers, students, shopkeepers, chauffeurs, dockhands, all classes of workmen would strike. All China, indeed, would go on strike.

The movement gained momentum like an avalanche thundering down a mountain. Its fury was first of all concentrated on the attempt to force the dismissal of the three officials who were, in the popular mind, guilty of trading away the national birthright. The organization of the uprising seemed to be almost spontaneous. Active little groups, similar to the Committees of Correspondence in the time of Adams and Franklin, sprang up in all parts of China. The masses of the people were marshalled for action. From the ten thousand students who had originally struck in Shanghai the movement expanded swiftly until it included merchants and chambers of commerce and dozens of other bodies in every walk of life. Associations of servants were formed under the title of The Industrial National Salvation Society. Even Japanese bankers were put under the ban by the Chinese financiers; finally the boycott went so far that it blacklisted the foreign goods which were brought to Chinese ports by Japanese steamers.

In Peking, fifty groups of student speakers were sent out to appeal to the public. General Tuan Chi-jui, who, among others, was held responsible by the students for the nation's troubles, stoutly stood by his subordinates. The militarists in general, feeling that the student movement was not favourable to them, prevailed on the Government to try to suppress it. Martial law was proclaimed, and students trying to speak were arrested. The students were undaunted and working en masse. The Government soon saw that it could imprison them, but that it was powerless to stem the tide of feeling they were creating. Thundering from all parts of the country, it was recognized that the students could, if they chose, turn the entire people against the Government. By June 4th, nearly a thousand students were under forcible detention in Peking; those recently arrested had wisely provided themselves with knapsacks stocked with food before taking their lecture trips.

Then the girl students came forth. They fully shared the patriotic feelings of their brothers. Seven hundred girls from the Peking schools assembled and marched to the President's palace to request the release of the young men under arrest.

The Government made a technical mistake. When the student feeling seemed to be a little on the ebb, the Government took occasion to issue a decree trying to white-wash Tsao Ju-lin and his confederates. That fanned the flame which ultimately swept all over China.

Weakening, the Government offered the students release if they would return to work and make no further trouble. The students saw their advantage, and stated that they had no wish to leave their prisons, if it meant promising to abstain from expressing their opinion in future; moreover, they would not leave until the Government had apologized for their unjust arrest.

The jailing of this large number of the youth of China finally brought such ill-concealed opposition that the Government complied with the students' ultimatum. An apology was offered them, whereupon the students returned to their colleges and their work. But they continued their street lectures, calling upon the people to join in a powerful expression of national opinion through which their country's institutions and policies might be put on a sounder basis, and Japanese aggression powerfully resisted.

In Shanghai the boycott and the strike of the shopkeepers were in full force. Their shops were closed, they threatened to pay no taxes unless the "traitors" were ousted. American officials at Shanghai sent me alarming reports. The British there, particularly those of the official class, were inclined to repress the movement.

The Japanese, who were feeling the full force of the popular thrust, tried to brand it anti-foreign and to reawaken memories of the Boxer period. Some of the influential British in Shanghai, frightened by the successful efforts of the merchants and students among the industrial workers, began to call them anti-foreign, too. I was told that the municipal council in Shanghai might take very stringent action against the boycott and strike. The British minister had gone to the seashore, and I sent him word that the situation was serious.

It would have been the height of folly had either we or the British let ourselves be dragged into the disturbance, which was directed solely against the Japanese, and was fortunately not our concern, and in no sense anti-foreign. I sent specific instructions to the consulate-general at Shanghai advising the American community neither to encourage nor oppose this movement, which was the affair of the Chinese. The Americans saw the point clearly, and realized how undesirable it would be to entangle the municipal council in the business. I told the Consul-General that, illegal and overt acts excepted, the foreign authorities in China had nothing to do with the strike; being happily free of Chinese ill-will, we wished to remain free. In order to avoid all danger of more general trouble, Americans exerted considerable influence with the Chinese leaders to cause them to abstain from action that would tend to involve foreigners generally. They responded willingly.

