ON ITEMS OP CHINESE ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY. 73 



her obligations to all. Bat in the event of such a collision as 

 circumstances may bring upon ber, we cannot invite her to rely 

 on the active interventioi? either of the United States of America 

 or ourselves ; certainly, least of all of ourselves. Supposing 

 that the Empire were involved to-morrow in a quarrel with 

 France or Russia, or any other power in which we thought China 

 was decidedly in the right, should we venture to say to any British 

 subject or agent, whether in China or elsewhere, " You may go and 

 help the Chinese if you like " ? It is positively the last thing we 

 should do. We have had officers in their land and sea services in 

 times of peace, assisting them to construct men-of-war and to take 

 other steps to enable them to preserve their independence, but in the 

 event of a war we should at once have to withdraw such assistants ; 

 and the Chinese know that. With the United States I believe the 

 difficulty w^ould be ahnost as great. The Chinese would rather, I 

 incline to believe, have English assistance than any other, but 

 they must be aware by this time that they cannot always get it 

 when it may be wanted. The power on which they might more 

 reasonably rely is, in my opinion, Germany; because Germany would 

 not be hampered at all by the same kind of restrictions that we 

 should be ; but, then again, Germany, at the very moment she was 

 asked to assist, might have her own difficulty with China, going 

 on as she is going on, and in that case support of her own interests 

 might force upon Germany an unfriendly attitude. My one hope for 

 China lies in a prolongation of peace until she shall have had 

 something more, a good deal more, of the education that she 

 needs, if she is to continue an independent state. I do not think 

 that she will rapidly become aggressive ; that is, I do not think this 

 so probable as some people say it is. For years to come, at all 

 events, she will be simply, with the aid of foreign intelligence, 

 preparing herself to preserve her independence ; the means to that 

 end no doubt being the adoption of much that Confucius protested 

 against centuries ago, the ultimate outcome of which, again, will 

 be the substitution of some other moral and political system for 

 that which we are wont to style Confuciauist. The result of such 

 a change it would be premature to predict. 



