Of course, the conciliatory fables given out by the diplomatic service, and by the other apologists, are to be taken at the normal discount of one-hundred percent.

The relatively large current output of such fables may afford a hint as to the magnitude of the designs which the fables are intended to cover.
The Chinese people have had a more extended experience in peace of this order than all others, and their case should accordingly be instructive beyond all others.

Not that a European peace by non-resistance need be expected to run very closely on the Chinese lines, but there should be a reasonable expectation that the large course of things would be somewhat on the same order in both cases.

Neither the European traditions and habitual temperament nor the modern state of the industrial arts will permit one to look for anything like a close parallel in detail; but it remains true, when all is said, that the Chinese experience of peace under submission to alien masters affords the most instructive illustration of such a regime, as touches its practicability, its methods, its cultural value, and its effect on the fortunes of the subject peoples and of their masters.
Now, it may be said by way of preliminary generalisation that the life-history of the Chinese people and their culture is altogether the most imposing achievement which the records of mankind have to show; whereas the history of their successive alien establishments of mastery and usufruct is an unbroken sequence of incredibly shameful episodes,--always beginning in unbounded power and vainglory, running by way of misrule, waste and debauchery, to an inglorious finish in abject corruption and imbecility.

Always have the gains in civilisation, industry and in the arts, been made by the subject Chinese, and always have their alien masters contributed nothing to the outcome but misrule, waste, corruption and decay.