China and the West

Russell, Bertrand. As a European radical sees it. In : The Freeman ; vol. 4 (8. März 1922). [Betr. China].
Many Americans not unnaturally think that the good record of America hitherto is a reason for expecting a good record in the future. I think those who take this point of view do not quite understand the new temptations to which America will henceforth be exposed.
I know there is in America a great deal of what is called 'idealism'. But what are its manifestations ? Prohibition certainly is due to 'idealism'. Now there are many good arguments in favour of prohibition, and I am not myself prepared to oppose it, but no student of modern psychology will suppose that these arguments were what persuaded the nation. Apart from the interests of those who make non-alcoholic drinks, and the hopes of employers that their men would work harder, it must have been the case that there were more people who found pleasure in preventing others from drinking than people who found pleasure in drinking themselves. Take another exhibition of 'idealism' : the treatment of Maxim Gorky in the United States. I know there were journalistic reasons for inflaming opinion against him, but these could not have operated unless opinion were ready to be inflamed. In America divorce is easy ; in Tsarist Russia it was almost impossible. Consequently the law had not sanctioned a union far more stable than many American marriages; therefore Gorky was 'immoral' and must be hounded out of the country. Again : the Bible says 'Thou shalt not steal', but Socialists believe that civilization can only be preserved by confiscation of private property. Therefore they are immoral men, who must not be allowed to sit in a Legislature to which they have been duly elected, and whose heads may be bashed in by loyal mobs who invade their houses. Sacco and Vanzetti are accused of a murder, and there is no conclusive evidence that they committed it ; but their political opinions are undesirable, so that no one is interested in the mere question of fact: Did they, or did they not, commit the murder? The moral repro¬bation of these men on account of their opinions is, no doubt, another case of 'idealism'.
So far, 'idealism' may be identified with love of persecution. If I were concerned to analyse its unconscious psychological sources, I should say that this form of it results from a conflict between the Christian duty of loving one's neighbour and the natural man's impulse to torture him. A reconciliation is effected by the theory that one's neighbour is a 'sinner', who must be punished in order to be purified. People cling to the con¬ception of 'sin', because otherwise they would have no moral justification for inflicting pain. 'Idealism', in this form, is moral reprobation as a pretext for torture.
I do not suggest that America is the only country where there is 'idealism'. All the belligerents were full of it during the war, and is still rampant everywhere. But it is only in America, and to a lesser extent in England, that it still deceives the people who are trying to think out the prob¬lem of creating a happier world. Is it not clear that a happier world will not be generated by hatred, even if the objects of hatred are 'sinners' ? Do any Christians, I wonder, ever read the Gospels ?
'Idealism' has, however, a wider scope than persecution. It may be defined generically as the practice of proclaiming moral motives for our actions. After America's entry into the war, President Wilson became idealistic in our former sense; before that, when he was 'too proud to fight', he was idealistic in a wider sense. The objection to proclaiming moral motives for one’s actions is twofold: first, that no one else believes what one says; and secondly, that one does believe it oneself. I have no doubt that many Americans believe in the unselfishness of America’s motives, first for neutrality and then for belligerency. People who are not Americans, however, cannot be persuaded to adopt this view. They think that America intervened at the exact moment most favourable for Ameri¬can interests, and that America would not have become either so rich or so powerful as she is if she had intervened sooner or had remained neutral to the end. They do not blame America for this, but they are somewhat irritated when they find that Americans will not admit it, but claim to be made of nobler stuff than the rest of humanity.
I suppose few things have done more to disgust Americans with the Old World than the secret treaties. I am not, of course, a defender of the secret treaties, but I think it is worth while to understand how a man like Lord Grey came to agree to them. I took and still take the view that the issues in the war were unimportant, that it did not matter which side won (though a draw would have been best), and that the most important thing was that the war should end quickly. This was not the view of the belligerents. The British Government took the view—to which America was converted in the end—that the defeat of Germany was vital. We could not defeat Germany without the help of nations having no direct interest in the struggle, and we could not get their help without buying it. By the time America came in, we had built up such a strong alliance that America's strength turned the scale ; but it must be admitted that America profited by our sins. Our people did not know of the secret treaties ; the sins were only those of the Government. And when President Wilson declared in the Senate that he did not know of the secret treaties, the American Govern¬ment showed that it shared the guilt.
