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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 are generally copied from or closely modelled on laws already in force in England or in the Colony of Hongkong.

The China Squadron of the British Fleet visits the port every summer. The fact that Weihaiwei is under British rule gives the Naval commander-in-chief perfect freedom to carry out target-practice or other exercises ashore and afloat under highly favourable conditions. But the greatest advantage that Weihaiwei possesses—from the naval as from the civilian point of view—is its good climate. It is perhaps not so superlatively excellent as some writers, official and other, have made out: but none will deny that the climate is "a white man's," and most will agree that it is, on the whole, the finest on the coast of China.

The rainfall is not, on the average, much greater or much less than that of England, though it is much less evenly distributed than in our own country. This is perhaps an advantage; there is no doubt that the average year in Weihaiwei contains a greater number of "fine days"—that is, days when the sun shines and no rain falls—than the average year in England. The other side of the shield shows us droughts and floods; how frequent and how destructive are these calamities may have been gathered from statements made in the last chapter. The winter is much colder and the summer much warmer than is usually the case in England: in addition to which both cold and heat are more steady and continuous. But there are not the same extremes that are met with in Peking and other inland places. The temperature in winter has been known to fall to zero, but the average minimum may be put at about 6° (F.). The snowfall is not great and the roads are rarely blocked. Skating, owing to the lack of rivers and lakes, can only be indulged in to a minute extent.

The winter north winds are intensely cold: even the Chinese go about muffled up to the ears in furs. The autumn months—September to November—are the most delightful of the year. The heat and rains of summer have passed away and the weather at this period is equal to that of a superb English summer and early autumn. The spring months are often delightful: but this is the season of those almost incessant high winds that constitute one of the chief blemishes of the Weihaiwei climate. Yet they are as nothing compared with the terrible dust-storms of the Chihli plains, such as make the European resident in Peking wish himself anywhere else. July and August are the months of rain, damp, and heat: yet the temperature rarely goes higher than 94° (F.), and the summer climate is much less trying than that of Hongkong or of Shanghai. It is during those two months, indeed, that Weihaiwei receives most of its European summer visitors from the southern ports.

When the British Squadron and the European visitors leave Weihaiwei in or about the month of September, the place is left to its own resources until the month of May or June in the following year. From the social point of view Weihaiwei suffered severely from the disbandment of the well-known Chinese Regiment, the British officers of which did much to cheer the monotony of the winter months. A pack of harriers was kept by the Regiment, and hunting was indulged in two days a week during that period. From November, when the last crops were taken off the fields, and cross-country riding became possible, until the end of March, when the new crops began to come up and confined equestrians to the roads, hunting the hare was the favourite recreation of the British community. The Regiment itself, after undergoing many vicissitudes, was disbanded in 1906. During its short career of about seven years it proved—if indeed a proof were needed, after the achievements of General Gordon—that the Chinese, properly treated and well trained and led, could make first-rate soldiers.

The appearance of the rank and file of the Chinese Regiment on parade was exceptionally good, and never failed to excite admiration on the part of European visitors; but their soldierly qualities were not tested only in the piping times of peace. They did good service in promptly suppressing an attempted rising in the leased Territory, and on being sent to the front to take part in the operations against the Boxers in 1900 they behaved exceedingly well both during the attack on Tientsin, and on the march to Peking. Among the officers who led them on those occasions were Colonel Bower, Major Bruce, Captain Watson and Captain Barnes.[55]

At its greatest strength the Regiment numbered thirteen hundred officers and men, but before the order for disbandment went forth the numbers had been reduced to about six hundred. With the Chinese Regiment disappeared Weihaiwei's only garrison. A few picked men were retained as a permanent police force, and three European non-commissioned officers were provided with appointments on the civil establishment as police inspectors. These men, in addition to an already-existing body of eight Chinese on Liukungtao and twelve in the European settlement at Port Edward, constitute the present (1910) Police Force of the Territory, which now numbers altogether fifty-five Chinese constables and three inspectors.

