[47] A city on the Grand Canal in Kiangsu, well known on account of its association with the name of Marco Polo.
[48] Close to the present German colony of Kiaochou.
[50] A motive for this was doubtless the knowledge that the rebel soldiers would soon be turned loose in the captured city.
[51] Apparently the poor daughter did not count, either because she was a mere soulless infant or because her part in the proceedings was a passive one.
CHAPTER V
BRITISH RULE
When negotiations were being carried on seventy years ago for the cession of Hongkong to the British Crown the only interests that were properly consulted were those of commerce. Military and naval requirements were so far overlooked that one side of the harbour, with its dominating range of mountains, was allowed to remain in the hands of China, the small island of Hongkong alone passing into the hands of Great Britain. The strategic weakness of the position was soon recognised; it was obvious that the Chinese, or any hostile Power allied with China, could hold the island and the harbour, with its immense shipping, entirely at its mercy by the simple expedient of mounting guns on the Kowloon hills. The first favourable opportunity was taken by the British Government to obtain a cession of a few square miles of the Kowloon peninsula, but from the strategic point of view this step was of very little use; and it was not till 1898 that the Hongkong "New Territory"—a patch of country which, including the mountain ranges and some considerable islands, has an area of several hundred square miles—was "leased" to Great Britain "for a period of ninety-nine years."
When, in the same year, arrangements were being made for the "lease" of Weihaiwei, no decision had been come to as to whether the place was to be made into a fortress, like Hongkong, or merely retained as a flying base for the fleet or as a depôt of commerce: but to make quite sure that there would be enough territory for all possible or probable purposes the British Government asked for and obtained a lease not only of the island of Liukung but also of a strip of land measuring ten miles round the entire bay. The bay itself, with its various inlets, is so extensive that this strip of land comprises an area of nearly three hundred square miles, with a coast-line of over seventy miles; while the beeline frontier from the village of Ta-lan-t'ou in the extreme east to Hai Chuang in the extreme west measures about forty miles.
This land-frontier is purely artificial: in one or two cases, while it includes one portion of a village it leaves the rest in Chinese territory. This considerable area is under direct British rule, and within it no Chinese official has any jurisdiction whatever except, as we have seen,[52] within the walls of the little city from which the Territory derives its name. Beyond the British frontier lies a country in which the British Government may, if it sees fit, "erect fortifications, station troops, or take any other measures necessary for defensive purposes at any points on or near the coast of the region east of the meridian 121° 40' E. of Greenwich." The British "sphere of influence" may thus be said to extend from about half-way to Chefoo on the west to the Shantung Promontory on the east: but Great Britain has had no necessity for the practical exercise of her rights in that wide region.
Of the general appearance of the Territory and its neighbourhood something has been said in the second chapter. Hills are very numerous though not of great altitude, the loftiest being only about 1,700 feet high. A short distance beyond the frontier one or two of the mountains are more imposing, especially the temple-crowned Ku-yü hills to the south-west, which are over 3,000 feet in height.[53] There are about three hundred and fifteen villages in the leased Territory under direct British rule; of these none would be described as a large village in England, and many are mere hamlets, but they have been estimated to contain an aggregate population of 150,000. Considering that agriculture is the occupation of all but a small portion of the people, and that large areas in the Territory are wholly unfit for cultivation, this population must be regarded as very large, and its size can only be explained by the extreme frugality of the people and the almost total absence of a leisured or parasitic class.
The Weihaiwei Convention was signed in July 1898. For the first few years the place was controlled by various naval and military authorities, of whom one was Major-General Sir A. Dorward, K.C.B., but it can hardly be said to have been administered during that time, for the whole Territory beyond Liukungtao and the little mainland settlement of Ma-t'ou (now Port Edward) was almost entirely left to its own devices. The temporary appointment of civil officers lent by the Foreign and Colonial Offices led to the gradual extension and consolidation of civil government throughout the Territory. One of these officers was the late Mr. G. T. Hare of the Straits Settlements Government, and another—whose excellent work is still held in remembrance by the people—was Mr. S. Barton, of the British Consular Service in China. The appointment of Mr. R. Walter[54] as Secretary to Government shortly preceded that of Mr. (now Sir) J. H. Stewart Lockhart, Colonial Secretary of Hongkong, as first civil Commissioner.
Photo by Ah Fong. THE HARBOUR WITH BRITISH WARSHIPS, FROM LIUKUNGTAO (see p. 81).
By this year (1902) Weihaiwei had been placed under the direct control of the Colonial Office, since which time it has occupied a position practically identical with that of a British Crown Colony, though (owing to technical considerations) its official designation is not Colony but Territory. The Commissioner is the head of the Local Government, and is therefore subject only to the control of His Majesty exercised through the Secretary of State for the Colonies. His official rank corresponds with that of a Lieutenant-Governor: that is to say, he receives (while in office at Weihaiwei) a salute of fifteen guns as compared with the seventeen of a first-class Crown-colony Governor (such as the Governors of Hongkong, the Straits Settlements, Ceylon and Jamaica), or the nine accorded to a British Consul in office. His actual powers, though exercised in a more limited sphere, are greater than those of most Crown-colony Governors, for he is not controlled by a Council.
As in Gibraltar and St. Helena, laws in Weihaiwei are enacted by the head of the executive alone, not—as the phrase usually runs elsewhere—"with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council." The Order-in-Council indicates, of course, on what lines legislation may take place, and all laws (called Ordinances) must receive the Royal assent, or rather, to put it more accurately, His Majesty is advised by the Secretary of State "not to exercise his powers of disallowance." This is in accordance with the usual Colonial procedure. In practice, as we saw in the first chapter, it has been found unnecessary to enact more than a very small number of Ordinances for Weihaiwei. The people are governed in accordance with their own immemorial customs, and it is only when the fact of British occupation introduces some new set of conditions for which local custom does not provide, that legislation becomes necessary. The legal adviser to the local Government is ex officio the Crown Advocate at Shanghai, and he it is who, when necessary, drafts the legal measures to be promulgated in the name of the Commissioner. Such measures