THE PROPOSED CHINESE TREATY.
IT is not difficult, now that Mr. Burlingame's Treaty has been published, to perceive the line of policy upon which -the Court of Pekin is entering, and which, if the European Powers, and more especially Great Britain, are not firm, will lead at no distant period to a fourth or fifth Chinese war. The Empress Mother, the Premier Wan Sung,—a really able politician of the High Tory sort,—and Prince Kung, the three persons among whom the sovereignty is at present in commission, who direct all Chinese policy, and regulate all Chinese administration with a power as complete as that of the Czar, are evidently penetrated with the traditional ideas of the Chinese official world. In opposition to the people, who like the trade, and the wealth, and the movement the foreigners bring, they desire first of all to expel them, and if that may not be, to keep them on the seaboard. They feel instinctively, and no doubt justly, that foreigners are a disturbing element in the empire, weakening the respect for tradition, impairing the despotism of the officials, bringing in ideas, and ways, and forces dangerous to divinely arranged order. They regard them in fact very much as Rome regards freethinkers, not so much as noxious individuals, as instinctive, incurable foes of the system she desires to maintain. Aided by some European advice, consequently, they have drawn up a Treaty which reads very plausible ; have induced Mr. Seward to sign it, without thinking too much of California, -where one of its clauses will create some little sensation ; and have now submitted it to the different Courts of Europe. By the first clause, the Chinese Government undoes the whole work of thirty years, abolishes what are known in Turkey as the Capitulations, and in China as the Consular Jurisdictions, and places all foreigners once again under the Mandarins. Whatever may be the case in Turkey, it is quite certain that China is not yet fit for this change ; that from the day it is -effected the Foreign Offices of Europe will be inundated with just complaints of local tyranny, which will ultimately produce -either a total cessation of trade,—thereby exposing India to bankruptcy, and the British Exchequer to the loss of the tea revenue,—or demands on Pekin which must be supported by force. The Mandarin class hates Europeans too heartily to be trusted with power over them, and it is better for China itself that this hatred should be neutralized by treaty arrange- ments, than that every private quarrel should involve danger of war. If the Consular Courts are not strong enough, they can be strengthened, or exceptional powers placed in the hands of the Embassies ; but to abolish the Jurisdictions at once is to enable the Mandarins to edge the Europeans slowly out of China. It may be said that the Americans are willing to allow this, but the Americans are, of all foreigners, least -dreaded by the Chinese ; first, because they have never fought Pekin, and secondly, because their intercourse with the Empire has been very slight. To say nothing of other -countries, the trade of China with Great Britain and her .colonies was in 18(16 :— Imports X22,723,128
Exports 14,769,295 Total £37,402,423
—while her trade with the United States was,—
Imports £91,780
Exports 2,000,111
Total £2,091,891
In fact, the Union buys some tea in the ports, and there the connection between the two countries begins and ends. Any treaty not in itself discreditable is, therefore, indifferent to Americans, or, if they can gain an apparent advantage over Europe, pleasing ; while the main object of Europe, for which she has fought so often, is free ingress into the interior, and secure residence when there established.
Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are harmless, though need- less, every provision they contain having been secured by different treaties, and we are bound to add violated in spirit both by England and the United States ; by England in per- mitting Australia to levy a tax on Chinese immigrants, and by the Union in allowing the outrages on Chinese in California against which the Republican journals are now so warmly protesting. The spirit of the Treaty is contained in the first and the tenth clauses, the latter of which pledges every foreign Government to refrain from pressing railroads, tele- graphs, or other material improvements upon the Government of Pekin. That Government is to introduce them at its own discretion, that is, whenever the sovereign Junta at Pekin think the free introduction of Europeans into China conducive to their authority, a period never likely to arrive. The clause is a new diplomatic barrier against internal improvement, set up with- out the smallest necessity, the European Governments having neither the inclination nor the power to force Western civiliza- tion on the Chinese Court. Not a mile of railway could be built in China without its hearty co-operation, for not a mile of route could be obtained without its distinct permis- sion. Any Chinaman who sold his field for such a purpose without Mandarin permission would be summarily executed. Even Russia could not overcome the resistance the Chinese Government could offer to any such undertaking, and the only object of erecting this diplomatic barrier is to prevent that social and moral pressure towards improvement which arises from the presence of the Missions at Pekin, from the employment of Europeans both in the Revenue and War De- partments, and from the growing popularity of Europeans among the people. Nothing annoys the Court more than the hearty accord among the Embassies, which makes every serious suggestion an "identical note" from all Europe ; and it is to break up this accord that the Premier has struck up this sudden friendship with Washington. Nothing, again, is so offensive to the Mandarins as the moral hold which the foreigners acquire over their own subjects, a hold displayed in the rush of wealthy Chinamen to Shanghai, where it is difficult to " squeeze " them, and in the friendliness strongly displayed by the people of Canton, a city closed to us for a quarter of a century on the pretence that the people were unchangeably hostile. We shelled the town, opened it, and from that day to this have found the population as obliging, as accessible, and as eager to do profitable business as those of any Continental city.
The truth of the whole matter is, that we must either retire from China altogether, to the lasting injury of the Chinese themselves, or insist quietly but persistently on receiving in China the treatment we should receive in any other organized State, permission, that is, to go and come, to trade and build, with a full certainty that in the event of any dispute the officials, judicial and other, will mete out some endurable measure of justice. The day that is secured, the Capitulations ought to be abolished; but the day is still far off, and will never be secured if Americans assist Chinese Eldons to return to the exploded policy of isolation. It is to facilitate such a return that this Treaty has been drawn up, and we trust Lord Stanley, who is not often taken in by pseudo- philanthropy, will understand the situation sufficiently to make the most expedient reply, namely, that no alteration what- ever can be made in treaties purchased at so much cost and with so much treasure without careful con- sultation with our representatives in China and with the remaining Treaty Powers. If while commencing this consul- tation he strengthens the hands of his agents in China, instructs Mr. Wade to press for ingress into the, interior, but orders him to enforce good behaviour among British subjects, behaviour as good as they would show in Calcutta or Bombay, the claims of justice on both sides will be fully satisfied. The Chinese are bound to grant us permission to trade in the interior ; we are bound to see that the permission is not exercised to their hurt ;—that, and not an unreal diplomatic equality, is the true basis for all British relations with Pekin.
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