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THE AUDIENCE QUESTION.

513 and the Court officials for consideration and decision, but as the European Powers were not in agreement as to the importance of the matter, no speedy solution was attained. The British Foreign Office attached great importance to the point, and when Sir Nicholas O'Conor was appointed Minister in succession to Sir John Walsham, an exception was made in his favour, and a place of superior importance to the Hall of Tributary Nations was selected for the ceremony of presenting his credentials. The Emperor agreed to receive him in the Cheng Kuan Tien palace, or pavilion, which forms part of the Imperial residence of Peace and Plenty within the Forbidden City. The British representative, accompanied by his secretaries and suite, in accordance with arrangement, proceeded to this palace on the 13th of December, 1892, and was received in a specially honourable manner at the principal or imperial entrance by the High Court officials. Such a mark of distinction was quite unprecedented, and it was noticed that the Emperor took a much greater interest in the ceremony than on preceding occasions, and followed with special attention the reading of the Queen's letter by Prince Ching, at the time President of the Tsungli Yamen. After this incident there was a permanent improvement in the reception every year of the Foreign diplomatists, and with the view of giving the more importance to the matter, the Tsungli Yamen adopted the practice of giving an annual dinner as a sort of compliment to the Imperial audience. The personal reception of Prince Henry of Prussia by the Emperor of China on 15th May, 1898, marked the final settlement of the Audience Question in favour of the right of foreign potentates to rank on an equality with the so-called Son of Heaven. It is impossible to suppress the reflection that if the policy of the British Government had been more skilfully directed this privilege would have been secured first by England, and not by Germany.

Although the Dowager Empress had ostentatiously retired from the administration and taken up her abode in a palace outside the walls, in the park of Haitien, near the old Summer Palace destroyed in 1860, evidence as to her power over the Government was forthcoming on numerous occasions. Li

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Hung Chang in particular was her associate and ally, and after his temporary disgrace it was only her protection that prevented his losing his head. But the world was taken into the confidence of the ruling powers at Pekin when it was announced in 1894 that the Chinese Court had decided to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of the Empress Dowager in an extraordinary manner. The proposition was seriously made, and the arrangements were far completed towards executing it, that the sum of five millions sterling should be expended on this Jubilee. The reader need not discover in that extraordinary proposition proof of the excessive affection of the Emperor Kwangsu to one of the widows of his uncle, but the evidence it supplies as to the power of that lady is irrefutable. The Imperial lady's expectations were on this occasion doomed to disappointment. For over thirty years she had lorded things as she chose, but just as she was on the point of receiving the much-desired public tribute to her success and worth, the cup of anticipated triumph was dashed from her lips by the outbreak of the war with Japan. The millions had to be expended or wasted elsewhere, but they were not destined to obtain a triumph either in the streets of Pekin or in the field against the national enemy.

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CHAPTER XXII.

THE WAR WITH JAPAN.

THE most striking passage in the modern history of China since the Taeping rebellion has now been reached; but in order to understand the events of the war with Japan it is necessary to describe the gradual development of the Corean question until it became the cause of strife between the two principal races of the Far East. The old struggles between China and Japan have been mentioned at different periods, but although the Japanese in the sixteenth century practically overran the peninsula, they retired, and Corea reverted to that position of dependence or vassalage under China which was the common condition of all her neighbours. The tie binding Corea to China was neither weaker nor stronger than that between China and Tonquin. In each case the essential point was whether China possessed the power to make good the letter of her rights. In Tonquin the result showed that she had not the power; but much had happened in the ten years intervening between the wars with France and with Japan to justify the opinion that China could make at least a good fight for her claims over Corea, and, moreover, Corea by its position was so far more important to China that it was felt she ought to make a special effort to maintain her hold on a country which had been called her "right arm of defence."

If these considerations pointed to the conclusion that the Chinese would fight hard for their rights in Corea, the weak and uncertain policy that preceded the outbreak of war shook faith in the wisdom and firmness of the Pekin Government

long before the crisis arrived. The Chinese Government, and at that moment the phrase signified Li Hung Chang, was induced to believe, first, that something should be done to regulate the position in Corea, and, secondly, that this could only be effected by opening the country to the trade and influences of the outer world. Several disputes with foreign Powers, arising out of attacks on ships, missionaries, and travellers, had not merely raised an external interest in Corea, but had created some justification for interference in its affairs. Allowance must be made for the fact that while China was anxious to cling to her shadowy claim over Corea, and to invest it with substance, she was not anxious to accept the responsibility for every act committed by the truculent and quarrelsome Coreans.

In 1876 Japan began operations in Corea by securing the opening of Fushan to her trade as compensation for an outrage on some of her sailors. About the same time China annexed the so-called neutral territory on the frontier, and in 1880 Chemulpo was also opened to Japanese trade. The activity of the Japanese compelled the Chinese to act, and in 1881 a draft commercial treaty was drawn up, approved by the Chinese authorities and the representatives of the principal Powers at Pekin, and carried to the Court of Seoul for acceptance and signature by the American naval officer Commodore Schufeldt. The treaty was, of course, accepted by Corea, and all the Powers in turn became parties to it. The success of the Japanese had filled them with confidence, and when they saw the Chinese asserting their claims over Corea, and putting forward a pretension to control its destinies, they determined to advance their old right to have an equal voice with China in the peninsula. As the most effectual way of carrying out their plans they allied themselves with the so-called progressive party in Corea, which naturally took Japan as their model, while China, with equal appropriateness, was obliged or inclined to link her fortunes with the old and reactionary party in the state.

The plans of the Japanese met with much opposition, and in June, 1882, the Coreans attacked the Japanese Legation, murdered some of its inmates, and compelled the survivors

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to flee. Thereupon the Japanese sent a force to exact reparation, and the Chinese also sent a force to restore order. An arrangement was effected, but for two years a Chinese and Japanese force remained in proximity under the walls of Seoul. In December, 1884, a fresh collision occurred between the Japanese and the Coreans, aided this time by the Chinese. The former were again compelled to flee. This second outrage stirred the Japanese Government to take decided action, and while it obtained compensation from the Coreans for the outrage, it sent Count Ito to China to effect an arrangement with the Pekin Government. At that moment China occupied a stronger position in Corea than the Japanese. She was popular with the people, the old ties were undoubtedly strong, and the Treaty Powers were more disposed to work through her than Japan in extending trade influence through the peninsula. It now remains to show how completely the Government of China threw away these advantages by an agreement which tied her hands and placed her in a very different position from that she claimed, and had so long possessed.

Li Hung Chang was appointed Chinese plenipotentiary to negotiate with Count Ito, and a short but pregnant Convention was signed by them at Tientsin on the 18th of April, 1885. It consisted of only three articles: first, that both countries should withdraw their troops from Corea; secondly, that no more officers should be sent by either country to drill the Corean army; and thirdly, that if at any future time either country should send troops to Corea, it must inform the other country. By this Convention China admitted Japan's right to control Corea as being on an equality with her own. After that date it was impossible to talk of Corea as a vassal state of China, and all the advantages she possessed by tradition were surrendered by Li Hung Chang to the more astute representative of Japan.

For nine years after the Tientsin or Li-Ito Convention there was peace in Corea. In the spring of 1894 the assassination at Shanghai of Kim-Ok-Kiun, the leader of the Corean revolution in 1884 and a so-called reformer, drew attention to the affairs of the peninsula. Happening outside

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