Weihaiwei, then, is entirely destitute of troops and of fortifications, and in the long months of winter—when there is not so much as a torpedo-boat in the harbour—the place is practically at the mercy of any band of robbers that happened to regard it with a covetous eye. This state of things cannot be regarded as ideally good: yet—to touch upon a matter that might once have been regarded as bearing on politics, but is now a mere matter of history—it may be admitted that from the imperial point of view the abolition of the Chinese Regiment was a wise step. This view is not shared by most Englishmen in China: and as for the British officers, who had given several of the best years of their lives to the training of that regiment, and had learned to take in it a most justifiable pride, one can easily understand how bitter must have been their feelings of dismay and disappointment when they heard of the War Office's decision. Similar feelings, perhaps, may have agitated the mind of the "First Emperor" when the beautiful bridge to Fairyland, on which he had spent so much time and energy, began to crumble away before his sorrowing eyes. The position of the Chinese Regiment was not analogous to that of the native troops in India and in our other large imperial possessions. Its very existence was anomalous. The great majority of its men were recruited not in British but in Chinese territory,[56] and as their employment against a European enemy of Great Britain was scarcely conceivable, their only function could have been to fight against their own countrymen or other Orientals.

To persuade them to fight against China would necessarily have become more and more difficult as the Chinese Empire proceeded in the direction of reform and enlightenment. The Boxers, indeed, were theoretically regarded as rebels against China, so that Chinese troops in British pay could fight them with a clear conscience, believing or pretending to believe that they were fighting for the cause of their own Emperor as well as (incidentally) that of Great Britain. But the Regiment outlived the Boxer movement by several years, and the maintenance of a considerable body of troops (at an annual cost to the British taxpayer of something like £30,000) with a sole view to the possibility of a similar rising at some uncertain date in the future was hardly consistent with British common sense. Moreover, its position in the event of an outbreak of regular warfare between England and China would have been peculiar in the extreme, inasmuch as the men had never been required, under the recruiting system, to abjure their allegiance to the Chinese Emperor. They were, in fact, Chinese subjects, not British. Even over the inhabitants of Weihaiwei, from whom a small proportion of the men was drawn, the Emperor of China retains theoretical sovereignty. This has been expressly admitted by the British Government, which has declared that as Weihaiwei is only a "leased territory," its people, though under direct British rule, are not in the strictly legal sense "British subjects."[57]

The officers of the Regiment would no doubt have denied that the loyalty of the men to their British leaders was ever likely to fall under suspicion, but the fact remains that in the event of an outbreak of regular warfare between China and Great Britain the Chinese authorities might, and probably would, have done their utmost to induce the men of the Regiment to desert their colours and take service with their own countrymen. Many methods of inducement could have been employed, over and above the obvious one of bribery. It is only necessary to mention one that would have been terribly forcible—the imprisonment of the fathers or other senior relatives of the men who refused to leave the British service, and the confiscation of their ancestral lands. The men who deserted, in these circumstances, would not, perhaps, feel that they had much to reproach themselves with. They had taken service under the British flag: but did that entitle them to become traitors to their own country, and to violate the sacred bonds of filial piety? Even if the Chinese soldier in British employment had been formally absolved from all allegiance to his own sovereign it would have been unreasonable to expect him to evolve a spirit of loyalty to a European monarch of whose existence he had but the vaguest idea, and to whom he was bound by no ties of sentiment.

But it may be urged that new conditions of service might have been devised, under which the men of the Chinese Regiment would have been exempted from the obligation of fighting against their own countrymen. Against whom, then, could they have fought? They might possibly have been led against the Japanese, but no one ever supposed for a moment that they were being trained with a view to action against a Power with whom Great Britain will probably be the last to quarrel: and in any case they would have been too few in number to be of effective service on the field, and by their inability to take an appropriate place among the other units they might even have been a source of embarrassment. As for the assistance they might have rendered in the event of an attack on Weihaiwei by any European Power, it is only necessary to point out that an infantry regiment would have been totally powerless to prevent the shelling of Weihaiwei by a naval force, and that if the British fleet had lost command of the sea, not only the entire Chinese regiment (or what remained of it after desertions had taken place), but Weihaiwei itself and all that it contained would have speedily become prizes of war to the first hostile cruiser that entered the harbour.