I come now to China. It is in China that American policy has been seen at its best. America alone has not sought concessions, has returned the balance of the Boxer indemnity, has stood for the Open Door, and has championed the independence and integrity of China. All these things arc admirable, but they show wisdom rather than unselfishness ; they are all strictly consonant with American interests. The Washington Conference has provided a good deal of rather painful evidence that the interests of China receive little consideration when they are opposed to those of America. Up to the present (January 26), it is doubtful whether anything effective is going to be done about Shantung, but that may be excused on the ground of Japanese obduracy. The more serious matter is the Ameri¬can attempt to secure international control of China by means of the Consortium. China is in financial difficulties, partly owing to the anarchy which has been carefully fomented by Japan, partly owing to the withhold¬ing of the Customs Revenue by the British Inspector-General of Customs. The London 'Times' of 14 January says :
It is curious to reflect that this country [China] could be ren¬dered completely solvent and the Government provided with a substantial income almost by a stroke of the foreigner's pen, while without that stroke there must be bankruptcy pure and simple. Despite constant civil war and political chaos, the Customs Rev¬enue consistently grows, and last year exceeded all records by £1,000,000. The increased duties sanctioned by the Washington Conference will provide sufficient revenue to liquidate the whole foreign and domestic floating debt in a very few years, leaving the splendid salt surplus unencumbered for the Government. The difficulty is not to provide money, but to find a Government to which to entrust it. Yet the 'Times' foams at the mouth when the Chinese say they would like to recover control of their own customs. As a consequence of foreign control the Chinese Government has failed to meet an obligation of $5,500,000 due to a Chicago bank. The resulting action of America is set forth in 'The Freeman' for November 25 (p. 244), as follows : American financiers and politicians were at one and the same time the heroes and villains of the piece; having cooperated in the creation of a dangerous situation, they came forward handsomely in the hour of trial with an offer to save China from themselves as it were, if the Chinese Government would only enter into relations with the Consortium, and thus prepare the way for the eventual establishment of an American financial protectorate.
In the 'Japan Weekly Chronicle' for November 17 (p. 725), in a telegram headed 'International Control of China', I find it reported that America is thought to be seeking to establish international control, and that Mr. Wellington Koo told the Philadelphia 'Public Ledger': 'We suspect the motives which led to the suggestion and we thoroughly doubt its feasibility. China will bitterly oppose any conference-plan to offer China inter¬national aid. ' He adds : 'International control will not do. China must be given time and opportunity to find herself. The world should not misin¬terpret or exaggerate the meaning of the convulsion which China is now passing through.” These are wise words, with which every true friend of China must agree. In the same issue of the 'Japan Weekly Chronicle'— which, by the way, I consider one of the best weekly papers in the world— I find the following (p. 728) :
Mr. Lennox Simpson [Putnam Weale] is quoted as saying: 'The international bankers have a scheme for the international control of China. Mr. Lamont, representing the consortium, offered a sixteen-million-dollar loan to China, which the Chinese Govern¬ment refused to accept because Mr. Lamont insisted that the Hukuang bonds, German issue, which had been acquired by the Morgan Company, should be paid out of it.' Mr. Lamont, on hearing this charge, made an emphatic denial, saying : 'Simpson's statement is unqualifiedly false. When this man Simpson talks about resisting the control of the international banks he is fantas¬tic. We don't want control. We are anxious that the conference result in such a solution as will furnish full opportunity to China to fulfil her own destiny.'
Sagacious people will be inclined to conclude that so much anger must be due to being touched on the raw, and that Mr. Lamont, if he had had nothing to conceal, would not have spoken of a distinguished writer and one of China’s best friends as 'this man Simpson'.
