THE RITSSO-AMERICAN FIASCO AT PEKIN.
To Times has this week vindicated its position as a leading department of State, by disclosing to the British public the pecu- liar character of an intrigue carried on at Pekin, to defeat the negotiations of the English and French plenipotentiaries. The result is somewhat humiliating to the American Republic, and we are fain to believe that the disclosures of the Leading Journal Rill create far more indignation in the United States than they win in this country. IfFe are rather amused than irritated at mono ayes which have so completely failed. First let us see who are the Plenipotentiaries of the Powers that were arrayed against us on this occasion. Mr. Reed is a gentleman of high standing in American society, and known as an historian, but not heretofore versed in diplomatic affairs. It seems to have been thought in the Unionthat he would be more likely to act in accordance with plain common sense ; and such he professed to be his guiding prm To Times has this week vindicated its position as a leading department of State, by disclosing to the British public the pecu- liar character of an intrigue carried on at Pekin, to defeat the negotiations of the English and French plenipotentiaries. The result is somewhat humiliating to the American Republic, and we are fain to believe that the disclosures of the Leading Journal Rill create far more indignation in the United States than they win in this country. IfFe are rather amused than irritated at mono ayes which have so completely failed. First let us see who are the Plenipotentiaries of the Powers that were arrayed against us on this occasion. Mr. Reed is a gentleman of high standing in American society, and known as an historian, but not heretofore versed in diplomatic affairs. It seems to have been thought in the Unionthat he would be more likely to act in accordance with plain common sense ; and such he professed to be his guiding prm
• ciple. The Russian plenipotentiary, M. Putiatine, is, we
conceive, a cadet of the princely house of that name, descended from an ancient sovereign family in the centre of Russia, and evidently imbued with the traditional policy of Russian diplomacy. Putiatine occupies the position of the Giant in the fable who put the Dwarf forward to receive all the glory and wounds, while the Giant contented himself with carrying, and pocketing, the booty. When the American treaty was first made known through a sum- mary, we found that it promised some promising concessions ; but the infinitely larger provisions secured by Lord Elgin retrospec- tively cast rather a serious reflection upon the Envoy who had secured such much smaller advantages for the Republic. e 'The first article of this document provides that, if any other nation shall act unjustly or oppressively, the United States will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrange- meat of the question' ; not a very substantial stipulation, and only remark- able as a commentary upon Mr. Reed's declared desire to avoid entangling alliances. The fifth article confers on the United States the right to send a Minister to Pekin, but under condition that he is not to stop there, or to have more than twenty persons with him, or to come into the Peiho in a ship of war, or to stay when his business is done, or to come without having business to do. The fourteenth article opens to American commerce the new ports of Swatow and Tai-wan, both of which were already in undis- turbed exercise of foreign commerce. But this most unnecessary article, as we read the treaty, is clogged with the provision that any subject of the United States engaging in contraband trade shall be dealt with by the Chi- nese local authorities, without protection from the Government of the United States. When it is remembered that Mr. Reed was most careful to use terms which should include the importation of opium—in order, as it was suggested, to spite the British for their crusade against slavery,—and as all the eminent American houses in Hongkong deal in that drug, it may be imagined what the treaty rights of an American citizen would have been in China under this treaty. This is the whole of the document, so far as any new concessions are concerned."
The treaty contains no trace of the important advantages se- cured by Lord Elgin,—the new ports, the free transit through the country under passports from the Government of the traveller, the amended tariff, the treatment of accused persons under the laws of their own country ; on the contrary, it simply secures what had been secured before, and rather detracts from the real rights and authority of the American citizens. This remarkable bond against the stipulating party was followed up by still more remarkable proceedings, now for the first time divulged ; the Giant and the Dwarf here appearing as coadjutors of the Chinese plenipotentiaries.
" The Chinese Commissioners had agreed by letter to all the English and
French demands, the treaty had been draughted, and the hour had been named for the signature, when suddenly Mr. Reed and Count Putiatine sought solemn audience of Baron Gros, and represented to him that it was the height of oppression to insist upon any resident embassy at Pekin ; that the free transit through the country was a most useless and offensive de- mand; and that the additional ports never could be agreed to. We are told that these remonstrances were pressed so strongly upon Baron Gros, that he, who had no special interest in the commercial stipulations, would have given up the points had he not been influenced by a loyal regard for the unity of the counsels of England and France. We are further told that the two remonstrant powers even forged or believed the fable that the Emperor of China had sent down an edict positively forbidding the mandarins to concede these points."