It may be said, in conclusion of this topic, that if the British Government had taken the cynical view that China was doomed to remain in a chronic state of administrative inefficiency and national helplessness, it would no doubt have been fully justified, from its own standpoint, in maintaining the Regiment. That it decided on disbandment may be regarded as welcome evidence that Great Britain did not, in 1906, take an entirely pessimistic view of China's future.

That the complete withdrawal of all troops was followed by no shadow of disorder among the people and no increase of crime, strikingly refutes the argument, sometimes advanced, that the real justification of the existence of the Regiment was the necessity of relying on a local armed force for the maintenance of British rule and prestige, which would otherwise have been outraged or treated with open contempt. No doubt the Regiment fulfilled a most useful function in suppressing or preventing disorder and in helping to consolidate British rule during the eventful year of 1900: and it may very well be that the people of the Territory then learned the futility of resistance to the British occupation. But it may be stated with emphasis that since the disbandment of the Regiment the people—perhaps from a knowledge of the fact that British troops and warships though not stationed at Weihaiwei are never very far away—have given no sign whatever of insubordination or restlessness.[58]

So far from crime and lawlessness having increased since that time, they have shown a distinct tendency to diminish, while no trouble whatever has arisen with the Chinese beyond our frontier. The significance of this will be realised by those who know how easily the official classes in China can, by secret and powerful means, foster or stir up a general feeling of antagonism to foreigners.

Perhaps it may not be out of place to mention here that the relations between the British officials of Weihaiwei and the Chinese officials of the neighbourhood have always been intimate and friendly: much more intimate, indeed, than those normally existing between the Government of Hongkong and the magistrates and prefects of the neighbouring regions of Kuangtung. The result is that through the medium of informal or semi-official correspondence, and by personal visits, a great deal of business is satisfactorily carried through without "fuss" or waste of time, and that frontier-matters which might conceivably grow into difficult international questions requiring diplomatic intervention, are quickly and easily settled on the spot.

But it must be remembered that these friendly relations might at any time be interrupted by the Chinese officials if they were to receive a hint from the provincial capital or from Peking that the position of Great Britain was to be made difficult and unpleasant. One important reason why the people of Weihaiwei acquiesce with a good grace in British rule is their vague belief that we are in Weihaiwei at the request and with the thorough goodwill of the Chinese Government, and are in some way carrying out the august wishes of the Emperor. They still speak of us as the foreigners or "ocean men," and of China as Ta Kuo, the Great Country. When they erect stone monuments, after the well-known Chinese practice, to the memory of virtuous widows and other good women, they still surmount the tablet with the words Shêng Chih, "By decree of the Emperor." There is not the faintest vestige of a feeling of loyalty to the British sovereign, even among those who would be sorry to see us go away. Most of the people have but the haziest idea of where England is; some think it is "in Shanghai" or "somewhere near Hongkong"; others, perhaps from some confused recollection of the dark-skinned British troops who took part in the operations of 1900, suppose that Great Britain and India are interchangeable terms.

I have been asked by one of our village headmen (in perfect good faith) whether England were governed by a tsung-tu (governor-general) or by a kuo-wang (king of a minor state)—the implication in either case being that England was far inferior in status to China. Thus arises among the people the notion that their own Emperor has for some mysterious reason, best known to himself, temporarily entrusted the administration of Weihaiwei to some English officials, and will doubtless decide in his own good time when this arrangement is to be rescinded. The notion does not, indeed, attain this definiteness, and the majority of the people well know from actual experience that no Chinese official, however exalted, has a shadow of direct authority in Weihaiwei at the present time; but any attempt to persuade them that the Emperor could not, if he willed, cause the immediate departure of the foreigners would probably be a miserable failure. The long and short of the matter is that the Chinese of Weihaiwei acquiesce in British rule because their sovereign, as represented by the Governor of Shantung, shows them the example of acquiescence; but if diplomatic troubles were to arise between Great Britain and China, and the command, direct or indirect, were to go forth from the Governor that the British in Weihaiwei were no longer to be treated with respect, a few days or weeks would be sufficient to bring about a startling change in the direction of anti-foreign feeling among the inhabitants of the leased Territory.