I do not pretend that the evidence against the consortium is conclusive, and I have not space here to set it all forth, but to any European radical Air. Lamont's statement that the consortium does not want control reads like a contradiction in terms. Those who wish to lend to a Government which, if it is let alone, will go bankrupt, must aim at control, for, even if there were not the incident of the Chicago bank, it would be impossible to believe that Messrs. Morgan and Company are so purely philanthropic as not to care whether they get any interest on their money or not, although emissaries of the consortium in China have spoken as though this were the case.
While I was in China recently, the consortium, which is theoretically international but practically American, offered a loan to China on condi¬tion that China made certain internal reforms. China rejected the offer, rightly as I thought, since it involved international control. Shortly before my departure from Peking, Mr. Crane, who had just ceased to be Ameri¬can Minister to China, was reported in the 'Peking Leader' (a paper owned by Chinese but edited by an American) to have stated in an interview that he was in favour of international control of China. I mentioned this inter¬view in a farewell address. To my amazement, there was an uproar among the very Americans who had advocated the Consortium. The editor of the 'Peking Leader', in whose paper the interview had appeared, seemed aston¬ished that I could have believed it to be genuine, and made difficulties about permitting my address to be reprinted. I left China immediately afterwards, and do not know what subsequently occurred, except that the Peking Leader published an editorial criticizing my work as a professor. All this shows the curious confusion of mind which enables people to advocate a loan on condition of internal changes, and yet to imagine them¬selves opposed to international control.
In the 'New Republic' for November 30, there is an article by Mr. Brailsford entitled 'A New Technique of Peace', which sets forth an analysis with which I find myself in complete agreement. If the Conference is suc¬cessful, I expect to see China compelled to be orderly so as to afford a field for foreign commerce and industry; a government such as the West will consider good substituted for the present go-as-you-please anarchy ; a gradually increasing flow of wealth from China to the investing countries, the chief of which is America; the development of a sweated Chinese proletariat; the spread of Christianity ; the substitution of the American civilization for the Chinese ; the destruction of traditional beauty, except for such objets d’art as millionaires may think it worth while to buy ; the gradual awakening of China to her exploitation by the foreigner; and one day, fifty or a hundred years hence, the massacre of every white man throughout the Celestial Empire at a signal from some vast secret society.
All this is probably inevitable, human nature being what it is. It will be done in order that rich men may grow richer, but we shall be told that it is done in order that China may have 'good' government. The definition of the word 'good' is difficult, but the definition of 'good government' is as easy as A.B.C. : it is government that yields fat dividends to capitalists.
The Chinese are gentle, urbane, seeking only justice and freedom. They have a civilization superior to ours in all that makes for human happiness. They have a vigorous movement of young reformers, who, if they are allowed a little time, will revivify China and produce something im¬measurably better than the worn-out grinding mechanism that we call civilization. When Young China has done its work, Americans will be able to make money by trading with China, without destroying the soul of the country. China needs a period of anarchy in order to work out her sal¬vation; all great nations need such a period from time to time. When America went through such a period, in 1861-5, England thought of intervening to insist on 'good government', but fortunately abstained. Nowadays, in China, all the Powers want to intervene. Americans recognize this in the case of the wicked Old World, but many of them are smitten with blindness when it comes to their own consortium. All I ask of them is that they should admit that they are as other men, and cease to thank God that they are not as this publican.
I hope no reader will think that my outlook is that of a cynic. Whoever will read the third Book of Spinoza's Ethics will find there a view of human nature identical with my own ; whoever will read the fourth and fifth Books will see how little cynicism this view implies. The two qualities which I consider superlatively important are love of truth and love of our nieghbour. I find love of truth obscured in America by commercialism, of which pragmatism is the philosophical expression ; and love of our neighbor kept in fetters by Puritan morality. Faults at least as bad as those of America exist in all countries ; but America seems as yet somewhat more lacking than some other countries as regards a self-critical minority. This minority exists ; and there is notable proof that it is not silent. I fear that some of the things I have said may cause irritation, but that is not their purpose ; I wish only to promote mutual understanding. I wish also, if I can, to do something to save China from a slavery more complete than any that Japan could impose.