By this time even the mafoos (horse boys) at the Shanghai Race Club were on strike. A run on the Bank of Communications was started because Tsao Ju-lin was associated with it. More and more serious grew the situation, but the demand on the Government remained unchanged: "When the three traitors are dismissed, the strike will be called off; otherwise, still more people will strike."

The Government finally yielded on the 11th of June. The insistent demand had come from all parts of China that the three unpopular officials go in disgrace. The Peking Government complied. But the great public in Shanghai was not content until the British minister and I gave confirmation of the report that the mandate of dismissal had been issued. Then the strike was off.

However, the boycott against Japanese goods continued unabated. Yet it must not be supposed that the movement, which at the beginning was distinctly turned against Japan, was either essentially anti-Japanese or purely oppositional and negative. Quite early, its true, positive, national Chinese character stood revealed. The Japanese had stung the Chinese national pride to the quick. It turned against them, not in a spirit of blind hostility, but only in so far as the Japanese stood in the way of the national Chinese regeneration.

Out of this unprecedented popular uprising several momentous facts emerged. First, public opinion must be so awakened that it would be a continuing force, so organized that it would at all times have the means of expressing its will, so that it would be able to compel the Government to resist further encroachments on China's rights. That would take time; but it could be done, the strike and boycott proved that. For the first time in her history China had roused herself and wrung from her government a specific surrender. That lesson sank deep. The leaders realized that this single act was merely a very small beginning. But the important thing was that it did constitute a beginning.

The second important result was the sudden focussing of attention on the means by which native Chinese industry might be built up. The boycott of Japanese goods had had a positive as well as a negative side. Indeed it had been stated positively all along. The people were not told to refrain from buying Japanese goods; they were advised to avoid buying goods of an inferior quality--which would be interpreted to mean Japanese products, of course--and they were pointedly urged to patronize home industries. The people responded with a will. They did buy the wares produced by their own factories. It gave great impetus to the development of Chinese industry, and gave both the manufacturers and the Government a clue as to what a definite campaign for the stimulation of the home industries might accomplish.

While we were talking together informally at a meeting of the diplomatic corps, the French minister, M. Boppe, remarked: "We are in the presence of the most astounding and important thing that has ever happened--the organization of a national public opinion in China for positive action."

Thus out of the evil of the Paris decision came an inspiring national awakening of the Chinese people, a welding together for joint thought and joint action. All ranks of the population were affected. When to avoid foreign complications student delegates went among the workers of a factory in Shanghai to persuade them not to strike, the workers asked: "Do you think we have no feeling for our country, nor indignation against the traitors?"

About the evil of the Shantung decision the foreign communities were unanimous, nor did they feel that they ought to be silent. They were on the ground; they knew the inevitable consequences that would follow the rigid application of the decision. They spoke out. Sir Edward Walker, chairman of the Commercial Bank of Canada, gave an address on June 6th before the Anglo-American Association of Peking, dealing particularly with the needs of transportation. What the completion of two or three trunk lines would mean to China he fully realized. After his address the British minister and I, who were honorary members, took our leave, as it had been intimated that the Association would discuss the Shantung matter. The meeting then adopted a resolution which expressed the conviction of Americans and British in China in this wise:

We express our solemn conviction that this decision will create conditions that must inevitably bring about extreme discord between the Chinese people and Japan, and raise a most serious hindrance to the development of the economic interests of China and other countries. A settlement which perpetuates the conditions created by Germany's aggression in Shantung in 1898, conditions that led to similar action on the part of other states, that were contributing causes to the disorders in North China in 1900, and that made inevitable the Russo-Japanese war, cannot make for peace in the Far East, for political stability in China itself, or for development of trade and commerce equally open to all.

Further, the evil consequences of conditions which are not only subversive of the principle of national self-determination, but also a denial of the policy of the open door and of the principle of equality of opportunity, will be greatly accentuated if Japan, a near neighbour, be now substituted for Germany, whose centre of political and economic activities was on the other side of the globe.

Therefore we, the members of the Peking Anglo-American Association, resolve that representations be made to the British and American Governments urging that the states taking part in the Peace Conference devise and carry through a just settlement which will not endanger the safety of China and the peace of the world.