Incessant troubles, also, would suddenly and mysteriously arise on the frontier; the magistrates of the neighbouring districts, notwithstanding all their past friendliness, would become distant and unsympathetic; difficulties internal and external would become so serious and incessant that it would be no longer possible to administer the Territory without the presence of an armed force. In the absence of a local garrison the Government would be compelled to requisition the services of the ever-ready British marines and bluejackets; and His Excellency the Vice-Admiral, obliged to detach some of the vessels of his squadron for special service at Weihaiwei, might begin ruefully to wonder whether, after all, Weihaiwei was worth the trouble of maintenance.

This is a picture of gloomy possibilities which, it is to be hoped, will never be realised so long as the British occupation of Weihaiwei subsists. Unfortunately, diplomatic difficulties are not the only possible causes of trouble. If eastern Shantung were afflicted with long-continued drought and consequent famine—not an uncommon event—or if it were visited by some of those lawless bands of ruffians, too numerous in China, who combine the business of robbery and murder with that of preaching the gospel of revolution, the position of Weihaiwei would not be enviable. And parts of China, be it remembered, are in such a condition at present that almost any day may witness the outbreak of violent disorder. A small band of hungry and desperate armed men with a daring leader, a carefully-prepared plan and a good system of espionage—were it not for the Boy Scouts of the Weihaiwei School, who are fortunately still with us!—descend upon Port Edward, glut themselves with booty, and be in a safe hiding-place beyond the British frontier before noon the next day. Much more easily could any village or group of villages be ransacked and looted, and its inhabitants killed or dispersed: and the local Government, except by summoning extra assistance, would be powerless under present conditions to take any vigorous action.

Trouble of this kind is much more likely to come from the Chinese of some distant locality than from the people of the Territory itself. In one very important respect the British have been highly favoured by fortune. It happens that harvests in Weihaiwei for several years past have been on the whole very good, and the people are correspondingly prosperous. There has not been a really bad year since British rule began; moreover certain agricultural developments (especially the cultivation on a large scale of ground-nuts intended for export) have been beneficial to the soil itself, and are a steadily-increasing source of wealth to the farmers. With the loose conceptions of cause and effect common to most peasant-folk, many of the villagers believe that the good harvests and general prosperity are somehow due to the "luck" of their alien rulers, of which they derive the benefit. The gods and spirits of the land, they imagine, must be satisfied with the presence of the British: is it not obvious that they would otherwise show their discontent by bringing a blight on the fields or sending a plague of insects?

Such is the popular argument, indefinitely felt rather than definitely expressed; and there is no doubt that it has had some effect in inducing a feeling of contentment with British rule. I have also heard it remarked by the people that since the coming of the English the villages have ceased to be decimated by the deadly epidemics that once visited them. A sage old farmer whom I asked for an explanation of the recent remarkable increase in the value of agricultural land explained it as due to the fact that the British Government had vaccinated all the children. This prevented half the members of each family from dying of smallpox, as had formerly been the case, and there was naturally an increased demand for land to supply food for a greater number of mouths! The medical work carried out by Government is doubtless of great value; but the reduced mortality among the people is probably chiefly due to the succession of good harvests, the increased facilities for trade, and the consequent improvement in the general conditions of life. A few successive years of bad crops may, it is to be feared, not only reduce the people to extreme poverty—for as a rule the land represents their only capital—but will also produce the epidemics that inevitably follow in the wake of famine. That such disasters may be expected from time to time in the natural course of events the reader will have gathered from the lists of notable local events given in the last chapter. When they come, the people's faith in the fortune-controlling capacities of the foreigners may then suffer a painful shock, and the results may not be unattended by something like disaffection towards their alien rulers.

