The China Trade In the middle of May the British
Chargé d'Affaires in Peking presented to the Chinese Foreign Office a Note in which Her Majesty's Government announced the decision of the British merchants to close their establishments because of the restrictions and extortions to which they were being subjected. This Note elicited, last week-end, a tardy but unexpectedly favourable reply. China, said her Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, agrees in principle to the British proposal for a joint trading organisation and looks forward, with certain reserva- tions, to an increase in Sino-British trade. The Vice- Minister's statement, which is taken to be a paraphrase of his Government's official reply, is somewhat contumaciously worded, and it is difficult to know what value, if any, to attach to the assurances which- it contains. But conditions for the few British merchants left in China have become a shade less intolerable during recent months; and there is no doubt that China does need British products and British markets and does on the whole prefer—ideological considerations apart— dealing with old-established British firms to dealing with most other foreign traders. Her attitude of comparative reasonable- ness may only be no more than a ruse, designed to bedevil our relations with the Americans on an issue which has, long been controversial; but it is on the other hand quite possible that the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs meant more or less what he said. If he did, his statement is a hopeful portent.
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