When People Talk, Therefore, Of The Injustice Of This War As
Another Instance Of The Triumph Of Might Over Right, They Should Recollect
That China In The First Place Was Wrong In Claiming An Impossible Position
In The Family Of Nations.
We cannot doubt that if the acts of Commissioner
Lin had been condoned the lives of all Europeans would
Have been at the
mercy of a system which recognizes no gradation in crime, which affords
many facilities for the manufacture of false evidence, and which inflicts
punishment altogether in excess of the fault. It is gratifying to find
that many unprejudiced persons declared at the time that the war which
resulted in the Nankin treaty was a just one, and so eminent an authority
on international law as John Quincy Adams drew up an elaborate treatise to
show that "Britain had the righteous cause against China." We may leave
the scene of contest and turn from the record of an unequal war with the
reflection that the results of the struggle were to be good. However
inadequately the work of far-seeing statesmanship may have been performed
in 1842, enough was done to make present friendship possible and a better
understanding between two great governing peoples a matter of hope and not
desponding expectancy.
CHAPTER XVIII
TAOUKWANG AND HIS SUCCESSOR
The progress and temporary settlement of the foreign question so
completely overshadows every other event during Taoukwang's reign that it
is difficult to extract anything of interest from the records of the
government of the country, although the difficult and multifarious task of
ruling three hundred millions of people had to be performed. More than one
fact went to show that the bonds of constituted authority were loosened in
China, and that men paid only a qualified respect to the imperial edict.
Bands of robbers prowled about the country, and even the capital was not
free from their presence. While one band made its headquarters within the
imperial city, another established itself in a fortified position in the
central provinces of China, whence it dominated a vast region. The police
were helpless, and such military forces as existed were unable to make any
serious attempt to crush an opponent who was stronger than themselves. The
foreign war had led to the recruiting of a large number of braves, and the
peace to their sudden disbandment, so that the country was covered with a
large number of desperate and penniless men, who were not particular as to
what they did for a livelihood. It is not surprising that the secret
societies began to look up again with so promising a field to work in, and
a new association, known as the Green Water Lily, became extremely
formidable among the truculent braves of Hoonan. But none of these
troubles assumed the extreme form of danger in open rebellion, and there
was still wanting the man to weld all these hostile and dangerous elements
into a national party of insurgents against Manchu authority, and so it
remained until Taoukwang had given up his throne to his successor.
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