At the beginning of British rule in Weihaiwei many wild rumours passed current among certain sections of the people with reference to the intentions and practices of the foreigners. One such rumour was to the effect that the English wanted all the land for settlers of their own race and were going to remove the existing population by the simple expedient of poisoning all the village wells. In a few cases it was believed that the Government had actually succeeded in hiring natives to carry out this systematic murder; whereupon the villagers principally affected, growing wild with panic, seized and tortured the unhappy men whom they suspected of having taken British pay for this nefarious purpose. One man at least was buried alive and another was drowned. These cases did not come to the knowledge of the British authorities for some years afterwards, long after the well-poisoning story had ceased to be credited even by the most ignorant. One of them I discovered by chance as lately as the summer of 1909, though the incident occurred nine years earlier. An unlucky man who for some unknown reason was understood to be a secret emissary of the foreigners was seized by the infuriated villagers and drowned in the well which he was said to have poisoned. The well was then filled up with earth and stones and abandoned. The poor man's wife was sold by the ringleaders to some one who wanted a concubine, for a sum equivalent to about ten pounds.

No doubt the many horrible stories that were circulated about the foreigners were deliberately invented by people who, whether from some feeling akin to patriotism or from more selfish motives, were intensely anxious to arouse popular feeling against their alien rulers. Their plan failed, for popular fury was directed less against the English than against those of their own countrymen whom the English were supposed to have bribed.

It may be said that on the whole the chief fear of the people in the early days of British administration was not that they or their families would be slaughtered or dispossessed of their property, or personally ill-treated, but that they would be overtaxed; and the disturbances which arose at the time of the delimitation of the frontier in 1899 and 1900 were in part traceable to wild rumours as to the means to be adopted by the foreigners for the raising of revenue. It was thought, for example, that taxes were to be imposed on farmyard fowls. Taxation has been increased, as a matter of fact, under British rule. The land-tax (the principal source of revenue) has been doubled, and licence-fees and dues of various kinds have had the natural result of raising the price of certain commodities. But these unattractive features of British rule are on the whole counterbalanced, in the opinion of the majority of the people, by comparative (though by no means absolute) freedom from the petty extortions practised by official underlings in China, by the gradual development of a fairly brisk local trade, by the influx of money spent in the port by British sailors, by the facilities given by British merchant ships for the cheap and safe export of local produce, and by the useful public works undertaken by Government for direct public benefit.

The amount spent on public improvements is indeed minute compared with the enormous sums devoted to these purposes in Hongkong, Singapore, and Kiaochou, yet it forms a respectable proportion of the small local revenue. That the construction of metalled roads, in particular, is heartily welcomed throughout the Territory is proved by three significant facts: in the first place the owners of arable land through which the new roads pass hardly ever make any demand for pecuniary compensation, unless they happen to be almost desperately poor; in the second place, wheeled traffic, which a few years ago would have been a ludicrous impossibility in any part of the Territory, is rapidly becoming common; and in the third place the people, on their own initiative, are extending the road-system in various localities at their own expense. It may seem almost incredible that, in one case at least, certain houses that obstructed traffic in a new village road were voluntarily pulled down by their owners and built further back: yet not only did they receive no compensation from Government, but they did not even trouble to report what they had done. Very recently a petition was received praying the Weihaiwei Government to urge the Government of Shantung to extend the Weihaiwei road-system into Chinese territory, especially to the extent of enabling cart traffic to be opened up between the port of Weihaiwei and the neighbouring district-cities of Jung-ch'êng, Wên-têng and Ning-hai. The Shantung Government has been addressed on the subject by the Commissioner of Weihaiwei, and the Governor has smiled upon the project; though as he has since been transferred to another province it is doubtful whether anything will be done in the matter at present. So long as Weihaiwei remains in British hands the Provincial Government, naturally enough, has no desire to extend the trade facilities of that port to the possible disadvantage of the Chinese port of Chefoo.

