II (4)

It may safely be asserted that, wherever "the commercial" is combined with "the imaginative" in any shape or sort, the latter is exploited by the former. There is a brand of "Christian Imperialist" much commended in certain quarters, the "industrial missionary," who is designed to float Christianity upon an ocean of profitable business, inculcating theological dogmas in the intervals of teaching the material arts and crafts." To the sceptical Chinese the interest manifested by a missionary in business affairs would go far towards dispelling the suspicions which now attach to the presence in their midst of men whose motives they are unable to appreciate, and therefore condemn as unholy." "Immense services might be rendered to our commercial interests if only the members of the various missions in China would co-operate with our Consuls in the exploitation of the country, and the introduction of commercial as well as of purely theological ideas to the Chinese intelligence." This revelation of the mercantile uses of Christianity by a British Consul leaves little to be desired in point of frankness. Its full significance is, however, only perceived when it is reinforced by the naïve confession of Lord Hugh Cecil. "A great many people were most anxious to go with their whole hearts into what might be called the imperial movement of the day, but had, as it were, a certain uneasiness of conscience whether, after all, this movement was quite as unpolluted by earthly considerations as they would desire it to be. He thought that by making prominent to our own minds the importance of missionary work we should to some extent sanctify the spirit of Imperialism."

We are well aware that most British missionaries are quite untainted with admixture of political and commercial motives, and that they set about their work in a single spirit of self-sacrifice, eager to save the souls of the heathen, and not a whit concerned to push British trade or "sanctify the spirit of Imperialism." Indeed, it is quite evident that, just in proportion as the suspicions of worldly motives appear in missionary work, so the genuinely spiritual influence evaporates. The whole history of missionary work in China is one long commentary on this text. The early Catholic missionaries, relying on the authority of their holy lives and teaching, won not only security, but wide influence, both among the masses and in the governing circles, introducing not only Christianity, but the elements of Western science. Though they made no large numbers of converts, they constituted a peaceful factor in the civilisation of the great Eastern Empire. But the introduction in the nineteenth century of national and sectarian competition in missionary enterprise, each mission using freely the diplomatic and even the military resources of some European State for its defence or propagation, has inhibited the play of spiritual forces, generating suspicions which, only too well grounded, have changed the early receptiveness into a temper of fanatical hostility.

"It must be very difficult," writes an educated Chinaman, "for the mandarins to dissociate the missionaries from the secular power, whose gunboats seem ever ready to appear on behalf of their respective Governments.... The Chinese have watched with much concern the sequence of events—first the missionary, then the Consul, and at last the invading army. They had scarcely forgotten the loss of Annam in this way when the German action in Shan-tung created a profound sensation amongst all classes of the literati." "We cannot wonder that the Chinese officials should hate the missionaries. Their Church is an imperium in imperio, propagating a strange faith and alienating the people from that of their ancestors. The missionaries are not amenable to Chinese laws, and in some cases have acted in a high-handed manner in the protection of their convents. In this lies one of the secrets of the mysterious hatred entertained against 'the friends of China,' as the missionaries call themselves."

How injurious to the cause "whose kingdom is not of this earth" is this alliance with politics and armaments might appear too obvious for discussion. Yet it is quite evident that sincere men are prepared to support the use of political and military force in order to open fields for missionary enterprise, and that the missionary, who is by turns trader, soldier, and politician, seems a most desirable instrument of civilisation.

How close in motive and in conduct this combination really is may be thus illustrated from the recent history of the Soudan.

"Detachments of officers and men from every regiment, British and Egyptian, were conveyed across the Nile in the gunboats to take part in the Gordon memorial service, and to witness the hoisting of the British flag on the ruins of Khartoum.... Surrounded by the soldiers he had directed with terrible and glorious effect, the successful general ordered the flags to be hoisted.... The officers saluted, the men presented arms, and the band played the Egyptian National Anthem and our own. Then the Sirdar called for three cheers for Her Majesty.... The memorial service followed, and the solemn words of the English Prayer-book were read in that distant garden.... The bands played their dirge and Gordon's favourite hymn, 'Abide with Me'; a gunboat on the river crashed out the salute.... The Highlanders played a long lament, and thus the ceremony was duly fulfilled. Nine thousand of those who would have prevented it lay dead on the plain of Omdurman. Other thousands were scattered in the wilderness, or crawled wounded to the river for water." While the writer of this passage omits the final touch, the deliberate shooting of wounded crawlers by troops under British commanders, the picture is profoundly suggestive, with its strange amalgam of the British flag, "Abide with Me," and the avenging of Gordon.

Yet it is evident that those who ascend to the misty heights of Imperialism are able to unite these diverse jarring factors in "a higher synthesis," and while deploring, often in earnest, the necessity of the Maxim and the gunboat, find a glorious justification in the higher ends of a civilisation promoted by such means. The Western nations are, according to this gospel, rapidly realising a beneficent control of the earth which will, in the near future, secure general peace and the industrial, scientific, and moral supremacy of Western arts.

"Fly, happy, happy sails, and bear the Press, Fly, happy with the mission of the Cross, Knit land to land, and blowing heavenward, Enrich the markets of the golden year."

This is the benevolent theory. Let Sir Charles Dilke's estimate of our recent acquisitions in tropical Africa serve for commentary.

"If we cannot make the most fertile of the West India Islands pay, how can we expect to make countries which are far less healthy and less fertile in the very heart of Africa, return a profit? Our people have been interested in Africa through their traditional desire to suppress the evils of the slave trade, and to pay conscience money in these days for the sins, in connection with slavery, of their predecessors; but it is probable that we have done more harm by promoting the partition of Africa and the creation, in the name of liberty, of such governments as that of the Congo Free State than the harm which our grandfathers did to Africa by their participation in African slavery and the slave trade."