There was of course a reason for this curious proceeding ; and
though we might guess at it in general terms, we could nct appre- ciate the whole character of the interference without the specific disclosure of the Times. Our readers already know the manner in which Russia obtained the territories below the chain of moun- tains which bounds southern Siberia—between that range and the Amoor river in Mantchoo Tartary. Already by treaties, which are not very well understood, Russia had secured herself against the assertion of any Chinese rights of preoccupation, her territorial acquisition being recognized at Pekin. Her present object was, therefore, to obtain new concessions peculiar to herself, as between the Russian and Chinese Governments—stipulations Which should further open her means of intercourse and authority in the whole range of Eastern Asia between North China and Russia ; and at the same time her object was, like that of most semi-barbarous powers, to keep strangers at a distance from Pekin, her outpost. The Russian treaty was well calculated to serve both Pa-Roses, particularly that of virtually exclusive intercourse. , `it consists of only twelve articles. The first contains the usual recital, 'lding to excite a smile under the circumstances, of the peace and friend- butsatpiitvIcola has fora s number of years ens' ted between Russia and Chin' a ; intercommunity of securities for the subjects of the respective empires. The second article is of more special importance. It regulates the diplomatic relations between the two Courts, gives to every simian agent at an open port a right of direct communication with Pekin, ma provides for the passage of Russian Envoys, by land or by sea, by any route they may choose, up to the capital. The third article gives to Russia very important privilege of trading to the open ports; and the fourth puts Russian shipping, in respect of dues, upon the same footing with other European countries. We may pass over some of the subsequent articles, which relate to the presence of Russian ships of war in Chinese ports, the treatment of wrecked Russian subjects, the exterritorial juridical immuni- ties of the subjects of the respective nations, and the circulation of Russian missionaries, provided with passports signed by Russian authorities. The ninth article contains a stipulation dangerous to China,—that a conven- tion shall be held to settle the conterminous frontiers of the two empires ; the tenth emancipates the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission at Pekin' from all its previous conditions of Chinese control ; but the eleventh draws very close the ties that are hereafter to connect the two countries. This eleventh article provides that a regular postal service shall be esta- blished between Pekin and Kiakhta, (a city on the frontier,:north-west from Pekin, and in a line between that capital and St. Petersburg,) for the com- munications between the Governments, as well as for the wants of the Ecclesiastical Mission at Pekin.' It is stipulated that the Chinese couriers shall perform the to and fro service between Pekin and Kiakhta at least once a month, and shall make the transit in fifteen days. Moreover, it is agreed that every three months a convoy shall make the transit between these points in a space not exceeding one month ; and this convoy shall be equal to the transport of every kind of effects. The only remaining article consists of the favoured nation clause, whereby Russia adds to the special stipulations which she alone can use all the general advantages that have been fought for and negotiated for by England and France."
It is obvious that this treaty conveys to Russia a species of co- ordinate power on the banks of the Amoor, and even in Pekin, while giving to the Imperial Government at St. Petersburg some- thing like the position of our General Omnibus Company in the Chinese capital, only on an imperial scale. But while the treaty secured everything to Russia, it needed something more to keep everything from England ; and here it was that, by dint of the old traditional friendship between Russia and the United States, —a friendship long cultivated by Russian flattery,—aided too often by an inopportune want of courtesy on our part,—a friend- ship specially and flatteringly enforced on Mr. Reed by the acute Putiatine,—it was by these means that Russian diplomacy con- verted the American Envoy into so handy, so manageable, and so promising an instrument. It is indeed but fair to observe that we have not any explanation on behalf of Mr. Reed ; a man of personal repute so high for intelligence and honour that he cannot have meant any shabby action ; but he may have been wheedled into the belief that what lie would have called shabby was only "the usual thing" in diplomacy. Lord Elgin, who has always seemed a straightforward practical Liberal in politics, proved too strong for the united Giant and Dwarf ; and he has so completely defeated Russia and her co- adjutor, that the intriguing species of diplomacy must be rather discredited in the court of the new Emperor Alexander. Lord Elgin's success, however, would have been incomplete without this public disclosure, which secures for direct diplomacy its full moral force and influence. The incident is good, as proving that while secret diplomacy may serve selfish Absolutism or a semi- barbarous pushing power, it fails any power seeking really great objects, and is best antagonized by a pointblank unreserved ap- peal to public opinion. Our own Ministers may con the lesson as well as those of Washington and St. Petersburg.
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