On the whole, the more intelligent members of the native community in Weihaiwei may be said to be fully conscious of the advantages directly and indirectly conferred upon them by British rule, though this is far from implying that they wish that rule to be continued indefinitely. Some of them are even aware of the fact that they owe many of those advantages to a philanthropist whom they have never seen—the uncomplaining (or complaining) British taxpayer. The Territory is, in fact, so far from being self-supporting that a subsidy of several thousands of pounds from the British Exchequer is required to meet the annual deficit in the local budget.[59] The Government is conducted on extremely economical lines, indeed expenditure has been cut down to the point of parsimony, yet it is as well to remember that from the point of view of local resources the administration is costly in the extreme. A large increase of trade would no doubt soon enable the local Government to balance its books without assistance from England, but there are no indications at present that such an expansion is likely to take place.

British colonial methods do not, as a rule, tolerate a lavish expenditure on salaries or on needless multiplication of official posts. In these respects Weihaiwei is not exceptional. There are less than a dozen Europeans of all grades on the civil establishment, and of these only four exercise executive or magisterial authority. Since 1906 the whole Territory has been divided for administrative purposes into twenty-six districts: over each district, which contains on the average about a dozen villages, presides a native District Headman (Tsung-tung) whose chief duties are to supervise the collection of the land-tax, to distribute to the separate Village Headmen copies of all notices and proclamations issued by Government, to distribute deed-forms to purchasers and sellers of real property, and to use his influence generally in the interests of peace and good order and in the discouragement of litigation. For these services he is granted only five (Mexican) dollars a month from Government, but he is also allowed a small percentage on the sale of Government deed-forms (for which a fee is charged) and receives in less regular ways occasional presents, consisting chiefly of food-stuffs, of which the Government takes no notice unless it appears that he is using his position as a means of livelihood or for purposes of extortion.

The land-tax is based on the old land-registers handed over by the Chinese magistrates of Wên-têng and Jung-ch'êng, and as they had been badly kept up, or rather not kept up at all, for some scores of years previously, the present relations between the land under cultivation and the land subject to taxation are extremely indefinite. It is but very rarely that a man can point to his land-tax receipts as proof that he owns or has long cultivated any disputed area. Only by making a cadastral survey of the whole Territory would it be possible to place the land-tax system on a proper basis. At present the tax is in practice (with certain exceptions) levied on each village as a whole rather than on individual families. For many years past every village has paid through its headman or committee of headmen a certain sum of money which by courtesy is called land-tax. How that amount is assessed among the various families is a matter which the people decide for themselves, on the general understanding that no one should be called upon to pay more than his ancestors paid before him unless the family property has been considerably increased.

The Chinese Government did not and the British Government does not make any close enquiries as to whether each cultivator pays his proper proportion or whether a certain man is paying too much or is paying nothing at all. It is undoubtedly true that a great deal of new land has been brought under cultivation since the Chinese land-tax registers were last revised, and that the cultivators are guilty of technical offences in not reporting such land to Government and getting it duly measured and valued for the assessment of land-tax: but these are offences which have been condoned by the Chinese authorities in this part of China for many years past, and it would be unjust or at least inexpedient for the British Government to show greater severity in such matters than is shown on the Chinese side of the frontier. The British Government has, indeed, by a stroke of the pen doubled the land-tax, that is, it takes twice as much from each village as it did six years ago, so it may at least congratulate itself on deriving a larger revenue from this source than used to come to the net of Chinese officialdom. The total amount of the doubled tax only amounts to about $24,000 (Mex.) a year, which is equivalent to not much more than £2,000 sterling. The whole of this is brought to the coffers of the Government without the aid of a single tax-collector and without the expenditure of a dollar. In the autumn of each year proclamations are issued stating the current rate of exchange as between the local currency and the Mexican dollar and announcing that the land-tax will be received, calculated according to that rate, upon certain specified days. The money is brought to the Government offices at Port Edward by the headmen, receipts are issued, and the matter is at an end until the following year. Litigation regarding land-tax payments is exceedingly rare and the whole system works without a hitch.

For administrative and magisterial purposes the Territory is divided into two Divisions, a North and a South. The North Division contains only nine of the twenty-six Districts, and is much smaller in both area and population than the South, but it includes the island of Liukung and the settlement of Port Edward. Its southern limits[60] extend from a point south of the village of Shuang-tao on the west to a short distance south of Ch'ang-fêng on the east. A glance at the map will show that it comprises the narrower or peninsular portion of the Territory. The headquarters of this Division are at Port Edward, where is also situated the office of the Commissioner. The North Division is under the charge of the North Division Magistrate, who is also Secretary to Government and holds a dormant commission to administer the government of the Territory in the Commissioner's absence. The South Division comprises all the rest of the leased Territory, including seventeen out of the twenty-six Districts, and is presided over by the South Division Magistrate, who is also District Officer. His headquarters are at Wen-ch'üan-t'ang[61] or Hot Springs, a picturesque locality near the old boundary-line between the Jung-ch'êng and Wên-têng districts and centrally situated with regard to the southern portion of the leased Territory. Separate courts, independent of one another and co-ordinate in powers, are held by the North and South Division Magistrates at their respective headquarters.

The District Officer controls a diminutive police force of a sergeant and seven men, all Chinese. His clerks, detectives and other persons connected with his staff, are also Chinese. Besides the District Officer himself there is no European Government servant resident in the South Division, which contains 231 out of the 315 villages of the Territory and a population estimated at 100,000. The whole of the land frontier, nearly forty miles long, lies within this Division.

Under the Commissioner, the Secretary to Government and Magistrate (North Division), and the District Officer and Magistrate (South Division), are the executive and judicial officers of the Government. There is also an Assistant Magistrate, who has temporarily acted as District Officer, and who, besides discharging magisterial work from time to time, carries out various departmental duties in the North Division. The functions of the North and South Division Magistrates are quite as miscellaneous as are those of the prefects and district-magistrates—the "father-and-mother" officials—of China. There are no posts in the civil services of the sister-colonies of Hongkong and Singapore which are in all respects analogous to those held by these officers; but on the whole a Weihaiwei magistrate may be regarded as combining the duties of Registrar-General (Protector of Chinese), Puisne Judge, Police Magistrate and Captain-Superintendent of Police. Most of the time of the Magistrates is, unfortunately, spent in the courts. Serious crime, indeed, is rare in Weihaiwei. There has not been a single case of murder in the Territory for seven years or more, and most of the piracies and burglaries have been committed by unwelcome visitors from the Chinese side of the frontier. But the Weihaiwei magistrates do not deal merely with criminal and police cases. They also exercise unlimited civil jurisdiction; and as litigation in Weihaiwei has shown a steady increase with every year of British administration, their duties in this respect are by no means light.

Beyond the Magisterial courts there are no other courts regularly sitting. There is indeed a nebulous body named in the Order-in-Council "His Majesty's High Court of Weihaiwei," but this Court very rarely sits. It consists of the Commissioner and a Judge, or of either Commissioner or Judge sitting separately. The Assistant Judge of the British Supreme Court at Shanghai is ex officio Judge of the High Court of Weihaiwei; but the total number of occasions on which his services have been requisitioned in connection with both civil and criminal cases during the last five or six years—that is, since his appointment—is less than ten. The Commissioner, sitting alone as High Court, has in a few instances imposed sentences in the case of offences "punishable with penal servitude for seven years or upwards,"[62] and the Judge has on three or four occasions visited Weihaiwei for the purpose of trying cases of manslaughter. The civil cases tried by the High Court—whether represented by Commissioner or by Judge—number only two, though the civil cases on which judgment is given in Weihaiwei (by the magistrates acting judicially) number from one thousand upwards in a year.